It came from Ponyville!
(Or, the reason why not to think with portals)
After the Christmas fiasco had settled down, Xenolance was getting ready to really buckle down and prepare his next evil plan. Soon, he would get his revenge upon all of Ponyville for preventing him from stealing Christmas by not celebrating it. There was no way they would see it coming, and nothing would stop him!
Or, at least, nothing except a lack of decent food. Seriously, do you have any idea how hard it is to get a simple hamburger in Equestria, let alone order pizza? It’s nuts, I tell ya!
Anyway, in an attempt to get said hamburger, Xeno had gotten it into his head that the solution to both his lunch dilemma--as well as his imminent plans for town domination--was to build a Multidimensional Omnidirectional Object Clutching Harness. One of the clones had lovingly dubbed it the M.O.O.C.H. for short. He was promptly commended by the other clones, who had nothing better to do but sit around and check dials as their progenitor worked.
“Quantum sensor array?”
“Check,” came the bored reply from a clone.
“Trans-spatial scanning matrix?”
“Check.”
“Atomic batteries to power?”
“Check.”
“Number Two, have you finished those calculations?”
“... Which one was number Two again?” The one who had asked this looked up from where he was reading a book at his console.
Xenolance sighed, and looked back at his clones just in time for another of the clones to reply to the first one.
“I told you we should have gotten tattoos with the numbers!”
“But then the ponies would think we had cutie marks,” the book clone retorted.
“Enough,” said the Villain to his clones. “We’ll sort it out--again--once we’ve had some lunch. You, over there. No, not you, you! No-yes, you! Press the red button!”
The clone that had been singled out hesitated for a moment, but then promptly and solemnly depressed the electrical signaling device of rouge color. The small plastic piece, designed with the purpose of pressing in mind, pressed down a small rubber plunger. This plunger caused a small circuit to close by its depression; a circuit that caused a chain reaction in the bowels of the infernal machine that was the M.O.O.C.H….
A chain reaction that would cause untold amounts of pain and suffering for Xeno and his clones.
Just moments after the circuit had closed, the machine began its nefarious task of ‘borrowing things without asking, sorrynotsorry’ from across the dimensional boundaries. Its inevitable purpose, however, was to retrieve a mass of burned protein and preprocessed grain, with layers of fat and secret sauce. Sadly, it was never designed to cope with its interdimensional smash and grab getting intercepted by something.
Or rather, someone.
The machine exploded in a shower of sparks. Where the hamburgers were supposed to appear, only a thick smog was present. It cloyed at any open space, and soon the entire group was coughing from its ravenous hunger for room. While the malevolent cloud was slowly dissipating through the venting, aided in part by one of the clone’s quick thinking and using a--Oh, that clone had a comic book inside that book. Go figure.
Once the cloud had dissipated, the villain and his clones were left to pick up the pieces, as it were. They gathered around the remains of the M.O.O.C.H., hoping that their experiment, while having explosively failed, would at least yield something resembling lunch. Of course, it was not to be.
“Woo! Hawaii here I-”
There was an awkward silence for a moment as all those gathered in the room regained their senses. Xeno was the one to eventually break the stillness in the room. He did so by blurting the first thing to cross his mind.
“Da fuq?”
“Sir,” one of the clones managed to push out after the villain's outburst, “that’s... Not a hamburger…”
Upon the pad stood a man clothed in a Hawaiian shirt, a tropical hat, and flip-flops. He carried a suitcase in one hand, and a weird device in the other. At first, a look of shock was upon his face as he processed the scenery around him. Not long after that, he put on a more neutral, almost-bored, expression, as if this was not the first time this had happened.
“... This is not Hawaii,” the newcomer said while looking around. “Too many ugly people in sight.”
“Oi!” came the offended cry from the clone gallery. Xeno was quick to crack down on it in an attempt to regain order.
“You! Zip it!” Xeno pointed at the book clone, but another one standing nearby caused some confusion. “You! No, not you, the-the one next to--Yes, you! Are you sure you did the calculations correctly?”
“Uh… Yes?”
“... You’re not the one who did them, are you.” Xeno deadpanned. The clone rubbed the back of his head in an embarrassed gesture, and Xeno sighed while facepalming. “Of course…”
“Is it Wednesday already? Could have sworn it was Tuesday today…” The man in the Hawaii shirt spoke quietly to himself.
“So sorry,” Xeno said in response while holding up a finger in the direction of the man in the fruity outfit, “this will only take a moment.” Xeno pointed at the book clone with his menacing digit. “Numbuh Two, what have I told you about double checking your work!?”
“But we haven’t even ascertained that I AM actually number two!”
“You answered when I asked if the calculations were checked,” Xeno logic’ed with a glare, “thus, you must be number two.”
The silence between them grew into another uncomfortable one. Its predecessor would have been proud, had it lasted long enough to see its offspring cause such oppressiveness. It didn’t take long for the clone to break under its oppressive reign.
“...I regret nothing!” The book clone, now dubbed number two, ran out of the lab, fleeing The Silence.
Xeno sighed, and returned his attention to the man in the tropical attire.
“Sorry about this, but it would appear we accidentally pulled you out of your dimension. I’m sure you won’t have to stay in the Doom Lair™ for too long while we work this out.”
The man in the Hawaiian shirt, however, was of a different mind…
Or perhaps we should say world.
“Hm… Then again, ever since Hitler got resurrected, Hawaii was pretty much a dump after the zombie Nazis moved in. Still, even the zombies were never this ugly…” He told himself, staring at Xeno and his clones.
The man, having seemingly reached the end of his line of thought, shrugged and walked up to the villain, seemingly ready to rejoin reality. With a quick breath, he changed his stance to be more tense and adopted a military air about him. A quick glance was spared for the clones, before he directed his full attention to the progenitor of the bunch.
“He, ihr da!” He practically yelled in a stern tone. “Ie heißt der dieses Ortes, die bin ich in?” He stood still for a beat, before mumbling “Oh, warten Sie. Fast vergessen.” He then raised his arm into the air and proudly declared, “Heil Hitler 2.0.!”
