The Crossroads

by Ex-Nihilos

Chapter 2: Falling Cliché

Chapter 2: Getting a bit crowded

As suddenly as everyone else had appeared, so too did a brown colt high above the Crossroads. A loud poof, as it was heard above the crowds heads, followed by a loud, deafening scream. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” screamed the colt before landing belly flop-style in front of everyone in the Crossroads. A moment passed in silence as their attention turned to the new pony. Slowly, the colt turned his body upwards, his chest, face, and neck covered in blood.

“Welp, Haku is now in horrible, blinding pain,” the colt stated calmly before clasping his face and screaming in pain again. “OH MY GOD! WHY?!” he screamed to the heavens above, “Why the frig does everything painful happen to Haku?!”

Before anyone could question the young colt, however, he passed out. It was at this time the others noted that he was a brown unicorn with a black, curly mane. Lewdy smiled nostalgically at the unconscious pony; with his hoof he patted the poor fellow on the head before turning to the others. Still smiling, he happily said, “This is great Memphis! We got the grump, the Irish Mob Boss, and an Asian! At this rate we might as well be starting a multi-cultural club.”

“Mhm,” Memphis said as he tuned his guitar, “What makes you think he’s Asian?”

“Because he speaks in the third person, I mean what other race of yellow people do that?”

“That’s wrong on so many levels.” The tan pony pointed out.

“Yet you don’t disagree!” Lewdy nodded to Lucky and Raeg and smiled mockingly, “Well looks like you two are going to be butt-buddies soon. Though, Captain Hernia, Irish Betty here‘s gotta point, we’re dead so that gives us about nothing in the level of respect. Oh I should probably mention Lucky that Raeg is a native here, we’re just guests. Like homeless people in the crawlspace we’re stuck in this tiny little spot hoping to get the homeowners attention, in this case the Elements of Harmony who have been kind enough to ignore us. Honestly though, that whole Discord incident happened not too long ago. So they’ve sorta been busy. Sooo... where does that put us Memphis?”

“Season two, probably near the middle of that one.” The guitarist pony replied.

“Wait so if there’s no three does that mean we cease to exist?” Lewdy said, cocking an eyebrow.

“Probably,” Memphis said with a shrug.

“....gnarly!”

Memphis gave a harsh sigh and muttered quietly, “This is going to be a long day. Death... please come take my soul away from that idiot.”

Raeg turned to address Lewdy. “And how do you know of the Arch-Enemy? Knowledge of him has been sequestered for thousands of years, nothing remains of him save bedtime stories and all information regarding the most recent incident never escaped Ponyville, I personally made sure of that.”

“And now I’m back!” the brown unicorn shouted to no one in particular as he suddenly jumped back to his hooves, interrupting the ongoing conversation. “Wait... something’s wrong,” the unicorn said quietly, “Did... did I just speak in first person?” He let out a loud gasp, “Haku did it again! Oh... oh well, with that disaster gone, can anyone tell Haku what is happening?”

The unicorn let out a loud sigh, rubbing his head. “I mean, I’m obviously dreaming, cuz the last thing I remember, I got hit on my head pretty bad with a fall, right after I got bit by that which is true evil. Then Haku fell down some stairs and... uh...” the unicorn, dubbed Haku, stammered, not even noticing that he had slipped back into the first person.

“You know what? Never mind. Haku is a pony now, so Haku is not complaining. Haku loves these pony dreams of his. Now, YOU PEOPLE!” he shouted back tot the group, “Where are my dancing tubas?” The group could only stare at the colt, who went wide-eyed in a second.

“Wait, Haku feels a disturbance in the force...”

With a smallish pop, a unicorn mare appeared floating in the air. Gravity seemed not to notice the blue pony, her black mane flowing unkempt as if unrestrained, even by the air. Her body also seemed distended somehow, her eyes bulged and everything else just being puffier than even a pony should be. The universe, though, quickly took notice of the new arrival and placed some level of physical law enforcement on her. She regained proper proportions remarkably quickly and began to fall, remarkably quicker.

Abigail felt herself falling, seeing that strange cartoon, which her cousin made her watch, upside down. It was curious that it should be the wrong way, but her brain probably stopped imagining things correctly about when she ran out of oxygen. She blinked once before hitting the ground with a painful jolt to her head. It was more painful that she was expecting, given the whole ‘dead’ thing, but, then, she had never died before and she still wasn’t functioning with enough air to think this whole death thing through. The impact did force her back to the world of the living enough to sharply intake breath, the feeling of her insides quickly becoming wonderfully oxygenated again came along with the pain of hitting the ground.

As she continued to breath, Abigail tried to sit up, but found herself unable. Something was keeping her head stuck in the ground. She couldn’t imagine what it would be, so she got up on all four of her hooves and pushed as hard as she could, eventually freeing whatever it was that seemed to now be part of her head. Wait... hooves? That seemed wrong somehow.

Looking around, she saw a number of brightly colored ponies standing around. “What... exactly is going on,” she asked with some of the proper confusion and worry barely starting to creep into her voice.

