//------------------------------//
// Bumble Bee Tuna 
// Story: The Arising Cartoon Pony 
// by Darkonshadows 
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There was a rear airlock on the Anubis; out this airlock flew a shadow and within seconds the shadow was horribly vaporized by the two Body Harvest small carrier ships. They were in fact paying attention and making sure nothing could get at the giant Processor bug absorbing the energy of the Anubis’s thruster. The Processer then uses this energy to produce soldiers to invade the Anubis; however its energy supply dwindled to a crawl when the thruster was turned off and its ability to generate any more deadly Scorpiosaur’s slowed down immensely. This was thanks in part to Honey B. ordering the captain to tell his people to shut down the engine as it wasn’t doing them any good and the Processor was using it to help in the hostile takeover attempt.

This battle was far from over.

“No go on getting anyone outside to shoot at that thing Honey, we’re kind of stuck unless something takes down those carriers. Also they fried my muffin chunks and they were so young and in their prime. How can an alien species be so evil as to not like muffins?” Derpy whined as the airlock was closed and the Fish Food launcher on her back was one shot lighter. The Ninja Drone started to squeal something into its communicator.

“Well I don’t have any idea’s what we’re going to do, their main forces could be on us in a matter of minutes. Ugh, why did I have to drag you into all of this Derpy? I just wanted to be more than an NPC stuck sitting around some fantasy realm on my stinger making four hundred gallons of honey every day, not that my boyfriend doesn’t appreciate the honeycombs cereal for breakfast every morning with some real Honey. Captain send out a mayday… look I know you have your pride but stuff it! While we can very well hold the ship much better now that we’ve finally got the Depository cleared out and the hold is the only place still being flooded with enemies, we need any and all assistance we can get.  If help doesn’t arrive we also need to think of something to be able to give us a fighting chance against those light carriers from the Body Harvest realm. Only then will we be able to remove that Processor and get out of here.” Honey the humanoid bee sounded highly stressed to Derpy, then again she hadn’t seen those Scorpiosaur things Honey mentioned and had only heard them and the pony really didn’t want to meet one.

“It’s okay Honey, you just wanted to help your friends and I can understand that. I understand how it must feel being stuck in the background and having to do something unusual to gain attention every once in a while. The feeling you need to get out and do something with yourself along with a good cause to follow.” Derpy paused and thought about that, her muzzle crinkled up slightly at the thought about being a cartoon character… ‘So much for the fourth wall’ she idly thought before she decided to continue. “In the meantime you wouldn’t happen to know where I can get some heavier firepower or at least something that fires faster right. This plasma shotgun may do damage, but it’s pretty lousy when you’re being swarmed… no offense guys. Also I’m glad to be here with you right in the thick of it, because we’re friends through thick and thin! I just wish the situation was a lot thinner.”

The Mizar Ants with Derpy squealed something in the tone that they weren’t offended as swarming tactics was something they regularly used, but to notably little effectiveness. The yellow one in particular said that nothing about Derpy was offensive in any given way and that it was happy to be in her presence. The others rolled their multifaceted eyes at the Coward Drones appraisal of the pony as her new leader, not that the pony knew that they had genders and that the Coward Drone was female.

“Thank you Derpy, you have no idea how much that means to me.” A sniffling sound could be heard from the Ninja drones communication device, Honey then seemed to hum a bit before she gasped. “The only other extra weapons aboard the Anubis for outsiders aside from the Plasma Shotgun are the Cluster Bombs; I’ll grab them and meet you up at the airlock so hold your position and work on a feasible strategy till I get there.”

“So… any ideas…” Derpy every Mizar Ant in the room with her suddenly had drooping antenna and sad looks in their eyes. They had nothing and minutes later Honey B flew up to them holstering her pistol and pulling a sphere out and hefting it once before putting it away.

