A Random Idea From My Metaphorical Desk

At first, I kind of wanted to write a story involving Henry Stickmin in Equestria. Then, I realized that looking through my notes, there wasn't really enough happening related to Equestria. That would probably get it rejected from submission under normal circumstances. So instead, I'll put up what I thought of here.

Potential spoiler warning here for anyone that has yet to play/watch gameplay of the Henry Stickmin Collection by Puffballs United.

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Title: Charlie, No!

Description: In a brilliant move by the Center for Chaos Containment, a few key government agents have been warped to an alternate universe. Now, the chaos will certainly decrease to a more plausible stability.

The same, however, cannot be said for the universe in which the targets end up. The Triple Threat will have to weigh their options carefully for each encounter in this strange world. Henry and Ellie can make a diversion with a thermite detonator and a dance number-

Wait, where did Charles go?

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Prologue and tie-in to MLP:FiM Season 1

The world was about as peaceful as it could be. Sure, there were a bunch of shady practices under the surface. But that was par for the course. The government had claimed credit for toppling the evil Toppat Organization. In reality, they couldn't have done it without their three top agents.

Knowing this, the Center for Chaos Containment didn't take long to notice them. A few ties to recent events showed them an ever-increasing instability in the universe. If the three government agents weren't stopped, good intentions or not, there would be a disaster. So, what choice did a button-pressing employee have other than to press the Planet-Fence button?

Coincidentally, the agents targeted had just finished up a mission near Area 15. Somehow, one of them had managed to use a giant butcher's knife to stop an army of ninja-fanboys from storming the forbidden ground. Luckily, the crowd control wasn't as nearly bad as their online forum had predicted it would reach. But fortune was about to end as electrified fence posts appeared all around the three.

"Uh, guys?" The figure with red hair glanced around. "Was there an electric-type trap in the briefing that I somehow missed?"

"No, I don't...I don't think so." The young man wearing red headphones took a step away from the fence post closest to him.

The third man of the group, who didn't have anything red on him, hurriedly scarfed down some fried chicken that the fence had arbitrarily spat out at him. This didn't have any effect. Instead, the fence's light increased intensity and seemed to spin around the perimeter in circles. All three people covered their eyes.

With a zap and a pop, everything inside vanished. The folks at the CCC congratulated each other on another job well done.

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(Meanwhile, thousands of miles away...)

The agents looked around the starlit sky that they found themselves in. After looking left and right, they looked down. They gave a random horizontal point a set of horrified expressions. Not two seconds later, they fell toward a distant ground. While they were screaming, a timer appeared in the corner of Henry Stickmin's vision.

After seeing flashes of horrific deaths regarding a trampoline and a kite-building kit, he pulled out three Fennec Spy pens and pushed them. The pens popped into Pogo Sticks and he passed one to each of his friends. They straightened out their backs, put their feet on the pedals, and braced for impact. The springs in the Pogos absorbed most of the force, bouncing a couple of times in place. After all three agents cautiously stepped onto the soft grass, their respective sticks rocketed away into the aether.

"Thanks, Henry." Ellie Rose looked up. "How did it get so late? It was noon, wasn't it?"

"Never mind the time." Charles Calvin looked at some of the nearby foliage. "Where are we? These trees are... way too detailed."

Ellie looked and pointed. "There's a path over there. Maybe we can find a landmark, get our bearings."

Henry turned his head. He wondered how he knew that going left would require sacrificing Charles to a pack of wolves. Similarly, he was dumbfounded by the mental image of going straight and watching a giant plant eat Ellie. He casually walked to the right and followed the path. Ellie and Charles followed closely, confident that Henry knew what he was doing.

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"Now you'll never see Celestia or your sun!" called a voice inside the walls.

"We need to do something!" Ellie looked at Henry expectantly.

This time when browsing his options, Henry couldn't see any of the end points. So, he went with his headphones wearing pilot.

"Okay, Charles. What are your...?" Ellie turned around. "Thoughts? Uh... where did he go?"

Henry shrugged his hands. Then, the two of them heard some familiar swishing.

"Hey, guys! You'll never guess what I found! It's a working helicopter!" Charles's voice broke in their radio frequency. "Here I come!"

Looking up, they say a bright pink helicopter. It was a lot smaller than the government's transport and it was approaching fast. Before Henry and Ellie could yell, the copter crashed into the wall. The good news: the dark and armored mare was stopped. The bad news: The Triple Threat was crushed by the falling debris.

Mission Failed

That's no space station. That's a Nightmare Moon!

