Equestria Girls: It's Showtime--Imagination Movers: The Curse of the Creative Block

by PlymouthFury58

IV. Dave's Idea

Applejack soon caught up to the others. “Hoowee, it’s like a maze out there. Ah got lost jus’ tryna git back.”

“We’ve been thinking about remodeling the Warehouse lately,” Dave replied. “Sometimes it’s like getting lost in a maze.”

“Not like getting lost in the Lost and Found Room,” Scott paled, “or the Maze Room either.”

“Wut the heck are y’all talkin’ about?” Applejack asked.

“Well, see, in the Warehouse there are all kinds of rooms,” Rich explained. “Here, I’ll show you with my Scribble-Sticks.” He pulled out a pair of sticks that he kept in his extra pocket, not like Smitty’s extra pocket.

“Just watch, it’s amazing!” Scott whispered to the girls.

“Watch what?” Rarity asked.

She was soon answered. Rich pressed a button on his Scribble-Sticks, turning the tips to a glowing blue which he used to literally draw floating images in the air. Rich used this opportunity as an example of his skills to draw a perfect rendition of a set of gears that actually spun in midair. To say the girls were beyond amazed was an understatement.

“Pretty cool, huh?” he smiled with pride.

“It…it is quite simply beyond amazing!” Rarity beamed.

“Ah git the feelin’ that we haven't seen the last ‘a what this place has in store,” Applejack remarked.

“And that’s not a bad thing, Applejack.” She turned back to the Movers. “What kinds of rooms does your Warehouse have?”

“Well…” Rich drew out a sketch of a block of Swiss cheese. “There’s a Cheese Room.”

At the sound of the sacred word, Warehouse Mouse popped right out of nowhere. “Cheese, haha!”

The group chuckled at the furry critter’s shenanigans.

“There’s also a Really Hot Room,” Dave added as Rich sketched an image of a sandcastle with a heating sun, “for when you want to beat the cold.”

“There’s even an Opposite Room,” Smitty added. “The last time we went in there, Scott was wearing his shoes on his hands!”

That earned another chuckle from the group again.

“The Opposite Room is so confusing,” Scott defended. “What’s right is left, what’s down is up, and what’s fun is sad.”

“There was also that time we accidentally left the Wind Room open,” Rich said.

“And that time we tried to paint Knit-Knots beige in the Painting Room,” Dave added.

“Why would’ya need ta paint Knit-Knots more beige?” Applejack asked.

“Unless he was not wearing any beige, that is,” Rarity pointed out.

“Well, that day he got stuck in my special high-bouncing suit,” Dave explained, “which also happened to be right before his meeting with the Boring Club.”

“Why didn’t it work?”

“When the paint dried, Knit-Knots could barely walk around,” Scott added.

“Oh…then you must have used multiple layers.”

“Well, we had to make the entire suit beige.”

“I see what you mean.” She sighed. “I still don’t know how to overcome this Block. All of these rooms give me ideas, but…”

“Somethin’ the matter?” Applejack asked.

“It is really simple to get ideas, but I just don’t know how to bring them together.”

At that moment, a little spark ignited inside Dave’s mind. “Wait a second. That gives me an idea.”

In an instant, the tinkering Mover rushed out of the scene in a zipping motion as the sounds of clanking and power tools were soon followed.

“Wut’s he up to now?” Applejack wondered.

“Dave’s probably gonna invent a new gadget to help Rarity with her problem,” Scott explained.

“Oh…”

There was a long and awkward silence between the girls and the remaining Movers, with only the noises of Dave’s building to add music to the scene.

“He’s…probably gonna be like this for a while,” Rich said. “Let’s get something to eat.”

The Movers all agreed to the notion and headed off to the fridge, leaving the girls on their own to watch Dave tinker away.

“Why does he wear his hat backwards?” Rarity pondered out of thin air.

“‘Cause some people are really into that,” Applejack answered. “How come ya haven't tried that out yet with yer designs?”

“Because it is simply unappealing to look at,” the young fashionista huffed.

“Do ya even wear the hats ya make?”

“Of course I do! You’ve seen me doing it!”

Applejack rolled her eyes.

“And you’re one to talk, you’re always wearing that same hat every day.”

“Wut, yer gonna try yer hand at wearin’ it?”

“I just might.”

Rarity turned her chin up in a huff and joined the Movers at the fridge, followed by Applejack who pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance. Rarity was one of the greatest friends she could have asked for, but the amount of stuff that got into her head was sometimes too much to handle for the farm girl.

---

Once again, in front of a background of giant multi-colored circles, Rarity confidently walked along while wearing Applejack’s prized Stetson. Just then, Applejack swiped the hat back, giving her friend the leery eyes of suspicion before walking off, leaving Rarity perplexed and at a loss for words.

