A Story For The Ages
In a clearing in the forest, the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Twilight were sitting around a campfire, where Scootaloo was telling the others a story.
"So then, he turned around the corner...and then a skeleton popped out! The end! So, what'd you think?"
Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Twilight all stared at Scootaloo blankly.
"Umm...it certainly...had an ending," Sweetie Belle said.
"What do ya mean by that, Sweetie Belle?" Apple Bloom asked accusingly.
"Apple Bloom, your story didn't even have an ending. It was the storytelling equivalent of going out for a little stroll and suddenly falling off a cliff." At this, Scootaloo began to laugh uncontrollably.
"I'd say that all of you need to work on your storytelling skills a bit," Twilight said. "Still, this was pretty fun!"
"Why don't you tell us a story, Twilight?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Me?" Twilight gestured towards herself. "I don't know..."
"Pleeeease?" the Crusaders pleaded simultaneously with their puppy-dog eyes.
"Well, okay then," Twilight conceded. "I actually think I have a pretty good story in mind."
"Really?" the Crusaders said in unison as their ears perked up.
"Oh yeah!" Twilight said. "It's going to be a long one though, because this is a pretty epic adventure, filled with lots of action and adventure, and many interesting characters. I think you'll enjoy it."
"But we're tired!" Scootaloo complained.
"We just don't have the time for some long epic!" Apple Bloom added.
"Oh, that's okay," Twilight said. "I can just tell it tomo-"
"Can you just tell us the story in ten minutes?" Scootaloo asked. "Because I'm pretty sure that's about how long we can stay up for."
"But, that's not how epics wo-"
"Please, Twilight?" the Crusaders utilized the same puppy-dog eye strategy as before, to great effect.
Twilight sighed. "Very well. I'll try to compress the story as much as I can. Be warned, though, that the results may be very messy."
Protagon was a normal unicorn living happily until scoundrels burned her house down. She went to her friend Kickside.
"My house burned down!"
"Oh no! Quickly, we must go find the Necklace of Anti-Fire to fix it!"
They left, but were stopped by a pony in a top hat.
"Hello, I'm Schemington, and I'm here to strangulate you."
Kickside kicked his flank, and they moved on.
"I'll be back!"
They reached the MacGuffin Cave, and inside they found somepony with a roll of parchment guarding a bridge.
"To cross, you must answer these riddles!"
Kickside shoved the parchment in his mouth and moved on. Next, they found a dragon guarding a chasm.
"To cross, you must defeat me!"
Protagon defeated him in chess and moved on. At the cave's end, the Necklace of Anti-Fire stood on a pedestal. A pegasus stole it.
"Muahahahaha!"
"Who are you?!
"I am Tyrannis, Schemington's number two!"
Tyrannis dashed away. Protagon and Kickside gave chase, but Tyrannis was too swift, and he got away.
Tyrannis soared to Schemington's evil castle.
"I got the necklace."
"Excellent! With this, I shall have unlimited power!"
Suddenly, a peasant army besieged the castle.
"Oh dear. Tyrannis, deal with this."
Tyrannis dealt with the peasants.
"Excellent! Now deal with Protagon and Kickside!"
"Yes, master."
"Muahahahaha!"
Protagon and Kickside ran to Abyssinia and spoke with its queen.
"Please help us defeat Schemington!"
"No."
"Please?"
"Okay."
Suddenly, Tyrannis burst through a window.
"Hello!"
"Guards! Subdue him!"
Tyrannis kicked all the guards unconscious.
"Protagon, I will kill you!"
"No, you won't!"
Suddenly, the ceiling collapsed onto Tyrannis. Protagon, Kickside, and the queen gasped.
"Protagon, you are the chosen one!"
"I am?"
"Yes. Go, defeat Schemington for the good of the world!"
"But what about the help you promised...?"
"Go!"
Protagon and Kickside left the palace.
Soon afterwards, they arrived at the wizard Comet Streak's house.
"Am I the chosen one?"
"Yes. It was prophesied 200,000 years ago that you would save the world from a pony in a top hat."
"What about me?"
"Doesn't say anything about you."
"Aww..."
"If you go and defeat Schemington right now, you will defeat him."
"I guess we should go then."
"Go! Save the world! And get me a cup of coffee!"
Tyrannis limped back to Schemington's castle.
"Where have you been?! I told you to kill those two ponies!"
"I got a ceiling dropped on me, master."
"That's no excuse! Go and kill them now! And get me a cup of coffee!"
