//------------------------------// // Striking Out // Story: The Arising Cartoon Pony // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// The boulder test was an interesting thing in testing any cartoons ability, it would also tell you a lot about how a cartoon character thought and what they might be capable of in the future. The test is a good reminder to the tested that reality does and can assert itself; a cartoon character only has the ability to only ignore reality to a certain extent before there’s too much to ignore. Reality can’t ignore everything about what cartoon character does and the cartoon character can’t ignore everything about what reality is. A cartoons ability to stand on or running across thin air works as long as they don’t acknowledge they’ve run out of ground, ignore the fact that their feet hit nothing solid and as long as they don’t look down they won’t fall. Gravity only works if they acknowledge that there is a reason for it to. Ignorance is a cartoons greatest power and one that could ultimately kill a cartoon if they aren’t carefully holding on to reality as a whole. I’ve recently learned that there are just some things you just can’t ignore. You can’t ignore pain; it lets you know that you’re alive. You can’t ignore sorrow, because it lets you know that you might feel joy again. You can’t ignore those close to your heart or else you may lose them forever, most importantly you can’t ignore your memories. My memories of happy and sad times will always be in my heart, even if wasn’t born with the best of intentions I’ve become far more than most could have ever expected of me. I’m coming for you mom. Having bade goodbye to Honey B and Derpy Hooves, Screwball and Banjo immediately set out to find transportation to the Mischief Makers realm. They were still being followed by the ever adorable puppy like Chaos as he sloshed noisily along behind him generating his own theme music from Sonic Battle in the form of a rather impressive cappella for a creature that could only speak in complete gibberish. It was kind of annoying, but they both were used to the fact that Chaos wasn’t going to stop following them around. “Kazooie really didn’t help much with ideas, but maybe… she did mention Marina was doing Rakugaki Battles. That’s a place to start.” Nodding to himself Banjo went to the nearest information Kiosk. “Excuse me EDI, but can you tell me where Marina Liteyears is currently located or contact her for us?” Banjo started off pleasingly enough. “Subject found… she is currently fighting John Calibur. Would you like to wait for communications with Miss Liteyears? I will provide free entertainment.” After a moment of thought the AI was nodded at and then a loading screen came up with a playable Tetris game, bored Banjo started playing the game and introduced Screwball to the first video game as seen from the outside. Tetris was once one of the smallest dimensions to ever exist; it was a lot larger because of all the additional sequels and ports, plus super charged changes. The world was sparsely populated as only Dig Dug and Mr. Driller really hang out around that realm anymore; sometimes Bomberman would drop in for a visit and a puzzle battle every now and then. After a few minutes of watching Banjo waffling at level 10 did the game pause and EDI came back into view and a new screen popped up. Screwball having finished her popcorn from nowhere a while ago decided to hand the left over bag off to chaos to throw into the nearest refuse bin. Chaos just absorbed the bag into him and performed what amounted to a belch, it tasted butter and there were a few crunchy corn seeds left in it. “Presenting Marina Liteyears hero to Mischief Makers, should you need any more help feel free to address me.” EDI said before cutting connection and Marina appeared on screen, she had wild green hair and vibrant blue eyes and metallic what and red armor with blue gem like zero point energy generators coming out of the back of her hands. Her legs were basically simple pegs on an otherwise impressive looking upper torso. “Hey there, well I’ve never expected to talk to a bear in yellow shorts, Chaos and a swirly eyed pony before.” Marina noticed the bear and pony turned to chaos who shrugged. “Um… how do you know Chaos?” Banjo asked carefully as he didn’t know whether or not that Chaos actually got any recognition far outside the Sonic the Hedgehog realms except for being a playable cameo at times. “Who doesn’t know about him? Anyway what is it; I’m kind of on a hot streak right now.” Marina through up a victory sign with her right hand holding two fingers out. “Um can we use your mobile home to get to the Mischief Makers realm?” Banjo watched