---

Rarity sat hunched over the counter on one of the respective stools, daintily sipping from a simple glass of milk. Applejack sat next to her, drinking out of an apple juice carton.

“It ain’t like my family’s farm,” she said, “but it sure is tasty.”

Smitty was carefully cutting up carrot slices on a cutting board. He then dumped them all into a bowl that he and the other Movers shared from.

“Fruits and vegetables are always my favorite snack,” he said. “They’re not only good for your body and brain, you can also grow them at home.”

“Ah hear that,” Applejack agreed.

Suddenly, Dave jumped into the scene out of nowhere.

“Hey guys!”

“Ahh!” Applejack jumped, nearly dropping her juicebox.

“I finished it!”

The Movers immediately gathered at attention.

“That’s great!” Rich said.

There was a slight awkward silence between the four friends and two customers.

“Uh…finished what?” Smitty finally asked.

“My latest invention!” Dave exclaimed. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Rarity and Applejack shared a look between them, and shrugged in confusion. Between the two of them, the eccentricity of the Movers was like just a simple day of spending it with their own bunch of friends. It was not a friendship in a stereotypical sense of the term, but one that was cherished nonetheless, which is what they respected most about the Imagination Movers: despite being so zany, they connected so well with each other it was impossible for them to be separated at any time.

Rarity placed her empty glass on the counter, getting up to follow behind the Movers. They did not have to travel far, because the mechanical contraption on focus was placed right off to the side, tucked in a corner right beside the east hallway, where all sorts of machine parts and tools were stored and kept on display.

At first glance, Rarity was confused as to what exactly she was to think about it. It appeared to be a giant box at chin height, with a small opened-mouth slot in front of the group of onlookers, and where Dave was standing, smiling in pride at his creation, appeared to be a computer screen with a monitor keypad attached at the base of the screen, which was held high above the ground. It was covered in the Movers’ color scheme of blue with yellow trims, complete with a red siren light on top.

“Ta-da!” Dave grinned. “It’s my brand-new invention, patent-pending: the Idea Creator!”

The onlookers were certainly captivated by the look of the life-sized contraption, but more so confused than anything else.

“Um…well, uh…” Smitty stammered, at a loss for words.

“Uh, Dave?” Rich asked.

“Yeah?”

“It looks great, don’t get me wrong, but uh…we kinda already have our own Idea Creators.” He pointed to his own head.

“Yeah, that’s what you use your brain for!” Scott added. “Coming up with ideas!” He then noticed something. “Isn’t that a printer attached to a computer?”

“Our brains are definitely important,” Dave said, ignoring his friend, “but sometimes you get into a situation where it’s hard to think. Say: you come up with ideas, but have no idea how to string them together.”

Rarity nodded. “Yes.”

“Go on,” Applejack added.

“Well, that’s what the Idea Creator is for!” Dave then got into position for a live demonstration. “Just simply type in the idea that comes to your mind on the keypad, and by pressing enter, that idea appears right out through here—”

He indicated the mouth of the slot.

“Just like that!” he smiled with pride. “Here, let me show you.”

The inventing Mover quickly tapped his fingers against the keyboard, while the machine itself made some quirky yet amusing noises, like those sound effects that would be found in old cartoons. A small yet noticeable cloud of smoke emitted from a small gap in the machine’s construction, much to the confusion of the onlookers.

“Uh…should we be seeing smoke?” Smitty asked.

“I don’t think so,” Rich said.

“Ah hope he knows what he’s doin’,” Applejack added.

At that moment, the siren light on top of the machine activated, right as Dave quickly stepped back from the controls. As he did, a stuttering noise began spitting out a sheet of paper from the slot, slowly moving outwards towards the gathered group as the flaps opened up to reveal a simple picture of a red apple. As the paper revealed the whole picture, a little friendly ding sounded out from the machine, ending the cycle.

“Ta da!” Dave proudly announced.

“…that’s it?” Scott asked.

“Go on, have a look! It should just be a plain old apple.”

Applejack chanced it, taking the picture of the apple and analyzing it. For a slight moment, the Movers and Rarity watched with anticipation as the farmgirl’s face contorted based on the angles she was tilting the paper around her eyes.

Then, she looked up. “Looks like honeycrisp,” she said.

The Movers all wowed, even Rarity was floored at the genius of the machine. Warehouse Mouse even made an appearance to marvel at the machine’s performance.

“Of course, this machine can only produce still images,” Dave explained, “so you would have a reference picture to…base something on. Like a dress, or a statue…”

“How about a wooden burrow?” Scott asked.

“Sure thing!”

Dave then typed “Wooden Burrow” into the machine, which activated the moment he pressed the enter key. This time, however, the siren blared a plume of smoke emitted from a crack in the machine, and a small spring sprung out of place with an audible “boing”. The inventing Mover was startled at the offset, confused and worried at what it could mean for the machine’s condition. Just then, the paper began sliding out of the slot, until it got caught as the machine painfully stuttered.