“Well I got the cluster bombs, so… we’re screwed aren’t we?” Honey didn’t even need to ask everyone why they winced. “Well if we’re all going to die at least let me know your names... it’s kind of sad that I don’t have extra lives to pass around either. We could have certainly used them in this situation, I think I’m getting two extra continues for taking on the abilities of this dimension and even then I wouldn’t survive for more than a second or two with every room in the ship occupied.”

Each of the Mizar Ants stepped forward and squealed something before stepping back and Derpy just looked at Honey with interest in her eyes.

“So?” Derpy said with intrigue she wanted to know her new friends names, sure they were violent but they weren’t evil. It took a moment for Honey to remember that Derpy doesn’t speak complete gibberish; she really needed to activate subtitles for these guys.

“Well I’ll start with the yellow one she seems the most enthusiastic about telling you her name, her name is Retch and the blue one without the shield is named Killjoy though she has quite the masculine accent if I do say so. I could have confused her with a male drone which the other two are. Deathcount is the one with the shield and Backstab is the brown one.” Honey suddenly saw the disturbed look on Derpy’s face and she decided to elaborate the naming conventions of the Mizar forces. “Yes they all have names like that.”

“Huh?  Oh no, that’s not why I had that look on my face, it was because I didn’t know two of them were girls they all just sound so much alike. Well except Killjoy she sounded like she was probably male to me too.” Derpy got a glare from Killjoy who crossed her arms defensively and squealed an angry expletive retort that was not translated by Honey.

Even the other three Mizar Ants stated that they didn’t know Killjoy was a female Trooper Drone and Honey relayed their thoughts to Derpy. Backstab was staring at Killjoy’s abdomen and Derpy realized what he was doing and blushed, then Killjoy turned around and fired a blast between his antenna and glared at him. Killjoy was one of the few Trooper Drones to survive without a shield for a long period of time, given the rate of death for Troopers she was lucky to have existed this long. In fact Killjoy should have been upgraded to Shield Trooper like Deathcount by this point except there were extenuating circumstances behind the reason why she wasn’t.

“Well this will make it easier for us to talk now that I know your names.” Derpy clapped her hooves twice in good cheer even if they were doomed she still had a bubbly influence that kept up Retch’s good attitude around her.

“Actually you would be able to understand them better if you knew what they were saying, do any of you mind if I paused it?” The Mizar Ants gave her the go ahead and the world froze to a grayish color, Derpy couldn’t move and while she couldn’t breathe, she didn’t feel like she was suffocating.

After a moment the feeling went away as the color came back to the world and Derpy inhaled as much as she could take in, she inflated herself into a balloon again. She quickly blew out the air flying around the airlock like a deflating balloon until she slammed into a nearby metal wall, causing the Mizar Ants to giggle while Honey tried covering her mouth with hand to hide her snickers.

“There you should be able to understand what they are saying, just read quickly we’re still in real time when the text pops up Derpy.”  This was only met with confusion from the pony, but the Mizar Ants seemed to have understood what Honey had done.

“Hello Derpy, I’m Retch and you’re my new leader!” The text box had appeared above Retch’s head along with her name as she said this in happy squealing manner. Derpy just looked a bit confused; she wondered if the subtitles were translating right. Maybe the subtitles just meant Retch wanted to be friends? Well she didn’t see a problem with that.

“Yeah, yeah, we now have subtitles activated, but can we get on with an idea of how to handle dumb and dumber flanking our ass to get access to that Processor.” Backstab ever the Ninja Drone, one always wanting to follow orders and get things done.

“Um… yeah we can get out the front of the ship, but the second we show ourselves around the sides, top or bottom those ships are going to rip our atoms apart, they’re watching everything rather closely to make sure that nothing can get at that Processor thing.” Derpy stared out the viewport in the airlock at the giant alien mass impaled on the thruster to the engine.