as the figure on the screen blinked, but then she gave a bright smile. “Of course you can, just rescue my professor and he’ll give you a lift. I stopped bothering with rescuing him after he got kidnapped by Bowser and then Eggman. You’re in luck because his current capturers are currently in Fourside City; I’d rather stay in the Rakugaki Showtime realm. I’m sending you his plot devices tracking signal so you can find him. Have fun with grandpa, oh and watch out for the Mischief Makers realm there are only enemies gathering there nowadays. Say hello to some of the enemy Clancer’s for me with a fist to the face!” With that the screen winked out and Marina was gone and EDI popped back up. “So we just follow this signal?” Banjo wanted to get on his way to rescuing Kazooie immediately, but he couldn’t help but be sidetracked by side quests as it was a video game hero’s job to do inane things for stuff they wanted. Technically this would be part of the main quest, but Professor Theo was quite a common kidnapping case. No one ever receives ransom for the perverted mechanical genius anyway so why did they bother? “Correct it seems to be in the shopping mall district, do you need a taxi service?” EDI was only asking because none of these characters had wings or didn’t appear capable of flight. “Yes please and can it be a Ratchet and Clank hover taxi? Those are quick and nice, maybe with some scenic time on the way.” Screwball tilted her head cutely at Banjo as he smiled back at her. “One taxi with a quick scenic route coming your way, please enjoy your day even if violence is coming your way like hot stuff.” After a minute of waiting at the info kiosk an empty open air taxi landed in front of the pony, bear and amorphous liquid chaos creature. Stepping aboard Screwball learned the wonders of the surrounding city by air, the background music was different from the city and it was quiet and relaxing. It was the Onett theme music, soon it ended not being able to play fully out as the taxi set down outside the shopping mall. Hopping off the taxi they all started moving towards the parking deck next to the mall, Banjo just stopped outside the parking deck looking at his own plot device. Overhead oblivious to the following situation flew a pony and a humanoid bee. “Just know we’re going to be fighting soon. Don’t you worry about collateral damage, most heroes don’t half the time and all you really need to worry about is dropping the entire thing on our heads.” Banjo slowly walked forward. Followed by Screwball and Chaos was taking up the rear. After a few feet inside a baseball rolled out in front of Screwball. She raised her flank high into the air wiggling it once and pounced on the sphere. She starts batting it around and she soon rolled onto her back and started tossing the ball in the air. The scene would be adorable if not for the demented reasons of this baseballs existence. “Screwball, come on we have to find Professor Theo there’s no time to be playing with a random baseball.” Banjo gently rolled her onto her hooves and beckoned for him to follow her, seconds after they were up to the second floor of the deck a round shadowy figure popped out and picked up the baseball. “Why didn’t this thing go off? I made it especially high yield to harm her family to whittle them down before we capture them!” The assassin was pissed his baseball bomb didn’t go off, turning it in his hand he noticed there was a button on the ball that wasn’t there before that firmly said ‘press me’. The power of curiosity always compels everyone to push a button they probably shouldn’t. Screwball felt a solid thump of noise coming from below that launched her two feet into the air; it caused her to smile toothily in a malicious way. As a cartoon character she’d rather be a Road Runner then a Wile E. Coyote. Her spiral eyes were filled with mirth as she continued on following Banjo. When they reached the third deck at the top of the ramp they stopped, there was a shadowy figure at the far end of the parking deck and his red eyes were glaring at them. They moved into the center of the parking deck. Banjo gasped as he finally recognized what they were looking at. “Screwball, Chaos, I want you to look behind us and tell me there aren’t more of them.” Banjo’s worried tone caused both Screwball and Chaos to turn around and slowly back up towards Banjo. Several shadowy figures revealed themselves in the dim lighting, they were Charging Chucks and they were holding baseballs, footballs and basketballs and one of them even split into three. “Help me Marina!” A shout could be heard coming from above. “Well at least we know Professor Theo is definitely here, but we’ve got bigger problems.” Banjo