Using Movies!
Sighing tiredly, Shining Armor glanced over the railing on the Crystal Empire’s wall. “We’re still doing this? Really?”
Below in the snow, King Sombra glanced around as if Shining had been speaking to someone else and not him. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t we still be doing this?”
“Because you haven’t shown you face around this place for weeks now and I was starting to—”
“Get worried about me?” Sombra finished with a toothy sneer.
Shining shook his head. “No, just the opposite of that. I was hoping you’d finally died.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“No need to apologize. I assume by this point in time, disappointing others comes naturally to you.”
“Naturally?” Sombra said back snidely. “Like how you naturally let all the mares in your life do all the dangerous stuff? Who was that last villain you helped vanquish again? Wasn’t his name ‘Dust Bunnies’ and he lived underneath the couch?”
Princess Cadence strolled toward Shining up on the wall. She snorted and rolled her big eyes. “Why don’t you two just break the tension already and kiss?”
Shining spun to her. “What? Why would I ever do something like that?”
“Because you two keep on bantering to each other like some old married couple.”
Shining blanched. “We do not sound like that!” Then he paused, glancing down at Sombra again. “Do we sound like that?”
Sombra shrugged. “A little. But if the only way I get back inside my Empire ends up with first getting inside both of you, then I’d still consider that a win. I’ve done more for less.” He sniffed at some part on his fur, which must not have smelled all that bad because he went on to ask, “So your place or mine? I’d suggest yours because I sleep in the woods.”
Shining rubbed at his temples. “Obviously, you’ve come here for a reason, Sombra. So out with it already so I can tell you to go away.”
Sombra smiled gamely. “Fine. Here goes. What if I told you I—”
“Not interested! Bye!” Shining wasted no time turning around and storming away… until Cadence halted him with her aura, dragging him back.
She softly caressed his cheek with a hoof. “Oh, at least hear what he has to say, Shining. He came all the way out here just to speak with you. And who knows? Maybe it won’t be nearly as stupid as the last dozen or so occasions have been.”
Glumly, Shining faced Sombra again, speaking as monotone as he could. “Please continue, Sombra, because I just can’t wait to hear what you have to say. We should totally hang out sometime. Come join my bowling team, why not? Maybe when you have a ‘spare’ evening. I’m sure you and I will ‘strike’ up a friendship in no time. We’ll totally have a ‘ball’ together. A ‘bowling ball’, that is.”
Sombra narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously. “You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you?”
“Of course I’m being sarcastic!” Shining growled out.
Sombra ignored that last bit and pressed on with his original spiel. “What if I told you, Shining, that at this very moment, I had a pair of tickets to a rather special movie screening this afternoon?”
“I’d tell you to eat them and pray for internal paper cuts. Then I’d tell you that there’s not even a movie theatre within a hundred miles of here.”
Sombra raised a mischievous brow. “There’s not? Then what’s that over there?”
Shining followed where Sombra had looked, and felt the bottom of his jaw hit his chest.
It was clear that Sombra had been a rather busy pony over the last couple of weeks. Less than ten meters away from Sombra’s Adventure Land amusement park now stood a lavish movie theater, complete with shimmering spotlights and framed movie posters. A line had already formed on the rich red carpet outside, held in order by a pair of security guards.
Shining painfully clicked his teeth together. “Stop building stuff, damn it!”
“Why would I do that, Shining?” Sombra asked him. “You don’t own the land outside the Empire. And I do have a lot of money to burn. Or should I say…" He paused for dramatic effect. “A lot of your money to burn?”
Shining’s shoulders slumped. “Somebody kill him, please.”
“But, sir,” one of the nearby guards responded, “Sombra hasn’t done anything yet. Technically, asking ponies to go to movies with them isn’t against the law here.”
“What about self-defense? Can we all just agree that he attacked me first and had a knife?”
“He’s at the bottom of a fifty foot wall, Shining,” Cadence said coldly. “How’s Sombra supposed to attack you from down there without any magic? With his words?”
Shining turned to her tiredly. “Every time he speaks, I feel my brain begin to dissolve inside my head. You really want a husband that walks around with no brain in his head, Cadence?”
She gave him a playful smirk. “But the rest of your body is okay, right? The lower part, at least? I think I could work with that.”
“Hey, white boy!” Sombra exclaimed from the snow, gathering Shining’s attention again. “Does the name Chuck Thunderdunk mean anything to you?”
At once, Shining’s eyes shot open, but instead of looking to Sombra, he instead viewed his wife with an unblinking stare. “You’ve been talking to Sombra?”
“Well… I… you see…” Absently, Cadence played with some of her mane.
