My Little Pony: Friendship is Absurd

by Lord Seth

Daring Power

Gilda hummed to herself as she read her book. “Man, I should write my own novel sometimes,” she said. “It’d be about this griffon named Glida who would go on adventures and shoot all her enemies.”

Gilda was interrupted from her thoughts on a potential self-insert story by a knock on the door. She went to open it.

“Hi, Gilda!” announced Lightning Dust, who was accompanied by Trixie.

“You have five seconds before I slam the door,” said Gilda.

“TheDaringDobooksarereallypopularandwewantedtocontacttheauthortoseeaboutdoingsomekindofcrossoverbutwedon’tknowhowIknowyou’reareallybigfansowehopedmaybeyouhadsomesecretcontactinformation,” saidLightningDustatincrediblespeed.

Gilda stared. “Huh?”

“I had to package all of that into five seconds somehow.”

“Fine,” said Gilda with a sigh, “take a little longer to explain it this time.”

“The Daring Do books are really popular and we wanted to contact the author to see about doing some kind of crossover, but we don’t know how. I know you’re a really big fan, so we hoped maybe you had some secret contact information.”

“What?” asked Gilda. “I don’t like those books!”

“You’re holding one right now!” said Trixie.

“No, this is a book on sniper techniques,” said Gilda.

“It says Daring Do right on the cover!”

“That’s just to disguise it,” said Gilda.

“What would you even be disguising it for?” asked Lightning Dust.

“Oh, for the love of,” said Trixie as she grabbed the book out of Gilda’s hands and opened it. “See, this clearly… huh. This actually is a book about sniper techniques.”

“See?” asked Gilda. “Can I have it back, then?”

Trixie turned the page. “Oh, wait, no. This is a Daring Do book. It looks like a bunch of pages from an unrelated sniper manual have been inserted into it to disguise it.”

Gilda snatched the book from Trixie. “Fine! I have a marginal interest in that book series. I still don’t know anything about the author or how to contact her.”

“Aha!” said Lightning Dust. “You referred to the author as a ‘she.’ But those books are written by an A.K. Yearling. The only way you’d know the author’s gender is if you did know something about her! What’s your answer to that?”

Gilda stared at the two, shrugged, went back inside, and slammed the door.

“Darn it, I always forget about that answer,” muttered Trixie.

“Well, what do we do now?” asked Lightning Dust.

“Go to the comic book store and see if we can get inspiration?”

“Sure!”

Later…

Sunset heard a knock on her door. “This never ends well,” she muttered as she went to open it. She found Lightning Dust and Trixie outside with guilty expressions on their faces.

“Hey, Sunset,” said Lightning Dust, “we kind of need a little help.”

“Does it involve a monster rampaging through Ponyville?” asked Sunset wearily.

“No,” said Trixie.

“Then I don’t care!” snapped Sunset as she slammed the door. She then heard loud crashing noises from outside and opened her door again to take a look. She saw a purple earth pony with extraordinarily large green hair that looked more like a bunch of tentacles rampaging through Ponyville. Sunset glared at Trixie.

“What?” asked Trixie. “I wouldn’t technically classify her as a monster.”

Sunset gritted her teeth. “What. Happened. This. Time.”

“We got the new Power Ponies comic which was apparently enchanted with some sort of spell that let you go into it for fun, but it seems this one had a defect that caused stuff to come out of the book instead, so we have the villain of the piece rampaging through town.”

“If all the stuff from the comic came out, shouldn’t the good guys from said comic come out and defeat her, saving us the trouble?”

“When it all happened, the comic was open to a page where she had knocked them out, so they weren’t able to exit the comic.”

“How does that even… never mind,” said Sunset. “Why do you always come to me with these problems?”

“Because as duly appointed government representative, or whatever your title is, you’re supposed to be our leader in times of crisis. Plus, you tend to have decent ideas on what to do. Plus, you–”

“Never mind,” said Sunset wearily. “Fine, I’ll see if I can stop this idiot. Though why hasn’t she been attacking while we’re having this conversation?”

“It’s a comic book character,” said Trixie, “they never attack while an important conversation is going on.”

“Comic book character… hrm,” said Sunset. “Got it!” Sunset was briefly surrounded by green fire as she transformed into a copy of the Mane-iac.

“I thought you said you couldn’t transform into anypony without all that paperwork?” asked Trixie.

“She’s a comic book character! That shouldn’t apply to her!”

“I’d be more worried about getting sued for copyright infringement,” said Lightning Dust.

Sunset ignored them and tried to attack the Mane-iac using her newly grown hair. However, due to lack of knowledge on how to use them, she inadvertently tangled them into knots. The Mane-iac, apparently amused, used her own hair to whack Sunset into a wall.

“Aaaaand this whole changeling thing continues to be useless,” said Sunset as she transformed back into her usual self. “Anypony else have an idea?”

“Ha!” declared Gilda as she landed next to them. “I should’ve known you guys needed my help!” She pulled out a pistol. “Observe!”

