The crowd was becoming even more restless than Squidward stated, and Mr. Krabs knew he was the only one who would be able to get it under control before something worse happened.
As the protestors began to shout even louder, even picking up Squidward's boat desk (plus Squidward), Mr. Krabs held up his claws. “STOP!!!!!”
Everyone stopped at the shout and the customers even dropped the boat desk, leaving Squidward to fall as well. “I'm not your enemy!” Mr. Krabs shouted before showing a wanted sign of Plankton. “Plankton is your enemy!”
“So is he an anemone or a plankton?” Squidward asked sarcastically, and Pipp played a rimshot on her phone, causing many to glare at her. “Somepony had to do it!”
“But... Mr. Krabs?” Misty tried to speak, but Mr. Krabs went on with his speech, showing off a drawn picture of a Krabby Patty. “He took this from you!”
“Krabby Patty...” murmured one customer in hunger. “I can almost taste it,” Sandals added in the same manner. That's when SpongeBob decided to try again. “Uh, Mr. Krabs, Plankton didn't take the secret formula.”
“Not now, SpongeBob!” Mr. Krabs fussed, tossing the paper away, which fell into Patrick's expecting arms. “Hey!” Patrick called out. “I ordered a double Krabby Patty!”
“So join me!” Mr. Krabs shouted to the customers. “Help get the formuler back, and I'll give each and every one of you a free Krabby Patty!”
To this, everyone in the crowd cheered, but Mr. Krabs immediately regretted the choice of words. “Oh, no! Wait! Even better, a slight discount!”
The customers groaned, but the groaning was forgotten and they followed Mr. Krabs to the Chum Bucket, only to have SpongeBob and the ponies looking on. “But...” SpongeBob said quietly, “...he didn't do it.”
“Oh, SpongeBob... I can't imagine how much of a stressful situation you're in right now,” Sunny frowned, putting a gentle hoof on his shoulder. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
“There is something we can do,” Misty said with a serious expression. “We can go help Plankton escape from that mob, and then work with him to find Sparky and the formula.”
“What?!” Hitch exclaimed. “No-- absolutely not!”
“Exactly my thoughts. What if Plankton DID steal the formula somehow?” Zipp agreed. “Then we'd be helping the enemy, and we would never find Sparky!”
“Look... maybe this is what the Unity Crystals called us to do,” Sunny stated. “Help Plankton turn himself around and become a better... plankton? So... I think we need to at least try.”
SpongeBob smiled at this with a relieved expression. “Thanks, Sunny. But we better get over there before Mr. Krabs tears Plankton apart.”
XXXXXXXXX
Back at the Chum Bucket, Plankton was telling his wife everything that went on just 30 minutes before, completely downtrodden. “I had it right in my greedy little mitts, and then... poof! And now it's gone. Gone forever. Oh, I was so close to gaining the people's respect/fear.”
“Uh, Plankton?”
“Oh, when will my frustration/humiliation end?”
“Plankton?”
“Not now, hon!” Plankton groaned. “I'm ranting/raving. All right, what is it?”
“Well, I was trying to tell you there's an angry mob outside. But now they're inside.”
When Plankton looked around, he realized that Karen was completely right, and became frightened as Mr. Krabs grabbed him, the customers grabbed Karen and they all went back outside, where Plankton was heavily slammed to the ground. “You all look very hungry,” Plankton chuckled nervously. “Can I get anybody a Chum Burger?”
“Enough with the niceties, Plankton!” Mr. Krabs spoke harshly. “This is the last time I'm going to ask you. Where is me formuler?”
“I told you, Krabs,” Plankton said as he began to scoot away, “I don't have it!”
“Wrong answer,” Mr. Krabs snarled, but just as Plankton feared he would be stomped upon...
“STOP!!”
Everyone looked to see SpongeBob and the other ponies now in the center of the crowd, and looking very determined... for a reason the crowd did not know of. “All right, Mr. Krabs,” SpongeBob stated, rolling up his sleeves as the ponies swam closer. “Let us get in on this.”