That was when another revelation struck Shining. “Is Sombra who you’ve been out walking with? Him? And with Flurry Heart no less? Sombra’s a monster, Cadence! He could’ve…” He stopped to think up something good. “Why, he could’ve eaten Flurry Heart for all you could’ve known!”
“Seriously? So Sombra’s a cannibal now?” Cadence furrowed her brows. “First off: I was with Flurry the entire time. If Sombra had done anything, I would’ve blasted him without hesitation. Secondly: Sombra isn’t that bad anymore. Without any dark magic in him, he’s sort of just… eccentric, let’s say. And Flurry Heart loves him to bits for some reason. She even rode on his back for a bit while she played with his hair.”
“She… did… what—” Shining began, before Cadence stuffed a hoof inside his mouth.
She continued, “We walk and talk sometimes, but it’s not a big deal. Sombra knows a lot about running Empires—both bad and good, obviously—but he still knows a lot about politics and governing.”
Shining roughly spat out her hoof. “Was it your idea to build that movie theater?”
She glanced away. “I might’ve mentioned how much ponies in the Crystal Empire enjoyed watching films from time to time. Only casually, though. I had no idea he’d go and build one just because of a short conversation!”
“And Chuck Thunderdunk?” Shining snidely asked. “If he mentioned that name, it means you were talking about me.”
Cadence continued averting his stare. “Well, of course a wife’s going to talk about her husband here and there. That comes naturally, Shining. And once we started talking about films and all that, I told Sombra how much you liked all those cheesy Chuck Thunderdunk action films. And, oddly enough, he seemed interested. He even said he’d love to see your toy collection sometime.”
“No!” Shining bluntly blurted. “No one’s allowed inside there! That’s my room!”
“Your toy room.”
Shining huffed. “My collection room, Cadence! You know how much some of that stuff’s gonna be worth in a decade or two?”
She raised a thin brow. “Chuck Thunderdunk playing cards? Chuck Thunderdunk coffee mugs? Chuck Thunderdunk: The Board Game where only one player gets to be Thunderdunk and the rest of the players automatically lose simply because they’re not him?”
“Of course the others wouldn’t win! Nobody beats Chuck Thunderdunk!”
Shining lowered his voice as his cheeks burned red. His expansive collection of Thunderdunk memorabilia wasn’t all that well known. Or all that well received, now that he thought on it.
“Is someone talking about Chuck Thunderdunk up there?” Sombra called.
“No one cares, Sombra!” Shining yelled.
“Oh?” A devilish grin ate up Sombra’s muzzle. “What if I told you that my movie theater was currently holding a Chuck Thunderdunk marathon? Every last one of his films.”
“Why would I care? I’ve seen them all dozens of times by now.”
“Even the new one?”
Shining’s left ear twitched. Then his right eyelid. “New one?”
Sombra nodded, his smile only growing. “Yep. Financed it myself and had it shot over the last few weeks. Just finished editing it this morning. Perhaps interested in watching them all with me, Shining?”
Up on the wall, Shining had already begun galloping toward the stairs leading downward when an invisible “hook” painfully curled around his insides. Reluctantly, he faced Sombra again. “So what’s the catch? You get back inside my Empire if I get to watch the new film?”
Sombra almost looked pained by that. “Since when was a movie date between two fully grown stallions seen as queer?” He stopped himself to think on that. “Queer as in strange, Shining.”
“I knew that!” Shining said. “But I still don’t believe you!”
“Then perhaps I’m merely trying to befriend you,” Sombra told him earnestly. “Befriend you hard. I’ve already befriended Cadence, in a way, and that cute baby of yours, no doubt, so maybe you’re just next in line. You should know a lot about friendship. Your own sister drives the official friend-ship, does she not?”
For once, Shining was at a loss for words. As much as he wanted nothing more than to protect his Empire and citizens while repeatedly punching Sombra in the face… he also really wanted to watch the new Chuck Thunderdunk film. He also had a terrible feeling that if he turned Sombra down now, he’d only come to regret it: the fact that Sombra had the only copy around; the fact that everyone in Equestria had seen it but not him; the spoilers and the spoilers and the even more spoilers that would spread and spread and spread outside of his control!
Then it clicked.
How could Sombra try getting back inside the Empire if he’s too busy watching movies with me? Shining thought. If he tried anything, I’d be right there beside him!
Shining smirked and glanced down again.
“So what time should I pick you up?”
***
Sombra’s medium-sized theater had four separate screening rooms, all connected by a lobby and snack area. After Shining and Sombra had picked out some snacks (all free of charge, of course), they pushed through the mingling crowd and into the only theater roped off from the public.
Shining nearly spilled his soda once inside.
“Only two seats?” he asked curiously.
