HiE - A Hollow in Equestria

by Charlie_K

Filler - Support

With as much professionalism as he could muster, John tapped the side of his headset to accept the call, and said the line he'd repeated so many times before since the start of his career.

"Acme Villain Support, this is John."

"John!" the voice on the other end of the line called frantically. "John, it's Nightmare Moon!"

"Hey, Nightmare Moon, how're you doing?" John asked.

"Not as well as I'd hoped to be right now," Nightmare Moon admitted. "I'm having a problem with the terror fog's remote activation. It's stopped working."

"Okay," John began as he started typing at his computer to pull up the necessary/relevant information. "Has it stopped working entirely or is it intermittent?"

"I'm not sure. Entirely, I think? It was working just fine a few minutes ago, I was triggering all manner of disturbing imagery in various ponies; I actually had Rainbow Dash believing she was being burnt alive and feeling every bit of it. She actually passed out from the pain she thought she was experiencing!"

John chuckled and nodded approvingly.

"But now it's not working. I've been trying to induce various horrors in these ponies, but they're not responding to the commands I've been giving them."

"Okay, just give me one second here," John repeated and he got out of the service manual and pulled up the data readouts on his computer to look them over. Wait, was he reading that right? "Okay, it looks like the your fog's wireless receiver is offline. It's not getting your signals."

"Offline? How!?" Nightmare Moon asked in disbelief.

"Hang on, lemme run a diagnostic," John said as he brought up the appropriate program. But as it ran and began giving a readout, he was left confused. "Huh. Nightmare Moon, by any chance did you bind your essence with the terror fog?"

"... Was I not supposed to do that?" Nightmare Moon asked uneasily.

She had. John sighed as he tried to compose his thoughts and himself, since yelling at a customer was a bad idea.

"It looks like, when you did that, your receiver was burnt out by an ion charge that exceeded what it was rated for," he explained. "Your receiver was designed to withstand the positive and negative ion charges generated by your "free-floating phantom" upgrade so it wouldn't short out when in close proximity to you. But when you physically bound yourself to the fog, then it's charge and yours combined and exceeded the maximum operating threshold it was rated for."

"I couldn't afford the extra shielding," Nightmare Moon stated defensively.

"I know, I know, I've got that note on your file right here," John stated, "you opted for the "auto-cast" upgrade so you could spam the respawn spell and that really ate into your budget, I understand that. But that's what happened."

"Just wonderful," Nightmare Moon grumbled. "Is there anything you can do to fix it? Can you reset it?"

"Not on this end," John replied. "You're gonna need to come in for maintenance work in order to get it back up and running again. But since you purchased the coverage plan that won't cost you anything."

"Ugh, I so didn't need this right now," Nightmare Moon grumbled and sighed. "Alright, let me finish up here and I'll-"

John immediately had to pull the receiver on the headset away from his ear as Nightmare Moon's voice was replaced by a loud, piercing shriek of pain.

"Nightmare Moon?" he asked once the shrieking stopped and his eardrum was no longer under assault, letting him slip the receiver back into place again. "Nightmare Moon? Are you still there? Are you alright?"

"I am, thanks to the respawn spell your company sold me," Nightmare Moon replied, sounding none too well at the moment. "Celestia has apparently hired reinforcements I couldn't account for, and he punches like a freight train."

"I'm sorry, did you just say "punch?" As in with a fist?" John asked, confused.

"With a fist," Nightmare Moon groaned. "He punched me right at the base of a skull and cratered the ground with my body with the force of the impact."

"Who is this guy?" John mouthed to himself, before turning back to his computer. "Okay, Nightmare Moon, I don't know what you're dealing with because the force of that blow apparently scrambled our live visuals. Can you describe who you're facing?"

"I can try," Nightmare Moon replied. "He looks like a human and is about five and a half foot-units in height."

John nodded as he pulled up the personnel database and started entering the information to see if he could narrow down possible suspects.

"He's wearing baggy white pants, a tattered black muscle shirt, he's carrying a katana at his belt, he has pale ashy skin, messy black hair, and he has green eyes with slit pupils like mine."

John nodded as he typed in the information, before a look of realization dawned on his face.

"Nightmare Moon, by any chance does he have something bony on the left side of his head? Something with a horn jutting out at an angle?"

"... Yes?" Nightmare Moon replied uneasily.

"Okay that's not good. Nightmare Moon, that's Ulquiorra Cifer, he's on our villains henchmen registry, he works for Soskue Aizen. He's not even supposed to be there; he's supposed to be defending Las Noches, that's all the way over in Hueco Mundo, that's at least twenty hours of travel away from Equestria!"

"Then what's he doing here, foiling my plans like he's some sort of meddling kid!?" Nightmare Moon shrieked.

"I don't know. Hang on, lemme get up his file," John replied as he put down the other programs in order to pull up Ulquiorra's profile, looking for any information that might point them in a direction. "Alright, Nightmare Moon, I'm not seeing anything in his file that looks like he's been hired out to anyone in your area. I'm not seeing anything that looks like he's been hired by anyone in quite some time; Aizen was his last employer and nobody since then."

