//------------------------------// // Vote them off. // Story: Red's Looking Sus // by Calex Winteridge //------------------------------// Twilight and the Purple crewmate walked down an empty hall together. This area was uninhabited by the out-of-control Rogue imposters, so they we're free to walk at their own pace and not have to worry about running into them. They talked quietly to themselves about their plan. "I just want to make sure I understand it completely before we go ahead with it. If we mess up it could jeopardize the whole operation..." Twilight voiced her concerns to the purple crewmate. The crewmate put his hand on her shoulder, and gently tapped it while giving a thumbs up with his other hand. "Don't worry, just let me do all the talking, and you go agree with whatever I say. These 7 imposters work off of crowd mentality, if enough people agree with a narrative they'll just go along with it. They're like parasites, clinging to a host body to fit in, instead of forming their own opinions," Twilight would furrow her brows. "These imposters don't seem like the smartest bunch. I mean, what kind of pony would just go along with whatever ponies say without voicing or forming their own opinions? What's so wrong with thinking for yourself? What's wrong with going against the status quo? What's the problem with thinking differently than others, even if what you think isn't popular to certain groups? It just seems silly to me that ponies will stay complacent with just going with the flow, even when the flow is self destructive," Twilight would say as the crewmate looked up at her. "You know everything you just said sounded very specific as if it's happened to you before. You want to talk about it?" It asked her with genuine concern. Twilight shook her head. "No... Let's just get rid of these imposters. Maybe it'll make me feel better," The crewmate removed his hand from her shoulder and walked a bit faster in front of her. "Oh trust me. You and I both will feel a great sense of relief once these creatures are out of our lives," Twilight sighed quickly before holding her head up high. "You're right. Let's do this," Twilight said with confidence. The two of them immediately barged into the cafeteria. It was empty as all the other imposters and unsuspecting crewmates were out and about either performing tasks or looking for Twilight and the purple crew mate. The two of them walked forth to the center table and opened the glass dome of the emergency meeting button together, before both slamming their appendages down on the big red button. EMERGENCY MEETING In the blink of an eye, all of the other inhabitants of the castle arrived at the cafeteria and sat down at the table. Everyone was here including the only other crewmate, Yellow. For some reason the rogue imposters didn't seem to notice Princess Twilight sitting there with them next to purple. They also didn't seem to notice the fact that purple wasn't at the last meeting. There were a lot of key things that these impostors were overlooking, luckily the things they were overlooking worked in Purples and Twilights favor. "What happened?" "What's going on?" "Has anyone seen my shoes?" "Where? Oh wait... There isn't a dead body," "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU CALL A MEETING?" "What?" Purple would take a deep breath as he placed both of his hands down onto the table. If he was going to do this he was going to be resolute and smart about everything he said. He needed to focus and keep his head on straight. He looked over at Twilight and gave her a nod. She returned the nod, and he looked back to the rest of the crew. It's show time. "Alright everybody listen up. I'm going to make this very simple and get straight to the point. Orange vented," "What? No I didn't. I've been in reactor this whole time and there isn't a vent in there," "U-Uh... Yeah! I saw him vent into reactor!" There was a moment of pause as the imposters all looked over at Orange with their eyebrows beneath their glass domes beginning to raise. Purple would then go on to explain how he hadn't seen Orange do any tasks, or that the tasks he did were non visual ones. "Yeah but... I haven't seen you doing any tasks Purple how do we know you aren't an imposter?" "Because, all of my tasks are already done and I've been chilling in security with Yellow. Plus, yellow saw me do the Medscan," "This is true. I did see him do that," "Okay well that's great. But I don't see what that has to do with me venting while in reactor," "Hey now, I never said where you vented I just said you vented. I never said you vented into reactor. And I thought there wasn't a vent in there?" "W-Well I.. I... T-there isn't! I just-," "Ladies and gentlemen... Your imposter," Yellow has voted. 7 remaining. Black voted. 6 remaining. Green voted. 5 remaining. Purple voted. 4 remaining. Teal voted. 3 remaining. Pink voted. 2 remaining. Red voted. 1 remaining. Brown voted. 