“What's going on around here?” Plankton wondered in confusion, just as Misty pushed Mr. Krabs aside with her hoof. “You may want to step back a little, Mr. Krabs. This could get messy.”
“Let's hope so.”
SpongeBob leaned over and shoved his face close to Plankton's. “So you won't talk, eh, Plankton? I didn't want to have to do this.”
He pulled out a bottle of bubble solution, unscrewed the cap, and removed the wand. Then he expertly dipped the wand in the soapy liquid. “Plankton, here comes the pain.”
“Soap in the eye, eh?” Mr. Krabs smirked. “Diabolical!”
SpongeBob took a deep breath and pursed his lips, just as Plankton held up his tiny hands to stop him. “No! Please, don't!”
But instead of causing Plankton any harm, SpongeBob blew a large, shiny bubble that surrounded Plankton completely. “Wait...” Mr. Krabs frowned in confusion. “That didn't look painful.”
“Mr. Krabs, you may not understand what we're about to do today,” SpongeBob said as he and the ponies climbed into the bubble with Plankton, “but someday we'll look back... and have a good laugh.”
As he said these last words, the bubble began to float higher and higher into the sky. “Hey!” said one fish. “They're getting away!”
“We're sorry, Mr. Krabs!” Zipp apologized. But Mr. Krabs wasn't interested in the ponies, but more or less on SpongeBob himself. “So, you've been running a long con on me, eh? All these years you've been working for Plankton!”
“They're in cahoots!” one fish named Paco cried out. “Yeah, I guess that's a short way of saying it. Stop that bubble!”
The customers ran after the bubble on the ground, and SpongeBob and the ponies desperately tried to keep the bubble moving, just as one fish threw another fish toward the bubble to pop it, and the fish desperately clung to the bubble to prevent falling. “Please tell me there's something soft below me...”
“Mmmm, nope.”
The customer screamed and fell to the ground, just as the bubble floated out of sight. “SPONGEBOOOOOOOOOOB!!!!!!” Mr. Krabs cried as the bubble floated out of their line of sight. “Oh, you were like an underpaid son to me. I would have expected Squidward to stab me in the back!”
Squidward quickly woke up from his standing nap, just as Mr. Krabs continued. “But SpongeBob, me most trusted employee, working with me sworn enemy and those horses? You know what this means, Mr. Squidward?”
“We get the rest of the day off?”
“No!” Mr. Krabs snapped. “This be but a harbinger of what I fear lies ahead. For you, for me, for all of Bikini Bottom! The Krabby Patty is what ties us all together! Without it, there will be a complete breakdown of social order! A war of all against all! Dark times are ahead! Dark times indeed!”
He quickly fell on his face, but Squidward merely rolled his eyes at the outlandish thought. “Seriously?” he asked as Mr. Krabs got up. “Aren't you overreacting a bit?”
But when he looked around, Squidward saw that Bikini Bottom had already erupted into flames. People were looting stores and fighting each other over scraps of food. The town had become a violent, ugly place. And Squidward and Mr. Krabs themselves were suddenly wearing leather outfits that made them look tough.
“Welcome to the apocalypse, Mr. Squidward. I hope you like leather.”
“I prefer suede.”
XXXXXXXXX
“And so, Bikini Bottom became an apocalyptic cesspool forevermore! The end!” Burger Beard closed the book and stretched, but the seagulls around him protested the end of the story.
“Wait a minute. That's a terrible ending!”
“Oh, this is bad! Really bad! SpongeBob's in trouble, and the story's over?!”
One bird even banged his head against the bell as a seagull named Henry frowned and got on the steering wheel. “There is no way that that's the end of the story.”
“Of course it is,” Burger Beard responded. “Just turn around.”
Henry turned around, and the pirate plucked a feather from him and wrote "The End" on one of the book's pages. Not wanting the story to end, Henry tried to pull the book out of his hands, and after a struggle, Henry accidentally tore loose the page that Burger Beard had written on.
