//------------------------------//
// End of Line. 
// Story: Appledashery 
// by Just Essay 
//------------------------------//

	Stu Leaves winced and winced and winced some more.  He watched from several yards away while Rainbow Dash tumbled and flailed atop the red platforms, doing her frantic best to deflect all of Donut Joe's disc attacks.

"We can't possibly be going about this the right way," Stu muttered.  "It's as though we're doing deeper and deeper into the donut hole."

With a flash of light, the geodesic sphere materialized into best pony beside him.  "Wel, you can do something about that, y'know!" Epcot winked.

"Like what?!"  Stu Leaves blanched her way.  "I thought I was supposed to be the distraction!  Not Rainbow Dash!"

"Hehe!  It's funny how the future works out, isn't it?"  Epcot grinned.  "I suggest you ride this wave!  Make a splash!  Sever the dream in half with your surf board!"

"But... b-but how?!"  Stu gulped.  "I can't seem to get a feel for this place as well as Rainbow Dash does."

"You're dwelling too much on her," Epcot said.  "Think of the pony who brought you two here to begin with.  The same pony that's helping her battle so hard to keep you both alive right now!"

Stu Leaves bit his lip.  "Applejack..."  His glossy eyes reflected the darklit horizon beyond the battle.  "She needs us right now..."

"Mmmhmm!  So do other mortals, from what I hear!" Epcot chirped.  "And you think they're gonna dream themselves out of this silly mess?  Heehee!"

Stu frowned, slowly shaking his helmet.  "They're helpless on their own.  Rainbow and I?  We're the ones outside of Shindig's sphere, upsetting the system."

"Sounds like you've got the idea down pat!"

"But... b-but how do I open us up to another sim?"

"Hey, you're the dreamwalker, not me!" Epcot giggled.  "If you can dream it, then you can do it!"

Stu slowly panned around.  His helmeted eyes fell upon a plane of glass bordering the red platforms.  "Okay... okay, I think I got it!"  He hopped off his bike and galloped over.  "This will be a bit crazy..."

"Ooooh!  I can't wait to see!" Epcot flitted after him in a flash of glowing blue light.





"Haaaugh!" Donut Joe twirled and flung his disc.  It spun in a violent arc, then came sailing down at Rainbow Dash.

The pegasus squatted low, holding her disc over her skull and deflecting two swift blows.  As the disc ricocheted off, she stood up, panting for breath.  "Will you quit it, already, Joe?!  It's me, Rainbow Dash!  Twilight Sparkle's friend from Ponyville?!"

Donut Joe hopped platforms, grabbing a disc in midair.  He landed in a slide and smirked at her through his helmet.  "I dunno how you survived, slave!  Prepare to terminate!"  He flung the disc once more.

Rainbow jumped backwards, deflecting the disc throw once again.  The blow sent her flying back fifteen feet.  She landed, hooves grinding towards the edge of the crimson fissure.  "For real!  Knock if off before I get angry!  I don't care if this is your dream or not; I've taken down punks three times your size!" She spat.  "And considering how big your flank is, that really means something."  A beat.  She grimaced.  "Aw Luna Poop!  I spat into my visor!"

"It's too bad!"  Donut jumped aside and swung his disc.  "You should have joined me!  You and I could have made a great team!"

Rainbow deflected the disc, snarled, then ripped her helmet off completely.  She yelled into the naked air.  "What the buck is that supposed to even mean?!"

Donut Joe grabbed his disc on the rebound.  "You and I—"

"No, for real?!  Where did that even come from?!"  Rainbow frowned.  "You're trying to 'de-rezz' my flank or some crud.  So, like, when did it ever enter your head that you and I would 'make a great team?!'"

"It just seemed like the best thing to say—"

"No." Rainbow wretched.  "It was stupid."

"And the way you—"

"Stupid."

"I dunno how you survived, slave!" Donut Joe repeated, coiling his forelimb back to launch a disc again.  "Prepare to terminate!"

"Dude, your dream's totally lame!" Rainbow hollered.  "What are you gonna do next?  Dream up a dumbflake sequel?"

"RAAAAUGH!" Donut Joe tossed his glowing weapon straight at her head.

She winced and ducked as low as she could.  "Me and my big fuzzy muzzle..."

Fw-Fwissssh!  CLAKKA!





Stu Leaves leaned over and pressed his hoof to the glass floor beyond the platforms.  A glowing panel appeared, and he dragged his hoof across a circle.  The panel lit up, then lifted entirely from the rest of the surface.

Stu squatted before it, pressing his hoof up to the glass.  Then, after a concentrated breath, he trotted around to the other side of the panel.  There, he found a doppelganger of himself with a glowing yellow suit, squatting with his hoof placed against the glass like a mirror image.  When both stallions looked at each other, the yellow clone stood up, smiled, and spoke in a stilted voice:  "We are to make the perfect system?"

"Eenope."  Stu pulled the disc off his back and sliced the stallion's head off.

CRACKKK!

Glass and gravelly bits of electronic particulate fell to the floor.

Calmly, Stu reached into his decapitated doppelganger's neck, then pulled back with his hoof.

The headless stallion inverted.  As the body turned inside out, it morphed into a crooked crankshaft.  Stu balanced the object in his hooves, then stared at the horizon.  He narrowed his eyes, concentrated, then thrusted the crankshaft fowards, horizontally, like a spear.

"Rghhh!"

Th-Thunk!  The lever embedded into pure air, causing the atmosphere around it to warble, quiver, then settle into place.

Epcot gently floated behind Stu while the stallion grasped the crankshaft with a hoof and in a mouth-full of strong teeth.  With strong, undulating motions, he rotated the lever, spinning it within its ethereal hole.

In the extreme distance, the mountains plateaus rose higher and higher, stretching in time with the rotations of the crankshaft.

Stu Leaves locked eyes with it.  He paused, glanced aside at Rainbow and Donut Joe, then back at the impossibly-stretching mountains.  They were so high that they disrupted the digital lighting erupting high overhead.  At last, he jumped back, releasing his toothed grip of the crankshaft.

The lever spun wildly as the mountains split open.  Soon, the extreme horizon was ripping in two, and a tear of solid white light soared through the geographic sphere, sundering the Grid as it rippled in their direction.

"Now's the time to go!" Stu sputtered, galloping away from the spreading abyss and straight for Rainbow and Donut Joe.

Epcot sailed after him, swiftly.  "YES YES YES."





"You're very persistent, my little pony!" Donut Joe shouted.

Rainbow retorted.  "I'm also better than you!"

The stallion frowned, then raised his disc to skewer the mare down the center.

Stu Leaves plowed into him from behind.  "Time to wake up!"  Whump!

"Gaugh!"  Donut Joe grunted as he fell to the ground, pinned there by Stu's weight.

"Stu?!"  Rainbow gawked.  "What the heck?! I totally had him!"

"NO."

Rainbow blinked at Epcot.  "Huh?"

"Rainbow..." Stu hissed, struggling to keep Joe restrained.  "...things are about to get really bright here."

Rainbow looked to see the incoming ravine of white light shredding their way.  "Awwww jeez!"  She galloped forward, plowed into both Stu and Donut Joe, and shoved the three of them into the tear.  Their shrieks disappeared into the void, and Epcot followed them before the entire dreamscape imploded on itself.