Lyra's Big Idea

by AstroStar

The Production

"Ok everypony, the next stop is ours. Don't worry, we're almost there!" Derpy told her travel companions.

Lyra sighed impatiently. It had been a longer train ride than she realized and she was just itching to get to the next part of her project. On the other hoof, Lyra was glad she managed to get Octavia, Vinyl Scratch, and even Time Turner to join her on this trip and this project. However, it was evident that some participants were more willing than others.

"I still can't believe you're dragging us all the way out here for this," Octavia complained.

"Come on, Octy! This could be that big collaboration project we said we were going to do!"

"But Vinyl, what about Pinkie and the others? I'm not comfortable doing something like this behind their backs."

"It’ll be fine, Octavia," Lyra reassured the musician. "Just think of this as a movie-length pilot. They need more proof that ‘Equestria Girls’ could work, and this is the way to do it. All we need is Chrysalis' help."

"And speaking of changelings, are we there yet?!?" Time Turner shouted impatiently. "Honestly, it's like we've been traveling for hours to get there!!!"

"Yeah, I never realized how far it was to get to Chrysalis’ place," Lyra agreed.

"It used to be a lot farther from here," Derpy explained. "She was banished to the edge of Equestria for a while, remember? Celestia let the changelings build a whole new village for themselves around here after they stopped being evil."

Time Turner sat with his hooves crossed as he grumbled to himself. "It would have been a lot shorter if we used my ride. But do they ever listen? Nooo…"

"And that's another thing about this crazy idea," Octavia continued on from her previous point. "Are you sure we should be reaching out to the changelings like this? I mean, I heard all those stories about what she did during the wedding."

Derpy smiled. "Don’t worry. She’s not evil anymore. She’s actually a great pony to get along with once you get to know her."

"It also helps that she's got all those muffins," Vinyl laughed. "I just don't understand how muffins were enough to tame the Changelings."

"Serotonin." Time Turner stated matter-of-factly.

"Uh, Sara-two-what?" Lyra asked confused.

Time Turner couldn't help himself from explaining. "It's a chemical related to general well-being and happiness. It just so happens that whenever warm flour-based baked goods interact with the Changeling's unique biological makeup, it gets digested into pure serotonin, thereby making the changelings exponentially happy."

"Um... I just make my muffins with a lot of love." Derpy simply stated..

Time Turner shrugged. "Well, if you want to explain it like that...."

It was at that moment the train's conductor made an announcement on the loudspeaker. "Attention passengers! We are now approaching Anahive. Please watch your step while you're exiting the train."

The name struck Vinyl as kind of odd. "Anahive? Is it just me or are some of these names getting sillier?"

"If you ask me, it sounds like the perfect place to make a movie." Lyra shrugged.

"Come on everypony, this is our stop!" Derpy shouted.

The five travelers gathered their belongings as the train began to pull into the station. Looking out the window, they were all surprised to notice that the Changeling Queen was on the train platform, waving excitedly at the newcomers. Derpy was the first one off the train as it came to a stop. She quickly made her way over to Chrysalis and embraced her.

"Chrysalis!" Derpy shouted.

"Derpy!" Chrysalis shouted.

"Secret Muffin Handshake!!!" They shouted in unison.

Standing on their rear hooves and holding their front hooves together, the two began their ritual dance. They kicked their back hooves in unison four times. Then Chrysalis jumped up and down. Then Derpy jumped up and down. Then Chrysalis jumped up again. And then Derpy jumped straight up into Chrysalis arms, the changeling winding up holding Derpy in one arm while holding out her other in a grand finishing pose. The two muffin buddies then laughed at their silly dance.

The other four travelers looked at the silly ritual with much confusion.

"That's Chrysalis? That's the same mare who nearly defeated and overthrew Celestia?" Octavia asked in disbelief.

"I guess so." Vinyl replied.

"She's not as menacing as I remember." Lyra observed.

Derpy waved the other four over. "Hey guys! Come over and meet Queen Chrysalis!"

