It wasn’t long until we found who would help me learn to cartoon it up, fortunately for Banjo’s nerves it wasn’t the Warner trio. In fact he almost caused everyone including Chaos to jump feet into the air from the sudden shock of his appearance.
“MEEP MEEP!” Screwball literally reached for the sky as the blue and purple bird standing behind where she used to be smiled at the dot in the sky, his friend Kazooie said she met a cartoon character that needed to learn the basics.
Chaos’s reaction was to do a cartoon dash attack straight through a nearby wall leaving a pony shaped imprint in it. Banjo gave a small jolt causing the shortest jump. Derpy shot straight into the nearby clouds with a loud thud sound. The Warner brothers and their sister who had been entertaining guests to their world just jumped six feet before relaxing as they squashed hitting the ground and stretched back into shape. Seconds later Derpy would fly down carrying a sheepish looking Screwball.
“Yeah video game clouds are pretty solid aren’t they?” Yakko said childishly as he poked a bump on Derpy’s head. “In fact anyone can stand on them if they’re in the right game; you might want to put some ice on that.”
Within a minute of noticing the bump on Derpy’s head, Screwball pulled out a fully functional and cold ice pack from her propeller hat. It was accepted readily enough by Derpy, who placed it against her bump with a sigh. After a few moments the swelling went down and she hoofed it back to Screwball.
“You sure she needs training? She looks like she already got some of the cartoon spirit in her.” Dot smiled sweetly up at Banjo.
“Oh yeah, she definitely needs to learn the art. Hey Screwball, show them your pie and banana routine. Then I’ll introduce you properly to this guy here.” Banjo wrapped a friendly paw around the tall long legged bird who gave a soft fluting noise with flicks of its tongue. “So anyone want to volunteer for her?”
“I’ll do it, I love getting pie in my face.” Wakko smiled as he stepped forward, black and white fur, red hat and blue shirt with white gloves. It was really hard to describe what he and the other Warner’s were, his brother wore the pants in the family and his sister wore the skirt.
Screwball made her way forward and reached into her cap to pull out a banana cream pie, expecting it to be thrown in his Wakko smiled and took a proud dignified stance. Instead of receiving the pie in the face Screwball set it down in front of him within stepping range and trotted back a few feet. Wakko stopped his pose looking confused as Screwball pulled out and started to slowly consume a banana.
All the while everyone except the Warner siblings stood off to the side watching the event unfold with confusion, even Wakko was a little perturbed that she didn’t throw the pie at him and set it down like an offering. He waited patiently because there was obviously more to this, still though the pie was incredibly tempting as it started to make him sweat.
Both Yakko and Dot hadn’t moved from where they were standing previously and were scrutinizing what Screwball was up to… so far it just seemed to be she was setting Wakko up for something.
“I’m not seeing it…” Yakko said scratching his head as he knew cartoon buffoonery when he saw it. If this was the best Screwball could do then she wasn’t a very good cartoon character. At least she could have used a time delayed spring loaded pie.
“I think I do.” Dot knew Yakko was the responsible and talkative one of the group with his zingers and Wakko may have the gross out abilities cornered in the group, but the Warner sister was the one who could see the opportunities to pick at. Screwball had everyone’s guard down perfectly with an opening distraction tactic. As cute as Screwball may be, even Dot knew that the cute ones could pull off very intricately built, if simple looking, tricks.
Screwball finishing her banana looked over to Derpy and asked her to stand right next to her. Derpy moved over beside Screwball as asked, then Screwball whispered something into Derpy’s ear and she nodded.
Dot scrutinized this, a patsy ploy… hmm… she was going to have Derpy do part of her trick for her and she’s agreed to it. Despite the fact that she looked like a patsy, Derpy was no idiot even if she had the weird eyes... so maybe patsy ploy isn’t the right word for it… a stand-in ploy maybe?
“I’d ask you what she’s doing, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise for myself or for Wakko.” Yakko started to scrutinize the exchange of banana peel to Derpy’s hoof; he started to see what Dot was getting at where before he couldn’t understand it because it required a certain amount of perspective.
Derpy reeled back her hoof and tossed the banana peel straight at Wakko’s face, at the time everyone was paying too much attention to Derpy and Wakko’s interaction. If they had paid attention they would see what Screwball was doing in the background as she started setting things up quickly before running off.
Wakko gave an angry shout when the banana peel hit home causing him to lose balance lifting his right foot in the air. When Wakko’s foot came down it landed on the edge of the banana cream pie, this was subsequently followed by it flipping upwards and slamming into his face just as he removed the banana peel from it. The banana peel flew from his hand and landed in the street behind him near some coincidentally placed planks of wood with four paint cans on the end longest piece sitting atop several other pieces balance precariously.