Immediately, there was pandemonium.
“W-was that German?” Asked one of the clones.
“Did he say something about zombies earlier?” Queried another.
“Forget the zombies, did he just praise Hitler?!” Came a panicked response.
Xeno, for his part, simply stared at the man in the fruity outfit as though he were insane.
…
In hindsight, that’s actually funny, considering Xeno himself was of questionable mental--you know what, not important, back to the story.
After about a minute without a response from Xeno, the man in the Hawaiian shirt set down his suitcase. Taking another quick glance around, he noticed the M.O.O.C.H., and promptly lost any interest in Xeno and his clones.
“Oh, Hello! What’s this then?”
As the man walked up to the machine, one of the clones in the background vomited out the battlecry of: “Zombeh Nazis! Kill eet with fiah!”
Xeno’s protective instincts towards anything in his lab--even rubble--soon overrode his desire to not catch the crazy. As the man in the tropical shirt poked and prodded the remains, occasionally humming and Ah’ing as he went, Xeno quickly approached from behind.
“Hey! Don’t touch that! It’s very important for my Evil Plots of Doom™!”
“And our lunch!” One of the clones chipped in.
For the man in the shirt, upon hearing the word ‘Evil’, it was as though somewhere, a record had scratched; in fact, two of the clones who had been watching the events would later claim they heard it as well. With deliberate slowness, the man turned to face Xeno. His visage, just moments before expressing indifference, now showed an abnormal--for him--seriousness.
“... Evil?” The man asked Xeno. “Did you just say something with the word ‘Evil’?”
Xeno was momentarily taken aback by the seriousness the question was posed with. With a slight nod, he spoke.
“Well, yes. This is an evil lair, and it is to be assumed that everything in here will be used for some evil purpose at some point…”
“I see,” the man responded. His eye developed a twitch for a few moments as he stared, but eventually asked, “Pray tell, are you the ‘evil’ owner of this ‘evil lair?’”
“Wha--Oh! Right! Allow me to introduce myself!”
Xeno, having only done this once before a long, long time ago, relived old memories by striking a dramatic pose. Finger extended skyward, he looked off into the middle distance with a thousand yard stare.
“I am Xenolance; evil mastermind extraordinaire, the puppetmaster of Ponyville, the arch nemesis of the CMC, and the--”
That was as far as Xeno was able to get when his impromptu self-glorifying speech was interrupted by a classic left hook from the man in the shirt.
“Aw f’ck! Mi nuse!”
As the clones present started arming themselves and pointing their weapons at the man in the shirt, Xeno tried to keep his nose from bleeding all over his lab-coat.
“Who te f’ck do yu tink yu are?!”
”Who am I?” The man asked? “Who am I?”
With a quick motion, the man with the shirt clenched a now-gloved hand. It took a moment, but soon the clones noticed other differences about the man, like how his gloves looked like they could take down a country by themselves, or how the man was now inexplicably dressed in a black labtrench (Think trenchcoat designed for a lab environment. Stylish and effective). The music that was seemingly drifting in from nowhere was doing nothing to stem their confusion.
“I,” the man declared, “am Evil Lord Emperor Connery NotEvilGuy! I am the Evil Overlord of the Clutopian Empire, and only I AM ALLOWED TO BE THE BAD GUY!”
As indomitable will met inevitability, the clones took their chance to voice their opinions on the matter.
“Where is the music coming from?” One asked in a whisper.
“When did he switch clothes?” Another whispered back. “Wait, HOW did he switch clothes?! We were staring at him the entire--”
“Evil Lord?!” Xeno, having only partially recovered, spouted out questions of his own. “Cluetopian? Emperor?! BADGUY?! Wha--”
It was at this point that Xeno was once again interrupted with a fist to his face. Unfortunately, this time they were garbed in Connery’s patented Destructo-Gloves! In a fraction of an eyeblink, he found himself embedded in one of the walls, a crater surrounding the impact point. After a moment that left a lasting impression on the wall, Xeno slowly dropped to the ground. On his face.
Continuing to take his initiative, Connery stalked towards the now embedded Xenolance as the clones looked on, dumbfounded at the impossibility that was NotEvilGuy.
“I don’t know what this place is, but it’s not big enough for the both of--wait…”
With a confused expression, Connery stopped a moment, and pointed at each of the clones in turn.
“One, two, three,” he quickly counted under his breath, before landing on Xeno. “Six of us. Huh. There’s not enough room for Six villains here! Five of you will have to go!”
Returned to his original task, he now launched himself at the prone and embedded Xenolance. Xenolance, only just having rolled over from his drop, quickly reached into his pocket and threw the first thing he got his panicking fingers on.
To put it simply, it was super effective.
“AGH! Sand that came from Pockets! ONE OF MY MANY WEAKNESSES! INCLUDING BEES! …and toasters, and birds, and occasionally the kitchen sink. THE PAIN!”
Xeno, seeing his opportunity to possibly win this fight, resorted to the tried and true tactic of all villains everywhere.
Fighting dirty.
Quickly lifting one of his legs from the floor, he delivered a solid, yet well-placed kick directly into his rival’s groin. The unexpected nut tag caused Connery to lock up as his face became expressionless. As a third sequel to the silence began its reign, all had become still in the evil lair.
After a while, one of the clones near the crater slowly inched his way closer to the combatants. Foot by foot, he came closer, until he was next to the Evil Lord Emperor Connery NotEvilGuy. Helping his progenitor to his feet, they both inspected the victim of Unexpected Groinal Rearrangement.
“I-Is he dead?” The clone asked. Hesitantly, the clone reached out and poked Connery. It started as a slow lean, but soon the villain in black fell over completely onto his face. Seeing that Connery wasn’t getting back up again, the clone looked at his progenitor and shrugged.