0 remaining. "Awww you guys suck ass..." Suddenly everything faded to black for Twilight. At first she was scared, she couldn't see anything. She was going to call out for help but before she could, Twilight would then see a vision of the Orange crewmate standing on the edge of a balcony on the castle of friendship. She recognized this balcony, it was the highest on the center spire closest to her bedroom. She then saw the purple crewmates step out onto the balcony with it. She then heard... a voice, come from from purple that sounded nothing like the voice she had heard before. And while the purple crewmate spoke its hand grew 10 times its original size and swung back behind itself, winding up for a massive strike. "I like yah cut G," The hand then swung down with mighty speed and force and made a loud clapping sound as it slammed against the Orange crewmate as it was hurdled off the balcony and into the air with break neck speed. The force of the impact of the hand on its body had warped its upper half, leaving a dent in it like it had been in a car accident. With such escape velocity and speed it had no trouble leaving the planet's atmosphere and entering into deep space. She would watch it slowly spin and twirl through the empty void as it got further and further away from them. Orange was an Imposter. Twilights vision would then fade to black again but would return shortly after. She would find herself back in the cafeteria sitting around the table with all the other crew members and imposters. She looked around to try and figure out what just happened, but another emergency meeting was called. This time Pink was the one to get voted off after Purple convinced the rest of the crew that they had taken 3 slices of pizza instead of their rationed two slices. It was actually quite easy to convince the rest to vote them off. It was actually almost instantaneous. The moment Purple mentioned that pink had taken 3 slices instead of two Blue slammed his hand down on the vote button and nearly punched pink in the face. Twilight thinks the rest of the crew voted Pink off out of fear of Blue as just after he slammed his hand down on the vote button he started going on a rant. Then it happened again... "I like yah cut G," *SMACK* Pink was an Imposter Then right after that vote, yet another one was called. "ALRIGHT. KNOCK IT OFF. I'M TRYING TO DO MY DAMN TASKS AND YOUR MAKING IT VERY HARD FOR ME TO DO THEM WHEN YOU KEEP CALLING THESE DAMN MEETINGS," "You know Blue. You've been awful hostile and quite frankly suspicious this whole time. And how come you constantly go along with what everybody else says. And most importantly, why do you have a gun with you?" "STAY STRAPPED OR GET CLAPPED!!" Everybody including Twilight looked around at each other in silence, or possibly out of fear. He was clearly the most unstable out of the lot, and most defiantly a imposter. And the longer he stayed here, the more hostile he'll become. So the following actions weren't that hard for anyone to do. The fact that they didn't do it sooner was purely to use him as leverage in voting the other imposters off. But now that he was officially off his rocker. He needed to go. "..." "..." "..." "Uh-huh..." Yellow has voted. 6 remaining. Black voted. 5 remaining. Green voted. 4 remaining. Purple voted. 3 remaining. Teal voted. 2 remaining. Brown voted. 1 remaining. Red voted. 0 remaining. "OH YOU MOTHER FU-"' "I like yah cut G," *SMACK* Blue was an Imposter And thus... The voting came again and again. The subject matter for each imposter getting kicked into space was different for every single one of them. The Purple crewmate managed to convince even the most stubborn of the bunch into voting off their friends despite the fact that everything he was saying was purely fabricated. Everything that he was saying was completely made up and yet the imposters continued to go along with it. Twilight reflected on this and recalled the many times in the past in her life when ponies just went along with whatever the loudest guy in the room said. Its was, jarring to say the least to see it broken down to its very basics here, as if she were to learn from this. Purple barely had to convince them at all for them to go along with what he said. It was almost as if they lacked the proper intelligence to formulate their own reasoning. Regardless of the implications Twilight was happy to watch the groups numbers slowly dwindle. Eventually, the last imposter Black, was flung into space by purple's almighty hand. And when that happened Twilight found herself on that balcony with Purple and Yellow all standing there staring up at the night sky. It was over, that was the last imposter, which meant that the crew mates had received the victory that they deserved. Twilight could finally breathe easy now. The night had flown by them for as they looked off into the distance and up into the starry sky, they could see the sun rise slowly beginning to manifest on the horizon. It had been a long night filled with screams gunfire and social implications... But it was over now. Twilight turned around to talk to Yellow about the reason behind him wanting her book, but when she turned to locate him he was gone, which just left her and Purple standing there on the balcony while the sunrise got brighter as the stars began to fade. "Hey... Where did Yellow