The Travels: Lets Give Insanity a Try.

by The Producer

Chapter Two: How Many Sandwitches?

“Goodbye, Twilight! I’ll make sure to visit once and awhile!” I chuckled as I walked off, relishing the fact that Twilight’s mane was even more disheveled than when I first arrived. Walking aimlessly about the town, I felt as though something was off.

Then I saw just what was wrong.

There was a bright pink pony, just staring at me. Even to me, it was... unnerving. As I opened up my mouth to talk to the pink pony, she jumped straight into the air and broke the laws of physics. A bright smile spread across my face. Looks like my search has just been made a whole lot easier.

Before I could start talking to the pink one, however, she let out a loud gasp and sped off into the distance. Strange. Seems like it’s time to go and find out who that certain somepony is! Wait... did I just say ‘somepony’? It’s like there’s some kind of magic forcing me to say horrible pony puns! The horror, THE HORROR!

Pony puns aside, I still need to learn about that pink pony.

Turning back to the library, I stuck my head back inside of the doorway, and shouted out to Twilight.

“Twilight? Do you know a certain somepony (Oh unborn Gods and Goddesses of insanity, there it is again!) who has pink for all of her colors?”

“Oh, that’s just Pinkie Pie. If you met her, you’ll probably meet her again soon enough!”

Twilight sounded a bit more than distraught that I was coming back. Priceless.

“Really? Well then, can I just wait here to see if I see her again?”

Taking a few steps forward, I was confronted by the same lavender unicorn that I've terrorized over the past hour and a half. She grimaced as I shot her a manic grin. Feeling the sense of weightlessness, I was hoisted into the air and thrown out of the library. Wheeeeeee!

Thudding against the ground, I snarked, “I thought that you were running a public library, Twilight...”

She rolled her eyes and proceeded to slam the door to the library shut. This is why I love my job. Getting up and dusting myself off, I didn’t even bother with picking up my scattered books.

Seeing that I was going to ‘see her in time,’ I guess that my search for Pinkie was about to become a waiting game. That’s fine, I can wreak more havoc while I’m waiting. Walking by a nice-looking stand where there were roses and such, I decided on wreaking a bit of chaos. Imagining the roses as large, sentient piranha plants that I met when I was on an adventure with an italian plumber. The regular sheath of red lighting emanated from me to the flowers, turning them into tiny flower monstrosities poking out of their pots with teeth and fireballs.

The mare manning the cart in question ran about the cart she had, screaming, ‘The horror!’ over and over again before she smacked her face against the hitch side of the cart and passed out on the ground.

Now, before I go even more insane looking for a feasible way to explain how all of this crazy lighting-Traveler magic works, I guess I just need to be upfront about it all. In the world of Travelers, we all have a certain mutation to our abilities. The Traveler of Good has his auras, a way to focus on a certain ability and heighten it along with making its opposites weakened. The Traveler of Evil has an army of shadows that are bent to his will. Finally, the Traveler of Neutrality has her own personal Legion of underlings that are called the ‘Scales of Balance’. Their title is self-explanatory. They keep the balance.

My own power, however, is a bit hard to explain.

It’s basically the ability for the spontaneous creation and destruction of matter. I think about it, and it happens. A good example of this would be sitting on a couch, watching a good show of an angry british man yelling at aspiring cooks. You could remark: I really want some of that food, all I have to eat is pounds and pounds of ramen noodles! For you, that would just be an unfulfilled wish. For me, all it would be is a slight crackle of red lighting right in front of me, and boom! Here’s one perfectly cooked platter of what-have-you, right there.

From what I can tell, the red lighting has been there for the entire time I’ve had this ability.

However, this creation of matter isn’t just limited to gases, solids, and liquids, no. It’s also the creation of whatever the heck I put my mind to. In my mind, I can also ‘create’ magical spells. It’s kinda like binding the entire universe’s laws of physics and common-sense to your will.

Fun, right?

Anyway, the now-carnivorous plants were trying to get out to the street to cause mayhem. While I would have commended my little green babies to go out and cause trouble, I still needed to keep a relatively small profile so that I can find the false God or Goddess of Insanity more easily. And trust me, I knew it was here, somewhere.

I turned my attention to the little green terrors, and changed them back to their natural state. Checking around, I noticed that nopony else had noticed the poor mare’s overreaction. Trotting over to the mare’s body, I set her up as if she passed out at the counter of the cart.

It was the perfect crime.

I decided to walk down the side-street that I was on for the heck of it, if not just to see how much controlled chaos there was to be had. Suddenly, a door popped open right next to me, and a pair of tan legs drew me inside of the house, shoving me up against the wall.

“Alright, I know who you are and why you’ve come here, so, lets get down to business, shall we? I don’t like it one bit.”

