//------------------------------// // The Views Expressed Here Are Not Necessarily the Views of the Author or the Author's Affiliates // Story: Thirty Minute Express Train to Story Town // by Predhack //------------------------------// Warning In Advance: The Mane Six only appear in this one briefly. It mostly focuses on the OC characters of the people who come up with the prompts on the Thirty Minute Ponies tumblr. ----------------------------- Six ponies, a hairy human, a pink butterfly monster, and a mechanical beast of porcine nature were conversing pleasantly with each other and enjoying mugs of tea and a delicious cake like food sprinkled with coconut. They appeared to all be waiting for another member to join them, with the exceptions of a grey pegasus and yellow unicorn who had absconded to one corner of the table with a small plate of food and were engaged in the business of snuggling and giggling as the whispered to each other. A purple pony with a cutie mark of a heart and quill sat in the opposite corner mumbling to himself and scribbling on page after page of paper, stopping only to look at thick textbooks, before returning to the papers with the fury of a mother bear over her cubs. The odd group all sat up, with the exception of the cuddling pair, as the door to the conference room opened to allow light brown unicorn in. They waited politely while the new pony made her way to the head of the conference table and took her seat. She looked over those gathered at the table and seemed to mentally note all in attendance before smiling. “I’m glad we could all make it. Before we begin the weekly meeting I’d just like everyone to welcome Professor Piggy, and thank him for preparing the tea and cake things we’ve all been enjoying.” A green earth pony who’d been midsip stopped suddenly and narrowed his eyes at the green and purple mug that matched his coat and mane he’d been drinking from. His eyes darted to the metal pig and back at his mug frantically several times. “Thank you Miss Thought Bubble. It’s a pleasure to be here. And DB I would hope you of all ponies would recognize that I would not poison all these ponies just to get at you,” the metal pig spoke in an appropriately robotic voice. DB seemed to accept this reassurance and took another swallow of tea. Seeing the situation defused Thought Bubble nodded and resumed speaking, “Professor Piggy has agreed to come on to help us out while Purple Prose catches up on his backlog of work.” She waved a hoof in the direction of the pony surrounded by textbooks, who, like the pair across from him, had completely failed to notice anything that had happened in the room. “Furthermore Piggy has promised to keep the evil turned down and to try not to destroy his nemesis DB.” Professor Piggy sat up from where he’d been idly drawing pictures of two ponies kissing with a start and turned to face the speaker, “I don’t recall agreeing to that first part.” As if on cue the green coated earth pony across from him began to choke and gasp before falling under the table writhing. The group stared at the robot who returned the looks with as much confusion as his robotic face could portray, “What? She did say I would TRY not to destroy him. Besides he’s only in agony. As if I could let him off so easily.” “Is the tea actually safe to drink?” a dragon winged Pegasus asked, looking at his cup speculatively. “Oh, quite safe. I only poisoned DB’s mug. It struck me as having more finesse. The lambingtons though are pure sin and decadence made of chocolate and sprinkled with coconut. Guaranteed to destroy a diet. You may wish to cut the butterfly off before he finds himself unable to fly under his considerable weight gain.” Hearing mention of him the butterfly in question looked up from eating its twelfth cake and then sheepishly rubbed its handlike appendages together before pushing the crumb covered plate away. “Right, well if that’s all I think we should get started. Today’s agenda covers deciding on our prompts for this week and deciding on a theme for next week. Norse what did you have in mind for you prompt?” The horned helmet wearing pony had no time to answer as the door to the conference room suddenly flew open with a loud bang and more ponies flooded into the room. The members of the TMP group watched in shock as Twilight Sparkle and her friends filed into the room and took combative stances, Rainbow Dash and Applejack running to surround the table and keep them away from the windows. “Don’t anypony, or human and butterfly,” Twilight nodded at the two non ponies at the table as she spoke, “move. We’re here to punish you for all the stories you keep encouraging people to write!” she declared. “You’ll never take me alive!” the Viking helmeted pony shouted smashing his mug against the table and holding out the sharp edged remains defensively. “What?” Twilight said, with disgust, “No, we’re not here to fight. We’re ponies. We’re just keeping you from escaping while your punishment is delivered.” “And what’s our punishment,” The human at the table asked. “A severe scolding,” Twilight replied, “Maybe after we’re done with you you’ll think twice about writing stories about bad things happening to us, or us falling inlove with each other. We’re just friends dang it!” “Surrrre you are,” the TMP group chorused eerily and exchanged knowing glances. “But… how did you find this place?” Though Bubble asked, turning the subject back to their situation, “We moved the location every week so no one could track us down.” “I’m afraid that would be my doing,” a mechanical voice spoke. Professor Piggy stood and moved to stand beside Twlight Sparkle as he continued. “It took some time but you finally trusted me enough to bring me to your meetings.” “You? But we were making you a mod! How could you give up that power?!” Piggy rubbed one metal hoof against his chest over the PP mark and then looked at it obliquely. “Oh, I assure you I’m being quite well compensated. Speaking of which, my payment?” Piggy turned to Twilight. “Oh right, Fluttershy?” The yellow Pegasus came out from where she had been hiding behind Rarity and Pinkie. Twilight nodded to her and Fluttershy turned to Pinkie who broke off from growling at those at the table to look back at her friend. Fluttershy glanced around nervously before darting in and pecking Pinkie on the cheek, her face burning with embarrassment as she did so. Beside Twilight, Piggy clapped his hooves together and made tiny gleeful noises. Loud motors in his head beginning to heat his face to a warm red. “Alright, alright,” Thought interrupted the little display of horrid wrongness, “Just chew us out already Twilight. We’ve got other things to do today.” “Oh, I’m not going to chew you out,” Twilight said sounding smug, “We got a professional for that. “Huh?” “Fluttershy?” Fluttershy pulled her shameful face from her hooves and looked at Twilight, who waved at those at the table. “Let them have it.” Fluttershy looked at the assembled members and frowned. Suddenly all those seated there came to the simultaneous realization that they’d have preferred being beaten up to the admonishment they were about to receive.