The pirate scrambled to grab back the torn page, but he slipped and fell on the deck. “You better keep reading, Mr. Pirate,” a seagull named Andy said as their butts turned to face him, and Henry tossed the torn page into the ocean, “or else!”
XXXXXXXXX
At the same time, Patrick entered the demolished Krusty Krab and approached Squidward rather calmly. “Good morning, Squidward. I'll have the usual,” he said as a boat crashed right into the building. “With cheese.”
“We're out of Krabby Patties right now!” Squidward told him, causing Patrick to slowly back up as his clothing changed into post-apocalyptic clothing. “No... Krabby Patties? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”
XXXXXXXXX
Back in the skies of Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob, Plankton and the ponies looked down at the town with worry and disdain, SpongeBob’s being the worst and the most worrisome of the bunch. “Look what's become of Bikini Bottom.”
“We've really got to get Sparky and the formula back,” Zipp agreed with folded ears. “Hmm... get the secret formula, you say? Excuse me, I...need a moment,” Plankton said before turning away and talking to himself. “With that formula, I could rule the world! Ha ha ha ha ha... ahem.
“You know we can hear you, right?” Hitch asked with a narrowed look. But Plankton decided to avoid the question for now. “Well, what do we do now?”
“Now we work together,” SpongeBob smiled positively. “You know? Teamwork!”
Plankton's face scrunched up in confusion. “What's a te-amwork?”
“No, Plankton. Teamwork.”
“Te-amwork.”
“Teamwork.”
“Tie em work.”
“Teamwork.”
“Tie em up.”
That's when SpongeBob and Sunny tried to explain things a little better than before. “Say team,” said SpongeBob, “like a sports...”
“Team.”
“Now say work.”
“Work.”
Sunny pressed her hooves together. “Put em together, what do you got?”
“Time bomb... work.”
Despite it being nowhere close, SpongeBob shrugged. “Getting better.”
XXXXXXXXX
Back at her safe tree dome, Sandy was just about to dig into the Krabby Patties she had gotten earlier, and turned on the Bikini Bottom Action News when she heard something knock against her window with a loud thunk.
When she turned, she saw Patrick with his tongue out, pressing up against her window. “Oh, hey, Patrick!”
But as she began to take a bite out of her Krabby Patty, Patrick banged on the window to try and get some of it for herself. And when she finally ate it whole, Patrick groaned and walked away in dejection. “Come on, tummy, it's gonna be a long day...”
Suddenly, the television's special report caught Sandy's attention immediately, turning to Perch Perkins, the town's newsman. “Perch Perkins reporting live from downtown Bikini-- ah!! Bottom,” Perch dodged a flying boat. “Complete chaos here today as our town attempts to deal with a sudden and complete shortage of Krabby Patties. Whoa! Events here have this reporter wondering, what is the secret ingredient in Krabby Patties anyway?!”
“It's love!!” a fish wailed. “The secret ingredient is love!”
Sandy quickly shut off the TV to register what she had just heard. “No more Krabby Patties? If I'd have known that, I'd have chewed it slower. Huh?”
Slowly, the page that Burger Beard wrote on fell down right over her tree dome, and Sandy couldn't believe what the page said.
The End.
XXXXXXXXX
At the same time, SpongeBob and the ponies were trying to explain to Plankton the true meaning of teamwork. “Come on Plankton, it's easy!” SpongeBob said enthusiastically. “It means, we help you, you help us, and when we accomplish our goal, then we do hands in the middle.”
“Hands in the middle? No, no. Sounds idiotic,” Plankton disagreed, and this caused the ponies to either scowl at him or frown dejectedly. “Besides, the eight of us are no match for that cranky mob.”
Down in Bikini Bottom, the angry horde was destroying a doughnut shop, pushing on the side of the building until it tipped over and burst into flames. Doughnuts flew everywhere and people from the mob frantically gathered up doughnuts and carried them off, laughing hysterically, madness in their eyes.
