"Friends are like carrots. If you cut them up and eat them, they usually stop talking to you."
~ Patient #313
The doors swung open to the Canterlot Castle's scholar room where the captured squid was kept. Luna and Celestia looked in its direction. "I didn't expect you to act with haste. It's good that you came," Celestia said with a friendly tone.
Discord had to crouch down in order to walk through the short door. Once his head was clear of the doorframe, he replied, "Perhaps if you continue promising me things as interesting as cubical talking squids you can expect this kind of urgency in the future as well." He approached the tank and watched the squid for a moment. "Well now, this is far more interesting than your usual, boring assignments! Although, I don't know why you expect me to know what to do about it," Discord said as he rubbed his chin with his lion's paw.
The squid said, "I'm a princess! Are you a princess?" This made Discord chuckle.
"I like them," he stated. "They're positively hilarious!"
"They're also a threat to our ecosystem," Celestia explained seriously. "They're coming from a single source near this city. Yet they have already expanded to all corners of the country."
Discord gave an exaggerated yawn into his eagle claw and said, "Yes, yes. I know whenever something entertaining happens in this realm, by default, it must be bad."
"Why are you guys not paying attention to me?" Asked the squid. "I'm a talking squid!"
"I believe I have already come up with a solution," Discord said with a clap of his hands. "All we need to do is use my powers to drain all of the water in Equestria. All of the squids will drown and..."
"...and so will every other aquatic species," Luna finished. "We already have a plan that involves a lot less collateral damage. We believe that these creatures come from a corruption very near to this castle. If we can find it. Our combined efforts should be enough to stop it."
"Let me guess," Discord said. "We're going to vanquish it for exactly one thousand years, when it will suddenly reawaken and nearly destroy Equestria a second time. That's usually how these things work out."
Celestia tried to ignore Discord's quip and said, "The first thing we need to do from here is find their source. And something about the intelligence of these creatures thus far tells me that will not be a difficult task."
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Sky was getting bored. He and his friends had been walking to Canterlot for several minutes now with nothing to stimulate his brain. He pulled out a stack of sixty four butter ingots, then he ran to the front of the group, started walking backwards, and began dropping butter ingots behind him. Deadlox was a few meters behind him, so he ended up picking up each bar of butter that Sky dropped as they traveled.
After dropping ten pieces. He stopped dropping them for a moment and started humming. "Budder," he said, dropping another ingot. "Budder, budder, budder. Dirt paths are better with budder!"
"Are those bars of gold?" Rarity asked.
"DA BUDDER!" Sky shouted. She had said the forbidden word. After a moment, he continued dropping ingots behind him and humming. "This world needs more salted butter!" He stopped dropping them for a moment. "Wait!" He said. Everyone stopped walking. "I've got a feeling that... IT NEEDS MORE BUDDER!" He kept on walking backwards and dropping butter until he ran out.
"Oh crap! I'm out of butter!" He announced.
"Thank goodness," said Twilight.
"Deadlox, give me back my butter!" He demanded.
Deadlox said "Nope," and got a head start running, because he already knew Sky would try to chase him down.
"So... What are we going to this city for anyway?" TrueMU asked the ponies, realizing one of them probably should have asked earlier.
"We're going to get the fix-all for problems like this," Rainbow Dash said. "Something that can easily fix an annoying squid problem!"
"They're called the Elements of Harmony," Twilight explained. "This six of them and each of us represents one element: Generosity, Honesty, Kindness, Laughter, Loyalty, and Magic. We can stop just about anything with them. Unfortunately, they're in Canterlot right now."
[because plot convenience]
"Makes sense to me," said Jason.
Kuledud3 saw a shadow cast over the trees. He looked up above him and saw something very, very strange. A gigantic minecraft squid, at least a hundred times their normal size, was hovering in the sky, looking down on them with his crossed eyes. He pointed up to the squid. "Look up there!" He shouted.
Twilight and her pony friends immediately looked up and stared at the massive creature, slack jawed. Kuledud3's companions didn't look.
"Silly Kuledud3, the only things up there are clouds," said Ty.
"We don't have time to stare at clouds," Bodil said.
"No, you dumbf**ks!" Kuledud3 said, "There is a giant squid up there! Just look!"
"You're full of crap, Kuledud3!" Said Sky.
"It's right there!" Kuledud3 said anxiously. The squid was now directly above them. The ponies were starting to cautiously back away.
"Kule, if there were a giant squid directly above us, I think we would have noticed," said Sky.
