//------------------------------//
// Quick Quill's Crossover Crisis 
// Story: Quick Quill's Crossover Crisis 
// by wingdingaling 
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	Quick Quill’s Crossover Crisis


Through the darkened trees of the forest, a steady cloud of steam plumed forth as it cut its way along its route.
The billowing steam curled and undulated, spreading forth as if to reach out for some unknown object of desire, before it disappeared forever, never to attain what it wished.
The night train to Trottingham clattered along its lonely route on the railway, guiding its passengers back to their homes. And after a short stay in Manehattan to promote her newest novel, the very last passenger on the train was full ready to return.
But, her work was not over yet.
A page of white, scrawled with black ink flickered in and out of view with the faltering lamps that were affixed over each seat.
“Bloody hayseeds,” Quick Quill sighed, as she impatiently waited for the lights to right themselves for the hundredth time that night.
The trip to Manehattan had been one of the best she had. The turnout for her book signing was tremendous. And best of all, her friends Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie had arrived to visit her.
After the event, the rest of the day was spent catching up with her friends, and marveling at the separate adventures they had undertaken. Quite different from one another, but equally fascinating to hear about.
That evening when they were at the train station, Dash and Pinkie seemed to grow wary, asking if it was safe for her to be traveling at night during the weeks preceding Nightmare Night.
Quill had brushed it off as simple superstitious tomfoolery and boarded her train, feeling as if she were walking on a cloud.
Not at all tired, and with nothing else to do during the train ride home, she had done the one thing she could think to do to stave off boredom. Quill had taken her latest editing project from her saddlebag to help pass the time.
That had nearly been an hour and a half ago. And the work (as normal) was unbearable.
What had started out as an interesting story about Daring Do crossing paths with the Power Ponies quickly became a muddled mess after reading only a few chapters.
The first several chapters slogged on, fleshing out in detail the canons of each medium. One chapter was even dedicated to describing the clothes the main characters wore, and little else. And Quill herself being familiar with both mediums found herself very bored reading about them. Of course the main audience for such a story would be anypony who had already read Daring Do and Power Ponies both. She found no reason to carry out the story as such, and left a note in the margins for the author to fix it so.
Other problems she found had been where the protagonists met in such a way that she found to be rather unconvincing. That Daring Do would suddenly (and for no good reason) get into a fight with Saddle Rager over a magic diamond (and win), before meeting the rest of the team as the diamond was stolen by Ahuizotl and Mane-iac.
Whoever the author was clearly showed favoritism toward Daring Do, who was smarter, trickier, more charismatic, more agile and more knowledgeable on just about any subject there was to know that ever came up in the story than any one of the Power Ponies.
Worst of all was how the author was trying to cram in as many characters and locations from both canons as they could to the point that the story was becoming unbearable to read. And then how the story took a complete tangent to completely shift the plot and conflict into another direction. Then how characters from a third and forth medium were suddenly added into the mix.
By that point the ending had become obvious to Quick Quill. They were all going to have an epic clash in a world-shaking war that would change everything in the aftermath. Just the same as she had seen with every series of films that came to the cinema over the last few years.
She had long since grown weary of writing notes to the author to tell them how to better fix their story and plot. But, at least they were very vigilant with their paragraph structure, dialogue, punctuation and spelling. For the first time in a long while, Quill felt that there was some glimmer of promise in one of her editing clients.
The long hours of work had begun to take its toll on her. She could barely think of any way to offer her input to the author. And her writing had become sluggish.
There was still much work to do. And she did not want to doze off before she reached home. Otherwise, she knew there would be no way for her to get to sleep for the rest of the night.
Ordering tea was out of the question, as that would keep her awake until morning and well into the next day. But, perhaps there was one thing that could stave off sleep.
During her stay in Manehattan, Pinkie had shown Quill to her favorite bakery in the city for some pastries to eat on her trip back home. What had caught Quill’s eye the most was a box of biscuits that Pinkie had told her were famous across Equestria. Having no such biscuits in Trottingham, Quill thought it a pity to pass up trying them and ordered a box of a dozen.