"You brought company!" Chrysalis smiled.

"Yes I did! These are some of my friends from Ponyville I told you about!" Derpy began to point out each of them to Chrysalis.

"This is Time Turner..."

Turner bowed his head in respect. "Enchante, madmoiselle!"

"Oh, Fancy! I like this one already!" Chrysalis whispered to Derpy, making the pegasus giggle.

"This is Vinyl Scratch, and her roommate Octavia..."

"You can call me 'DJ-Pon3', Chrissy! Come on Octy, don't be shy. Say hi!" Vinyl nudged Octavia over to meet Chrysalis.

"It’s a… pleasure to meet you..." Octavia chuckled nervously.

"You don't have to be frightened. I won't bite," Chrysalis smiled.

"I don't think that should even be an issue!" Vinyl laughed.

"How come?"

The DJ smirked. "Trust me when I say that Octavia can be quite the biter when she... mmph!!!"

Vinyl was forced to stop as Octavia forcibly shut her muzzle silent. She then got straight into the face of her roommate.

"One more word out of you and I'm shoving those glasses straight down your throat, Vinyl. GOT IT?"

Vinyl Scratch nodded quickly in compliance.

Derpy hesitated a bit from that scene before she continued her introductions. "And finally, this is Lyra. But I think you two had already met before."

It took Chrysalis a few seconds before she could place where she had seen the green unicorn before. "Oh right, you were one of my bridesmaids, weren’t you?"

"Well I was Cadence’s bridesmaid, but yeah, that was me."

"Well needless to say, I think we got off on the wrong hoof."

"You brainwashed me!!!" Lyra reminded Chrysalis.

Chrysalis cringed. "I did do that, didn't I?"

Lyra sighed. "Look, it doesn't matter anymore. We've both moved on from that. Besides, there's another big reason why we're all here anyway. I'm working on a huge project and I really, really need your help Chrysalis."

"Really? How so, Lyra?"

"Well, you can change into any form, can you Chrysalis?"

Chrysalis smirked. In an instant, a flash surrounded her form. When the flash faded, Chrysalis had changed her form into that of Applejack's brother, Big Macintosh.

"Eeyup!" The Big Macintosh-shaped pony replied in a deep voice.

Another flash and Chrysalis changed back to her normal form.

"Cute," Lyra snarked. She quickly got back down to business. She reached into her travel bag, searching to bring out her Equestria Girls design. "Now I was wondering, is there anyway you can change yourself into… this?"

Chrysalis took good look at the drawing. It resembled Twilight Sparkle, with the hair and the purple color scheme. However, this Twilight was a human. A purple-skinned human, granted, but a human nonetheless.

"Hmm, a challenge...." Chrysalis pondered. "It's a lot easier to transform into another pony, but I've never tried transforming into another species. Nevermind trying to emulate a drawing before."

"So you can't do it?"

"It'll be tricky, but I can give it a shot. Hold on, let me see that picture again."

Lyra handed the picture over to Chrysalis. The changeling queen began to scrutinize this figure, from head to toe. She then began to visualize how to change her form into what Lyra wanted in this picture. After a few minutes, she handed the picture back to Lyra. "Ok, I think I'm ready to try this. Here goes!"

Chrysalis shut her eyes in deep concentration. Normally a transformation took little effort on her part, but something like this required much concentration. This was not just posing around as another pony. This was an entire species swap. A species that she had never encountered before. However, with Lyra's image fresh in her mind, she began to will the transformation to make that image a reality. A few moments later, a blinding flash surrounded Chrysalis' form, forcing everypony to look away for a moment. As the light faded, the travelers were all stunned to see that Chrysalis had succeeded in becoming a human Twilight Sparkle, dressed in the purple skirt from Lyra's picture. Everypony gasped in awe.

"Wow, it really worked!" Octavia said in disbelief.