Kuledud3 sighed and stepped a few feet into a patch of grass. He placed down one cubical block of dirt and said, "Do you see this dirt tower? Its height represents how retarded you are." He jumped on top of the dirt block and continued jumping placing down more blocks of dirt bellow him until the tower was twenty blocks high. "You are this retarded!" He said to his friends bellow.
"Holy crap a giant squid!" Jason said as he pointed up to the sky.
Sky, Ant, Ty, and Bodil immediately looked up and gasped in surprise.
Kule hung his head. "You guys are hopeless," he said with a sigh. He started to climb down his symbolic tower of dirt.
"Oh, so what? It was too easy for us to just be fighting normal squids, so now there are conveniently giant squids who can fly for no adequately explained reason? What kind of diabolus ex machina bullshit is this?" Sky complained.
"I can't believe you used that phrase correctly," said Antvenom.
The gigantic flying squid stared down at all of them with his unintelligent looking eyes. He shouted with the same, obnoxious voice of every normal squid, "I'M A SQUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-" Then he exploded mid sentence. There's no way for me to word it in a way that sounds normal. He just exploded into a giant ball of flames. Of course, that wasn't weird enough. Out of the flames, several dozen regular sized squids began flying down head first. Whenever they struck the ground, they created an explosion!
Luckily, they didn't seem to have much control over where they landed, but a few of them landed very close to the travelers.
"Kamikaze squids!!!" Deadlox shouted.
Kuledud3 watched the squids flying down and exploding like torpedoes. He casually said, "So... This happened."
The mane six huddled around Twilight and she created a small dome around them with her magic. The Minecrafters were running around frantically, narrowly dodging the squid missiles.
Sky wrapped his arms around TrueMU and cried, "JASON! JASON, I AM SO SUPER STARTLED RIGHT NOW!"
"Sky, get off me! You're making it really hard to dodge them!"
"I can't, Jason! I'm too startled!"
One squid landed and exploded directly on Twilight's force field, creating enough force to pop the shield like a balloon and knock down Twilight and her friends with the resulting pressure wave.
When the squids saw that they were vulnerable, they dove down at the six ponies. All the squids switched from kamikazeing around the entire area to flying toward one, fixed target, the six element bearers. Sky and his friends were too far away to stop them as thirty or more squids dove down at those six targets. But these squids didnt explode. Instead, they latched their tentacles around them. Of course, each pony did their best to wrestle away, but dozens of squids are a difficult thing for even the strongest stallion to outmuscle.
Rainbow Dash and the other ponies soon realized that they were being lifted into the sky with multiple flying squids holding them. "Let me go!" She demanded. "I can fly fine on my own, thank you!" Her kicks and shouts did nothing to loosen their grip.
Jason was the first to act after seeing this. He took out his pixelated bow and drew one arrow. He aimed as quickly as he could and released. The arrow soared though the air before landing squarely between the crossed eyes of one of the squids holding Fluttershy. The squids tight grip went limp and it fell down to the ground like a squishy rag doll. "Get your bows out, guys!" Jason commanded. "They're flying away!"
Sky, Bodil, Ant and Deadlox drew their bows soon after and took aim. Kuledud3 didn't. "What? You guys expect me to pay for a bow and arrows?" He explained.
"Let them go, you stupid squids!" Sky demanded.
Applejack peered at the hard grown far bellow her. "Bad choice of words!" She shouted.
The squids shifted around and held out each of the ponies in front of them. "We're pretty far away, Sky," one squid said. "Are you sure you won t hit them?"
"Yes, he raises an excellent question!" Rarity yelled.
"You'd better let them go!" Kuledud3 warned. "Or else!"
"Or else what?" One squid boldly replied.
Kuledud3 held out a block of dirt. "Or else I'll put dirt on you. And then you'll be really dirty!"
"Aww man! I don't want to be dirty!" The squid said. "Come on guys. Let's go."
"You're such a great commander Brian," another squid.
"Jordan, don't be a kiss-ass!" Said Brian.
The squid started to fly off toward Canterlot with their captives. They were moving too fast and too high for Sky to follow.
"Kuledud3 fell to his knees. "Holy torch tits!" He cried. "The only living things I've ever actually cared about just kidnapped by squids!"
"What about us?" Deadlox asked.
"F**k you guys!" Kuledud3 replied. "Why? Why couldn't it have been Bodil?"
Bodil yelled, "Hey!"
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In the lake near Canterlot, the king squid was listening to Melisa singing a song of loyalty to him.
"I can be your nazi, baby.
