//------------------------------// // Central: There Will Always Be Two // Story: Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship(Season 1) // by Barrobroadcaster //------------------------------// "You did WHAT?!" "How long did you set the detonation timer for?" "Do you just do things and try to find out if they were good or bad LATER?" "Wait wait wait wait!" The "former" bad guy ponies- Spinner, Springer, DT and Waffen SS rushed up to Dan in a cartoony fashion. "You can't blow this place up!" "Yeah, think about all the cool stuff that's down here?" Dan frowned. "You have a bunch of creepy missiles and old Soviet weaponry. Honestly, this is the same kind of crap you'd find at a garage sale in Vladivostok today. I already have better stuff like this back at the house anyway." "You have stuff like this back at your house?" Captain America asked, having abandoned the helm. Dan nodded. "I've got my own pony doomsday robot, my own super-charged chariot and a massive artillery cannon attached to my house." Captain America turned with an almost audible grind towards Phoenix Wright. "You have a doomsday weapon and an artillery cannon... mounted on your house?" Phoenix felt Cap's eyes on him, accusing him. "It... it's a lot safer than it sounds, really," the lawyer said defensively. Dan slapped them both on the back. "Of course it is, Nicky. C'mon, Stevie, we'll head back and you can meet the rest of the gang. I even have my own army of bird pirates led by a moron. They live in a flying toilet seat in the sky above my weaponized library tree house." Again, Cap turned, agonizingly slowly to Phoenix, a penetratingly questioning look on his masked expression. "I promise you, none of this was my idea. It's safe, believe me!" Phoenix pleaded against the stare. (Why am I being blamed for Dan's shenanigans?!) "OBJECTION!" "To what?" Cap asked. "Overruled, Nicky," Dan chastised, causing Phoenix's psyche-gauge to take another hit. "Can you please stop doing that? That's my courtroom healthbar you're messing with." "Relax, you'll make it up." "How do you know that?!" Redfield stepped up at that precise moment with something important to say. "Can we please have this conversation OFF of the submarine that's about to explode?!" Dan nodded. "Probably a good idea. Okay, points for Redfield." "Does that mean I'm on your good side now?" "Deducting points." "That lasted long," Redfield sighed, exasperated. "Where are the fillies?" "They've already evacuated!" Colress shouted, halfway up the ladder to the escape hatch. "Why are you all standing around? We have to get out of here!" "You see, this is why we're in an MLP crossover- the ponies are smarter than us," Dan said to his fellow human males. His eyes then panned over to Blast Fuse and Blast Powder. "Well, most of them, anyway." "We didn't want to leave without Pheeny," Fusey said, innocently curled up with her sister, wrapped in their own tails. "Or you, Dan. You're the bestest!" "AND NOW WE'RE LEAVING!" Dan yanked the sisters up and scrambled out the escape hatch, the others right behind him. Outside the escape hatch, physics were broken. Ice cream sandwiches and flat images displaying t.v shows flew by, ebbing from the dying almost-universe in front of them. The collection of ideas, thoughts, feelings and concepts was rapidly deteriorating without a framework and energy to sustain it, like a record slowly stopping, flinging half-produced notes from a phonograph. "I hope you came up with an escape plan!" Lightning Claw yelled over the sound of the lava and collapsing universe. "We're in the diving suits now. What next?" "Fly everyone up to the ceiling!" Dan yelled. "Hit the water and start swimming up!" "To what? The solid rock wall of the ceiling?!" Springer asked. Dan grabbed her by the throat. "THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR QUESTIONS, SCRATCH!" He chucked her as hard as he could upward, and by some miracle, she actually hit the water, plunging into it with a splash. He then did the same thing to Spinner. "I'm Grounder!!! Yayyy!!" Her voice echoed as she flew skyward. "All of you, get up there, now!" Dan bellowed. Colress' Magnezone, Lightning Claw, Marksaline, the fliers once again aided the non-fliers in reaching the massive lake of water that hung above them. They ferried them off the deck until only Dan and Phoenix were left. Magnezone hovered up to Dan, but he waved the Pokemon away. "You won't be carrying me. I'll be fine." Phoenix turned to Dan. "I had a feeling you'd be doing something like this. If you're staying, so am I." Dan grinned. "And I knew you'd be coming with me. Thanks Nicky." He nodded. "It's what I do." (And I'm not nervous about this at all. I know what's right, I know what we have to do, and we're going through with it. I guess that's all we needed all along.) "Go back to Colress! Get going!" "Zzzzzzonnne!" Magnezone flew off. The two humans were alone, standing on the bow deck of the submarine, hurtling towards the core. Strangely, Magic Gear VOLCANUS wasn't moving; she hung motionless, dangling towards the disc beneath her. "Grab my hand, Nicky." "Okay." "No, not in a gay way, Nicky." "What?! I wasn't, what does that even-" "We jump on three, okay? One..." "How was that gay?!" "Two..." "Oh *squee*." "Three!" They jumped. Two torpedoes shot out from the submarine just as they came by, and the pair landed on them. Whatever form of physics-defying magic was at work, it was clearly only affecting the submarine and objects related to it, meaning they had to use the torpedoes to travel through the empty chasm. They surfed on the Soviet torpedoes, over the universe underneath them. The swirling was becoming more condensed, a storm of possibilities. Mostly, it played out the images like a t.v show or a video game; different people, different places, different things, all the expressed forms and possibilities of imagination were visible, were... alive inside the storm. It was actually quite beautiful, oddly peaceful. In truth, that was what another universe was, or at least how it would appear to a person viewing it from the outside: a television show or cartoon. A world with different rules, different outcomes, different events, people and places, yet similar in some ways. Dan looked down. For a moment, he felt his mind back to when he'd been over the Pacific ocean, his last moments on Earth. He hadn't known he was going to be transported to another dimension at the time, but looking back, if he had known, he'd have swan-dove with a smile on his face. He was happy with the universe he was in, and realized that on some level, Vice Grip and the Director were a lot like him. Except they hadn't gotten the same chance he'd received. What would his life have been like if he hadn't found himself, discovered his purpose in Equestria? No, Equstria was more than just another dimension to him. It was another chance, and people like him got those every single day. Meeting Twilight and the others, though, they had made him appreciate such chances. That was what they, all the "bad guys" he fought were trying to do: make a second chance. Any way they could. Dan looked back up at VOLCANUS. "HEY!!" She looked up at him. "Are you happy now? We're all doomed together... no one will come to save us. And we can't leave." "So that means you got one option left, lady: come with us. Protect this world." She glared at him. "I was made to build weapons. To create things that should. Not. Be here. To either make this world... or break it." The torpedoes continued accelerating them to the core. "Crazy lobster lady, have you honestly seen me? Literally all I do is break stuff or make things to break other stuff. We're practically related!" "You destroyed my children." "Not all of them!" The machine continued its angry glare at Dan. "Look, I can't promise you everything's gonna be peachy on the surface, but... maybe if you give it a chance, you might be surprised. Come with us!" The machine stared at him for a long time. The torpedoes and submarine came closer. No matter what, her world was already changed.