At this point Dot was no longer focused on her brother enjoying the pie that he slammed into his own face; she was watching the paint cans and the planks of wood. Her eyes slowly traced a path to the banana peel. If she didn’t know any better…
Yakko also saw where Dot was looking… he looked to his right and saw Screwball galloping down the street being chased by their favorite local security guard Ralph. Yakko had a smile on his face, Wakko still too busy with the pie. It was a beautiful thing going on and it was happening so fast.
Pausing at the right moment Screwball gave a short hop over the banana peel and put her left hind leg on it. Yakko’s eyes widened as he realized that Screwball wasn’t leaving it up to chance that Ralph would hit the banana peel. She was making sure that he hit it, so yeah she definitely needed training even if she was already pretty clever. The potential in that pony was astounding, if only she had left the banana peel where it was, it would have still worked anyway.
Screwball grinned slightly when Ralph was five feet away, she shoved the banana peel precisely under one of the large oafish mans feet and then ran for Wakko’s backside. The order of events were as follows: Derpy took to the air after giving a merry little wave to Wakko confusing him, Screwball rammed into Wakko from behind dazing him while forcing him into the position where Derpy was approximately standing, Ralph during this was mid way into falling onto the other end of the plank of wood with the paint cans having slipped on the banana peel. Four paint cans filled with red paint and loosened lids shot up and flipped over.
Ralph, Yakko, Wakko and Dot were covered in red paint. The two other Warner siblings had not expected to be part of the gag and took the brunt of their portion of the gag with the dignity in the only way a cartoon character could. With utter disbelief that they were all targeted and successfully nailed and left blathering like idiots as they pulled the paint cans off their heads and Ralph was left out cold as his paint can knocked him silly.
“What can we say, you may seem all black and white… but you’re easily red all over.” That line really clinched it for the Warner’s as it was Derpy who delivered it as she came for a landing next Screwball.
“Nice one, but trust me on this… you’ll eventually be able to do this entire gag on your own Screwball. We can see why she needs the help with learning the ropes. She might as well learn the knots while she’s at it, come on guys let’s show her a trick of our own.” The three black and white cartoon characters gathered together and with a quick tornado generating spin they were squeaky clean of the paint that had been covering them. You’d think a trio’s clothing would have been stained by the paint, but it wasn’t. “We’ve got to get going, nice meeting you and thanks for the show. Learn what you can from our more classic pal over there, he definitely knows his stuff and if you ever need any help just give us a call. If you manage to get Hello Nurses number I and Wakko will call you… until you give it to us, goodnight everybody!”
They ran off before Screwball could even ask them how she was going to call them; she didn’t exactly have a long distance communication device like Banjo. Plot devices were a common video game realm item used for dimensional communications that never needed satellite coverage or even a paid for plan. She soon received a comforting hoof from Derpy.
“I wouldn’t worry about it; if we see them we’ll see them. So Banjo you said this was going to be our instructor? Well as some pony once said to me, Allons-y!” The large purple bird smiled at Derpy happily, he was accepting of her wanting to learn. In fact the one thing Derpy really wanted to learn was the teleportation trick that Pinkie was capable of, because it certainly made a lot more sense now how Pinkie did that stuff and it was because she was what a fully realized cartoon character could do. She figured this much out because if Screwball is a cartoon character and from Equestria, that meant she was a cartoon too.
They were all still out in front area of the lot, the bird was introduced by Banjo as Road Runner and he would show them where they would be practicing the art of cartooning. Then with a small cloud shaped like him and a line of quickly dissipating dust clouds he was gone, both Screwball and Derpy quickly gave chase. Hanging back Banjo walked over to the Chaos punctured wall and picked up the still dazed pony shaped creature before walking in the general direction all slow and steady shouldering his passenger.
Screwball didn’t think anything could keep up with Mr. Runner; he was so fast it was impossible to see where he went and the only thing they could follow was the cloud left behind by his running. It ended at a door to a studio, Derpy came to a landing beside her as she reached a hoof up to the door and pulled it open and got the shock of her life.
Inside the building was an expansive and endless looking dessert with cactuses, sand and tons of precariously placed rocks. Stepping through the door way she was actually standing on real sand and it wasn’t as hot as she thought a dessert would be, not to mention next door was some arid badlands in the distance and behind her Ms. Hooves also stepped through the door.
“Wow… kind of like the TARDIS… bigger on the inside. Huh, I wonder if he knows about cartoons.” Derpy rubbed her chin and the door closed behind her and turning around she didn’t see the door anymore, they were just standing in a wide open dessert that wasn’t hot at all despite the sun in the sparsely cloudy sky.
Soon they heard a sound and saw Mr. Runner running down the nearby pavement and within a second he paused in mid-air and this writing exclaimed something like “Road Runner (Speedomitrus Maximus)” before he continued zipping along the road. This was followed by a bipedal wolf like being who paused again in front of them in mid-air on the road with the words “Wile E. Coyote (Hungarius Uncontrolibus)” then he too continued running at a great speed though slightly less than that of Mr. Runner’s.