Chrysalis stood on her two feet, stunned that she was able to pull it off. She was especially taken aback from her new hands. Lyra approached her in silent fascination, amazed that not only was she standing next to a human, but that her idea was now being fleshed out before her eyes.

"Chrysalis? How do you feel?" Derpy asked.

Chrysalis cleared her throat and replied using Twilight's voice. "Honestly Derpy, this feels really... strange," she said while taking stock of her new body. She was especially curious as to why her chest seemed to be sticking out so much.

"Can the other changelings do that too?" Derpy asked.

"It might take some effort, but if I can do it, then the others defiantly can too!" Chrysalis replied.

That bit of news brought a big cheer from Lyra. "YES! We’re in business!"

The now-human Chrysalis looked on confused. "Uh, would anypony mind telling me what’s going on?"

"Chrysalis? How would you like to be the star in my movie?"

Stars lit up in Chrysalis' eyes. "Me... a star?"

"Well technically 'Twilight' is the star, but it's going to be you on the screen and... OOF!!" Lyra suddenly found herself being bear hugged by the human-shaped changeling.

"Oh of course I will!!! Oh thank you for giving me this!!!" Chrysalis gushed, clutching Lyra tightly. The unicorn's face being buried in her chest.

Derpy reached out in concern. "Uh, Chrysalis! I think you choking her!!!"

"Huh?" Chrysalis loosened her hug and held Lyra out. She was gasping for air and seemed to be blushing slightly at the sudden hug attack. "Oh, sorry Lyra. Guess I got a bit too excited back there."

"You're forgiven... I think..." Lyra gasped.

Vinyl Scratch tentatively raised a hoof "By any chance, could I get one of those next?"

"VINYL!!!" Octavia frowned.

Seeking to regain some order, Time Turner spoke up with a suggestion. "Listen, why don't we get into town right now and iron out the details of this production."

"I like that idea!" Derpy shouted. "We can have a meeting at my place!"

"You have a place here?" Octavia asked.

Derpy nodded. "Chrysalis built it for me when I started making these muffin trips."

"Well what are we waiting for? Let's get going!" Lyra shouted.

Later that day, the visitors all had a chance to settle in Chrysalis' guest house. The town itself didn't seem to be much larger than Ponyville on the surface, but Chrysalis was quick to remind them of the large, underground cave where most of the changelings lived. However, with a movie to shoot, there was no time for sightseeing. Everything needed to be coordinated to make sure the production ran smoothly. Lyra had remembered that Pinkie said that it took about two to three days to shoot a new episode of 'Friendship is Magic', so Lyra had figured that filming 'Equestria Girls' would probably take about a week or so. After a chance to talk over some of the logistics about filming such a project, Lyra handed out her story outlines to everypony. At the moment, she was just beginning to wrap up her lengthy synopsis.

"...And so, after that, we roll the credits and that's the end."

The travelers, turned movie staff, sat silently as Lyra laid out her idea in full.

"Well, there are a couple of issues here and there," Octavia spoke up. "But I overall I think it's a job very well done."

"I think Pinkie will be very pleasantly surprised when she sees the finished product," Time Turner smiled.

"So... you guys liked it?" Lyra asked.

"Of course we do!" Derpy giggled.

"I'll make sure my subjects are all available to stand in whenever necessary, and I'll reach out to Discord to help us with the props and sets too." Chrysalis announced.

Lyra's smile could barely be contained. It was all coming together! "Well in that case, we’re all set! We have our actors with the Changelings, we have Octavia and Vinyl with the music, Derpy can handle the camera, and Time Turner?"

"Yes?" the brown stallion asked.

"You know more about humans and human culture than anypony else in Equestria, so I need you to let me my consultant on all things human."

"I think I can manage that," Time Turner grinned knowingly.

Lyra decided to get up on the table to speak out to the crew. "Well it looks like this is it. We're about to set off and make our own destiny. And I know with our ambitions and our talents, we can make something the fans will never forget! Fillies and Gentlecolts? Let’s make a movie!"