“That thing as you call it Derpy was spawning Scorpiosaurs until we took away its energy source, its function is to sit in place, absorb energy, harvest bodies and spawn enemies which are still crawling along their way around the ship to the hold. It will and can spawn an infinite number of enemies until we deal with it.” Honey said as she flew over to beside Derpy to stare at the thing as well.

“Well there’s no chance of our situation getting any better!” Derpy exclaimed in a sad manner and then Honey perked up and started laughing. Everyone just stared at the mad bee and wondered what had just set her off.

“Oh Derpy, you brilliant mare, I think you may have just saved us!” Now the looks of confusion turned to ones of disbelief and Honey decided to elaborate from what she had learned from the visit with Doctor Mario. “Well you do still have that interesting times curse on you, the video games realms tend to love Murphy’s Law quite a bit even if it was just inversed and given who said what you did then something should happen in three… two…o…”

Honey never did finish counting down as an explosion rocked the entire S.S. Anubis causing bodies to fly everywhere, soon as the lights had resettled and Derpy stood up dizzily with muffins floating around her head in a tight circle. She quickly took a bite out of one of the muffins and then shook her head, reaching behind herself and pulled out a fresh muffin to eat before asking the obvious question.

“What just happened?” Derpy looked as the Mizar Ants squealed in a groaning manner as they stood up, they never got bruises and even when they were shot they didn’t bleed they just spewed blood from their body for a second. Honey stood up rubbing her perfectly fine looking head and she stalked over to the airlock controls and opened and despite the quick protest from Derpy not to stick her head outside she did anyway.

“A miracle of course, mostly because the times would be more interesting to see what we’d do if we were given a chance to survive this. Backstab get the captain to start sending up support atop the ship and we need to find out who just blew those Body Harvest carriers to kingdom come. Now come on everybody get up here while the Processor is till too stunned to spawn anything. We can find out what helped us later, but I already have a feeling I know who.” Vela’s ship flew overhead and it was followed by a second figure that surprised Honey. The armored figure had green eyes and was wearing blue, yellow and black armor; it came in for a landing. Four legs, two arms and a weapon in hand with a robotic demeanor about it, this was a heroic looking bee if a bit short in comparison to Honey.

“Well there you are, thought I lost track of you completely for a minute there. Then again I really shouldn’t be sleeping on the job. Special forces Gard-E.N. Unit Buck Bumble at your services, all of your bee subjects were worried when you didn’t return to Spiral Mountain. So right about now it’s time to rock those buggers with the big deal Buck Bumble!” The buzzing voiced bee took a pose before taking to air and the Processor was already spawning giant wasps that Vela was lancing green beams of energy through at a rapid pace from her ship, looked to be Starfox standard beams. The strange bee joined in by blasting his way through the ones Vela had missed with his pistol.

Derpy popped her head up out of the hatch to see that Honey was already pulling her JFG pistol as giant ants started appearing in front of her and opened fire. It wasn’t the only thing attacking, even the processor was opening fire on Vela’s ship and that stranger that had come out of nowhere and seemed to know Honey.

“Derpy with me, we’re going to be aerial support, if you need ammo the Mizar Forces are bringing some up to the top of the Anubis. I think you’ll need to reload more often then I will as I still have forty six rounds left. Now cover me.” With that Honey flared her wings and Derpy quickly flapped to follow Honey. The four Mizar Ants started organizing for an offensive; Deathcount, Backstab and Killjoy were all covering Retch as she started hurling grenades at the Processor that was spawning more defenses around itself. While the grenades were doing damage they weren’t doing nearly enough on their own.

Honey flew back and started to accurately place shots through several of the spawned wasps that were going after their ship bound forces. Derpy charged the Plasma Shotgun and blasted a wasp from off to the side and charged to fire at the Processor when she had an open shot and manage to get a few in on it before she turned her shotgun to blow a giant ant away from Killjoy who was already back to back with Deathcount firing at anything that was hostile.