was immediately charged by the Chuck in front of him. Charging Chucks were all almost the same in appearance if different in actions, they looked like football players and were wide as they were large. They were certainly bigger than most normal humans. The chucks behind them started throwing baseballs and footballs at them while others charged inwards into the resulting dust clouds that formed from the barrage of attacks aimed at the trio. They had stopped charging because the trio was no longer where the Chucks thought they were. Banjo was already running up the next ramp to the fourth deck with Chaos and Screwball under his arms. The Chucks gave chase up the ramp. Stopping in the middle of the fourth floor parking deck, Banjo saw there were more enemies then just the Chucks after them. There was an entire compliment of Sniper Joes holding their shields at the ready and pointing their guns at them. Banjo dropped his compatriots gently and they stood together. “Halt, resist and you will be fired upon.” A Sniper Joe said, they were all human sized green commando robots with single solid red eyes holding riot shields in their right manipulator hands and their left hands were buster cannons. They were always termed as miniature automated Zaku’s, only made of less explodium. Explodium was an element that most video game characters regret ever exists, especially Siren class characters with the phoenix skill. The Charging Chucks finished running up the ramp boxing them in, Screwball really didn’t know what all these things were. She just knew that they were all rather hostile. “Sorry, but I believe you can’t be allowed to rescue your precious friend and I’m not talking about Theo. The ball is in our court now Banjo and you’ve struck out!” In the dim lighting a large round figure dropped to the floor left hand a catcher’s glove the other a pitching cannon built into his palm. His body was a basically a large baseball with red limbs minus the brown glove and his eyes were poking out a part of his baseball form. “Why am I not surprised? Hello Strike Man.” Banjo said blandly, he just knew Kazooie pissed off plenty of enemies. A cross platform enemy group working together as an effective capture squad, especially with them as the targets with Professor Theo as a lure? Banjo they probably should have paid for a ride instead of going for free cost plan which involved this confrontation. They could have been halfway to Mischief Makers by now. “Yes, it is I… wait, I’m not that stupid, if I start to monologue that’ll just give you time to figure out the grander plan and gives you time for whatever backup you called to show up!” The baseball shaped robot was now glaring at Banjo. “This is why I consigned extra help with some Earthbound enemies known as The Sharks!” Screwball blinked confusedly as she silently asked Strike Man why he thought they had back up, because neither she nor Chaos much less Banjo had any backup. Her spiraling pupils did however see some strange beings join the Joes and Chucks. They were humans on pogo sticks, skateboards and some were wielding hula hoops threateningly. Screwball figured these were ‘The Sharks’ Strike Man was talking about; she also thought Strike Man’s name was odd and that he looked really cool for a killer robot baseball. Slowly Screwball stood on her hind legs reaching for her propeller hat ready to pull out her baseball bat and fight her way out of this mess, she noticed Chaos was slowly morphing his body to a bipedal form for combat with narrowed green eyes and Banjo looked to be tensing up for a scrap his paws curling up into fist. “What about Professor Theo?” It was kind of an unimportant question, but Banjo just wanted to know for posterity’s sake. “Don’t care; we left him tied up in the middle of the parking deck in case you came in from the roof or ground level. All we’re really after is you and your family.” The baseball robot struck a pose as he pointed to Banjo and the two standing behind him. Turning his palm towards the ceiling a purple orb appeared in it with a coalescing energy source in its center. “You aren’t running to home plate from this.” Before Strike Man could attack or detain them with his veritable army of gathered enemy characters from three different game realms, four small blue and green cars flew into the parking deck and started ramming their way through all the enemies knocking them around. The four characters jumped out of the cars before they exploded violently. “You know they just don’t make them like they used to!” The average height red figure said as three figures took up position behind him, first was a short green figure, next a large imposing yellow figure and finally a tall thin