“Huh…” Xeno murmured to himself while trying to cope with his left over adrenalin. “That was… easier than I thought it would be…”
Twilight was rather enjoying her ‘morning’. She had just gotten herself a cup of coffee, and as her brunch was being warmed up in the oven she happily sat at the central table in the library and read the newspaper that had been delivered that morning. A sigh of contentment worked its way past her lips as she read the funnies.
Sadly, such was not to last.
A knocking upon her front door destroyed her happy space, and the realities of the world came crashing down upon her. Now groaning with discontent, she got up from her comfortable position, leaving her delicious coffee behind to fend for itself against the inevitable entropy of heat death, and made her way to the door. She tried to look outside.
Dissatisfied, she decided to take the easy route, and just open the door.
‘Ugh. I bet it’s Xeno related...’
(Connery PoV)
Ergh… fuck… oh dear god… that was a fucking cheap shot…
What… where am I?
I looked around my surroundings, and everything seemed… upside down.
I moved myself to get up, but for some odd reason, my body was constrained to where it laid.
Hm. Probably has something to do with these ropes covering me.
…
Oh balls.
“Mmmphmphmpmh?!” I muffled, squirming to get out of my rope prison.
I was apparently tied up to a pole, upside down, with rope covering every single inch of my body.
I tried to break free as hard as I could, but it was a very sturdy piece of rope.
“HMPMMPMHPMHMHPM!” I shouted through the ropes. Not a single eligible word came out.
I continued to struggle, not noticing that in front of me, a tired-looking upside-down Twilight had appeared.
She watched me struggle for my freedom, not even batting an eyelash at my current predicament.
I stopped struggling when I finally noticed her, and muffled out some pleas of help. “MPHMPH! Mphmpmphmphmh!”
An awkward silence ensued…
“Nope.”
Just like that, she slammed the door on me.
A piece of paper that was presumably attached to me fell into view, and I briefly caught a glimpse of the sentence crudely written on it. “To a good home.”
Well then. What a lovely day today. Got all packed up for a fantastic trip to Nazi Hawaii, and what happens? I was put up for adoption and then got rejected by Twilight to become my mother.
Bah. This is just like the orphanage all over again.
Sigh…
Let’s get caught up to speed.
Instead of being sent to Hawaii as I expected--more or less--I instead got transported to some sort of parallel dimension of a different Ponyville.
In this Ponyville, instead of me being the evil villain, there’s this weird ugly Nazi Zombie Hawaiian guy that seems to the main baddie in charge, I guess. There was a group of them, and they all looked exactly like each other. The main boss guy called them his ‘clones.’
Pfft, clones. What an amatuer. He should have saved cloning as a plot-twist for future adventures instead.
Let’s see, what was his name? X-Xavier? Xena? Xen?
Fuck it, I’m calling him Douchebag.
When I tried to stop Douchebag and his clones from… whatever it was that they were doing, I was quickly overwhelmed and taken by surprise. I got knocked unconscious, and then the rest of the story played out.
Hm…
Well, my plans of getting to Hawaii got flushed, so might as well have fun here!
New plan! Traverse this parallel dimension in which Douchebag resides in, liberate Ponyville from his amatuer douchebag grasp, and then conquer it for myself! Simple, easy, and sweet.
Now that I have a game plan all set out…
…
How the fuck do I get down from here.
…
“MMMMMMMMMMMMMPHH!”
(3rd PoV)
Xeno sighed. Not only did he not get lunch, but the machine he had built to GET him lunch had decided to relocate itself all over his lab. In multiple pieces. With no forwarding address.
Shaking his head slightly at his misfortune, he looked around his nearly-destroyed lab. Sure, he had others in his lair, but this was his favorite one. Not every lab is used to solve the secret to world hunger, and then delete all the data!
’Good times…,’ he thought to himself. ’Good times...’
With another sigh while delaying at the task that was ahead of him, he finally decided that he had procrastinated enough. Looking around, he found a suitably un-damaged piece that might yield something to salvage. He bent over to pick it up, trying to grasp the metal through his glove--
“Sir!”
Thankful for one of his clone’s interruptions for once, he quickly discarded the idea of uninteresting menial labor and walked over to his clone.
“Any idea what this thing is?”
Xeno looked it over. All things considered, it looked like a gun. A very strange, glowing gun, with multiple barrels and weird prong things, giving it a very un-gunlike appearance, but a gun none the less.
“Here, let me see that.”
The clone handed it over without much reverence, and stood next to Xeno as he looked it over.
“Wait, there,” the clone said while pointing at a bit of the gun wannabe. “See? Looks sorta like that bit there is a button or something…”
Xeno gave an indifferent hum, and fingered the might-be-a-button-but-probably-not with his thumb.
“No, probably not. It’s in a horrible spot, and I can’t see it serving any--”
With a click, the thought-it-wasn’t-a-button-but-actually-was depressed, proving its buttony status as the device whirred to life. A fraction of a second later, a ball of energy shot out of the device, flying off unerringly in the direction the device was pointed at.
Sadly for the clone, it was pointed at him.
The clone just managed to dodge out of the way in time, leaving the ball of energy to strike the wall behind the hapless clone. With a sort-of-ringing noise, a hole in space and time opened up to a region unknown, and the Villain in white and his clone both were left staring at the portal...
For all of two milliseconds before water started pouring through.
“Gah! Turn it off!” The clone, at this point desperately fighting against the current to keep his footing, quickly lost his battle and fell into the water that now flooded the lab.
Xeno, hoping for a quick resolution to this problem, once again pressed the deceptively-not-buttonlike-button. Another ringing noise was heard, and the portal quickly sealed itself. The water that had flooded into the lab, however, decided that it quite liked its current spot and that it would like to take up permanent residence on the floor, thank you very much.
Silence reigned once again in the lab as Xenolance and his freshly wettened clone stared at each other.
“Sir… I know what you’re thinking--”
“Hush!”
“And I would like to remind you,” the clone continued on, “that playing with strange things is a very bad idea, regardless of what it might mean for our lunch prospects…”
Xeno quickly glanced at his clone, before his evil smile grew even wider.