Road Runner’s Death Valley Rally video game realm innate ability: Large maximum acceleration and maximum speed boosts, average platform jumping ability. Stopping may be a problem at times.
Deciding to keep up with them Screwball started after them not sure how she was able to run at their speed or how her legs looked like solid circles at the speeds she was pulling, funny this wasn’t how her legs acted in the realm of Sonic the Hedgehog nor did she ever get this kind of acceleration.
Derpy wasn’t having much trouble keeping up because she could fly surprisingly well, unfortunately many tended to get her flying abilities confused with her best friend Ditsy Doo. Sure Derpy may have butter hooves and a powerful rump, but that didn’t mean they had to constantly confuse her with her friend who had a completely different cutie mark even if they looked similar. Really she has three friends who looked almost exactly like her and if it weren’t for the minor differences and the fact that the DNA tests came back negative you’d swear they were all related to each other.
The blonde pegasus found her flying speed and wings to be buzzing at least twice their normal ability; she chalked it up to the odd thing that happened to her in the other realm when she was flying away from Chaos who was creepily following her in his sleep. Her wings then started to slowly build up in strength and power before they petered out like a two tailed fox that can’t fly forever with his tails.
As she rounded a corner in the road Screwball came to a skidding halt and stared confusedly at the scene going on, Derpy landed next to her and they looked at each other and then back at the bridge and what was taking place on it.
A little pile of bird seed with a sign proclaiming it to be free sat there and Mr. Runner was studying the bird seed before he started to rapidly peck at it eating it grain by grain. Slowly a saw roughly shoved its way through the bridge and slowly started to circle around the road runner whose name was Road Runner. Looking slightly downward the ponies could see the Coyote sawing the hole in the bridge and when he was finished Mr. Runner would fall. What happened was not to their expectations.
After he finished sawing the entire bridge collapsed with the coyote, it left a perfect circle in mid-air floating there with the Road Runner standing on it still consuming the bird seed. The coyote was most likely crushed under the weight of the collapsing tons of metal and the ponies didn’t know whether to feel sorry that the coyote died or rather to laugh at the absurdity of the situation of an entire bridge collapsing to leave a single piece to defy gravity. Road just gave a short hop fluting his tongue several times.
“Meep meep!” Road finished crossing the nonexistent bridge much to the confounded looks on the ponies faces, at the bottom of the chasm where the bridge lay they noticed the named Wile E. Coyote crawled out of the wreckage looking battered and bruised, but nowhere as dead as they thought he’d be.
Then the circular piece of the bridge that was still floating in the air fell and the coyote only managed two steps when it broke itself on his head. He seemed scary in the way he was chasing Mr. Runner and watching the final piece of the bridge hit him kind of made the ponies giggle a bit as he twirled in place like a ballerina and fell down.
They couldn’t hold it in anymore they started laughing till they cried, they didn’t like to watch the coyote get hurt but that was just plain silly enough to override their sense of sadness for the coyote. Screwball finally managed to calm down and she made her way down the road to the coyote, Derpy just decided to hover overhead as Screwball sped down the way and stopped short of the still breathing coyote.
“You know, I seriously want to know how he survived having a bridge dropped on him.” Derpy thought it was funny, but still kind of sad in a way.
“MEEP!” Both the ponies jumped and Road smiled to himself, he still had it and no one could take that away. Of course their entire shtick relied on his buddy’s ability to make others laugh even if it was still kind of sad to watch. Wile E. Coyote has matched wits with Bugs Bunny and a sheep dog that had his cousin in traction for a week, but Road and Wile were still the A class cartoon tag team.
“What was that all about?” Derpy said motioning a hoof to the currently conked out coyote and Screwball was also looking to Road for an answer.
“That, my dear pony was a scene of classic slapstick. I of course like to think there is no good and evil in our cartoon, but people tend to put me in the antagonist light because I need to eat to live. Not that I’m always feeding my rival and hardly ever get fed myself, but thus is life. I’m Wile E. Coyote super genius… well technically there’s nothing genius about me and all the acme props I use are always going to horribly backfire. It’s a matter of timing as if it were to make it undoubtedly hilarious.” The eloquent voice made both the ponies jump and the turned around to see the coyote looking perfectly fine and was dusting his left arm off with his right hand.
“But… an entire bridge fell on you… shouldn’t you need a hospital?” Derpy was confused, seconds ago she could have sworn that the coyote had been grievously injured and now looked perfectly fine now.