Nearby Vela’s ship and the creature that Derpy heard was named Buck Bumble were taking care of most of the problems by dealing damage directly to the Processor and slowing down its ability to create any more spawn. The giant ants the Processor was managing to spawn were still a small problem that took time to deal with and that slowed down the damage they were dealing to the Processor along with their maximum firepower being divided to protecting Retch and attacking the enemy.

“At this point I don’t think things couldn’t get any better or worse Honey.” The moment Derpy opened her mouth a Scorpiosaur spawned on top of the Anubis behind all the ones attacking the Processer. It was suddenly under a barrage of fire from some green Mizar Ants from the front of the ship, a ton of blue Trooper Drones were running towards the back of the ship and firing volley after volley as they climbed up and toward their fellow soldiers valiantly holding the back end of the ship.

“Derpy please don’t talk anymore and just start shooting that War Scorpiosaur before it gets too close to the troops and our mutually beneficial friends, they are especially deadly at any range and have lots of health.” The Scorpiosaur in question was a giant and it was taking quite a pounding and equally dishing one out as it fired back from its tail and tried to stop the Mizar Ants from getting by and damaging the Processor further. It managed to kill a few of the currently arriving Trooper Drones in a matter of seconds.

Lightning bolts and rockets were flying from the scorpion thing like candy and every once in a while it created a shockwave that would send the four Mizar Ants and joining supportive Mizar units tumbling. Retch quickly stood up and spun around lobbing a grenade at the giant deadly scorpion causing it to screech in anger when the explosive finally went off after getting stuck to its face.

Backstab screeched at Retch and pointed back to the Processor while Killjoy and Deathcount were covering them from the smaller swarming enemies with three Trooper Drones as the exploding fleas finally made their way onto the scene.

Derpy flew down and hovered in front of the giant Scorpions sight before it could encroach any further and unleashed a fully charge blast of plasma to its face causing its attention to focus solely on her, it screeched a challenge.

“Derpy, NO!” Honey shouted as she tried to fly forward only to be cut off by the sudden barrier, of which she plastered herself into. Honey sadly turned away wishing the pony the best of luck she could hope to muster, while she would continue supporting the Mizar Ants starting to amass on top of the Anubis around Retch and now three Coward Drones continuously bombarding the Processor with grenades and a few Shield Troopers around them putting up a defensive line under the orders of Backstab.

However looking back out into space Honey hadn’t seen someone that was almost sworn to give them aerial support and video game heroes didn’t abandon those in dire need of help, so where in the Mad Monster Mansion was Buck Bumble?

Boss Fight: War Scorpiosaur vs. Derpy. (The boss battle theme is Danger from Secret of Mana.)

Boss battle barrier walls rose up around Derpy and the giant scorpion monster, she looked confused for second and tried to fly through the wall and found herself suddenly unable to fly further. She quickly dodged out of the way of the creature’s claw as it swung it and then it unleashed a shockwave that slammed her into the battlefields wall where she fell to metal ground without injury; cartoon resiliency seemed to have kicked in for her. She was just a bit dazed and quickly rolled out of the way as a blast of lightning struck where she had just been she quickly got up and pointed the Plasma Shotgun at it and waited for it to fully charge before shooting it again.

Derpy was beginning to panic a little she had no idea what was going on or why she was stuck flying so closely to the creature, she charged another shot and struck the creature between the eyes with it causing it to slide backwards slightly. It reared up and swung its left claw clipping Derpy’s right wings sending her spiraling to the ground landing harshly on her side. The scorpion raises both its claws and they started glowing with energy it then brought them down on top of the pony only to miss when a blur shot by picking up Derpy.

“First time boss battle huh?” Buck Bumble said buzzing cheerily as he had gripped Derpy with his four legs and aimed the gun in his right hand and fired two lasers at the missiles coming up on them. Then his gun reshaped slightly and started firing a stream of homing plasma shots.

