The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Poniverse

by GrandSpellcaster

Chapter 1:We May be in the Wrong book

Twilight Sparkle was sitting at her dining table having, what she thought, was a wonderful breakfast. Spike ran through the doors and breathlessly said, "They're about to demolish Quills and Sofas!"

Twilight let out a small gasp, "But that's the only store where we can buy quills in all of Ponyville! Why didn't the owner notify us, I would have bought all the quills he had in stock."

"He didn't know, he and Doctor Whooves are laying out in front of the bulldozers now!"

"What? That can't be right." Twilight felt intrigued, a little sorry for the poor stallion, and as though it was her duty as the princess of friendship to figure out exactly what was going on.

To an outside observer it would be hard to understand why the Princess of Friendship would care at all about the demolitions of a small shop. Especially when the outside observer would probably see that Princess Twilight made frequent trips to the capitol city of Canterlot, a place that, as of last count, had twenty-one individual shop that specialized in selling quills. They could also see that there were an additional four hundred shops that simply sold quills. And so this outside observer would concluded that since Canterlot seemed to only be a short ways away that she simply wouldn't care at all about the local business. But that outside observer wouldn't see one thing, Twilight considered the owner her friend and that was all she apparently needed to abandon a perfectly good breakfast and run out of her castle and all the way to the Quills and Sofa's shop where Doctor Whooves was laying down on his back and talking to Davenport.

She walked up to the pair of stallions when Davenport noticed her and said, "Good! Princess you’re here! Perhaps you can talk some sense into him. He won't go drinking with me!"

"Doctor, what's going on?" Twilight asked ignoring the Davenport's ramblings.

"Well yesterday morning I got a letter from the mayor’s office. It said that Davenports shop and my home, just behind it, were to be demolished to make way for a new road that was to make it easier to get to the main town square. Then when I went down to town hall to see the plans and complain they told me that the plans were in the works for months and it was too late to change them and I was expected to just go along with it."

"That's horrible!" Twilight said, "Well certainly..."

"Never mind that!" Davenport interrupted. "We really need to go for drinks!"

"Davenport! Don't interrupt the princess." Whooves scolded.

"It doesn't matter! We need to go get some cider in you." Davenport said with such urgency that Davenport almost agreed to go with him.

"I can't leave Davenport, they'll demolish both our houses!”

Davenport rolled his eyes, “It doesn’t matter, there just houses.”

“It matters to me” Whooves said defensively.

“We just need to get some cider into you and you’ll be fine.”

Princess Twilight, who the two stallions (and the author) had forgotten was even there, spoke up, "I can help".

Whooves jumped at the declaration and Davenport saw an out, "Great! A good old fashioned Deus Ex Machina. That would be delightful. Order him to get up and have a drink with me."

"That's not what I meant." Twilight said turning to the work force of earth ponies. "Stop." She commanded, "I want to investigate this matter."

Every signal worker groaned. The one that seemed to be in charge stepped forward. "With all due respect your Highness a royal inquiry isn't necessary. He was notified beforehoof and these plans have been in the works for months."

"I received the letter yesterday!" Whooves shouted so he could be heard by the leader of the constriction ponies.

"We are wasting time." Davenport said disappointed with the princess’s decision to save a doomed house and shop. Then it happened, above them all hung a yellow cube that seemed to simply refuse to obey gravity's laws. Then a weird thing seemed to happen as voices seemed to come from the windows of every house. The voice was craggily and might have been what a particularly ugly toad might sound like. It said, "Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? I'm told you can hear me. Anywise, we are here to perform the deconstruction of your planet to make way for an inter-space bypass. This announcement is the final call for any who wish to evacuate..." The pause lasted for all of three seconds, "We are seeing no sign of any of you leaving..." At this point some cleaver unicorn seemed to have figured a way to communicate with whatever was about to deconstruct the planet. "I don't care if you keep your slaves here. You had plenty of time to move them... What do you mean 'this is the first you've heard of the plans' they've been in your local Star-Quarter for the last fifty years... It's not our fault you've never been there. You should take a more active role in your local government... Well you’re a bigger one... Oh, in that case, you’re a royal one!" There was a clicking sound followed by some grumbling, "Condemned thing..." There was another click.

Then Davenport felt a buzz from his satchel and dug into it. After pulling out his towel and moving past the 'book' that had in large friendly letters, "Don't Panic" he found it his Electronic Hoof. A device that used the sub-ether net to allow him to flag down passing ships. Then it began to flash, "We're out of time." He said as he threw himself towards Whooves. However he forgot that Twilight was in between Whooves and himself and so the two of them disappeared from sight.

Whooves, blinked twice. The leader of the construction crew, blinked twice. Applejack, who had seen Twilight and was coming over to see what was going on, blinked twice. A seemingly normal newt, blinked once, then bellowed in rage that her target had just teleported away. To everypony else it sounded like a low squeak. This squeak alerted a nearby crow to the newt’s presence and the crow promptly killed and ate it. This would be the last meal ever had on the planet as just as soon as the crow swallowed its meal the planet was evaporated.

Comments

[Xanderfox]

Ok little confused in one point when Davenport appears to scold himself for interrupting Twilight, but I take it Davenport is taking the role of Ford, Dr Whooves is Arthur Dent yet Twilight is the one being rescued from Equestria's demolition. So are we going with Celestia and Luna being immortals and taking the roles of the mice with Equus(the fanon name for Equestia's home planet) being a world they bought from Megratheah?

[Chaos da FaceWhacker]

MWAHAHAHAHA.THE GREAT POWER OF THE CONFUSINGNESS OF THE DOUGLAS ADAMS.

[GrandSpellcaster]

6706044
I originally wrote this with Whooves being Ford so you caught a little mistake I missed during the switch when I decided that Davenport could use some love. You might just be on to something, with the whole Celestia and Luna bit, or not. Who knows? It was one of the ideas I had been plying around with, but I suppose I'll have to dash that one now. Oh well.

[Xanderfox]

6709841
Nothing says it's not still a usable idea, they didn't necessarily buy it themselves. They are princesses, maybe it was a birthday gift? Who says they bought it for the same reason as the mice did, maybe their experiment had a different goal. Twilight is going to respond much differently in the role of Arthur, Arthur was the every man suffering though a cruel and strange universe, Twilight is at her heart a scientist.

[GrandSpellcaster]

6710496
Yah, I see your point. Though I said I was dashing it off the idea list just in case it ended up being the ending. So then your comment wouldn't be a spoiler, from a certain point of view. Just in case someone were to read it and think, "That must be the ending. Oh I can't wait to read the funny bits that go along with it" then they get to the ending and they find out that I went with one of the other ideas I have and then they become slightly disappointed.
(This comment only serves to confuse that potential reader of your comment even further)