“Good idea, I didn’t think of that. I was only going to flood everyone’s home as revenge for them not celebrating Christmas so we could steal it, but your idea is good too.”
The clone groaned as Xeno walked out of the destroyed lab with the trans-dimensional-portal-gun-thingymabob.
“We’re eating beef tonight, boys!”
Xeno sighed as he made his way up the stairs from the basement. He had spent most of the day working on solving the mystery that was what he had dubbed the ‘free meal ticket’, but hadn’t made much headway. In theory, it should have been straight forward, but upon opening the case he had been confronted with a dizzying array of wires and vacuum tubes--Actual tubes, why?!--that had all but confounded even the simplest of investigation.
Pinkie, being the caring, loving, I’ve-got-my-eyes-on-you-pink-demon-horse-thing that she was, had pestered Xeno until he had agreed on a temporary respite for food. Then again, Pinkie’s definition of food required Xeno to ascend from the basement for what passed as staple foods in Equestria:
Cake and Pie, with a side of Cupcakes.
As Xeno made his way into the kitchen, he slowly meandered to the main counter. Pinkie had preemptively set out ‘food’ for him, so it gave him time to think. Sadly, it wasn’t to last long, as Pinkie, being herself, was quick to disturb him from his meal.
“Hey! We have new neighbours!” Pinkie bounced up and down in excitement from the window. “Xenny, why don’t you go outside and say hi to him? Maybe you two can be friends!”
Xeno continued to munch on the cupcake he had pilfered from the offerings tray for a few moments more, before what the pink mare had said really registered.
“Wait, what?"
Xeno promptly--but with as much dignity as an evil villain who lived in someone’s basement could really muster--walked over to the window that Pinkie was enthusiastically pointing out. He then stared at the object that had so thoroughly sparked her enthusiasm with a dumbfounded expression. So befuddled was he that he didn’t even notice the cupcake fall out of his grasp and stain the floor with its premature demise.
“What.”
“Oh, hi!” Connery said from his perch. “I see you're admiring my new home?”
Xeno could only stare as, no less than 10 feet away from the edge of the window, Connery sat upon a balcony of his own. Now, this normally wouldn’t be a cause for concern, as any single being has the god-given right to sit upon their balconies and water their flower planters. No, what caused Xeno so much trouble was the fact that the balcony was a part of a building that he distinctly remembered wasn’t there that morning; a building that, for all intents and purposes was less of a building and more of a castle. A building that, by no means, had any right up and appearing in the spot that it currently sat in.
And it was an evil lair.
Not just any evil lair, though. It was an evil lair that was in the middle of town, completely ignored by the ponies passing by. It was only one mountain perch and major thunderstorm away from being the stereotypically perfect evil lair.
Well, that and guns.
Lots and lots of guns.
Meh, you can’t have everything.
As Xeno’s eye twitched at the impossibility of moving several hundred tons of high quality black marble in the span of a few hours, let alone setting up a castle, Connery decided to continue talking.
“Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. And evil. More evil than yours.” Connery mused while he finished watering his out-of-place planters. “Like, totally 20% more evil.”
Xeno continued staring at the almost-perfect-but-not-really lair for a few moments more before calmly about-facing and walking back to the stairs to return to his lair. Most would consider this a pity, as just a few moments later, a rainbow colored pegasus rammed herself into the unexpected obstruction that was Connery’s castle, causing it to unbalance and tip.
“Woah, woah, OH BAAALLS-” Connery yelped as he held tightly to the cardboard cutout that was his porch.
Connery managed to ride his now collapsing cardboard cutout castle to the ground, and walk away with only a massive pile of wood and cardboard--plus one very confused mare--in his wake.
Xeno practically stalked down the stairs as his new rival effectively one-upped him.
“Boss?”
Xeno grunted, but proceeded to pace the length of the floor in the lab that didn’t get destroyed.
“Uh… Boss,” the clone asked once again. “Is something the matter?”
“Our lair.” Xeno said simply, as though that would answer all questions.
“Uh… What about it?”
“It’s not evil enough.”
“...What?”
“Our lair,” Xeno ranted, pointing at the clone, “is not evil enough!”
“O-okay?”
“We need something…” Xeno continued to rant. “Something Evil…”
“Uh…”
Xeno pointed at the clone and quickly demanded, “Quick, think of something evil for our lair!”
The clone imitated a fish for a few moments, before spouting the first thing he thought of.
“... Lava falls?”
“Perfect! Make it so!”
Xeno, now satisfied that the problem was reasonably going to be solved, returned to his work on the portal gun.
“Soon…” He said under his breath. “Soon we’ll have everything we’ll need… And beef! Muhahahaha!”
Unseen just outside the lab, Connery was giving an evil chuckle of his own.
“Good, GOOD. Everything is probably going according to some type of plan… that exists…” He awkwardly paused, before sighing, “I might need some help with this...”
Connery made to grab his handy portal macguffin to transport some of his robotic slave--SERVANTS! I was going to say servants! [They're called minion-bots damnit!][Shhh!]--minion-bots to help him with his ‘plan’. Sadly, he ended up feeling air as the device itself was in the possession of the villain in white.
“Oh shit. I dropped it while I was inside, didn’t I?”
…
“I’m gonna have to get that back.”
“So this cable connects up to this coil here, generating the magnetic twist it needs to manipulate the polarity of the portal…”
Xeno reached over and grabbed a mug of cider he had set up by his workspace, and carefully lifted it to his lips. In front of him, occupying the majority of his workspace, was the scans he had just completed of Connery’s portal device. The care for the mug was to prevent the pages from being damaged in the event of a spill, while the cider itself was to help Xeno make sense of the complex and confusing array of electron pathways.
“Still,” he continued to muse out loud to himself, “why would he need this bit over here? All it seems to do is transmit a simple repeating signal in morse code...”
Sloshing about the contents of his mug, Xeno looked once again at the decoded message.
“...Is ‘Eat at the Evil Coffee Shop’ some sort of code for something?”