Lucky looked at the mare who just fell. “Bugger if I know miss, but the odd one o’er there on the bench said this place was Limbo... we’re probably going to be stuck for awhile.”

Lucky stuck out a hoof, almost falling flat on his muzzle again. He turned on his practiced pleasant smile he would use when speaking to the public. “Name’s Dominique O’Reiley where I’m from... though ‘Lucky Money’ seems to be a better title here. I hail from Ireland, please tell me you were a person before ye demise.”

Raeg regarded the two new arrivals with an unfavorable glare. “And of course, more deceitful unicorns. You should consider yourselves lucky that holy Celestia is so tolerant of your treacherous kind and that I was sent here without my thunder-wrench.”

Lewdy’s eyes darted around at the sudden influx of ponies the crossroads currently had. It was unheard of to have two arrivals in the span of a few minutes but four in just under half an hour? Either a massacre just happened or the planets have aligned themselves in such a way that the impossible became possible and dogs and cats were currently making love to one another somewhere on the distant world of Yogath-Morra.

A very eerie smile suddenly grew upon his lips, threatening to split his face in two. A unicorn who talked in third person and a mare! Probably the most interesting thing to happen since that bug invaded the Crossroads with its extremely loud moth wings. “Oh my God this is wonderful! I haven’t been this happy in the Crossroads since that schoolbus of children exploded and half of them ended up here. Mostly intact. Mostly.” He then proceeded to try and butt Lucky Money out of the way to be in front of the newest arrival, “And a mare too! I’m Lewdy by the way because I knew you were wondering. Oh and also you died. Sorry about that, but hey at least you’re not... horribly maimed?”

At that the drifter decided it was his turn to take charge of the situation. Memphis groaned and put his guitar down against the tree. With ease he flipped himself off his back and was on his hooves in an instant. “You can stop makin' a fool of yerself there Lewdy, ah think yer done makin' things worse.”

Lewdy shook his head quickly, “Worse?! No I make things better! But fine Memphis you hick, see if you can do better.” Jumping onto one of the benches, the blue-maned pony tried his best to lounge back with his back hooves crossed.

Memphis looked at him with a mixture of loathing and boredom. Turning to regard them all he spoke slowly and deliberately, “Alright yer all pretty confused right about now but as my... what ever the hell Lewdy is... said we’re all dead. Now then, Captain, it would be too long to explain at the moment about who we are-”

“Well you could just say we’re hairless apes from another dimension who think he’s make believe.” Lewdy chimed in.

“Quiet. But in regards to Discord we saw the whole thing happen-”

“Front row tickets free of charge!”

“We were still dead at the time so we were just ghosts through that whole event. That’s pretty much all we have to say about that. So then, every... pony... take a deep breath and gather your thoughts before you go shouting at once. Keep calm, sit down if you need to, I don’t care. Just don’t explode just yet. I don’t want to draw Death’s attention just yet; she gets annoyed pretty easily.”

“Whoa whoa whoa!” Shouted the brown unicorn, waving his hooves around in the air. “Did you just say we’re dead? Like ‘dead-dead?’” Haku stared at the ground for a moment. If this was true... then... oh god...

“So if I’m... dead... then what about Haku’s family?”

“All not dead,” the pony named Lucky said. Haku could only glare at the Irish sounding pony. “Ok, you know what? Haku is cool with this,” Haku stated, “Haku is... very cool with this. At least Haku still has Haku’s health.” Everyone could do nothing but give themselves a good ol’ facehoof.

“Haku has but one question left.”

“Yeah?” Lewdy asked.

“You said we shouldn’t explode... does this mean we CAN explode?”

The pony - Haku could only guess it was this Memphis person, as Haku wasn’t really paying attention when names were given - spoke next. “Yeah, Ah suppose ya can explode, but I’d rather ya didn’t try to. We don’t need Death raisin’ Cain about us.”

“Hmmm,” Haku hmm’d, “Can we explode twice?”

“No.” Memphis deadpanned.

Haku let out a depressed sigh at this. “Le sigh,” Haku said as he let out a very audible sigh. “Ok then... moving on.” Haku turned away from Memphis and stared at the rest of the group. “Does anyone know who I am? Cuz I really want to get that out the way.” Haku was, as expected, given a school of ‘No. Nope. Nuh uh. Never ‘eard ol’ ya. Fuck you.’

Haku once again let out a sigh. This was going to take a while. “Ok, cuz you see, Haku is a big deal.”

“No.” Memphis said lazily.

“But-”

“No, no background stories.”

“Why?” Haku asked.

Memphis let out a chuckle as he answered, “because no one cares.”

Abigail cracked her neck, still feeling a bit weird from dying. Nope, she still wasn’t totally hit by the enormity of that fact. It was a pit in her stomach, which felt to be in the wrong place for her new body that she apparently had, that would probably stay there for a while longer. Hopefully. On the other hand, she’d died pretty contented with her lot. Turning to the yellow… horse... pony... thing... Dominique. Yes, Dominique would work. It grounded her to Earth.