"Yes, master."
Protagon and Kickside sat in a Manehattan café drinking coffee.
"Are you sure Schemington's here?"
"Where else would he be?"
Suddenly, Tyrannis arrived, knocking over three skyscrapers, and landed next to them.
"Hi! Time to die!"
"You will not kill us."
"Huh?"
"You are not evil. You are a good guy. You will help us defeat Schemington."
"Yes! I am a good guy. I will lead you to Schemington and help you defeat him!"
"Lead the way."
Protagon and Kickside began to follow Tyrannis.
"That easy, huh?"
"It works well on the weak-minded."
The gang walked along a road until they were stopped by a group of birds in a ship on wheels.
"Yarr har har! We be land pirates!"
"...Bandits, you mean?"
"Narr! Did I stutter? We be land pirates!"
The pirates shot Tyrannis with a tranquilizer dart and subdued Protagon and Kickside, taking them aboard.
"We'll be gettin' a lot of booty from Schemington for ye three! Yarr har har!"
"Actually, you're going to drive into a ravine."
"Yarr, I find that highly improbable."
Ten minutes passed, and the ship didn't fall into a ravine.
"...Darn it!"
Soon enough, the ship arrived at Schemington's castle.
"Yarr! We be here, laddies!"
Unfortunately for the pirates, Tyrannis woke up and kicked their tails. The three walked up to the castle gates and knocked politely.
"Who is it?"
"Pizza delivery for Lord Schemington?"
"I didn't order any pizza!"
"Let us in or we'll pound your face in!"
"Well that doesn't give me an incentive.
"Look, master, they're with me."
"Ah, I had a feeling you'd betray me, Tyrannis, and have prepared accordingly."
Suddenly, Tyrannis vanished.
"Muahahahaha!"
"Oh no!"
"That does it!"
With repeated efforts, Kickside eventually managed to kick down the gates, and she and Protagon entered.
After thirty minutes of searching, Protagon and Kickside found Schemington in the castle courtyard next to a wolf and with a necklace dangling from his neck.
"Welcome...to your doom!"
Schemington rubbed his necklace and it began to glow as the wolf grew to the size of two houses.
"Fenris, disembowel them!"
Kickside flew up to Fenris and kicked him in the snout. In response, Fenris knocked her into a wall.
"Oh no!"
Next, Fenris leaped over to Protagon, preparing to swallow her whole.
"Oh no!"
Suddenly, Tyrannis arrived and kicked its butt ex machina style.
"What? How?"
"You can't keep me down, man!"
"Oh yes I can!"
Schemington's necklace began to glow again, and he began to float with a golden aura around him.
"Muahahahaha! Now witness my true power!"
He fired a laser at Tyrannis, keeping him down.
"Aw nuts!"
Kickside tried to kick Schemington in the face, but she suddenly stopped still just two inches from his muzzle, then was launched back into the wall.
"It's over! I've won!"
"No you haven't."
A pillar of dirt rose to smack Schemington from below. With a burst of energy, Schemington disintegrated the pillar and blew Protagon on her back.
"You were saying?"
"The Necklace's power is too much for you. You're going to blow up!"
"No I'm not."
Schemington suddenly began to glow very brightly, then blew up spectacularly.
"Well what do you know? I blew up."
Protagon took the necklace from Schemington and put it around her own neck.
"You did it, Protagon! You saved the world!"
"No, we did."
"Wanna go home?"
"Sure."
Protagon's house was still smoldering when she arrived. Protagon used the Necklace to un-burn down her house, and all was well.
"So, what'd you think, girls?" Twilight asked.
"Well...that certainly was fast," Scootaloo said.
Twilight yawned. "Wow, I'm tired. How about we all get some sleep?"
"Okay! Good night Twilight!" the Crusaders all said.
"Good night, girls!" Twilight said back.
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Normally, I don't like colour-coded dialogue, but it makes sense here because dialogue tags would slow down the story. Also, the parts about a pony in a top hat and land pirates made me chuckle.
...oh, gawdsdammit...
...upvoted.
Upvoted for having the balls to even try this.
I enjoyed the ending. Only the most powerful of anti-fire amulets can un-burn-down a house.
Wow. If the storytelling were any more compressed, the entire narrative would have collapsed into a black hole. Well done! Thank you for the impressive experiment in minifiction.
...Huh. :D
Did...
Did you just condense the Pony Movie into this...?