As Xeno mused, he failed to notice a figure enter the room until they were passing right behind him.
“Hey,” Connery mumbled with a nonchalant tone, licking an ice cream cone as he walked.
Xeno grunted a greeting while raising his mug to his lips again. He had just managed to take a sip before he noticed who it was who had actually walked in. Identity registered and confirmed, Xeno went back to work...
For the total sum of four seconds.
“What the--”
Xeno proceeded to set the mug down--incidentally, making a very lovely impressionist mug ring on some of the highly detailed papers--and walked over to confront the villainous intruder.
“What,” Xeno demanded with an accusing finger point, “are you doing here?”
“Eating Rocky Road,” Connery mumbled around his current mouthful, wincing with the occasional brain-freeze.
“What? No, I mean-- UGH!” Xeno, at this point, desperately wished he had either finished off the golden elixir of calming cider, or had something stronger to cope with the Pinkie levels of insanity. Scrubbing his head in an attempt to dissipate his current frustrations, he tried to adapt to the unexpected logical trap. “Okay, fine. Why are you here?”
Connery scoffed, and resumed eating his ice cream cone. “Pfft, I dunno. Got bored. Decided to check your place out. Still sucks, by the way.”
Xeno stared at him for a moment, before marrying his face to his palm with a sigh. After the divorce, he continued his attempt at interrogating insanity.
“How did you even get back in here?”
“I asked Pinkie politely if she could let me peruse the basement for innocent and non-nefarious reasons,” he said with a gesture of his cone in the direction of the stairs.
“She WHAT?!” Xeno responded predictably. “That would clearly violate our agree-- You know what, fine.” Xeno pointed at Connery, before pointing at the door. “You. Out. Now.”
“Alright,” Connery responded. “Just let me finish my ice cream.”
Xeno rolled his eyes, and then solved the perceived frozen dairy problem by pushing it off its precarious perch, causing it to plaster itself to the pavement.
“T-that was a perfectly good four bits Rocky Road…” Connery said, holding his empty cone and looking misty-eyed at the mess on the ground.
Connery found himself at the threshold of the lair, bodily hung from his collar. A split second after he was released, a swift kick to the posterior launched him outside.
’Hmm,’ he thought to himself once he had landed. ’I hope he doesn’t use the bathroom in there, ‘cause I totally did some not-so-innocent and evilly-nefarious things to it while I was in there…’
Faux-innocently whistling to himself, Connery picked himself and walked away…
(Later on that day…)
Pinkie was humming to herself while mixing a fresh batch of batter, when a large rubber object made contact with her head. Looking at the aggressor, she had to prevent herself from laughing. Xeno was standing in the kitchen with his pants around his ankles, unable to be lifted due to the toilet seat seemingly affixed to his butt.
A towel in one hand, preserving his modesty, and a toilet plunger wielded in the other, Xeno glared at Pinkie as though she were the cause of his current toiletry distress.
“Don’t make me remind you why not to prank me.”
With his threat delivered by levelling the end of the toilet plunger at her, Xeno shuffled his way towards the basement. Pinkie had the self-restraint to wait until after he had left to laugh.
(Connery PoV)
I flung the item in my hand out the window.
“Hm…”
I flung the item in my hand out the window.
“This is getting me nowhere…”
I flung the item in my hand out the window.
“Sure, it’s fun and all… but everything just seems kinda pointless…”
I flung the item in my hand out the window.
“The pranks, the shenanigans, all of it.”
I flung the item in my hand out the window.
“It’s not enough. These things aren’t slowing him down, they’re just annoying him. I need to do something bigger… better… Evil...er.”
I flung another egg out the window.
“But what can I do that can effectively piss Douchebag off, and still stop him and his evil schemes at the same time? Hm.”
Another egg, out you go.
Aaand, boom, headshot.
“Gah!”
“Where in the pink pony’s party stash is that coming from?!”
Ah, look at them. Cowering before the almighty emperor of egg throwing of evil. It’s beautiful, I tell ya.
“But most of all, I gotta get that thingymabobber back from him...Sigh… What to do, what to do…”
Headshot.
”Oh what the Smurph?!”
Seriously though, I need to do something about this whole mess. Douchebag’s evil goals of whatever-it-was-that-he-was-doing have to be stopped. Who knows what could happen if he figured out how to press the button on the mcguffinthingy?
He could summon another version of himself- Actually, there’s already six of them here, I shouldn’t worry about that.
He could bring a monster into this world- Wait, that would just be another regular Friday for Ponyville.
He… erm…
He could… steal clothings from other universes and sell them here for ridiculously high prices.
No wait, people do that everywhere.
...
Yeah, I got nothing.
Hm…
“Xeno? What are you doing throwing eggs out the window?”
What.
I shook myself from my inner thoughts as I realized that there was someone behind me. Er, somepony, or whatever.
It was the Cutie Mark Crusaders themselves. Inside my super secret attic of super secrecy.
“You guys? How did you get into my super secret attic room of super secrecy?” I asked as I threw another egg with my back turned.
”My eye!”
Headshot.
“Isn’t this Pinkie’s room?” The adorably small Sweetie pointed out.
Well, yeah, but it’s boring if you call it that.
“Hey, wait a minute, you aren’t Xeno!” Exclaimed the adorably small orange Rainbow Dash with purple mane.
“Ya sure do look like ‘im, though. Who are ya, mister? Are ya Xeno’s friend or somethin’?” The nutritious daytime breakfast snack Applebloom asked.
“What, you guys don’t recognize me? It’s me Con--” Brain fart, “Oh right, alternate dimension Ponyville.”
They all looked at me strangely.
The annoying thing about traveling to different universes is the part where you have to (re)introduce yourself to the same people for the first time, for the second time.
I cleared my throat, “Guess I should introduce myself... again. My name is Connery NotEvilGuy, and you three must be the Cutie Mark Crusaders that I’ve heard so much about!” I pointed at them.
“Ya’ll have heard of us?” Applebloom gleamed at the fact that someone apparently knew them.