"Oh that's just perfect," Nightmare Moon shouted over the sounds of a great deal of commotion in the background that was making it more and more difficult to understand her. "Can you do anything to help? Maybe air drop a T-800 or two to take him down before he permanently kills me? Or perhaps ask Megatron and a few Decepticons to swing by? We got along quite well the last time we talked."

"No, Megatron's busy with his own campaign for Cybertron against the Autobots, he's not available. And I already explained this to Voldemort when he asked about getting a couple of Goa'uld motherships for his siege against Hogwarts; Acme won't provide technological support to a world that hasn't already developed that technology on his own. I can't give you Terminators, I can't give Skynet magical powers," John stressed. "Even if I could, Ulquiorra would open them up like tin cans in no time. He's one of the few beings out there that the Doomslayer can't actually outright kill. Sam and Dean Winchester know enough to give him a wide berth, and you know what kind of things they've dealt with; you met some of them at the last villain convention."

"Oh crap," Nightmare Moon groaned. "John, I'm desperate here. I can't go about implementing eternal night with this demon opposing me here. Isn't there anything you can do? Please?"

John sighed, trying to figure out what he could do in this situation.

"Let me talk to him, maybe I can figure out what he's doing there."

He listened to the hushed, muffled commotion playing out on the other end of the line, barely able to make out any words that were being exchanged.

"Hello, John."

"Hey, Ulquiorra, it's been a while," John commented. "Listen, can you tell me what you're doing in Equestria? That's kinda far from your usual neck of the woods."

"Discord saw fit to bring me here," Ulquiorra explained.

A look of surprise crept over John's face at hearing this. Confusion and annoyance. "Of course it'd be Discord somehow," he mumbled as he slowly dragged his hands down his face. "Ulquiorra, I'm looking at your file, I've got it up on my screen, and I'm not seeing Discord hiring you. Aizen was the last one we have on record who hired you for anything."

"And yet I am here regardless. Perhaps it is a clerical error," Ulquiorra suggested.

"I mean, I guess it's possible something went wrong, maybe somebody didn't update our files appropriately," John acknowledged, knowing it was always a possibility with a company as large as Acme. "But even if it is, Ulquiorra, buddy, you know you're not supposed to be helping out the heroes, right? You're a villain. If anything you should be helping Nightmare Moon."

"That is understood," Ulquiorra acknowledged.

"Right. So does Discord want you to take out the competition or something? Why're you giving Nightmare Moon so much trouble right now?" John asked.

"Because Princess Celestia has seen fit to task me with protecting her subjects from harm. I'm working for her now," Ulquiorra explained.

John just looked to the ceiling and facepalmed as he leaned back in his chair.

"Alright. So you're a hero now," he slowly surmised.

"I didn't say that. I merely said that I'm working for Princess Celestia," Ulquiorra corrected him.

"Ulquiorra... Ulquiorra you of all people know you're not supposed to do that! You can't just switch sides like that, without giving us advanced notice so we can update your file accordingly," John protested. "You know this makes us liable for misrepresentation if a villain hires you, and you go and undo his entire operation, right? W-what if Sauron had wanted to hire you for keeping Mordor secure? What then?"

"He did not, though, so there is no issue," Ulquiorra replied.

"That's not the point, Ulquiorra!" John yelled in frustration. "Look. Just... don't kill Nightmare Moon just yet, alright? Let me, let me call Discord and see if we can get this all sorted out."

The elevator music came on as John put the call on hold while pulling up Discord's file to locate his phone number and dialed it up.

"Come on, Discord, pick up the phone, I know you're there," he grumbled as he listened to the incessant ringing.

"Lord of Chaos," the voice at the other end of the line eventually replied.

"Discord!" John shouted. "Discord, it's John with Acme Villain Support! Listen, I'm on the other line with Nightmare Moon, and she's got Ulquiorra kicking the shit out of her! He says you brought him to Equestria for some reason."

"Hmm..." Discord mumbled in thought. "Now that you mention it I do seem to remember something along those lines. So we've got two emos trying to out-emo each other? That must be quite the sight to see!"

John just groaned, trying not to fly off the handle at a customer.

"Discord, help me out here buddy. You're a villain, Nightmare Moon's a villain, Ulquiorra's a villain, shouldn't you all be working together? Or at least be working against the heroes?"

"Oh. That," Discord replied. "The thing is, John, I've reformed. I'm no longer the villain I once was. Celestia has given me something that I didn't have before, and I like it."

John groaned again, now making no effort to disguise his annoyance.

"I guess I should let you know that I need my villain account updated to account for my more heroic nature now," Discord stated.

John very nearly pointed out that any such changes were supposed to be made only after proper notice was given and all the paperwork was taken care of, rather than after the fact. But he knew it'd be a lost cause, it wasn't going to change anything, and he still had a customer on the other line to help. This was going to be Levi's issue now; he could sort out the paperwork snafu that was coming.