Untying the ribbon and opening the box, she took a bite of the biscuit and carefully analyzed it.
The texture was soft and chewy. Not at all like what she was used to. As for the flavor, she had expected it to be sweet, but not nearly as sweet as it actually was. It was almost so overpoweringly sweet that it made her eyes water slightly.
And with a gulp, she downed the famous treat.
“Famous for what?” she muttered to herself. “No matter. Father might like them.”
Try as she did, there was nothing to keep her eyes from drooping. Soon after, she was resting her head on the tiny table before herself and hoping the train’s whistle as it arrived at its destination would wake her.
The lights flickered again as Quill drifted away, until they blinked out entirely.
With the darkness, new and terrible things began to creep forth.
A thin, wispy thread of white vapor drifted in from the edge of Quick Quill’s window undulating about as it was joined by another thread, which outstretched further than the first.
Slithering into view from beyond the frame came an amorphous mass of white, which fogged the window with its presence.
The mass plumed and billowed about, turning back and forth as if to search for something, while its vaporous appendages reached for the top of the window.
From the ceiling, a panel began to loosen. And a dull, soft scratching was heard.
Quill twitched in her sleep, her ears blocking out the sounds that would disturb her, as the thing at the window pressed its amorphous form against the pane.
The metal panel bulged downward at its crease, and a single claw snaked through, a single bit of wiring still stuck on it.
With only centimeters opening the panel, a dark shape squeezed forth from the space within, and landed on the floor with a soft, fleshy thud.
The creature’s low-slung body crawled across the floor, searching for a new place to go and tear apart whatever it found there. For food. For pleasure. For mere curiosity. It did not know why it needed to. All it knew was that making the lights go out had been done. And something more had to happen.
The sounds of deep, slow breathing caught its ears, and it hurried toward them with the scuttling gait of a reptile. In moments, its devilish yellow eyes caught sight of a single mare fast asleep in her seat.
The creature crept forth, its long claws pricking the carpet.
Quill mumbled in her sleep when she registered a new noise. Something like a quiet munching. Something very near that should not have been.
Slowly, her eyes cracked open and she lifted her head.
Her gaze was out the window, where she could only see the passing trees of the forest quickly dashing by as the train sped along. And between her sleep-fogged vision and the many reflections on the window, she was hardly able to see what was beyond in the darkness.
The munching sound registered to her ears once more.
“They call these biscuits?” said a voice.
Quill focused on the reflection in the window and saw that she was no longer alone.
There sitting across from her was another mare. One whose mane and coat were a solid midnight black, and with the bluest eyes Quill had ever seen. Around her neck, she wore a black choker necklace with a crimson red broach.
“Sorry. Can I help you?” Quill asked, partly irritated, partly apprehensive.
The stranger looked up from the box of biscuits Quill had bought.
“Ah. You’re awake,” she said. “I apologise for intruding, but I was surprised to see that there was still another passenger on the train. And it does get rather lonely here at this hour. You don’t mind me eating these do you?”
Quill silently shook her head, while staring warily at her new company. Something about her seemed somehow off. But how, Quill could not put her hoof on it.
“Um...Are you from Trottingham too?” Quill asked, both recognizing the stranger’s accent as similar to her own, and grasping for something to say.
“Not originally,” came the short reply.
“Oh. You’re foreign then?”
“Does this perplex you?”
Sensing an undertone of resentment, Quill quickly tried grasping for a way to recover from her comment.
“No. Not at all. My parents are both foreign. My mother’s from Tuscaneigh. And my father’s Shirish,” she answered, keeping her best not to stammer.
“That’s me as well,” the stranger said, helping herself from another biscuit, “My father was from Nodenborough. Before he moved and met my mother.”
“Sorry. Nodenborough? I’m not familiar with that place.”
“It’s not far from here. Just a short train ride over,” the stranger said, before finishing her treat. “How rude of me. You probably haven’t had any of your confections yet.”
“That’s alright. They’re not really to my liking,” Quill answered.
“No?”