At the very center of the room were two seats and two seats only. This didn’t seem to faze Sombra much, though, as he merely chuckled.
“It’s my theater, so why wouldn’t I have a room all to myself?” Sombra took a seat and patted the only one next to it. “I hate it when ponies talk during movies, don’t you? Munch popcorn too loud.”
A moment of unease. A shiver up Shining’s spine.
Then the overhead lights dimmed and music started to play. It was a tune Shining knew all too well (the main theme to the very first Chuck Thunderdunk adventure based off the popular novel series), and just like that his worries were swept aside by pure childish nostalgia.
As he took his seat, Shining began blabbing like an excited colt. “Did you know that the first three Thunderdunk books have never been made into films? Everyone thought they were too violent. I never thought that, though. A pegasus ripped straight from the Wonderbolts, forced to do secret missions on the Princess of Equestria’s behalf? How else do they expect him to defeat Lord Half-Burnt Half-Perfect Face unless he’s able to punch him in his half-burnt half-perfect face? Tea and talk?”
As Shining snorted to himself, Sombra nodded politely; his smirk from before seemed to be making a strong return.
The movie’s opening credits rolled on. As did Shining.
“During the fourth movie, when the actor that plays Thunderdunk is supposed to leap out of a building right before it explodes, he accidentally snagged his trademark jeans jacket on a nail and almost didn’t make it out in time. That’s why the tips of his wings look so blackened around the tips. Because they really did get burnt! Talk about devoted to your character, eh?”
He shook his head in bewilderment, lowering his horn to his popcorn.
“I think I’d just die if they ever tried replacing him someday. I mean—” Shining grimaced. “Why can’t I use my horn? I can’t pick up any popcorn with it.”
“My theater has a no magic spell in place,” Sombra told him matter-of-factly. “A dozen brightly lit horns in the middle of a pitch-black theater? Rather distracting if you ask me.”
Another moment of pause. Another shiver up Shining’s spine.
“I guess that makes sense.”
Shining shrugged and stuck his face inside his popcorn bag to eat. His head shot back up the moment the opening credits ceased and film truly began.
He leaned over to Sombra, not taking his eyes off the screen. “This whole opening sequence is brilliant. The way they keep Chuck Thunderdunk’s first official appearance a secret for a whole three minutes, it’s awesome! He’s like this mysterious shadow the whole time; a silhouette with a theme song. Then when he finally enters the Princess’s office to get his first assignment and throws his hat on the coat rack next to the secretary’s desk and—”
Shining gasped and stopped talking. And breathing, too. Some of his popcorn had gotten wedged down his throat. For good reason.
“Why are YOU on the screen!?” he shrieked, once he spat his well-chewed popcorn on the floor. “How is that even possible?”
Sombra, meanwhile, kept the same candor expression as before. “Did I not mention any of the changes to you?”
“What… changes?” Shining growled, his eyes darting between the Sombra on the screen and the Sombra sat next to him.
In the film, Sombra had clearly taken on the rather large role of Chuck Thunderdunk, repeating all of his lines and dressed in his trademark jeans jacket. The only problem? Sombra was by no means a professional actor and was as flat and as awkward as a pancake in a room full of waffles. For instance, when he entered the secretary’s room, he missed the coat rack with his hat, only to trip on it later.
“Over the last few weeks,” Sombra evenly explained, “I spent a good portion of my millions of bits creating new ‘Special Edition’ versions of all the Chuck Thunderdunk films. In simpler terms: I removed the actor that once portrayed Thunderdunk and became the new Thunderdunk. In all of his films.”
“But why? Just why!?” Shining’s soda and popcorn had been tossed across the room long ago. “That’s such a waste of money! And who in their right mind would want to watch you in a movie they’ve already seen?”
“Everyone, clearly,” Sombra said, smiling to himself as his screen version fell in a water fountain accidentally, “especially when they have no choice in the matter. Oh, before we continue, I really should clap my hooves together twice.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because they do this when I do!”
So Sombra did just that, clapping his hooves together twice. From underneath Shining’s seat sprang out more than two dozen ropes and belts that looped around him and tightened. Now Shining could hardly budge an inch… or even open his mouth to complain.
“Mmmhhhmmhh! Mhhmmssmhg!”
“What’s that, Shining? You say you’re quite enjoying our time together?” Sombra got closer to him and snickered. “Look on the bright side! You still get to watch all those Chuck Thunderdunk flicks you like! And with two of me at the same time!”
Up on the screen, Thunderdunk (aka Sombra) barged into a room and yelled “You’re tearing me apart, Celestia!” During the short scene, he looked straight into the camera and then to his mark on the floor.