Seeing this made Plankton immediately cringe. “We could probably use a few more te-amworks.”
But luckily, that made SpongeBob and Izzy brighten, and SpongeBob hopped onto the seapony-turned unicorn's back. “That's exactly what we were thinking!”
“Wait, what are you doing--?!”
But it was too late. Izzy used her horn to pop the bubbles, sending them plummeting to the Bikini Bottom floor, right beside SpongeBob's house. And, in an unlikely turn of events, Plankton was the only one bruised from the fall.
But what they saw surprised them.
Patrick was sitting on top of his house, banging his face against the rock. But instead of his usual shorts, he was wearing a futuristic-looking leather outfit, smashing his rock house with the hammer on his head. “I... need... Krabby Patties!”
“Patrick! What are you doing?” Sunny asked curiously. “Krabby Patties!” Patrick cried, before turning to the others, staring at him. “Vandalizing stuff.”
“Isn't that your house?” Hitch asked, but this caused Patrick to frown. “Hey, what's with all the questions? Who are you guys?”
“It's me,” the yellow sponge said, “your best friend. SpongeBob?”
“Oh, yeah? Well, if you're SpongeBob, then what's the secret password?”
SpongeBob, Patrick and the ponies looked at each other in confusion. “Uh...”
“Correct! It is you! SPONGEBOB!!” Patrick tackled SpongeBob head on, both of them toppling to the ground. “SpongeBob!”
“Patrick!”
“SpongeBob!” Patrick cried again before he became concerned, sitting on top of Plankton. “Why aren't you at The Krusty Krab making Krabby Patties?”
“We'll, I'd love to,” SpongeBob stated, “but the formula's gone!”
“Yeah,” Patrick said, “Mr. Krabs says you and Plankton took it.”
“No, that's not what happened. It just disappeared!” Sunny said, and Misty nodded in agreement. “We're putting a team together to find it.”
“A team? Oh! Oh! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!” Patrick gave SpongeBob a huge bear hug. “Okay, Patrick, you're in.”
“I don't know, SpongeBob,” Plankton popped out of the sand. “What does this clown bring to the te-am?”
“He brings loyalty, Plankton. Loyalty,” SpongeBob answered confidently. “Isn't that right, Patrick?”
“Yeah yeah, loyalty,” Patrick nodded... just before be turned and did the unthinkable. “I got SpongeBob! HE'S OVER HERE!!!”
The ponies immediately became fearful as Patrick began to sound the alarm. Krabs and the others were coming toward them, and fast! “Come on, SpongeBob!” Zipp cried as the ponies turned to flee. “Let's get out of here!”
But SpongeBob wouldn't leave his best friend like this. “Patrick--” he tried to say, but Patrick sat on him before continuing the alarm. “Patrick, why are you doing this?!”
“Because I... need... KRABBY... PATTIES!!” Patrick screamed at the top of his lungs. “Hurry up!” he then shouted to the approaching mob. “I'm hungry!”
“SpongeBob, grab my horn!” Misty cried, and once SpongeBob grabbed it, she flicked her fins and managed to pull SpongeBob free before they fled from the scene. “Guys?!” Patrick called out. “Am I still on the team?!”
XXXXXXXXX
The ponies had never swam this fast before in their entire lives-- they had to get their friends somewhere safe, and SpongeBob knew just the place...
Sandy's tree dome!
Once they arrived, SpongeBob turned on the air lock and provided water filled helmets for him and Plankton so they could breathe. And luckily, for the ponies, their tails turned back into their legs so they could go on land, and Zipp made an effort to think about it in her detective reports later.
When they entered, the inside of the dome was dark and eerie. Pieces of paper were stuck all over the inside of the dome, blocking the light, and something was running across the branches of the trees. “Sandy...? Sandy? Are you home?” SpongeBob called. “Gee, guys, I wonder where she is.”