I smiled maniacally. Oh look, another white knight who thinks he knows what I’m doing to the world. As I kept my smile on, he turned his head to the side and brought a silver thingie with a blue tip pointed at me. Oh great, it's one of these guys.

“Doctor, we both fully know what we are both capable of. And you know that this was an entirely stupid idea, seeing how unpredictable I am. Now put the screwdriver down, and we can both leave this house feeling as we entered it.”

The doctor gasped, released me, and then he took a step backwards. He spat the screwdriver out, and glared at me.

“I don’t care if you can turn this house into a chocolate fondue fountain, I’m not letting you go and wreak havoc!”

I chuckled, escalating into a cackling madman’s laugh. “Actually, Doctor, I think the chocolate fountain is a good idea! So where would you like it? Your spleen, heart, liver, or lungs?!”

Before he could even respond, I launched at him and brought us tumbling to the floor. I made extra sure to bat the little screwdriver away as we practically took turns in slamming each other into walls, chairs, tables, clocks and various other things that was fun to smash over the heads of another being. After a good thirty minutes of us completely and thoroughly trashing the Doc’s house, we both called it a tie. Summoning up a few glasses of water, I asked,

“So how did you find me so fast this time, Doc?”

He downed a glass of water and set it down on the floor, pulling a set of pictures out from under the little throw rug that we were sitting on.

“Well, yesterday I got a picture of you in your human form,” he handed me a picture of me, floating in the air while bent double laughing at something out-of-shot, “ and then a rough sketch of what you’d look like as a pony.” He handed over a slightly larger piece of paper with a good approximation of what I looked like now.

Whoever keeps on tipping off the Doc on just who I am, I gotta find them. And turn them into a balloon animal.

Putting the pictures down, I stuck my hoof out. “seeing that we’re both sitting here now, can we be men and shake on not trying to get into each other's ways? I promise not to turn your face into a block of granite and you don’t get your meddling hooves into my plans.”

The Doc looked at my hoof for a few seconds before putting his hoof up to mine and shaking. “how do you even know about me every time I show up on a different world?”

He lifted an eyebrow, got up, and collected his Sonic Screwdriver. “Do I even need to say how I know about everything when I have the Sonic Screwdriver with me?”

I just sat there like an idiot while the implications of technology worked its way across my fevered brain. It finally clicked. The TARDIS. The Doctor in his human form coming to check up on the Doc in the universe I was visiting. I really screwed up with The Doctor when I first visited him.

I looked around the house, and almost every single object in it was completely smashed or destroyed. “Well, seeing that we cleared that little misunderstanding up, can I fix your house for you?”

The Doctor just stared at me, as if he was remembering what happened last time.

“No carnivorous books this time, honest!” Activate smile.

He nodded once. Good enough for me! With a clop of my hooves and a brief flooding of the house with my magical magics, and The Doctor’s house is all fine. I turned and left the house without saying one word, fully knowing that I left a few surprises in the house for him to find. Because I can’t help myself.

“IT’S TRYING TO EAT MY EARS! WHY DID I TRUST HIM AGAIN?!”

I trotted away, laughing. Looks like somepony found the fez.

Letting out another maniacal laugh, I headed down the street again, only to be stopped by a large building, shaped out of what looked like candy and gingerbread. I can make that real. Rubbing my hooves together, I reared up on my hind legs and dramatically gestured at the building. With a comical poof and a cloud of smoke, the outside of the building was a real gingerbread house.

Need to make sure that the house was completely delicious, though. You know, quality assurance and all that.

Eh, who am I kidding? I’m just an eternal force of insanity that has the munchies for sugar. Sue me. I’ll probably turn the judge into a duck or something and get away anyway.

I took the time to peer through the windows as I munched on some icing. My heart sank as I saw what it was, it was a bakery. A bakery with cake. I hate cake. Ever since that one time with Sheogorath and being locked up in the Shivering Isles for half of a millennia with nothing but cake that was poisoned. I only got the antidote if I didn’t use my powers to try and heal myself.

Unfortunately, said poison was extremely painful, and Sheogorath himself said that it would be able to kill him with only a few minutes of exposure. I was a good candidate for human testing.

Especially due to the fact that I tried to kill him.

The worst part was that it made me think that my powers were useless if I ate cake, and it would stay that way until I could prove that it wasn’t poisoned. Good thing that it only took five minutes.

Even things that weren’t actually cake, but had the same name. Like Salmon Cakes. One, I hate fish. Two, it robs me of my abilities. Three, who the hell would make a cake out of fish? I mean, it’s fish. FISH!

Lifting my head from the windowsill that had just turned into delicious, the door burst open to reveal no other pony than Pinkie Pie.