Scootaloo jumped and laughed, “Ha! I told you that going for our cutie marks as rock stars was a good idea!”
“Yeah, sure, let’s go with that.” I muttered.
Rockstars? I don’t think that was in season three.
“What are you doing in Pinkie’s room, Mister Connery?” Sweetie Belle asked innocently.
I glanced at the massive amounts of egg cartons right next to me and quickly answered, “Community service.”
Speaking of which, I still had seven cartons to go.
I returned to my Egg Sniping role and threw another egg out the window.
”GAH!”
Woot, nutshot. That’s for the one from earlier, ya douche!
“So, how come you guys are here?” I asked them while still focusing at my shots.
“We’re gettin’ some party supplies!” Applebloom answered cheerfully.
“Yeah! We think we can get our cutie marks at throwing parties!” Sweetie bounced.
They all sucked in their breaths and then my eardrums committed suicide.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS PARTY THROWERS!”
God damn it, and I just replaced these eardrums from last time.
“Ah, yes. You guys are still trying to discover your cutie marks. How’s that coming out for ya anyway?” I asked as I hid the tears of blood flooding out of my ears.
With a simple sentence, they instantly got calm and somber.
“Not too well.” They all said simultaneously.
Well shiet. Now I feel like an ass.
Wait a minute… Wait a minute!
I felt the familiar feeling of a glass lightbulb impacting the back of my head and a dying little voice once more!
“Say, I have an idea for your next cutie marks if throwing parties doesn’t work out. Are you guys up for it?” I offered as I rubbed my chin.
“An idea for our cutie marks? Sure!”
“We ain’t called the Cutie Mark Crusaders fur nuthin’!”
I hummed. “Have you guys ever considered… house redecorating?”
(3rd PoV)
Xeno found himself standing outside of his lair, looking on as his clones tried to put out the fire before it spread to Sugarcube corner. Xeno sighed and gently rubbed his forehead.
“This,” he said to no one in particular, “will not stand.”
He exited the basement, a miasma of smoke accompanying him as he walked out the kitchen’s door.
“This will not stand at all.”
Twilight, on her afternoon errands, found herself in the middle of a rather large crowd. She tried to ask a few ponies what was going on, but most of them didn’t know either. The ones who did seem to know something only said that two weird monkey things were going to have some sort of singing contest. After she got a description of the competing villains, she quickly pushed her way to the front of the crowd.
On a stage set in the middle of town square, Xeno and the not-Xeno she had seen this morning were standing on opposite sides of the stage. Down with the crowd, a table had been set up with three chairs. Two of Xeno’s clones took up two of the chairs, but the third chair had, for some reason, a familiar butter-colored pegasus.
“Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy, hearing her name, squeaked and tried to make herself smaller in her chair. When that failed, she tried to slip under the table, only to be returned once again to her chair by the clone in the middle chair. She squirmed about for a few seconds in his grasp, before giving up to the inevitable.
“U-umm… Hi, Twilight…”
“Fluttershy, what’s going on here?”
“O-oh, umm..”
Fluttershy looked at the gathered mob for a moment before returning her attention to her friend.
“U-umm… Well…”
Seeing that his charge was having some anxiety issues, the clone decided to explain in her stead.
“The boss is having a rap battle with the invader from the fifth dimension.”
Twilight looked at the stage. This could be her chance to intero-question him!
“Will he have some time to talk to me afterwards? I have some… Concerns to talk to him about.”
The clone gave a one armed shrug, the other being used to hold the timid, but struggling pegasus to his chest.
“Our lair got trashed just before this, so it might be a while.”
“What?” Twilight said, quickly changing topics of interest. “What happened?”
“Well, you see--”
“Mares and Stallions! Fillies and colts!” Another clone, up onstage, had unknowingly interrupted information that Twilight considered critical. He was oblivious to the death-glare she gave him and continued to announce the start of the festivities.
“Are you pastel equines ready for some epic rap battles of Equestria?”
There was a half-hearted cheer from the mob, with the exception of an ecstatic pink mare.
“I said, are you ready for some epic rap battles of Equestria?!”
The response this time was a bit better, but still rather lackluster. The clone shrugged it off, and continued on.
“Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t my idea either. Anyway! On my right,” the clone said, pointing at Xeno, “we have the main quandary, the master of mockery and the planner of pokery; Xenolance!”
The crowd, instead of cheering, booed. Twilight kinda expected it, after she informed the town why they couldn’t borrow any library books with a five hour lecture about the sanctity of personal property.
The clone awkwardly giggled, and said, “They love ya, boss,” under his breath.
“Yeah, alright. On my left, the emperor of evil, the primeval upheaval, and the man with no equal; Connery NotEvilGuy!”
The mob below expressed a few confused glances, but decided that anything was better than Xeno with a few half-hearted cheers.
“Right, yeah... Okay! We’ll do this sudden death style! Winner takes all!”
The clone spun on the spot, and pointed at both the ‘contestants.’
“Gentlemen, are you ready?!”
Xeno responded by throwing a rock at his clone. Connery responded by scratching his head in confusion and muttering to himself, "Rapping? That new modern hip genre thing by the kids? Ugh, I hope I don't hear anything about women private parts and the encouragement of drugs..."
“Alrighty then!” The clone returned his attention to the horde below. “This will be a sudden death battle! You each get one round, and the winning contestant will be picked by our judges!”
Twilight followed where the clone pointed, and saw the table she was standing next to.
“Wait,” she mumbled to just those close to her. “Isn’t having two of his clones as the judges a conflict of interest?”
“That’s kinda the point,” the judge-clone whispered back.
“Wha--but that’s cheating!”
The judge-clone just raised his eyebrow.
“And?”
Twilight’s dumbfounded stare was ended by the announcer-clone grabbing her attention once again.
“Now, if I didn’t start with him, my progenitor would have my hide. Please welcome, XENOLANCE!”
Xenolance stepped up. From somewhere behind the stage, strange monotonous music started playing. Xeno started bobbing his head to the odd beat, and then proceeded to rap.