Turning to Dominique, she responded, “I’m from New York, though I’ve been living near Cape Canaveral for the last while. Died in space, actually. We were doing the final tests on our new space cruiser when it took a hit from some junk. I think I’m still not over the beauty of the sun cresting over Earth...” she trailed off for a moment before continuing. “Anyway, I’m Abigail Miller.” A bit more worry started to take hold of Abigail as she stood up. It wasn’t so hard to do on four limbs, though she was sure walking would be hard. And then there was that crazy pony ... pegasus? It had wings, though there was no way it could fly on them. On the other hand, she’d died. So there was no telling... He was shouting what she assumed were racial slurs at her. And then there was the creeper.

Abigail was used to sexually frustrated, socially inept guys coming on to her. She was an electrical engineering major with a Comp-Sci minor at MIT. A 4-1 male-female ratio was normal, and so attention would usually turn her way. Most guys weren’t so useless, but every now and then there was one. Eternity wouldn’t be that great with one of those around, but she would deal.

“So wait, does that mean that everyone in this town is dead? It does seem like a weird sort of afterlife to be in a baby’s cartoon. At least there’s a large community of people to be with, so it won’t be that bad... right?” Abigail was starting to get past her calm and into panic. Plus, apparently she had a horn in addition to hooves. If only she could remember what made unicorns special in that show; now she wished she watched more of it.

Lewdy’s eyebrows raised and a devilish smile crossed his lips, “You know when you said baby’s cartoon all I could think about was you and me making some-”

A swift back kick from Memphis to the pony’s nether regions turned the dirty remark into a sharp, pained shout. Memphis smiled happily as Lewdy toppled over onto the ground clutching his injured region in agony.

He turned back to Abigail, “First it’s a pleasure to meet ya, Ms. Miller, you as well Haku. Name’s Boone but y’all can just call me Memphis, death by incineration in that city. The one currently writhing on the ground there is Lewdy, death by impalement. To answer your question: no this whole town is quite alive. Ah’ve been here for four years and have shared some thoughts with others who’ve passed through. This crossroads is just a spot where souls like us wait until we pass on. Why this spot specific? Not a clue. Why in this town? Because in some way it held some special significance fer ya. When ah died ah had a thought about missing Equestria and here ah am, ya’ll be too for a while but ah can’t say how long.”

That they were the only ones dead in the town was somewhat disconcerting. Did that mean that the cartoon was actually about a real place where people lived? Perhaps it could mean that Abigail was just having an extended delusion before she actually died, but that line of thought led to madness and wasn’t a very helpful one. She’d just go with this being some strange afterlife type thing.

“Well, if we have a whole town around us to enjoy an afterlife in, then it surely won’t be so bad,” Abigail’s voice wavered, nearly cracking by the end of her statement which rose to the inflection of a question. “Perhaps I will go take a stroll through town to get to know my new surroundings,” she said, slowly gaining confidence in her idea as the sentence went on. Really, she just wanted to think things through for a bit. It would be hard to do with all the other... people here talking about stuff. She could ask more about their situation later, but for now the pit in her stomach had become more akin to a boulder.

Then, with a rush of, well, Abigail didn’t exactly want to think about what it was, another person appeared.

As the gathered ponies shared the stories of their lives and deaths, a quiet churning sound began to form in the background, initially too subtle to draw any attention. As moments passed, it grew into a rumbling vibration that became harder and harder to ignore. Two by two, all eyes turned in the direction of the sound’s apparent origin, yet were unable to see anything that could be creating what was quickly becoming a dull roar. Upon reaching a fairly troubling volume, the source of the noise finally made itself known as a geyser of frothing liquid burst into the scene, somehow originating from a discarded disposable cup lying on the ground.

As the wave of liquid gushed forth, the leading edge disappeared impossibly into the dirt just before the watching ponies, while a scent reminiscent of bacon filled the air. The flow continued uninterrupted for a minute or two as the accumulated grease of a lifetime of meaty indulgence ran its course.

As the oily river trickled to a halt, a slick, yet solid form revealed itself on the ground. As the remaining fat melted away, the shape clarified into that of a rather bulky male earth pony. Lifting his head, he hacked up an impressively large sausage onto the ground, then took a few deep breaths, his eyes never breaking contact with the chunk of meat in front of him. Twisting the front half of his body upright with his forelegs, the pony reached his head downward, grabbed the sausage in his mouth, and quickly chomped it down, licking his lips in satisfaction afterward.

Suddenly becoming aware of his surroundings, he turned his gaze upward. Glancing at the assortment of colorful ponies staring back at him, he had but one critical question: "So what else we got to eat around here?"

Comments

[DarrParrot]

Goddamn Chubs is so fat

[Periphery]

Aaahh, it's up! Panic!

Well, maybe not panic, but it does feel a bit strange to have actually contributed to a story.

[Haku1013]

Haku is sorta worried that we're the only ones commenting on the story

[Ex-Nihilos]

405269 They will come, they always do