“Hey! You’re not supposed to be here...”

She stopped to sniff the doorway. Taking a huge bite out of the gingerbread, she sprayed crumbs everywhere. Swallowing it, she spewed out a string of words.

“Wow, this is the best thing ever! I love having Sugarcube Corner taste so delicious! Wait, you’re not supposed to be here yet, but whatever! We can have a gingerbread house party inside of a real gingerbread house! And then we can have a gingerbread house gingerbread house gingerbread house party! C’mon, it’ll be fun!”

I needed no more invitation for it if it gave me more opportunities to try and figure out if Pinkie was who I thought she was. Besides, there was going to be a party inside of a gingerbread house. A gingerbread house. How many people can actually say they were inside of a life size gingerbread house? Well, two names come to mind, but those stories end up with cannibalism. That’s usually detrimental to the continued healthy lifespan for a person.

Small children and witches aside, I walked into the confectionery after Pinkie bounced into it. I wasn’t expecting the crowd of ponies that burst from behind various pieces of furniture inside of the sitting room of the shop.

“SURPRISE!”

The hackles on my back rose as I stood there with a stupid expression as I waited for the massive amount of ponies in such a small area to gang up on me.

Well, that was until Pinkie burst out laughing at my reaction.

That’s unexpected. At least, it’s unexpected for the type of person that I thought she was. Usually there was a lot more killing and less laughing.

Anywho, let’s get back to business, shall we?

Pinkie walked over to me once I got my face back to normal. Or whatever normal is for an eternally cracked pony. She started to point out everyone in the crowd, a few names sticking in my head for a good bit of chaos to be had.

“Well there’s Rainbow Dash, and Applejack, and Ditzy Doo. Oh hi, Rarity! Ooh, and there’s Fluttershy trying to hide behind the punch table. there’s Twilight, and finally there’s Gummy, my pet alligator!”

I stared at the little scaly lizard for the longest of time. It blinked it’s left eye. What a fascinating creature.

“Thanks, Pinkie! I might just go and talk to a few of your friends!”

I left immediately to go talk to Gummy. I am sure that a creature that shows no sign of intelligence HAS to be a secret agent. Probably some kind of 007 of the pony world. Minus the shag-fests and opposable thumbs.

Trotting up to him, I eyed him suspiciously.

“Gummy, I know that you’re probably more than what you lead on to...”

He opened his mouth and snapped at a fly.

“Fine, keep the ruse, but I’m going to talk to you anyway.”

Again, no sign of anything going on behind those eyes.

“Well, this is about your friend over there,” I pointed at Pinkie Pie, who was somehow making a gingerbread house of Sugarcube Corner, “and what I think she is. I think she’s a fake Goddess of Insanity. Do you know what that is? That’s an imposter to the throne of godhood. Godhood concerning the representation of Insanity in this certain universe. I know this because of an inquisitor inside of me given to me by the very life-force of Insanity surging through every single breath of every single being everywhere.”

I paused, both to catch my breath and to gage Gummy’s reaction. His right eye blinked.

“Do you know what I have to do while I wait for a real God of Insanity to appear? Kill all of the False Ones. Yes, that means I have to kill Pinkie. Why you ask? Well, that’s simple. Because whether she is consciously doing it or not, she’s still tapping into a force she shouldn’t be. A large number of the False Ones usually go around, flaunting their abilities, seating themselves as gods of the universe they find themselves in.”

Glaring over to Pinkie, I wrapped my hoof around Gummy’s shoulders. My voice lowered to a threatening whisper.

“And we don’t want that with Pinkie do we? No, no we don’t. We can’t have anyone be ruining the name of an up-and-coming force upon life, do we?”

Lightening up, I took away the hoof and picked up a donut that was right next to me.

“But, she could just have exceptional abilities. Sometimes the force of Insanity likes to do that to people. Just gives ‘em a little taste of what I can do.”

Gummy opened his mouth and clamped down on my head. It was squishy and warm. I took a bite out of the donut. It didn’t have enough jelly.

“That was all for the reader’s benefit, wasn’t it?”

I zapped the donut and filled it to burst with jelly. That’s more like it.

Look out ponies, I got a hoof full of jelly, a hat full of alligator, and a brain full of nothing!

I walked toward the first pony I remembered the name of, Ditzy Doo. She was sitting in a corner, ruffling around Taking another bite of the jelly donut, I had about one bite left of it when I got into speaking range.

“Hey, you Ditzy Doo?”

I took the last bite as she jumped a bit, somehow sending a swarm of mail at me, getting a few caught on Gummy, and a few stuck in my mane. She stared at my mane for a second before she spoke.

“Oh, hello. Sorry ‘bout that! I was just a bit too worried about work. Hey, aren’t you the new pony in town?”