blue figure. They were all notably carrying baseball bats, the red one had an average bat, the green one had two small bats, the yellow one had a large bat with an even larger baseball impaled on it and the last one was carrying an elongated baseball bat. “Excuse us for playing through, names Captain Jose. Ninja Baseball Batman at your service!” With a nod that Banjo understood him; Jose the red one ran forwards and started off by bashing his way through the skateboard sharks rapidly swinging his baseball bat in a reverse grip. The green one followed by swinging his two small bats into the pogo sharks taking them down relatively fast causing them to disappear in small flashes. The yellow one lumbered forward not even bothering to use his bat as he grabbed one of the hula-hoop using sharks by the neck tossed him into the air and swung his bat around sending him flying out of the parking deck most likely to his death. The blue one lazily flowed his way around a crowd of charging chucks that were charging him and started fighting by jabbing one in the stomach, slamming down on its head and then slammed it into the ceiling with an uppercut using his bat. Screwball not wanting to be left out of the action immediately leapt into by attacking a Sniper Joe with her bat and surprisingly its shield blocked the hit not even denting in the slightest. Not being deterred in the slightest she reared back with both hooves tightening around her bat as white sparkles traveled along it. She swung harder and surprisingly the Sniper Joe didn’t die, but he was sent flying from the parking deck. This Sniper Joe in particular blocked hitting the ground with his shield performing a backwards somersault onto his feet and just proceeded to run back into the parking deck, resulting in zero fall damage. Banjo was taking care of the charging chucks well enough because all they really need was a few bounces to the head and they died by phasing through the world. Chaos was the most surprisingly effective one in taking out the Sniper Joes; their shields were pointless against his liquid chaos onslaught by piercing them with tentacles from behind while they held their shields up. All the while Strike Man was freaking out, the Ninja Baseball Batman squad was notorious for destroying baseball shaped robots and other strange machines. In his panic he ran up the next floor leaving his small army try to slowly flail helplessly against the ‘beat them up’ specialists, especially the green one that flew across the garage by twirling both his bats while releasing bolts of lightning everywhere. Screwball saw Strike Man running away and her eyes narrowed, she placed her bat across her withers holding it with her right hoof and she smiled setting her left hoof against her flank. Screwball had just figured out what Derpy wanted to know how to do, she should tell her the next time they met. Strike Man wasn’t a very fast runner because of his stumpy form, but even then when he made it to the fifth floor he shouldn’t have been facing Screwball standing in front of him spiraling pupils locked onto his own dark eyes. He thought she was still back there fighting the Chucks, Joes and Sharks how in world did she get past him or even up here? “Wha… but… you were… and… I just… how did you even get here before me?!” Strike Man’s confusion was palpable, he was also angry that his first and second trap didn’t go well, even his reinforcements weren’t really all that much in comparison to the baseball bat onslaught. “Who cares, I’m setting my boss AI to the hardest difficulty and I’m calling you out for a Boss Fight! Prepare to be gutter balled.” Boss Battle: Screwball vs. Strike Man! Screwball felt the boss field set up around them along with the music set up for the fight. She might not have been very helpful with Chaos, but Strike Man she thinks she can actually take. He was a giant baseball after all, how hard could it be to fight one of her favorite things? A bar popped up near Strike man as he struck a pose, it slowly filled up till it topped off. Strike man started the battle off by firing a fast ball straight at Screwballs face, she immediately swung her bat sending it right back at him, but he just curled up and bounced into the air while rapidly spinning and when he hit the ground he launched forward with a powerful ferocity. Screwball charged forward and performed a baseball slide underneath his rapidly spinning deadly form; she quickly rolled onto her two legs using her tail to balance her stance like Kazooie taught her. Turning around to face Strike Man she built up energy in her throat and sphere was seen physically moving up her throat and she spat a normal baseball that slammed into Strike