"Whatever," he mumbled and hung up, "Nightmare Moon, you still there?"

"For the moment," Nightmare Moon replied. "What'd Discord say?"

"He said that he's gone over to the other side and is working for the heroes now," he sighed. "Look, Nightmare Moon, I promise you, we're going to get this matter sorted out. But for the time being, I know you're not going to like it, but until we get this all sorted out, you might wanna consider surrendering for the time being. Call off eternal night, throw yourself on Celestia's mercy, you might live to see another day. Don't try and fight Ulquiorra or you're screwed. Buy him as many beef and chicken burritos as he can eat and he might leave you alone."

"What about the "totally not a lightsaber" Nightmare Scythe? Would that do me any good?" Nightmare Moon asked.

"I mean... maybe it could hurt him? But I can't advise you to actually try since you didn't pop for any of the combat courses we offered in its use. You'd just be flailing it around, you might cut your own horn off and that won't covered by your policy. You might be able to pierce his skin, but I don't know if it can get through his bones. And Ulquiorra has a healing factor that's outpaced only by Deadpool and Majin Buu."

"Oh crap," Nightmare Moon groaned.

"If you DO insist on trying to fight him, try to keep your distance, and whatever you do, DON'T let him get his sword out of its sheathe. Because if he draws his sword then gonna transform, and if he transforms then it's gonna be all over. According to our records on him, his Lanza Del Relampago has a blast yield greater than one megaton," John advised.

"What does that mean in terms I can understand?" Nightmare Moon asked.

"Hold on, lemme pull that up for you," John said as he opened a new window to get up the appropriate conversion calculator so he could input the figures. "Alright, Nightmare Moon, in terms you can understand. If Ulquiorra uses his Lanza Del Relampago and it detonates, the immediate area you're in would be hit by a fireball two square miles in size, with pretty much everything but him being effectively vaporized out of existence. I don't think "auto-cast" and "respawn" are gonna do you any good there."

The only response on Nightmare Moon's end was a surprised squawk of terror.

"Followed immediately by the heavy blast radius for six square miles. That's a concussive wave of twenty PSI overpressure, and can destroy concrete buildings like they're nothing. Then there's the moderate blast radius at five PSI overpressure for twenty six miles, that's enough to destroy most homes. And then the light blast radius at one PSI overpressure for one hundred and seventy three square miles, which can pretty much shatter every glass window throughout the area, in every building that might still be left standing. All spreading out from the point of impact of wherever that attack hits," John continued, reading off what the results showed.

Silence was the only thing he could hear on the other end of the line. Had she hung up on him?

"John?"

No, she apparently hadn't hung up just yet. She was still on the line, and currently sounding like she wanted to cry.

"John... I've always been a good customer, right? Can... can Acme float me enough cash to buy a burrito shop? As in right now? Please?"

"I can't make that call, I'm not authorized to. Hang on and I'll transfer you over to Melissa, she handles things like that, she'll take care of you," John replied.

"A-alright," Nightmare Moon whimpered. "Thank you, John."

John had managed to keep his composure just long enough to transfer the call to the appropriate department, before slouching back against his chair and letting out a sigh as he slowly removed his headset.

"Yeah, she's doomed," he acknowledged to himself.

Comments

[Deora na greine]

so... the chapter?

[SurpriseKitty]

Glorious.

[Emperor of Jurai]

Wow a certain coyote is gonna be upset that he, a very long time customer, doesn't get this level of service from ACME.

[Moofrog 3]

Well could be worse.... she could be reporting about a wild Kirby encounter,

Everyone knows evil deities are his natural prey.

[Black_Knight]

Long time since we had one of those funny filler chapter.

What was the last one already? Ulquiorra continuously blasting Cell's regenerating head, right?

[Bloodytomb]

Lol

[RanmaChaos]

That was fun

[Fireeaters]

Why would Ulq need to report an alignment change? His henchman contract should say that that responsibility lies with his employer

[Charlie_K]

11499645
Because Acme is worried about their liability since Discord is operating in a rogue fashion and never updated either his or Ulquiorra's records.

[GrimmWolfDragon]

That was a good chapter. I just starting to watch that YouTube short.

[A Soul In Limbo]

This is hilarious, but now I also feel bad for Nightmare Moon. XD

[A Soul In Limbo]

11499948
What short?

[Charlie_K]

11501943
Villain Support. I found them by accident and I became addicted within a day of bingeing their entire library. I knew as soon as I found them that their routine would be just perfect for how tongue in cheek my own story has been at times.

[Dirty Bit]

John did the right thing. The whole Villain Support thing was funny

"Hmm..." Discord mumbled in thought. "Now that you mention it I do seem to remember something along those lines. So we've got two emos trying to out-emo each other? That must be quite the sight to see!"

Okay, that was a good one.

11498024 They don't do returns