“Uh oh, that’s a paper jam,” Rich noted.

“I hate it when that happens,” Scott added.

“That’s never a good sign,” Smitty put in.

“Ah’ll get it for ya,” Applejack offered.

In a few short tugs, the farmer managed to pull the paper free from the machine. The picture was of a burrow, a simple brown beast of burden, except the paper itself was full of jagged lines, crisps and crinkles that almost obscured the image. Despite it all, the picture was still distinctly of a burrow made of wood.

“Looks like a burrow made ‘a oak,” the farmer said, “though the paper’s in…poor condition.”

Just behind her, Dave took out his toolbox. Wrench in hand, he reached up and tightened the loose spring sticking out of the top of the machine. With a few grunts, the spring was cranked back in and out of sight. He sighed, taking a rag out and wiping his brow free of sweat.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “That was really embarrassing for me.”

“Don’ sweat it, Dave,” Applejack offered. “These machines are bound to break down in some way.”

“It’s still a genius machine,” Rarity added supportively. “I see potential with this helping me with my problem. We just have to try again.”

“Yeah, that’s the idea!” Dave exclaimed. “If we try again, then we won’t know if it will work again.”

“Let’s try it again!” Rich declared.

“Yeah!” the other Movers said together, ready to give the idea another try.

The Imagination Moves all gathered together right in the middle of the room with their instruments in hand. In the back, Rich was banging on his drum set. Next to him, Smitty was strumming his electric guitar. Scott was clapping his hands while also playing his keyboard piano on Rich’s other side. In the center was Dave plucking the heavy strings on his bass guitar, singing the main vocals to the song that the band were playing together. It was a simple song about the need to keep on trying even if the situation appeared to not be going in your favor.

It was clear that these four friends have been doing this exact kind of thing for a long time, because they had the perfect set of vocals to match each other, and the melodies, harmonies and countermelodies in tandem. This was something that they loved to do together, aside from helping out customers with their problems of course. Sometimes, they would use the energetic juice from their songs to further motivate themselves to problem solve.

Admittedly, Rarity and Applejack were surprised to see the fellows jump into a sudden rock and roll song out of the blue, until they remembered that they did stuff like that all the time. The two friends decided to add more motivation by dancing away to the beat of the song.

And while they all danced to the beat of the song, the girls and the Movers worked together to fix up Dave’s machine. Applejack tried typing out “Red Barn” on the machine, and though the paper came out in a clean sheet, the picture itself was very flawed. It was of a barn, but the entire sheet of paper was drenched in the color red.

Rich tried typing up a picture of a simple glass of milk, and the paper came up complete blank. It was white as milk, but missing the glass itself. Then, Smitty tried typing in “Vegetable Garden”, which had better luck than Rich’s suggestion. The picture showed a garden, except the garden itself was cut in half by the size of the paper that was printed.

And when Rarity tried typing in “Victorian-styled dress”, that was when the trouble really started to hit the fan. Once she hit the “enter” button on the keyboard, the machine itself started shaking and sputtering violently as if it was painfully coughing. Smoke started emitting from the top of the machine while sheets of paper flew right out of the slot and flew around the room like freshly fallen snow.

And as the band reached the cord in their song, the machine finally sputtered out and gave up, permanently shutting down amongst the mess it created.

The girls and Movers surveyed the room.

“Well,” Dave shrugged, “I guess we can chalk this idea as another failure.”

“Sorry about the mess, girls,” Rich apologized. “This happens a lot with us.”

“Oh, it’s nothing to worry about, Rich, darling,” Rarity assured. “My friends and I go through this…procedure all the time.”

“More than we’d like ta think,” Applejack added with a knowing nod.

“We might as well clean up this mess,” Smitty declared, much to the agreement of the other Movers.

“We can help ya guys out. It’s the least we can do,” Applejack offered.

“Thanks, girls,” Dave smiled, sighing with relief. “We really need all the help we can get.”

And as the inventor moved his broken down invention out of the way, he snapped his fingers in defeat at another failed invention. Of course, that did not mean that he was out of it. The Movers simply had not thought of the right idea yet to solve the problem.

And no idea is a bad idea, not until it has been tried.

Author's Note:

I will not let this story die in my Drive. I've been going through a Block of my own, and as it turns out, it's harder to juggle many stories at once.
But I think I'm working things out now. Don't expect frequent updates.

Comments

[Postwarmonkey50]

Wow, watching this sure brings back nostalgia. If you one day make a sequal, I hope the entire Rainboom group will be in it.

[Omegamorph]

Was just thinking of this. Good to see some progress. Honestly tempted to look at the show after reading some of this.