“I just think that they’re a bit too mushy to have with tea. And too sweet to have on their own,” Quill said, figuring the stranger was used to such things, judging by how she was able to eat them without gagging.
“As it so happens, I’ve a bit of a sweet tooth,” the stranger said, “These aren’t bad, but I wouldn’t call them biscuits. You’re sure you won’t have another?”
“No thank you. I was only going to give them to my father when I got home anyway.”
At the mention of her father, the stranger stopped herself when she was reaching for another biscuit, and her face changed. If Quill was reading her face correctly, she was feeling some kind of remorse for her action. Strange for something so innocent, Quill thought.
“Far be it from me to spare your father these delectable morsels. Perhaps as a mea culpa, I’ll offer some brownies. Not the fearies, of course. The pastries.”
Quill forced a polite laugh, though the joke was lost on her. Before she could ask what it meant, a sudden, loud thumping and scratching reached her ears.
“What’s that sound?” she asked.
“What sound?” answered the stranger.
“That scratch?”
“I’m afraid I don’t hear anything.”
Quill looked incredulously at the stranger. She could not imagine her company would so blatantly lie about something like that. And she could not imagine that she herself was going insane. 
In her mind, Quick Quill thought it may have been a large, overreaching branch from the trees outside. Perhaps it was the circumstances where a mysterious stranger suddenly appeared on a train at night. Or perhaps it was the fact that Nightmare night was only two days away. Or it may have been a bit of each. Regardless of what it was, a silly sort of notion entered the novelist’s mind.
“Maybe it’s a gremlin trying to derail the train,” Quill mysteriously said.
“Most like,” the stranger nonchalantly replied. “Although, it did sound rather large to be a gremlin.”
“How much larger?” Quill asked, playing along.
“I’d conjecture it was about seven foot, three-hundred pounds.”.
“A bugbear then?” said Quill, keeping up the scary fun.
“Could be,” the stranger replied. “Then again, bugbears aren’t known for being so daft as to jump aboard a speeding locomotive. Let alone being hostile or aggressive enough to make such an attempt.”
“I’m sorry. Do you know anything about bugbears?” Quill asked.
“I suppose the bugbears where I’m from are different than the ones here. All and all, I don’t suppose that’s what was causing that row.”
“How do you think?”
“Because bugbears are earthen in colour and their eyes are uniform copper. Our noisy guest has grey fur and yellow eyes,” the stranger said.
“How can you know that from a simple noise?” Quill asked, smiling slightly.
“Because it’s looking at you through the window.”
The fun had suddenly gone for Quill. And it was replaced by a gradual sense of dread that she was being watched.
Resisting the chill that ran down her spine, she slowly turned to look out the window and jumped at what she saw.
Nothing was there but the regular sight of trees whirring past the moving train. Whatever Quill was expecting, it had got the better of her.
The stranger chuckled to herself. And Quill shot her a nasty glance as she tried to settle her nerves.
“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist winding you up. I suppose the season is getting to me,” the stranger said.
She glimpsed out the window and glinted her eye to the outside.
On the other side of the window, a yellow eye glinted back, before its owner resumed their business.
In spite of herself, Quill managed to smile at her own expense. It was exactly the same kind of joke she and her friends would have played on one another on Nightmare Night when they were fillies.
Before Quill could say anything more to the stranger, she noticed something at her company’s hooves. There, neatly spread out before her were several papers with notes on the margins of each.
“Sorry. Is that my manuscript?” Quill asked.
“They are,” the stranger answered, carefully restacking them. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’m a voracious reader. And the train ride was rather dull while you were asleep.”
For a moment, Quill swore she saw one of the papers set itself inside of the stack without being touched.
“I have to say, it’s not very good. It almost feels like there are two very different stories with very different tones being told at once,” the stranger said, as she passed the story back to Quill.
“I know. Frankly, I’ve yet to find a crossover that I can find bearable,” Quill sighed.
“I’m not familiar with that term. What exactly is a ‘crossover?’” the stranger asked.
“It’s where an author takes two separate canons and tries to blend them into one singular story.”