“Huh, where am I? Mommy, did you let the muffins run away with the refrigerator again. I guess Carrot Tops fridge needs some cleaning again.” Derpy asked as one of her eyes had gone wonky and they were both doing small circles, after a moment she shook her head clear and looked up at the bee carrying her and then she was summarily pulled into a roll as they evaded a blast of lightning from the creatures tail.

“Could you please get with the program and start shooting it’s hard for me to maneuver while I’m carrying something.” Derpy didn’t question the bee that had just saved her from being squished, not that the squishing would have hurt her, it was the mass of deadly energy it gathered that would have done her in. She found herself quite resilient to blunt trauma not to mention lightning, one was because her Cartoon nature allowed her take such heavy amounts of blunt force and the other was simply because a pegasus becomes incredibly resilient to the weather if they spent enough time working with it. She only had to worry about the missiles, and being hit with a charged smashing attack.

“I think I’m good to fly, let me go.” The soonest she said that Derpy found herself airborne and being struck in the chest with a blast of lightning ending up a little worse for wear as her hair was blackened slightly at the tips and she coughed up a bit of smoke. Soon she charged up her shotgun and released a shot at the Scorpions tail which missed, while the supportive metal bee thing was trying to draw a lot of its attention to him hovering in position and then zipping out of the way firing upon any missile aimed at him or Derpy.

Dodging missiles with small twirls and flying a sideways circle around the beast releasing blasts of energy until her clicked empty. A frown marred Derpy’s face as there were no ammo crates in the battlefield zone and then she was struck with lightning because she had stopped flying circles around the giant angry war bound arachnid, both an idea and lightning struck her at the same time. The blast seeming to have charged up her gun until the lightning stopped striking her when she fell out of the way of it, as her wings finally locked up.  She landed on her four hooves and suddenly jumped over the left claw of the creature and then it swung its right down to create a shockwave which she rolled out of way of as soon as her hooves made contact with the ground.

“Quick, get it to shoot me with lightning I have an idea!” Derpy yelled to Buck who just stared at her for a moment before nodding.

“It’s got about twenty percent of its health left and I’ve completely run dry of plasma ammo and my pistol is doing very little to hurry up its death. Hope you’re idea pans out.” Buck suddenly lowered his hovered and fired two pistol rounds into its back and drew its ire directed at him, he quickly positioned himself in front of Derpy.

Buck Bumble swiftly rolled out of the way as a blast of electricity hit a standing Derpy who redirected the lightning entering her body into her gun and back out as a pure solid focused beam. The look on the War Scorpiosaurs face was priceless before it exploded into chunky bits of explodium as it fell apart. As soon as the barrier walls to the boss arena fell Derpy turned around to a bunch of cheering Mizar Ants and a few Mizar Beetles raising their guns above their heads.

Buck Bumble landed next to her and joined them in their little celebration at the handling of the Processor, Honey quickly flew over to her and landed next to her as she dropped to four legs dropping her somewhat fried plasma gun to the side.

“Thank goodness you’re okay; you’re wings look a little scorched though.” Honey touched Derpy’s wings and the pegasus winced in a whinnying noise as she stumbling a bit out of the humanoid bee’s reach. Actively channeling that much electrical energy had really stung Derpy and she was just lucky her wings took a huge brunt of given that’s where pegasus magic is focused. Honey frowned softly. “Sorry, we’ll have this fixed up in no time.”

They didn’t have chance to celebrate for long as multiple flashes of light started erupting behind them, slowly they and all the other Mizar Forces turned around. Backstab slowly held up his communicator as Vela’s ship quickly flew by to dock with the S.S. Anubis, he calmly contacted the bridge.

The text box that appeared above his head was a constant stream of the words ‘punch’ and ‘it’, alongside him were a bunch of drooped antenna and two ears on the head of a pony getting into a very interesting mess. The S.S. Anubis lurched forward immediately as its main thruster ignited full blast.

“Oh muffins...”