"YEAH!!!" Everypony cheered. They began to scramble to accomplish their movie-related tasks. Vinyl and Octavia made their way to the nearby piano and began to work on the music. Derpy and Time Turner, meanwhile, went with Chrysalis to round up as many changelings as possible to star in the movie. Lyra meanwhile, went back to her sketchbook to finish drawing up the designs for the other 5 human stars.

"This is your time, Lyra!" the green unicorn told herself. "You're not just going to be some random background pony anymore. You're finally making your own dreams come true!" Lyra looked out a nearby window as Celestia's sun was beginning to set, making it's way for Luna's night.

"This is going to be the best week of my life!" Lyra smiled.

~~Three Weeks Later~~

"That was the worst three weeks of my life." Lyra groaned as she got off the late night train and onto Ponyville's train station.

"Well at least you got it done the way you wanted right?" Derpy asked.

Lyra exhaled. "Yeah I did, but man! I never realized how hard it was to put something like this together."

It didn't take very long into the shooting of the movie for Lyra to realize that she was over her head. Little errors, big errors, cast screw ups, plot holes, continuity errors, and the presence of Discord pulling innocent, yet frustrating pranks every once in a while turned the one week project into a three week adventure. It also didn't help that the perfectionist in Lyra forced several reshoots and reedits over what seemed like he simplest little thing. However, Lyra shot for the stars. She wanted to match the high quality that Pinkie and her friends seemed to create almost effortlessly. And after several sleepless nights, she felt like she had achieved a final cut that was worthy to show to the Mane 6. Lyra looked down at the tape she was holding, marked 'Equestria Girls - Final Cut'.

"Look on the bright side Lyra," Derpy smiled. "You finally managed to make your dreams come true. You're the master of own destiny!"

"Yeah, but making your own destiny is exhausting," Lyra yawned. "I need to get back home. Bon Bon's probably wondering why I've been spending so much time with the changelings."

Looking at how the production had worn Lyra out, Derpy offered a small suggestion. "I’ll tell you what, I’ll go a drop this over at Twilight’s place for you, ok?"

Lyra shrugged and handed the tape over to Derpy. "Sure go ahead. I don't think they'll be back from that vacation of their's next week, though."

"Not a problem. I'll just leave a note for when they come back. Just go relax now. You've earned a break from all that stress."

Letting off another yawn, Lyra began to make her way back home. "Thanks for all your help Derpy. I couldn't have done this without you."

Derpy took a last look at Lyra before she took off to make her way over to the library. It was getting fairly late at the moment, so she made sure to stay quiet for all the sleeping ponies of Ponyville. When she landed at the library front, the first thing she noticed was that the library's light's were on and the front door was unlocked, despite the fact the librarian was supposed to be on vacation with her friends.

"Huh, that's weird," Derpy thought to herself. "Did Twilight forget to turn the lights off?"

The gray pegasus opened the door and entered, expecting to find somepony taking care of it. However, the library seemed to be unoccupied at that moment.

"I really should just set this tape down," she decided.

Derpy went over to where Twilight kept her parchment and quills and scribbled a quick message on it.

We made a movie! Tell us what you think! :-)

"I think they'll get the message," she thought as she attached the message to the tape. She then turned to head back out when she noticed a half opened door off to her left. Upon closer inspection, it looked like that door led to the library's basement.

"Hmm... I've never seen the library this empty before. I don't think anypony will mind if I just explore a bit." Derpy took a few steps before she came across a realization. "Wow, this is starting to sound like one of those stories Rainbow Dash told me about!"

Shrugging her doubts aside, Derpy made her way to the door and slowly walked down the steps towards the basement. She was fascinated to see all the high-tech machines and computers stored down here. Most of these were random contraptions Twilight had used before, but there were also a few cameras, microphones, and other miscellaneous props from the show.