~Skeeter The Lurker
9813968
Thinking back on it, I may have done so by accident, yes.
This is hilarious! An upvote, a fave and a follow for this!
Prepare story for Ludicrous Speed!
This was truly hilarious! Have a fave and an upvote!
Abyssinia
So this is what it means to go even further beyond/plus ultra.
I might be hallucinating, but I'm pretty sure I remember this jrpg.
That was surprisingly coherent. well done.
I want to hate you but that was a surprisingly coherent kids' book. Upvoted!
9814066
It’s just generic enough thanks to compression that you could probably remember it from a bunch of JRPGs, to be fair.
Speedrunners play an RPG, 2019 (colorized)
That was very interesting and very funny! Thanks for doing a creative bit of writing!
Well that was something. At 25K words an hour it was even more of a thing.
*Flash theme song plays*
I demand a reading by Round Trip.
Protagon and Kickside are the best character names ever.
"Loooove it!"
Well, I find one thing about this utterly scary... it still has a rather ‘moderate’ pace as compared to some stories I edited in the past
When you have a limited amount of time but need to fuel your fanfiction addiction.
That, or you're trying to make a barebones draft for your story.
That's twice a story you wrote got featured now. Freaking twice! I am both happy for you and extremely jealous. What is your secret, man?!
A few quotation marks fell off this speeding train.
well damn, that was fast and epic
The pacing here is much better than the canon adventures!
On this tiny bit, we se so much of the characters it's amazing. We see that Kickside is strong, and bold, and that Protagon is witty, and knows her way around words.
9815147
Thank you, I tried to establish characters very quickly to take up as few words as possible. Protagon's a mare, by the way, but it's not like you need to know that to enjoy the story.
Best part ever!
Ensign! Engage warp 9!
9815193
Whoops, fixed.
This was delightfully silly.
...Huh, I was replied to by platogkrone but it's deleted.
Unfortunate. I wonder what he said?
~Skeeter The Lurker
he's called that for a reason
-3 of 10, story did not actually contain hyperspace, or ponies jumping to hyperspace, or ponies on ships traveling in hyperspace.
You're also making me want to write that short about Starline, the pegasus with the most useless superspeed ability ever: the power to jump to hyperspace. A power that won't get him to any destinations, because he can't breathe in space, and Equestria hasn't even unlocked the secrets to leaving their own atmosphere.
But hey, your Pizza in five seconds or less, or it's free*.
(*Five seconds for Delivery only, cooking time not included.)
Just a bit of a slog, but a good read nonetheless!
(smash cut to defender2222 lying in bed, DmitriTheWriter closing the book he just read him)
defender2222: Wait, what do you mean Fenrir got kicked ex machina style. I mean, he didn't die. Fenrir's only faking. Right?
DmitriTheWriter: You want me to read this or not?
defender2222: Who gets Schemington?
DmitriTheWriter: I don't understand.
defender2222: Who kills Schemington? At the end. Somebody's got to do it.
DmitriTheWriter: Nobody. Nobody kills him. He lives.
defender2222: You mean he just wins? Jesus, man! What did you read me this thing for?
DmitriTheWriter: You know, you've been very sick and you're taking this story very seriously. I think we better stop now.
defender2222: No, I'm okay. I'm okay. Sit down. I'm all right.
9815004
Fixed!
9815645
She*, but yes.
This...
Reads like someone who is trying to do a tl;dr of the entirety of the Second Part of JoJo. Or well, any part in general really.
Me trying to recall the story:
So, there's a pegasus name kickside and a unicorn named protagon. They lived happy lives until the fire nation attacked. They go on an adventure and beat a riddle pony and a stupid dragon. They came across the secondary villain that escaped their clutches in spite of all their effort. The secondary villain eventually joined them. They got captured by pirates and were taken ashore. They fight the evil princess and the prince and saved the day and made friendship happen.
That is all.
What is this gibberish I am saying?
..............
PREPARE SHIP FOR LUDICROUS SPEED!!!!!!!
........................
They've gone to plaid!
There's only one plot thread happening most of the time. That seems inefficient.
A better strategy would be to have multiple plots simultaneously happening, and have every scene push more than one plot forward somehow. Don't just focus on brevity, try to pack as much meaning as possible into every interaction.
9816605
That probably would have been a good strategy. But honestly, if I tried to put in more than one plot, the story would've just broken down. By the time I got to the last scene, I only had about 200 words left, and that was just with one plot. I'll keep it in mind though.