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Tie-in to MLP:FiM Season 2

Henry pondered what he should do. In one of his visions, he saw that making a plan himself would lead to a random Medusa head turning his team into statues. He then saw those statues sliding down the mountain of soap and crashing into a bunch of bananas like bowling pins. Before deferring to Ellie, he decided to press his earpiece to get a word from Charles.

Charles's voice broke through some distortion. "Don't worry, guys! I've completely got this!"

"What do you mean by 'completely'?" asked Ellie.

Several motor blades sounded at once. As Henry and Ellie turned to look, they spotted something that looked horrendous. It was a dog's head on an alligator's body with bunny ears, owl wings, a cat's tail, and a tortoise shell with a propeller. Holding onto a latch on the back of this amalgamation, Charles was looking quite pleased with his plan of action.

The other two agents ducked and covered their heads as Charles and his beast collided with the chaos throne. A pair of red headphones landed in Henry's hands. Water droplets started shaking in his eyes.

Mission Failed

~Charlie, I'm howling at the moon and sleeping in the middle of a summer afternoon

Charlie, whatever did we do to make you throw your life away~

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It seemed Henry was having trouble seeing visions of things yet to happen. On one hand, he could use a Max Revive on the out-cold Celestia. On the other, he was contemplating picking up one of the dresses discarded by that gray unicorn earlier. When he noticed that Ellie was the only friend with him, he looked around. Wordlessly, he called for Charlie.

"Alright, guys! Wait for my signal!"

"What signal?" Ellie looked confused. "We never agreed on a-"

"~This is the greatest plaaaaaaaan~"

Charlie was going through the entrance hall. He was riding on top of one of the changelings. His hands were covering the bugger's eyes, so its flight pattern was a bit jagged. The two unwitting partners ended up flying right on top of Henry. A green explosion erupted from the impact. Ellie freaked out before she pulled out a fire extinguisher.

Mission Failed

Was dying the signal? Can you die twice to say "no"?

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Tie-in to MLP:FiM Season 3

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"Come on, Henry! You choose now of all times to go rogue?" Charles shook his head.

In a moment of relapse, Henry had tried to steal a heart made of pure crystal. As if karma was telling him no, a trap made of dark rocks dislodged the crystal from the center and trapped him inside. He tried banging on the trap's rocks with his fists, but all that did was cause his fingers to pulsate in pain.

"Well, we can't just leave him stuck in there." Ellie was holding a pair of binoculars to search the tower for anything useful.

"I know, but that dark magic horse is going to make approaching dangerous." Charlie held his copter steady while adjusting his headphones. "So, Henry... you got yourself into this mess. How do you propose getting out of it?"

Henry decided that hiding under a box wouldn't result in anything except wasting time. Instead, he asked Charles to just get creative.

"You know what? Forget caution." Charles gripped the steering tightly. "This is time for boldness!"

"Wait, what are you doing?" When the floor suddenly slanted at a diagonal, Ellie grabbed onto a seatbelt. Her binoculars fell out of sight. "Charles? Charles!"

As the copter raced towards the tower, a pillar of dark crystals emerged from ground level. It instantly pierced the engine, causing the whole craft to explode. Henry tapped his earpiece when all he heard was static. He tapped it a couple more times in quick succession. His tall skinny eyes shrank to tiny dots.

Mission Failed

Slow that choppa down, now!

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Tie-in to Season 4

"Okay, I've got a great plan. Listen up!" Charlie smiled. "I'm going to take this helicopter and slam head-first into the back of that big, red guy!"

"Wait, hold on." Ellie tapped her ear piece. "You're going to jump out and headbutt him?"

Charlie chuckled. "No, I'm going to use the front of the helicopter and slam it into that guy's backside. It'll be great!"

"But... what does that accomplish?" Ellie held up open hands just below her face.

Charlie sighed. "Alright, Ellie? I don't think you're getting it. Henry, you understand what I'm saying, right?"

Henry grinned and gave two assuring thumbs-up.

Ellie scratched her head and shrugged. "Then, I guess I'm outvoted."

Something exploded and the three agents turned to look. The very helicopter they were about to appropriate was a giant mess of metal and parts. Meanwhile, Tirek's hoof was moving up as he was magically blasting the ground in several other places. Henry and Ellie shared a glance before looking at their pilot.

Charlie fell to his knees and banged a fist into the ground. "You maniac! You blew it up! You blew it all up! Darn you! Darn you all to basic illustration!"

Mission Failed

Get your hooves off them, you darn dirty centaur!

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Tie-in to Season 5

Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer were firing spells at each other. It was surprising that a unicorn could keep up with the Element of Magic bearer herself. Each mistake sent the group of travelers into another future that the Tree of Harmony's round table deemed incorrect. Henry's skills managed to summon an angry sun into the Nightmare Moon future, the Sweet Tooth ice cream truck to ram through Flim and Flam's future, and three Persim Bands to protect his group from Discord's confusing future. But they kept getting shuffled back and forth between Cloudsdale's past and another present mess.