Shaking my mane free of mail, I handed it back to the grey pegasus.

“What tipped you off, the mane, not-knowing-of-my-name, or the fact that this is a welcome to Ponyville party?”

She smiled and laughed uneasily.

“Well, being the Mail-Mare of the town, I usually know everypony around.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

“Mail-Mare? What’s life like in the mail system?”

As she drew a large breath, I let my mind drift off to thoughts of bubbles, tea, crumpets, and whether or not I could even classify Gummy as an animal.

--- --- ---

“And then sometimes I crash into somepony’s house, or windows, and then I completely forget which package is what, and sometimes I mix up the deliveries.”

I looked at the red stallion sitting in front of me, listening to me with an attentive expression on his face. He’s such a good listener.

Actually, he’s also a really nice stallion. No pony else really listened to me talk about work like he has. That, and he hasn’t really stared at my eyes yet. That’s always a relief to be able to talk to somepony and have them not stare at you when you try to talk to them.

Hopefully he’ll be my friend.

--- --- ---

I looked over the shoulder of the mailmare, staring at a line of gingerbread houses that just appeared by the snack table. One of them was cracked open, showing off the insides. There was a mini-gingerbread house version of the party going on in the display. Set with a few micro-gingerbread houses. From one of the micro-houses erupted Pinkie Pie. She took in a large breath and shouted out,

“We need to go DEEPER!”

My attention was torn from the incredible display of Insanity powers going on when the blond-maned pegasus spoke up.

“But I guess that’s just what happens in the life of a mailmare, Mr...”

I had completely forgotten to tell her my name.

“Name’s Mentis, Ditzy.”

The main door into the party house slammed open. A bedraggled unicorn walked in and called a few ponies over to her, one of them being Pinkie. After a few minutes of furtive whispering, I felt their eyes boring into the back of my head.

“Well Ditzy, I think that a certain band of ponies want to talk to me. Talk to you later!”

Plucking Gummy off of my head, I set him on the snack table. Turning around, I got a muzzle full of angry-looking ponies. Twilight acted as the head of the little group.

“Mentis, ever since you showed up, strange things have been happening. Now, we wouldn’t usually do this to any regular new pony, but too many strange things have been going on to ignore.”

I cocked my eyebrow. Looks like I screwed the pooch on this one. I thought that I was doing so good at staying on the down-low.

“There’s been cotton candy clouds that rain chocolate milk, corn getting turned into popcorn, apple trees getting bigger apples, along with the animals!”

I laughed. Cotton candy clouds with chocolate milk inside? My search just got so much easier. Even more so than with Pinkie. These ponies definitely don’t like that childish chaos going on, and will probably find out who is creating it. Then I’ll just step into the battle and...

Heh, I’ll do my job. Gladly.

“Well, I don’t know what you are talking about. What can you pin on me, if I can ask?”

Pinkie waved her hoof in the air, practically vibrating her whole body along with the leg.

“Oh, I know! You made the Sugarcube Corner into a Gingerbread House!”

Seeing that they respect the word of their own local lunatic, that means that I’m cornered. I never really was a smart guy for talking my way out of things. The pony with the cowboy hat spoke up as I sat there with a dumb expression on my face.

“Spit it out, sugarcube. Ah know when somepony is lahin’, so no funny business.”

I got up onto my hooves.

“Alright, you got me. I’ll admit.”

A pegasus with the rainbow-colored mane detached herself from the group.

“That... that was too easy.”

I grinned at them.

“I didn’t do the clouds or the other things, though.”

Twilight smacked herself in the face with her hoof.

“It doesn’t matter, we still got Mentis to admit that he has done some of crazy things happening around town.”

Sticking her head out of the gingerbread house, she glanced down the road.

“They’re here. Mentis, I want you to come with me. You may not be behind all of this craziness, but I still want to figure out just what you are.”

I still don’t have any idea on what these ponies are prattling on about, but this is just too easy. I’m going to be done with this universe in a snap. We all stepped outside of the party house, and I stopped Twilight.

“Do you want to know what I do? I do this.”

I shot my magic out again, switching Sugarcube Corner back to its regular materials. The whole gang all stared at me in disbelief. I grinned crazily at the group before I decided to point out what we were doing before.

“Don’t you have somepony to catch?”

Twilight shook her head and galloped off to her library, shouting out,

“Come on girls! We can ask Mentis about that when we are on the chariot! We need to go now!”

A chariot? That sounds like fun.

Comments

[Neon Icy Wings]

Oh, hilarity how I've missed you...

[Glassed]

I can't help but read Mentis's lines in your voice Pro.
-Glassed

[The Producer]

807425

I read em all In Jace's Mentis voice.