“Truly? I’m not sure I see the appeal in such an endeavour. But, I suppose if you enjoy writing them, I’ve no right to stop you.”
“Wha-- Oh, no. I’m not the author. I’m editing it for somepony else,” Quill stammered.
“Hmph,” the stranger huffed with a smirk, “I suppose I feel worse for you then. It’s bad enough to have written this rubbish. But, it’s a worse position for the person who has to fix it.”
“What was that you said?” Quill asked.
“It’s worse for the pony who has to fix it,” the stranger repeated.
Further back in the aisle, a shadow stealthily crawled from one compartment to the next.
The stranger slightly shifted in her seat, craning to see down the aisle.
Once again, Quill felt a pang of alarm and quickly looked over her shoulder to see nothing there.
“You’re much too easy,” the stranger chuckled.
Quill loosed an exasperated sigh and turned back toward her company.
Mid-turn, she froze when she noticed something.
On the opposite side of the train, further down the aisle, there was something hanging onto the window. At least, Quill thought there was.
Amid the many reflections on the window, the passing scenery and the harsh meeting of the light of the train and the darkness outside, Quill could not tell what was there. Some sort of reptile, or a large insect it seemed.
Whatever it was, it quickly disappeared from the window. And it did not seem to have moved. If anything, it looked as if it had been forcibly pulled off in one fell movement. By what, Quill dreaded to think.
“I know you’re only the editor, but perhaps you can answer a question for me,” the stranger said.
“Uh-hum?” Quill asked, snapping back to her company.
“There seems to be a part a short way in where Daring Do and Masked Matter-Horn start to develop feelings for each other. Tell me, why precisely does the plot turn from preventing a world-ending disaster to a story of these mares falling in love?”
“I don’t know,” Quill sighed, burying her face in her hooves.
“Sorry to have caused you such agony,” the stranger dryly replied.
“It’s not you. It’s all of these bloody ponies who write these stories,” Quill said, shuffling through her papers and scanning the notes. “I’ve read and edited what must have been a thousand crossovers with the Power Ponies. I’d reckon ninety or ninety-five percent of them have the displaced character falling in love with Masked Matter-Horn.”
“She’s a popular character, is she? And I’m guessing with a very specific demographic.”
“If you’re talking about ponies who secretly imagine themselves in the place of Masked Matter-Horn’s love interest, then yes. You’re perfectly on point,” Quill chuckled.
“Ah, yes. The woes of the lonely heart. Lost without direction, it turns to the idyllic visage that it can never possess beyond the realm of fantasy,” the stranger dramatically said.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Quill said, before she resumed flipping through the pages. “It’s not just self-insert/wish-fulfillment. It’s always a bloody farce on the characters and stories themselves.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean that whenever these stories crop up, the characters almost never talk or behave in a way that’s true to their original source material. Instead, they always act in a way that I think may be more similar to the author’s personality.”
“Ah-ha. Another facet of the self-insert/wish-fulfillment?” the stranger said
“And another is this notion of power fantasies. A lot of time it seems as if they’re trying to see what it would be like if they were the character from the story,” Quill said.
“Goodness. Are their lives so dull?” the stranger asked.
“Possibly,” Quill sighed. “It’s not always so bad, though. Sometimes, it really does seem like somepony’s personal idea of how they would like to see a character behave or react at times. Mostly, it feels like they’ve only heard of the characters, and never bothered to read the source material,” she lamented. “Imagine: if we were characters in a story that was written by anypony but our creator, we’d likely be shadows of ourselves.”
“Shadows. Right,” said the midnight-black stranger. “Of course, if this story of yours is any indicator, and we were characters written by anyone but the author, we may have both kissed by now.”
“Or I’d be some hyper-intelligent, worldly globetrotter who rewrites history with every new discovery I make,” Quill joked.
“And I suppose because of my colour, I’d be a brooding, moody, uncaring loner,” the stranger said, smirking at the notion.
“No. Hang on. I’d be a shapely, voluptuous best-seller who seduces stallions and mares alike with my gyrating movements, and nothing more,” Quill said, comically mimicking the gyration.
