//------------------------------// // Aariadon's PGDQ: I Against I, Me Against You (SigmasonicX's "Pony Games Done Quick: The Enchanted Library") // Story: Never the Final Word (Vol. 2) // by FanOfMostEverything //------------------------------// "Alright, since we came in 10 minutes under estimate, I believe we are doing the bonus any percent run of I Against I, Me Against You?" continued the announcer. "Yup!" replied RariTwi27. "Though it's more of a showcase than a run." The game credits were immediately replaced with a desktop wallpaper featuring Rarity and Twilight in dramatic action poses, while Pinkie Pie's faint "See you next time, hope you get PB!" could be heard as the game closed. The desktop icons were organized in the most infuriating way, as was tradition for many, although Rarity's horn was pointing at a The Enchanted Library shortcut and Twilight's was pointing to an I Against I, Me Against You shortcut. It was the latter RariTwi27 opened. "Alright." They started, as the time estimate reset to 5:00, and logos for Hasbro, 343 Industries, Microsoft, and Rooster Teeth played one after the other. "This is a pretty quick run. The start and end of the game are in the same map, and we really only need to pull off two glitches and take advantage of an oversight to beat the game. The skips we're using were only found last year and cut the any percent time down from thirty minutes to a world record of just under a minute." The main menu had finally loaded, featuring a colorful assortment of both space marines and ponies. RariTwi27 moved the cursor from "Continue" to "New Game". "Starting in 3... 2...1... start!" The menu faded to black, replaced by the night sky with the silhouette of a running Twilight in the corner. "We tend to use in-game time rather than RTA due to variable load times and the short speed of the run." The running Twilight vanished and the night sky zoomed out slightly to reveal it was being viewed through a telescope. "Ok, first I am going to spam B here to break this cutscene and gain control." "Hey...." Spike said off-camera. The view almost immediately zoomed out further and moved above the telescope viewer, Twilight Sparkle, who backed away from the telescope. Spike sat next to her on the balcony of the Golden Oaks. "OK" RariTwi27 continued. "Got it." That prompted light applause and cheering from the crowd. "Yeah?" Twilight continued, seemingly oblivious to what had happened. "Now, in the final game this is supposed to be a cutscene, but we think the developers originally wanted this scene to have more interactivity." “Do you ever wonder why we’re here?” Spike asked Twilight. Someone from the crowd yelled out "No. Semper Fi, B****!" in their best Grif voice, which was barely audible on the mics. Some nervous laughter commenced. Twilight replied to Spike, musing about the nature of existence. "Uh, heh, moving on, I could talk to Spike which restarts this conversation, or use the telescope which moves the story along, but I can't do much else. I can't even jump off of this balcony with a really low railing due to an invisible wall here." RariTwi27 showed how Twilight smacked into nothing when trying to jump. "This is a likely reason why this section was scrapped. This balcony is only used in this cutscene; every other time you can come up here it's part of the Ponyville map so you can just jump off no problem. But let's just jump over this wall anyway." Twilight jumped on top of Spike's head, then jumped on top of the telescope, and finally jumped on top of the invisible wall, finally stepping off to fall to the ground. Spike and Twilight had been talking back and forth the whole time, and Spike continued with "I meant, 'why are we here?'" but as Twilight fell to the ground his voice line cut off and he said "Twilight, where are you going?" RariTwi27 commented "We think the script that triggers that line was meant for the crash site scene, but ended up being unused. It can't trigger here normally so the Spike object was probably reused from that scene and they forgot to remove it. Fortunately for us, it stops the cutscene so we don't get moved to the next map." The area outside of Golden Oaks was just a flat plane of grass, with no signs of Ponyville; clearly, Twilight was expected to remain on the balcony with a top-down camera view. The camera now settled behind Twilight's shoulder. "OK, that was the most difficult part of the run." The crowd cheered and clapped for a bit, a few people laughing. Raising their voice slightly to be heard, RariTwi27 continued, "This is the "indoor" map for Golden Oaks so we're not supposed to be out here, but this also means we can clip through the door since there's no collision on the outside. Twilight ran around to the front and phased through the front door "Ow!" she winced, shaking her head. "Ah, the inside still has collision, so we got a bonk animation there, it's hard to miss. "Now, because we didn't enter the library by a door, all the objects in here didn't properly load in. So we can interact with anything that would be here from any time in the story, with the exception of Spike, who is still upstairs. But there's one particular item we're interested in." Twilight walked up to the center table. "Aaaand... time!" called RariTwi27. The screen faded to black. The crowd clapped politely. A cutscene faded back in, showing Twilight staring at something invisible. "Now Twilight is inspecting Church's sniper rifle with the model not loaded in, and that's the end, except for the credits and after-credits teaser we never got a payoff for." Twilight pulled an invisible note out of the barrel of the invisible sniper rifle, read it, smiled, and put both down as the camera panned around to reveal the message on the note... or would have if it had been visible. The music swelled and the camera cut to black. Cue credits. The announcer cut in "OK, everyone give it up for RariTwi27 for an amazing run and showcase!" The crowd cheered and clapped as the stream cut away. The credits continued to scroll by as RariTwi27 talked to the other people on their end of things and was otherwise distracted from shutting down their PC right away. One of those small video clips that sometimes scrolls by in credits popped up, showing a small box canyon with a base at either end, and a few blue space marines sitting down on the top of one base. "... Isn't she supposed to be here right now?" Church asked Tucker. "It's today right? The crossover stuff. We were promised good money." "Wait, a chick, coming to visit us? Uh... don't put me on the spot like this, Church! Something, something, cross HER over. Bow chicka..." "She's a tiny horse." "Oh. Nevermind." "... I need to have a word with my agent." "Hello?" Someone off camera asked. "I am the Best Friend and Secret Agent Caboose! Don't tell anyone." Church just stared at Caboose as the camera slowly panned to include him in frame. "... It's a SECRET." Caboose continued. "I didn't ask." The credits finished and the video clip faded out.