“Can you believe that part took five hours to film?” Sombra asked the teary-eyed Shining. “But not nearly as bad as all those sex scenes I added in during post. I thought they helped ‘fill out’ my character. Hey! Speaking of unnecessary sex scenes, here comes one of them now! Hmm. Now how will my character ever get away from all those villainous, angry mares? And why is one of them pulling off my jeans jacket?”
Shining instinctively shut his eyes.
“Wow! My butt looks huge on this screen! So detailed, too!”
One hundred and twelve badly acted minutes later, the film finally came to a close. As the end credits rolled, Sombra removed the rope over Shining’s mouth, allowing him to speak.
“Ready for Chuck Thunderdunk 2: Thunderdunk Harder?” Sombra asked him gleefully. “Or do you think I should change it to Sombra-dunk now that I’m in all of them?”
“You ruined my hero!” Shining screamed, spittle flying. “I will NEVER let you back inside the Crystal Empire now! You hear me? NEVER!”
Rolling his eyes, Sombra wrapped a less-than-reassuring foreleg around Shining’s head. “You don’t say? Well, how about this: I don’t care what you think. What I did today, I did for me. I did as revenge. I know quite clearly I’m not getting inside my Empire by being your friend, so why should I even bother trying to butter you up like the warm piece of white bread that you clearly are? Sooner or later, I’ll get back inside because of your wife or your child or because one of my schemes finally works, simple as that. But this? This right here?”
He raised his head to sniff at the air.
“Revenge. Tasty, succulent revenge. You took my Empire away from me, Shining. Something that I loved more than anything else in the world and you turned it against me. And so now I’ve done the same to you.” He displayed his sharp fangs. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
The second film began and again Shining closed his eyes. Too bad Sombra wasn’t having any of that anymore and held them both open with bits of tape.
“Oh, no you don’t! I didn’t go on a diet to shoot nude scenes for nothing!”
And so the movie marathon continued as planned.
It seems that the older I get, the more I laugh at dumb things. In a few recent stories, I've used the names "Blub Blub" and "Chuck Thunderdunk" and giggled to myself like a loon.
I can't wait until five years from now when I start laughing at dangling keys... 
Stats
Page generated in 0.037 seconds
Total duration
828 users online
609,339 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Does that theme happen to sound like this?
That... Was, BRILLIANT! Brilliant revenge! Huh, I can only think of the word brilliant... I need food, be back soonish.
Nobody has ever waged as vicious a campaign against my sides as you, sir.
Hey. Don't go dissing the entertainment value of keys, alright?
I'll have you know it's one of my favorite wake-up activities!
oh gods yes, that was wonderful. absolutely loved the dark humor in this and the way it ended here was perfect. so very much looking forward to more of this
. . .
. . .
Now I kinda want to read a clop-fic with sombra as the main character, while he comments all the time......(IF NO ONE MAKES IT, I WILL
)
That was fucking hilarious
Now he just needs to threaten to have Discord change all Shining's Thunderdunk memorobelia into Sombra variants and he'll be in before he can blink.
So, it's a fighting game then? Sounds great!
hey look a distraction!
Heh he he called him white boy.
Oh thank god you're not a cuck.
Oh shit, Sombra got serious. Should we tack on an NTR tag just in case?
You've got a music chapter planned, don't you? Does it involve drunk Sombra and Shining singing this together?
At this rate he's going to build his own kingdom before he gets the Crystal Empire. Royal alicorn wife and child included.
Also can't help but laugh at the fact that he still sleeps in the woods despite owning all that crap.
7874507
I was honestly expect that to link to Ebony and Ivory... or Never Gonna Give You Up...
someone watched MST3K
I'm gonna let you finish but The Room is the "best" movie of all time!
7874025 I have pressed replay several times.
Distraction indeed
7874855 All those names still make me laugh. Big McLargeHuge.
7874146 Shining Armor is the whitest boy that I know.
7873720 Thank you!
7873714 So he comments on his own sex scene? Sounds confusing.
When you releasing it?
7873585 I do love coleslaw.
7873523 I was going with James Bond, but whatever you want.
7876452
I'm workin' on it now!
It's called: "Sombra's (debatable) Movie of Magic"
Unfortunately, I only got the desc. right now..So, at least a week or so..
I have the feeling that Shining will just straight-up murder Sombra pretty soon...
Of course, that won't happen since the show must go on.
7874025 this video is too short!!
R.I.P Shinning
The room is still the best movie to date
Did you just reference The Room and Ghostbusters at the same time?!
I. Really do t get the chuck Norris meme. Like what ? What why is that funny.
Shining, you're already kind of an idiot...
So You became George Lucas?
...I mean yeah...that's...definitely a win win scenario .