“That is the first thing you’ll learn about cartoon characters… we’re good actors and we have the abilities of Squash and Stretch to prevent even the most grievous of bodily injuries, also we heal ridiculously fast. My associate Road here told me he needed my help with something, so I agreed instantaneously to it by setting up the stunt at the bridge. We’re old comrades and as equally old vitriolic life partners when acting.” He moved over to Road and put an arm around the bird that didn’t even flinch and seemed to even lean into the Wile’s grasp throwing a wing around him as well. “He’s asked me to help you learn the importance of being able to squash and stretch yourselves as cartoons. We’ll show you a few of our commonly performed gags, depends on which ones Road wants to watch though he tends to have his preferences. He loves the things I can do with catapults and never tires of watching me get amusingly injured by them.”
Both ponies got to know a little about Mr. Coyote and even helped him build the catapult for his next laugh riot, Runner was just running randomly around the highway as he loved to do on his off days when he wasn’t being watched by an audience. Screwball couldn’t help but think the catapult thing reminded her of something as she helped lift a piece into place.
In Equestria at this very moment in time, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were experimenting with their catapult again.
“I still say this is going to end poorly unless we get Miss Philomena to watch us.” Sweetie Belle wanted the phoenix around to make sure they didn’t end up covered in sap again, everything they do gets them covered in sap.
“Nonsense Sweetie Belle, we don’t need a phoenix around to keep watch of us all the time… just when we need her to keep us from making mistakes when we build things.” Apple Bloom didn’t exactly sound sure of herself, then Scootaloo rode up to the catapult as fast as she could on her scooter for some big air.
The following events just couldn’t be described due to time constraints. In the end Scootaloo was on her back wiggling her legs in the air glued to both behinds of Sweetie and Apple whose butts that were also stuck tightly together. Scootaloo’s head was embarrassingly on Sweetie’s backside looking to the sky.
“How in the hay did this happen to us? Better yet why does this always happen to us? I even checked out a book from the library to study up on tree’s that give off sap and there isn’t a sap bearing tree within five hundred feet of us!” Both the other Cutie Mark Crusaders were staring at Scootaloo; she actually bothered to read a book without getting bored? “Don’t look at me like that you two, Rainbow Dash reads books so I thought I’d read up on sap producing tree’s… I think we’ve defied the laws of everything natural by getting covered in sap the way we do!”
“Sweetie Belle, you’re no longer the dictionary of the group.” Apple Bloom said plainly causing an irate little pegasus to growl as she tried to get the upper half of her body loose to pounce at Apple Bloom. This was a mistake as Scootaloo was now lifting the weight of her two friends on her back slamming her face first into some nearby mud.
Back in the video game world with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote and a completed catapult.
“Now as you may have noticed, we’ve built a catapult that works perfectly fine right? Well in this situation you’d be wrong… sorely wrong. Now back up and watch me and Runner at work. I do a pretty good catapult joke if I do say so and my objective is to hit the Road Runner with the boulder I have emplaced upon it.” They tested the catapult before and it worked perfectly… the ponies wondered how they could be wrong and the Coyote wasn’t very forthcoming with an answer as he motioned for them to get back.
Road Runner ran on by the catapult along the road and Wile E. Coyote pulled the launch chord, then the most ridiculous thing happened. The entire catapult flipped over and landed on Wile E. Coyote, the boulder even look like it was glued to the launch plate. Despite the fact that they shouldn’t be laughing at his pain both ponies was left in an uproar on the ground, then Wile E. Coyote pulled himself out from under the catapult wreckage looking like a slinky that actually made accordion sounds. That just made them laugh harder.
“Oh my Celestia, why is that so funny and why can’t I stop laughing.” Derpy couldn’t help herself; she had expected the catapult to function normally and was now crying tears of joy at how silly the turnout was.
“Cartoon characters prerogative, we make people enjoy life and nothing helps like a good laugh at the unexpected and the bizarre. Also it helps that a cartoons biggest defense mechanism is laughter.” The coyote then bit his thumb and inhaled through his nose and he blew with his mouth, his eyes bugged out before the rest of his body popped back into shape.
“Well I guess that really explains Pinkie Pie then, she’s the element of laughter in our world. She does all sorts of crazy things to make people happy and can put a smile on just about any pony’s face.” Derpy wanted to be able to do that too; she knew she was almost as good as Pinkie in making other’s happy.
Screwball looked ready to learn how to Squash and Stretch; she even asked Wile how he managed to do it and how they can learn to do it too.
“Well my dear Screwball, the mark on your flank pretty much claims you as one of us already and quite frankly being a cartoon character is mostly instinct and putting your heart into it, being silly and making no sense at all. In fact you could say it revolves entirely around being….” After a moment the Coyote pulled out a paddle ball toy and started to bounce it multiple times. “A bit childish if you will, to tell physics to stop working whenever it’s convenient. We’ll help you get up to speed. Now you mentioned someone named Pinkie? We could use her as an example if you can name a few things she’s done.