Gilda pointed the pistol towards the Mane-iac and pulled the trigger. Instead of a bullet, a stick came out. Attached to the stick was a flag with the word “BANG” on it. Gilda stared at it. “Did one of you guys swap out my gun as a prank?” she asked.

“I think it’s simply because the Mane-iac is from a comic series for the younger crowd, and thus guns would be disallowed,” said Trixie.

“That doesn’t even make sense!” screamed Gilda. She then got whacked away by the Mane-iac’s hair.

“Okay,” said Trixie said to Lightning Dust, “so that’s Sunset, Gilda, you, and me. Now what?”

“Hello!” declared Flim as he ran up. “What’s going on? And please explain quickly!”

“WegotthenewPowerPoniescomicwhichwasapparentlyenchantedwithsomesortofspellthatletyougointoitforfunbutitseemsthisonehadadefectthatcausedstufftocomeoutofthebookinsteadsowehavethevillainofthepiecerampagingthroughtown.”

“Ah!” said Flim. “That’s an easy one to solve! Flam, since the Mane-iac is clearly going to defeat everypony, let’s get on its good side by giving it lots of ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Cider!’”

“How does that help anything?” asked Trixie indignantly.

“It helps us!” said Flam, who had arrived with Flim but wasn’t noted by the narration until this point. He took out several bottles and approached the Mane-iac. “Hello, new overlord! We come bearing gifts to try to get on your good side!”

The Mane-iac looked at them suspiciously. “And I’m to believe that these aren’t poisoned?”

Flam shrugged and opened up a bottle and drank some. “See? No problem.”

“Well, this had better be good,” said the Mane-iac. She took the bottle and drank some. Her eyes bugged out. “This… is… amazing!” she declared. She downed the entire bottle. “More! More!”

A whole lot of bottles later…

“You know what?” asked the Mane-iac in a stupor. “You’re all my friends! We can all be one big happy… family…” She promptly collapsed.

“Hooray!” declared Flim and Flam.

“What, what just happened?” asked Gilda.

“Oh, that was the alcoholic cider,” explained Flim. “We figured that if she drank enough, she’d get so drunk she’d be harmless.”

“How the heck can alcohol affect her if the guns wouldn’t?”

“Well,” said Trixie, “you can disguise alcoholic beverages quite easily in a comic. Happens all the time, when something clearly alcoholic gets referred to as something else so no one gets offended.”

“That still doesn’t make any sense!” said Sunset.

“It’s comic books,” said Trixie. “When do they ever make any sense?”

“Whatever!” said Sunset. “What do we do with her? How do we get her back into the comic?”

“I’ve got the answer!” declared Suri as she ran up. “I’ve got this really great hat that, if we put it on her, will prevent her hair from being a danger!”

“How does that help us get her back into the comic?” asked Sunset with irritation.

Suri took notice of the scene. “Oh drat, you already defeated her? I didn’t even get a chance to try my solution! I had a hat that would contain her hair.”

“Should’ve gotten here before us!” said Flam.

Suri looked at the hat. “Well, maybe I can use this for something else.”

Sunset stomped her foot in irritation. “Fascinating as this may be to you, this doesn’t help us figure out what to do with her! Is there some spell for getting her back into the comic?”

Trixie shrugged. “No idea. This whole thing was due to the comic being defective, remember? I do have it right here, though.” She held out the comic.

Sunset looked at the comic, then back at the unconscious Mane-iac. “Hrm…” she said.

---

“And you’re absolutely sure this is legal?” asked Flam.

Lightning Dust rolled her eyes. “Yes. Just as I was the last ten times you asked.”

“Okay then!” said Flam as he tossed the very-tied-up Mane-iac into the box, then used tape to close the box.

“So happy I was able to put that hat to some use,” said Suri. “Now she can’t use her hair while she’s locked up in the box.” She frowned. “Darn it, I should’ve charged something for its use.”

Sunset wrote the address for the publisher of the comic onto the side of the box and attached a bunch of postage stamps to it. “There. After we mail her to them, they can figure it all out.”

“So!” said Trixie. “Now that we’ve all worked together to take down an enemy, I’m sure that has inspired some level of camaraderie among us. So, Gilda, will you help us out with that whole Daring Do thing?”

“No,” said Gilda flatly.

“Yeah, that was about what I expected,” said Trixie.

---

“Okay, Celestia,” said Celestia to herself, “maybe that speaker of the trees thing didn’t work out. But you’ve got a new job as a mail opener now, and you can probably get some experience and references in doing so. Maybe you’ll even stop talking to yourself constantly while doing so. As long as nothing crazy happens, everything should be fine!”

Celestia opened the first box and discovered the tied-up Mane-iac. “Mmmph! Mmmph!” the earth pony said through the gag.

Celestia sighed and rolled her eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Comments

[Hopeful_Ink_Hoof]

And then Celestia and Mane-iac proceeded to get jobs in porn together, and made a fortune before falling in love.

[LegacyMine]

This story is hilarious.

[keaton-furman-prower]

Meanwhile, Daring Do had nopony to help her with Ahuizotl's death traps and died horribly

[Razzy]

Well, that happened.

Cya
Raziel-chan