“Hey... what is all this stuff?” Hitch wondered, looking at some of the papers. But suddenly, they heard something running behind them, but when they turned, they saw nothing there. “Sandy?” SpongeBob croaked. What was going on?
When he reached to examine the papers on the wall, he was pounced on by the post apocalyptic Sandy. “Don't touch that!!” she screeched before burying herself in a pile of books for reading. Sunny knew what it was like to be caught up in research, but this seemed a little extreme. “Sandy?” she called. “Are you okay?”
“Okay?!” Sandy shrieked, moving a chalkboard to the side and gesturing to the demolished town. “Have you looked outside? Does that seem OKAY to you?! I'm trying to figure out what happened to society. If we don't fix it soon, there won't be anything left to fix!!”
“Sandy!” SpongeBob cried worriedly, turning to the others. “The lack of Krabby Patties has driven her mad!”
“Gee...” Pipp rolled her eyes. “That's a no brainer, SpongeBob.”
“Pipp!” the white pegasus snapped. “Be nice!”
“I think I figured it out!” Sandy realized. “Look...”
She yanked some papers and tore them off the curved glass dome. Through the dome, the ponies, SpongeBob and Plankton could see a big sheet of paper with THE END on it. “When this came down from above, I knew it could only mean one thing.”
“And that would be...?” Misty wondered, and Sandy blinked. “It means it's the end!!” she screeched. “The sandwich gods are angry with us!!”
“Sandwich gods?” the group questioned. “I just don't know how we're going to appease them!” Sandy said before she went back to her work, and the others found themselves backing up toward the door as Plankton turned to SpongeBob. “You got any other friends who aren't dim bulbs or nut jobs?”
“Well, I have one friend who's loyal to the very end.”
XXXXXXXXX
When SpongeBob saw his pineapple home, he gasped. It had been severely damaged by a wandering mob! And for some reason, the inside was covered in gooey snail slime. “Gary!” SpongeBob called, but his pet wasn't in his bedroom. “Gare-Bear? Gary? Gary?”
As they walked into the lower levels of the house, Pipp swam right into some slime, causing her to scream in disgust, and Plankton shuddered. “Revolting!”
“But it means Gary is close by!” SpongeBob said before he ran ahead. “Gary, I'm back!”
When they got further into the house, something made them stop and made their eyes go completely wide. “Whoa...”
SpongeBob's pet snail was sitting on a giant throne, surrounded by pillars and huge fire pits, and they were surrounded by snail shells of different sizes. “Oh, hey, Gary,” SpongeBob greeted as the ponies stared in shock. “My new friends and Plankton and I need you to help us find the Krabby Patty formula and fix Bikini Bottom.”
Gary meowed at this, and SpongeBob quickly frowned at the response he got. “What do you mean you don't have to do as I say anymore?”
Gary meowed again, and that made the sponge frown even more than he was originally. “What do you mean 'king of snails'?” he asked, crossing his arms. “Gary the Snail, you get down here right now and join this team!”
But then, when Gary meowed again, Hitch pause as he contemplated the snail's response. “W-What do you mean 'seize them'?!”
All the snails who had been in their shells, paying their respects to Gary, the King of the Snails, turned to SpongeBob and Plankton and their pony friends. Then they advanced on them with their fangs bared, growling!
This was enough to sent SpongeBob screaming from the house, dragging the ponies behind him. “Why are we running?!” Misty cried. “Because they're right on our tails...”
When they turned again, SpongeBob realized the snails weren't moving very quickly, making him blink. “Oh, right. Snails.”
“Well,” Plankton scoffed, “so much for your te-am.”
“Putting together a team is a lot harder than I thought it would be!” SpongeBob sniffled back tears of heartache, leaving Izzy and Misty to comfort him. But it wasn't long until they saw the mob advancing toward them, and Hitch came up with a risky decision. “Come on, guys-- we better get out of here until things cool off!”