go?" Twilight asked Purple as she looked around for the crewmate. "He went back to the lobby. The round is over, therefore he exited the game and went back to the main menu," Purple said as he watched the sun come up. "Oh. I see, wait... if Yellow disappeared, why aren't you disappearing?" Twilight asked as she looked over at Purple with a confused look on her face. Purple turned to her with a hand on the balcony. She could tell he was smiling by the way his dome arched. "Oh Twilight, you still haven't noticed it yet have you... think back to how many crewmates we voted off and how many of them died, there were ten of us..." Twilights stopped and pondered what the Purple crewmate said. "Alright so... During your explanation inside the closet and further explanation in the hallway towards cafeteria, you said that there were ten of you in total... And we just got rid of... eight of them... and White was the first one to die after he got electrocuted at the wiring panel, and yellow and you... are crewmates..." Twilight would think long and hard about what the Purple crewmate was trying to get at. Before suddenly she got where he was going. "Wait a minute! You plus Yellow and the rest doesn't make ten! It makes eleven! Which means that you, aren't a crewmate and you aren't an imposter! Who are you!?" Twilight said as she lit up her horn to defend herself from this mystery crewmate. The mystery man would not be intimidated by her display of force, instead the crew member laughed. But it wasn't malicious laughter no, it sounded like motherly laughter, laughter that she had heard before many times. Laughter that she only remembered hearing in Canterlot when she visited the princesses. The purple crewmate would begin to glow a dark blue, and would start to morph into the shape of an alicorn. An alicorn with a star spangled mane, and deep blue eyes. "Princess Luna!!" Twilight would mediately extinguisher horn as she jumped forward towards the princess as she grappled around her into a hug. The princess of the night would greet her with a hug in return. "Hello Princess Twilight. It is good to see you," She said as she embraced the younger Alicorn. Twilight would then leave the hug and would stand before the princess of the night. "Wait... So that means... This was all a dream? None of this actually happened? I'm asleep? Which means I'm back in my library, sleeping at my table," She asked. Princess Luna would nod her head. "Yes... That is where you reside at this time. You fell asleep hours ago, and I saw through into your dream tonight that you were having a nightmare. So I figured I would insert myself into your story and assist you, making first contact with you inside that broom closet," She said as she ran her hoof through Twilights mane. Twilight would smile from her doing this, enjoying the fact that she went out of the way for her just to help. "Thank you Princess Luna! I really needed the help back there. Things were getting out if control! I couldn't handle it on my own. Thanks for stepping in," Luna would smile brighter as she nodded her head. "You're very welcome Twilight. And I hope you've learned a lesson about how crowd mentality works. Just because everypony thinks one way doesn't mean you can't form your own opinions, and think how you please. In todays modern world, ponies often forget the fact that they don't need to go with the flow and accept the status quo. Sometimes it's okay to be a bit of a rebel, or just embrace your traditions," Twilight smiled and nodded to her in return. "Yeah. Especially when your life is on the line and things could go very bad for you if you aren't careful," She said as she stood beside her wiser, taller friend. "Very true Twilight. Celestia would be proud of you if she were here. But, I think it's time for you to wake up. My time here grows short as the night grows short as well," She said as she would begin to fade away, "Please come visit us soon, we miss you up here in Canterlot," Twilight would give Luna a big hug before she grew to ghost like to hold onto, as she laughed. "Okay... okay, I'll come up the moment I have some free time!" She said as her dream would begin to fade around her, and before she knew it she found herself back in her Library. It was much brighter in here now as the sun began to shine through the many windows in the ceiling of the great library. Twilight had indeed slept the greater portion of the night away. And much to her dismay she had not gotten the chance to read all the books she wanted to that night. She had instead slept all of her free time away. But while she was slightly annoyed, it was nice to see Princess Luna again. Twilight Would stand up, shedding her blanket for real this time, while stretching her body and her wings out. She for real extinguished the lantern that was still Illuminating the area around her, while she fold the blanket neatly into squares. She put all of her books back on their respective shelves in alphabetical order, and stepped out of her book cave into the greater library. She'd just have to read them... tomorrow night. And hopefully she won't have anymore dreams about astronauts.