“Yo. Ugh. I’mma beat down yo doors with mah cannon;
and leave yo hide with such a tannin;
you best go back and get on your wagon, and get back to--uh… your salmon?”
A quick shake of his head, and he returned to the beat.
“You ain’t got no glory, you're folding;
you can’t understand what you’re beholding;
you're trying to sit still, but you're growing to know;
uhh.. that you’re still waiting at the loading…”
Another head shake.
“You can’t fight with me and my degree;
I don’t just have one, I have three!
You ain’t got no hope, Mcgee;
You ain’t so dope, like me;
So just go home to your mother and… go play some Yahtzee?”
As Xeno finished his… Creative rap, most of the herd below was left stunned by his… Imaginative use of lyrics and… Sense of beat?
…
Fine, so he can’t think on his feet very well.
Connery, for his part, gave a sigh of relief. "So it was that kind of rapping. Good."
The judges stared on in awe and--okay, yeah, it was shock and bafflement. Fluttershy looked like a lost puppy in the grip of the clone, not quite sure what was going on. The clone was using his other hand to cover his face with embarrassment. With a moment to recover, the clone at the table gestured for the clone on the stage to continue.
“Riiiiight… So, that was Xenolance…” The announcer-clone pointed at Connery. “Your turn; you’re up.”
Stepping back again, the stage was cleared for Connery.
With a shrug, he stepped forward on the stage.
Everyone watched with curious eyes, determining whether this next performance was a mess like the first, or a pleasantly unexpected surprise.
The same beat that had played for Xeno started back up, and Connery glanced around him, almost as if he was lost.
A few seconds passed. Then a few moments. And yet, the whole place was still silent, not counting the odd rhythmic beat that played.
Everyone looked expectantly at Connery, some wondering why he was just standing there. Doing nothing.
Then... He bobbed his head to the beat. A few moments later, he started tapping his feet.
Then, the odd beat picked up, more instruments being added in. Slowly, the music that was supposed to be an accompaniment was growing in volume to dominate the attention of all.
And then, just when the music seemed to have reached its peak, the music had a singer.
“All the "bad boys"- want some brawl, it's tricky
And girls enjoy, they feel so lucky
Laughing at weeds running out the door,
Calling their mom when they lick the floor”
As the music slowly built up, Connery started getting more and more immersed into the song, from bobbing his head even harder, snapping his fingers along, and just closing his eyes to let the music take hold of him.
“Look how those funky monkeys talk and walk in store
They're lost, sad and brawny like an apple core
Who can believe that there will be some gore
With those wimps like I said before “
Then Connery unexpectedly ripped off his clothing to reveal fancy tap-dancing suit underneath, and had started shuffling to the music, much to the surprise and bafflement of everyone.
“It ain't right, babe, no
It ain't right, no no
Mama, don't do that you know
It ain't right, yeah, boy boy.”
That was when things really started kicking off. Literally. The moment the trumpet solos played, Connery threw away any subtlety he had left, if he had any at all, and kicked Xeno in the face.
“Agh! Why is it always the face?!”
Connery continued to tap-dance his heart out, pulling out a random cane from his back pocket, using it in his dance routine, while also occasionally using it to trip Xeno from his feet.
The crowd, while confused, slowly started getting into the infectious funky beat of the music. It started out small--a few bobbing their heads here, a few tapping their hooves there--but slowly, the magical power of Electro Swing had opened a path into all of their hearts, as they too, started to join in on the dancing fever. Even the beating Xeno was receiving, normally an act that ponies would shy away from, seemed to be adding to the jovial atmosphere.
The music enveloped everyone, turning what was originally a crowd gathering near a stage into an amazing dance party. Fireworks came out of nowhere, lighting the sky despite it being daytime. Sparks flowed and banged on the stage, the beautiful special effects making the moment more enjoyable than it ever was. Xeno getting his ribs bruised as he tripped again and giving Connery the chance to tap dance wildly on top of him.
"Ow! Ow! Ow, shi--OW! Why me?! Ow-ow! ow!"
The event was so infectious, even Twilight, who was admittedly dumbfounded at first, was busting a move. Er, or a hip. Spinal cord--whatever that weird dance move was called.
Fluttershy was gently swinging her head side to side, and the judge-clone was using his free hand to snap his fingers to the beat.
“It ain't right, babe, no
It ain't right, no no
Mama, don't do that you know
It ain't right, yeah, boy boy.”
The finale wasn't short on its execution either. As the song kicked up one last time before it ended, the sky turned dark and an aurora appeared, almost as if Celestia and Luna themselves heard the joyous music and celebrated alongside the ponies below. It’s entirely possible they probably were, since the damn speakers were set to eleven.
But like all good things, it didn’t last. The song calmed itself considerably and slowly faded away into the background. Connery walked off of a groaning and bruised Xenolance.
As the song faded away completely, it was soon replaced by a loud uproarious cheer from the audience.
Connery bowed his head in a rather humble manner, and waved at the cheering crowd. He took a quick glance at the injured Xeno that was slowly gaining his strength back to rise again. Connery promptly said 'nope' in response and kicked him in the stomach for extra good measure, keeping Xeno down for just a few more minutes.
The judges, for their part, appeared to be coming to their judgement. They talked amongst themselves for a few moments in hushed whispers--except for Fluttershy, who was talking normally--and occasionally glanced up at the competitors up on the stage. Soon, it seemed they had come to an agreement.
The judge-clone stood up, and said, “We, the judges, have come to an agreement!”
Just like that, all the attention that had been going to the minor celebration was directed at the judges. Fluttershy, noticing the sudden attention placed upon her, meeped and ducked underneath the table.
“We have decided that the winner is…”
Connery and the announcer-clone stood near the edge of the stage as Xeno slowly pulled himself to his feet. There was a subtle feeling of tension in the air, almost completely overpowered by excitement. From somewhere, a drumroll was added to the ambience.
“Connery NotEvilGuy!”