Finally, Starlight had just about enough and dramatically threatened to tear up the time scroll. Henry's vision of doing a distraction dance resulted in a horrifying fall through a nearby cloud. Giving Ellie a nuclear catapult also gave him a vision of disaster. He was running out of options and the quick timer was running close to empty.

"Henry? Ellie?" Charlie's voice broke through the panic.

The options faded from his thoughts as Henry looked over.

"Yeah?" asked Ellie.

"I'm glad we got to meet each other." Charlie chuckled. "It was fun."

"H-Hey! We're not done for yet." Ellie lifted a hand out. "Don't talk like that!"

They were briefly caught off guard by a stray complaint from Starlight. It sounded like she was sick and tired of hearing about Twilight and her friends being the only hope for Equestria. Twilight calmly admitted she didn't know why her group was so important, but they were.

Ellie looked back at her partners. "Charles? Where'd you go?"

A helicopter's whooshing noise crossed with a breeze. Just as it looked like the tear in the spell scroll was about to go through, a different slice appeared in the unicorn's neck. Her body went flying through the cockpit. Charles's voice could be heard grunting over the communication link.

"So... I was saying before... I'm glad we got to work together." Alarms and lights blared from inside the helicopter. "And hey, I finally got to go through with one of my plans."

"Charlie, hang on!" Ellie ran to the edge of the solid platform resting on top of the cloud. "Just hold it steady! We can find something to reach you!"

But the helicopter was already losing altitude. Wordlessly, Henry pulled out Hell's Rope Dart to try and get Charles over here. The dart's point, however, barely missed the top of the copter. The transport and its pilot continued to fall out of sight. Meanwhile, Spike tapped on Twilight's back to wake her out of her stupor. She used her magic to grab the scroll and seal up its tear just as it was beginning to pull travelers into a time portal.

In the background, the filly Rainbow Dash was pulling off her first Sonic Rainboom. Ellie grabbed Henry's shoulder. She was saying something, but he couldn't hear anything at that moment. He summoned a royalty-free springboard to bounce Ellie and him toward the time portal before it closed.

Twilight and Spike glided over the table in the castle before safely landing on the floor. Henry and Ellie tumbled into a rolling motion before stopping near a crystal pillar. That was about when the rest of the Main Six galloped inside. They asked several questions while tending to the arrivals' well-beings.

Henry balled his fists up and pressed them against his closed eyes. Ellie leaned her back against the wall and gazed at the ceiling. Too much had happened and there weren't enough words for them to describe any of it.

Eventually, Twilight and Spike managed to recount the events from their perspective. The rest of their friends were overwhelmed by the description. With a bit of effort, Ellie managed to fill in some of the details that happened to her trio specifically. Henry remained silent throughout the entire dialogue.

It couldn't have been real, Henry told himself. He had a nightmare once about Charlie dying for his sake. It had happened up in space, which was how he knew that it couldn't be real. This had to be a dream too. Any minute now, he'd wake up in some bizarre world. He had even preferred the dream where Ellie was threatening him overboard to this madness.

But no matter how many times he closed his eyes and opened them back up, he was still in this version of events.

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That evening...

Henry had lied down, awake on his bed. Ellie was sitting up on the bed across from him. She was repeatedly dropping Tetriminos on her handheld on the center space. It kept making her lose, but she didn't look like she cared. Henry turned over, even though the theme continued to bombard his mind.

There was a triple knock on the door. Ellie sighed and turned her handheld upside-down. This muffled the music and sound effects altogether. When she opened the door, she saw a familiar stranger they had met a few weeks ago. It was Zecora and she looked quite pleased with herself.

Before Ellie could ask, Zecora held a hoof up and shushed. She turned her head and motioned for someone on the side to approach. A walking stick added a third sound to the two footfalls. Ellie tilted her head in confusion. That was the case, until she straightened out with wide eyes.

"Henry, come here!" Ellie called back into the house.

Stickmin pulled himself out of the bed and dragged his feet. He listlessly approached the front door. He carefully looked at what he assumed were the visitors that Ellie had greeted. The first was that zebra lady. The other visitor was at least a foot taller than Henry.

He was about to ask what they wanted at this hour. It looked like a handicapped man. That's when Henry caught sight of the headphones. They were peeling at some points and the color was slightly sun-bleached, but they were definitely red. His mouth quivered as he gazed upon the face with a five-o'clock shadow.

Henry couldn't feel his legs anymore as he tackle-hugged the man.

Mission Complete

Welcome back to the future, McFly.

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