“You almost sound like my best friend back home,” the stranger said. “Here’s one. I would be a dark sorceress who knows the deepest lore of all things arcane, every known fighting style, and would be preventing the resurrection of a demon from yet another legend that turns out to be true.”
“Sorceress? You’re an earth pony. How would anypony interpret you as magical?” Quill giggled.
“Right. Earth ponies don’t use magic,” the stranger said, partly muttering.
“Hang on,” Quill said, as if something brilliant had occurred to her, “I’ve got it. If I were a character in a story written by anypony but the author, I would be relegated as a background character.”
“Why do you say that?” the stranger asked.
“Because, I’m an earth pony. And earth ponies never do anything interesting. We don’t fly. We don’t use magic. How do you live out any power fantasies through that?”
Both mares laughed heartily at the idea of them being somepony’s character twisted into an abomination by another author.
Above them, the lights started blinking again.
“Bloody hayseeds! What’s going on with this train?” Quill wondered aloud, looking up to the lights.
“I thought I mended those wires,” the stranger muttered in an undertone.
The lights started humming and crackling. And with a pop, the lights all went out.
Quill’s eyes were fixed on the dark ceiling, where the last bits of orange hung in the light fixtures above, until they dimmed out.
“Brilliant,” Quill sighed.
The scratching noise sounded again. And it was at the window.
Quill looked, and she knew she was no longer imagining things.
Something was holding onto the window. And it was trying to scratch its way in with its immeasurably long claws.
And in an instant, it was grabbed by a massive, hairy, clawed hand that pulled it upwards.
Quill yelped and nearly leapt out of her seat at the sight of the thing and turned to her company.
“You had to have seen that! You can’t tell me--AUGH!!!” she shouted mid-sentence.
In the darkness that filled the train, the stranger’s pitch-black form had disappeared. All but her eyes, which glowed ominously in the dark.
“Y--You--You’re a--What are you!!?” Quill stammered.
“Just a mare who’s taken the right train at the right time,” the stranger deliberately answered.
“Are you--Y-Y-Y-You’re not a...Are you a ghost?!!”
“I should hope not. After all, ghosts aren’t able to eat biscuits, are they?” the stranger answered.
Quill tried to accept such logic. But when faced with a creature she could not logically conceive, such a thing was difficult.
“What do you want with me?” she fearfully asked.
“Nothing,” the stranger said, shrugging. “As it so happens, you were just unfortunate to stay on the train up to this point. Had I not come along, this may truly have been the end of line for you.”
“H-How do you mean?” 
“Do you remember our talk of gremlins? As it so happens, this train is overrun with creatures that desire nothing more than its complete destruction.”
More noises were heard on the outside of the train, and the scenery beyond faded to pitch black.
Quill’s mind wiped blank in that moment, and was replaced with a horrible thought. She recalled reading stories about ponies who had stepped onto a train that rode well into the night and took its passengers to a place from where there was no return.
“This is it, isn’t it? The night train to the netherworld?” Quill fearfully asked.
“Night trai-- Where do you light-dwellers get this rubbish?” the stranger incredulously said.
“Then where did the world--my world--just go!!?” Quill answered, pointing to the darkness beyond.
“It’s still there, you ninny. We’re in a tunnel. And if all’s going well, those little stowaways will have been almost completely dealt with by now.”
Quill wanted to speak. If only to calm herself, she wanted to ask how such a thing as gremlins could be. How they were being taken care of, and by what other monster. Most of all, she wanted to know what sort of creature her companion was.
Any question Quick Quill could have asked was completely halted by the sudden presence of another creature.
By the dim light of the creature’s eyes, Quill could see something was slithering over the back of her seat. Something like a large reptile with a mouth full of needle sharp teeth and long claws at the end of each splayed toe.
There was no time to think. Spurred by her fear, the novelist lifted her entire manuscript and struck the creature from the back of her companion’s seat.
The creature disappeared into the darkness of the aisle.
Somewhere Quill heard a sound like a mix between a hiss and a low, throaty growl.