“WHAT?!” Screamed Xeno from his position. Sadly, he was almost completely obscured by the mob’s cheers. While they were cheering, he worked his way off the stage and down to the table.
“I put two of you on the judge’s panel for a reason! Heck, he didn’t even rap! Why didn’t you vote for me?!”
The judge-clone, barely heard over the cheering for an encore, managed to get his response to his progenitor.
“Hate to say it, boss, but Connery had a better beat. Plus, you just kinda sucked.”
The judge to his right nodded as the judge-clone pulled Fluttershy back up to her seat.
“I agree with him, because I’m totally a clone too! Yup, not Pinkie at all!”
Xeno looked over at the judge that had spoken, and found Pinkie sitting in the final judge’s chair with a cardboard cutout of a clone taped to her face. His face became a rather interesting shade of red as Fluttershy decided her opinion could, at this point, slip by unnoticed.
“Umm, I, umm… I thought it was… Um… Nice?”
Her statement was followed by her diving under the table again. This proved ineffective when Xeno flipped it in his anger.
“Thats it! I’m going to do what I should have done AGES ago!”
Xeno limped to one of the storage crates nearby, and pulled out the portalgun. Device in hand, he made his way back to the stage where Connery was moonwalking, much to the crowds’ enjoyment.
“Sometimes, the best solution is the easiest one!”
With that battlecry, Xeno pointed the portal gun at the area where Connery was walking. With all the noise the mob was generating, the sound of the portal opening was completely obscured. The light show, while noticed by some, was taken as ‘all part of the show’... except for Connery, who finally realized the shiny light thing was glowing behind him.
Connery glanced back and saw the portal-gun pointed at him. “Are you fucking serious-” And then he got sucked into the hole underneath him before he could utter another word.
Gasps of horror rang out as Xeno closed the portal. With a victorious grin, he walked up to the front of the stage, and raised the portal gun in the air.
“And that!” he shouted to the crowd. “Is why you don’t mess with a villain!”
A hush had fallen over the shocked crowd. A “Wow, what a twist!” came from the judging panel, followed by the crunch of over processed snacks. Xeno slowly lowered the gun while glaring at the audience, as if daring any of them to challenge him, too distracted in his anger to notice the chiming noise coming from behind him.
“Anyone else want to mess with me?!”
Then he felt someone tapping him on the shoulder.
Xeno turned around to face his challenger, just as Connery slapped the portal gun out of his hand and stomped it to pieces all over the ground. Xeno, stupefied at the quick return of his rival, was too slow to dodge the punch that was for his face. Again. This was quickly followed by a kick to the groin.
As Xeno, once again, collapsed and groaned in pain, Connery decided to counter-taunt Xeno’s earlier taunt. “Yeah? Well this is why you don’t mess with an Overlord!” A quick pause, before he resumed the train of thought. “Cause you get fucked up… by said Overlord! Which was me... Douche.”
Adding insult to injury, Connery wiped his now muddy shoes on the collapsed Xeno, and flipped him the bird.
“Welp, I’m bored now. I’ll come back for round two at some point.”
And with those words of farewell, Connery opened up another portal with a different transportal-dimensional-stuffymcwashbog, (which he built while sober this time,) jumped in, and sealed it behind him, leaving only an echo of his laughter.
“wheeeeeeeeeeee…”
Pinkie, with cheese poofs stuck in her hair, finished recounting her tale to the twins in her normal manner.
“... And THATS how you prank a villain, and get away with it!”
She looked down at the twins, and noticed they were both sleeping. It was… Kinda unexpected for her. Usually she would say some sort of witty comeback to whatever their expressions seemed to convey, but now?
“...What to do, what to do…”
She looked contemplative for a moment, before shrugging and going downstairs.
“I wonder what Twilight is up to…”
In the basement below the Treebrary, Twilight giggled over her prisoner.
“Now, you’re going to tell me everything you know…”
The villain in white stared at her blankly.
“Oh no, you’re not getting away this time, not after what you did to my library!”
She turned around and walked over to a tray of tools, picking up a temperature probe.
“You're only hurting yourself by not talking to me, really. I’ll just get what I want eventually...”
Walking back over to Xeno, she gave him a predatory look.
“And I have ways of making you talk!”
She then shoved the temperature probe up his nose.
… Or at least, tried to. Kinda hard when the nose she’s poking is of a cardboard cutout.
Twilight blinked, and tried once again to futilely shove the temperature probe into the cardboard cutout. She continued to do this for a few minutes, affirming that, yes, she was in fact attempting to interrogate a cardboard cutout. Her hair slowly started springing out of place, and her attempts at inserting the probe became ever more frantic with her desperate resistance against the reality of the situation.
“Uhh. Twilight?” Came the voice of a worried dragon from the stairs. “What are you doing?”
Twilight froze, realizing what the situation probably looked like. After taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly and put the temperature probe away.
“I don’t even know why I’m surprised anymore…”
She calmly walked up the stairs and escorted the dragon out of the basement, turning the lights off behind her. After the sound of her hoofsteps could no longer be heard, a clone badly disguised as a cardboard box turned the lights back on and quickly freed his progenitor. Once Xeno got a hand free, he removed the cardboard cutout facemask.
“Why does this work?!”
(Connery PoV)
Sigh... Nothing like being back in good old Ponyville dimension one. It was nice to be back home in familiar territory. You would not believe how stuffy it gets in a world filled with magical ponies and living myths, from a second dimension.
As I landed back in the same spot where I left last time, a minion-bot greeted me, "Hey boss. So, how was Nazi Hawaii?"
"Hm, terrible customer service. The Nazi Zombies were incredibly rude, even after I praised their reformed Mecha zombie leader." Was my simple critique.
"Sorry to hear that. If it makes you feel any better, we followed the list while you were gone."
"Oh yeah? That's good. How did Tiara react?"
"Mentally scarred."
"Excellent. Let's see what that spoiled brat can do to Dinky now, when she's too depressed about her couch being set on fire, eh?"