man dealing a single bar of damage nailing him in the left side of his body as he spun around to face her. To be quite frank that was a really slow projectile attack and it didn’t do much damage, this very much discouraged Screwball. She really didn’t want to use fire or grenade aspects since the damage recoil would be hell on her throat, especially if a grenade went off in it. Looking at her flank she smiled, why didn’t she think of coming up with her own special brand of baseball ammunition before now? She just needed to get a good moment to use the idea to its fullest. Watching him leap into the air and pull out another purple orb with coalescing center, Screwball watch him chuck it down at her at a forty five degree angle. She sidestepped that and then ducked his rolling bounce attack at her. Screwball quickly turned around charged him and smacked him with her bat three times in quick succession doing four to five bars of damage per hit. He quickly leapt into the air avoiding any more hits and started spinning horizontally this time, it was kind of funny in how it reminded Screwball of Kazooie’s opener for her Death Blossom attack. Screwball’s swirling pupils became dots, that’s exactly what he was about to do! An odd left hoof jerk and right knee became slight itchy for a second, then Screwball felt separate from the first two a wild twitch in her tail. Suddenly hundreds of orbs shot out from the robot and were bouncing around the boss arena. After deflecting three with her bat Screwball was blown into a wall and then away from it when two orbs managed to land their blows the rest bounced around aimlessly nearly missing her downed form. After a moment Strike Man dropped to the floor and he looked… dizzy? Were robots supposed to get dizzy? Who cares, her opportunity came! Screwball agonizingly stood up on her four legs, even only being hit twice hurt like being hit by multiple ten ton boulders all at once. Screwball closed her eyes and focused a bulged built up in her throat and she slowly moved it up to her mouth and with a strong cough she let loose a strange baseball with a drill poking out of it. Screwball’s eyes shined brightly as she watched her purple and white swirling screw ball impact with Strike Man’s chest. It screwed its way into his chest without leaving a hole and his eyes widened a bit. “NO!” His health bar was depleting rapidly, Strike Man decided to get a last hit in and threw a fast ball shot straight at Screwballs head and then he promptly exploded into a shower of light orbs brightening the entire area. Not being able to dodge the explosive object in her weakened state her face was hit with a hard blow. Screwball fell backwards her hat flying off her head and her mane flying into her vision being the last thing she saw as her back hit the ground roughly, she blacked out. Vaguely Screwball could hear someone yelling her name at the time and something else was sloshing it too. Seconds later her eyes opened to find herself in an empty white room. “Screwball Learned Rebound Striker!” This was the mysterious message that entered the ponies mind. Screwball felt something take control of her body for a moment and she spat a pink baseball into her hooves and threw it and her eyes traced its path as it bounced around the room like a bouncy ball on steroids that disappeared. Then she coughed up another one and threw it again and then slowly the white room faded out to nothingness but a black void as the ball rebounded off the wall. She welcomed the void as her head kind of hurts. In Equestria this very moment something was happening, as usual it wasn’t very interesting. Rainbow Dash was suddenly awake feeling warmth in her heart as much as her body when she had begun resting on her napping cloud of the day; she found she wasn’t napping alone however. Fluttershy was draped over her eyes closed and snoring softly, the shy mares’ mane was tickling Rainbow Dash’s nose. Rainbow would never admit it, but she figured they must be looking pretty adorable right now and thought it was sweet of Fluttershy to fly all the way up here just to nap with her. Rainbow snuggled into Fluttershy whose wings quickly enveloped her tightly causing her own wings to shoot out and almost bisect the cloud they were sitting on in half; she carefully used one of her hind hooves to make sure the cloud didn’t break apart as they lay there. She really didn’t want to ruin this cuddly position and would have to watch out for this kind of thing in the future… or take naps at Fluttershy’s cottage from now on. That sounded good to her and totally awesome if it didn’t bother Fluttershy too much that she came to her cottage all the time to just sleep in comfort like this.