"I guess this must be where they store everything from the show.... whoa..." Derpy's eyes lit up when she made her way to the back of the basement, which held a machine almost three times her height and spanning several feet long. She then noticed the big Hasbro logo on the side as well as a display reading 'Hasbro Video Transmitter - Insert Tape'

"This must be what they use to send the finished episodes to Hasbro!" she realized. "I wonder how it works. Is it like one of those trans-mat things Time Turner told me about? But then again, how else are they able to get the tapes over to them."

She then took another look at the tape she was holding, and then she took another look at the machine. There was a glass opening big enough to put the tape in near the main console. She also noticed the big green button on the console that simply said 'Send.'

"I wonder if…"

Shaking a bit in anticipation, Derpy slowly put the tape inside the glass door and quietly pressed it shut. She then placed her hoof on the send button. She hesitated mightily as her hoof hovered over the button. She didn't get any permission to do this and she really should have asked. But on the other hoof, she was almost as excited as Lyra on the movie and she really wanted everyone to see it. After fighting with herself, she sighed and retracted her hoof away from the button.

"I really shouldn’t. I'll just wait for Twilight and the others to come back," Derpy decided. She started to open the glass door back up when...

"Whose down here?" a voice shouted from behind her.

"EEP!!!"

The shock of the mysterious voice made Derpy scramble onto the machine. She turned around, pressing her forehooves behind her and on the console, in fear of whoever had found her snooping in the basement. From the faint lighting, she was able to recognize the form of one of Pinkie Pie's older friends. It was Cheery Blossom, or Cheerilee as she used to be called in another Ponyville.

"Derpy? Is that you?" Cheery Blossom asked.

Derpy sighed in relief seeing a familiar face. "Oh, hi Cheery Blossom. What are you doing here?"

"I should be asking you that same question," the pig-tailed earth pony said. "I’m watching the library a bit until Twilight gets back from Las Pegasus. I was just upstairs reading a book when I heard some noises downstairs. What are you doing down here anyway?"

Derpy stammered as she tried to cover up her intrusion. "Oh, I was... just dropping off an... old prop form 'The Last Roundup' that I still had. I was just putting it in the basement for her! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare anypony!"

Cheery Blossom sighed. "It's ok Derpy. You're fine. I just thought you were a robber or a monster or something."

Derpy laughed. "Yeah, it was silly of me to just barge in like that. I'll be on my way out in a bit."

"Ok, just be careful around some of these machines Derpy. They're very important."

"I will! Goodnight Cheery Blossom!"

"Goodnight Derpy," Cheery Blossom waved as she turned around to exit the basement. After she went back up the stairs, Derpy finally allowed herself a moment to breath a huge sigh of relief.

"That was close. That could have turned out to be a huge disas...ter?" Derpy's body almost froze when she noticed that she had her hoof down on the send button during Cheery Blossom's unexpected visit.

"Oh no!!!" she shrieked in fear.

She turned around to the glass door and found that the tape was missing! She then notices the machine’s display now read ‘Tape Submission Sucessful!’ Her wall-eyed pupils shrunk in fear as she read the display. She had accidentally sent Lyra's movie to HQ. 'Equestria Girls' was now in the hands of Hasbro.

Derpy's eyes took another look at the glass door. The she slowly turned her eyes at the console. Then she slowly turned her eyes to the display. Taking a mental stock of the entire situation, there was only one thing she could say.

"I just don't know what went wrong!"

Author's Note:

I just HAD to include that line at the end. And wouldn't you know it, I got 502'd while submitting this!!! I think I got it fixed now. I hope...

Comments

[Seether00]

So Derpy's to blame. Of course. Twilight and the gang are gonna be so mad. TEE HEE!

[ColdGoldLazarus]

Brilliant. That is all I can say.

[Ash_Kitsune]

I know JUST what went wrong!

[RedvsBlue327]

And of course, corporate Hasbro being whom they are, will be going "This is fucking brilliant!" at the obviously horrible idea and presentment.

[Crazy the Clone]

2641050
I dunno. It became pretty frikkin cool