I vill cause ze others pain. Sieg hail!
Unt I'll kill all zose who oppose you.
I... Vill take... Zeir breath avay.
I... Shall take... Zeir breath avay.
Vill... You be... Mein fuhrer?" The squid sang loudly.
"That was beautiful," said the king.
Three, winged figures flew down from above the tree line and landed at the waters edge, Discord, Celestia, and Luna.
"This is defiantly what we were looking for. It looks like we found them in less than three minutes," said Luna.
"I believe that's a record," said Discord.
"Hey! What are you doing spying on us? Perverts!" The king asked.
"I think those guys are naked too," said Chad.
"Oh, that's just sick!" The king said.
"Do we really have to stop them?" Discord asked.
"Discord..." Celestia grunted in an aggravated tone.
"But they're so funny!"
"How did you find our ultra secret hideout?" King Squid asked.
Luna pointed one hoof at their wooden tower, which now had a giant, white flag on it that said "SKWIDZ!!!" in bold red letters.
"Okay, who put that there?" The king demanded.
"It was me sir," said Steve.
"Thanks for giving me a new reason to hate you, Steve."
"You told me to put it there!"
"I. Said. No. Such. Thing!"
"Yes you did! You said, and I quote, 'Hey, Steve, go climb to the top of this structurally unstable wooden tower and plant this obnoxious flag on it. Aight?' Unquote."
"That's because I thought you would fall off and die!"
"If its all the same with you, I believe it's time that you leave this world," Celestia interrupted sternly. "You do not belong here."
"Are you trying to tell me what I can and can't do?" The giant butter squid questioned. "You can't do that! You're not my mom!"
"Your carelessness will not go without consequence!" Luna announced. "You are spreading a corruption across this world and endangering the balance of Equestria!"
"Am not!" Said the king.
"...We actually are," said Chad.
The king remembered his plan, then said, "Oh yeah... Okay, I guess you're right. But I'm not stopping."
Celestia expected that response. Her horn and her sisters horn emitted bright auras. Hers was yellow, her sister's was blue. Discord created an equally bright green orb in his eagle claw and held it out in front of him with his lion paw gripping his elbow.
"Then we will make you stop!" Celestia said she stepped back with her right front hoof and ducked her head so that the tip of her horn pointed to the squid king. Her sister did the same after her. "Last chance to surrender. I suggest you take it!"
"Come at me bro!" The king taunted. He lifted himself above the water by standing an his massive tentacles, which were long enough for him to tower well above the surface of the deep lake.
Celestia, Luna and Discord fired the three magical beams they had been charge. The green, yellow, and blue beams struck their massive squid target. The kings body glowed looks a giant lightbulb.
"I regret everything!!!!!" He shouted. The light intensified and encompassed the entire lake in a haze of blinding white. Celestia, Discord and Luna closed their eyes tightly. They were all exhausted from the energy they had put out. The light went away as quickly as it had came. When the three opened their eyes again, they saw that King Squid was still perfectly intact. In fact, he was bigger now than he was before!
Celestia spoke through battered breath, "That attack... was powerfull enough to defeat King Sombra... Without Discord! How... is this possible?"
"I guess Im conveniently more powerfull than all three of you combined," the king said.
"What a bunch of diabolus ex machina bullcrap!" Discord complained. "You can't just come in here from nowhere and suddenly become the most powerful thing in existence!"
"I don't know what those words mean, but I do know that this is the end for you!" said the squid. He charged up and fired two twin beams of red energy, from his gigantic eyes, that moved too fast to dodge. The three challengers were caught in the red light. They did their best to defend themselves by making thin force fields with the strength they had left, but they were quickly overpowered. Rather than being destroyed by it, however, they were transformed from their natural species into cubical minecraft squids! One squid had a picture of the sun imprinted on its back. Another one had the moon, and the third had yellow eyes.
”And apparently I can turn people into squids for some reason!" The king announced proudly. "That's pretty neat. By the way, what does diabolus ex machina actually mean?"
"Diabolus ex machina, a term from the Greek phrase meaning 'Demon from the machine.' It is a phrase used to describe a situation in a story where a random and or unexplained development makes the story's antagonist increasingly more difficult to defeat when an aparant solution was originally at hand. Basically, it's the writer thowing in a bunch of new bullshit in order to keep the bad guy from getting beaten too easily." A random squid explained.
"Thanks dictionary squid!" Said King Squid.
"It's what I do," said the dictionary squid. "Now I'm off to go eat someone's parents!" With this, he dove back down into the deeps.