She quickly scrambled to the top of her seat, and watched as something pounced upon the creature in the dark. Something that was gigantic and covered in hair.
Quill swallowed the urge to scream, hoping the newly arrived monster would not notice her. She whimpered quietly to herself as she bit her lip, watching as the monster reared up to its full height.
“Last one, I presume,” the stranger said.
Quill glanced over to her companion, and swore she was talking to the monster.
From the monster in the aisle, the sound of a sickening gulp was heard, followed by a low groan.
“Brilliant. I’d say that meal of yours was well earned,” the stranger replied.
The monster in the aisle groaned and sniffed the air. Then, it slowly turned its head.
Quill saw a yellow eye glint at her from the darkness. The monster was looking at her. And she was going to be the meal that it had earned.
There was movement in the dark, and Quill pressed herself as flat against the wall as she could, as the beast lowered its head toward her. She could see it now. It’s lupine features were made more terrible by the darkness. But not as terrible as when it lapped its tongue against her hoof.
“Well, don’t be afraid to give him a pat,” the stranger said.
Afraid of what would happen if she disobeyed, Quill hesitantly began rubbing her hoof on the beast’s head.
The monster huffed, and Quill could hear a thumping sound from behind it. As if one of its feet were stomping repeatedly against the floor.
There came the sudden sound of brakes squeaking from outside, and the train began to slow down. Outside, there were suddenly lights shining into the train, illuminating the bus in which Quick Quill and her ghoulish companions rode.
“This is our stop. We’ll be heading home from here,” the stranger said, as she rose from her seat. She called the wolf-creature to her side and bade her farewell. “I am truly sorry for inconveniencing you so. But, please don’t let this little incursion sour your opinion of travelling at night.”
“Fa...Fa...Fa...Fair enough,” Quill hyperventilated.
“ And if you’d like to tell me where you live, I would gladly send you a box of brownies to compensate for eating your confections.”
“Nononono! That’s perfectly alright! I mean--I think I’m going to be moving soon! Somewhere with fewer strange ponies!” Quill quickly said.
“I see. I’ll have to learn your new address and send your brownies there,” the stranger replied.
She and her gigantic pet started down the aisle toward the door.
“Don’t worry about stumbling in the dark. The lights will be back on by the time the train stops.”
And with that, the two dark creatures walked through the door, which closed by itself behind them.
Quill stayed pressed to the wall, and did not move at all until the train’s sudden stop jolted her back to her seat.
The lights flicked back on as if they had not broken at all. Looking up Quill saw that they were perfectly intact.
“Bloody hayseeds…” she exhaled.
Quick as she could, Quill gathered her things and departed the train.
The moment she was on the platform, she looked around herself. Not a soul was seen anywhere nearby. A relief, albeit a small one.
Hoping she would meet no more strangers for a long time to come, Quick Quill began walking her way home.
From the top of the train, two dark creatures watched her go. The stranger had left something in Quill’s saddlebag that would protect her on her way home from any other unfriendly visitors. And with that, she knew her work thus far was finished.
Her larger companion started gagging.
“Stone the bleedin’ crows! Them gremlins ain’t sittin’ so well.”
“I suppose there were a great deal. All the more reason to have exterminated them, as opposed to less time-effective measures,” the stranger replied.
“Cheers. I ain’t seen you doin’ much ter ‘elp either way.”
“Repairing the damage they did is just as important as eliminating them.”
“Yeh. I reckon castin’ a bit o’ yer craft’d make ya feel yer wanna chunder somefin’ fierce. Feels loike me guts is ‘avin’ a bloody bull!”
“Don’t be such a pessimist. We’ve done what our friends asked and looked after their friend here. I’d say we’ve done quite well by them,” the stranger said, as shadows started wreathing around herself and her larger companion. “Now then, let’s return to Ponyville.”
“Righ’. An’ make it quick. Winona’s settin’ up an agility course wif all the neighbour’ood dogs. I want in on that, ‘fore sunup.”
With those last words, they were both enveloped in darkness, and disappeared from the top of the train.