Cometh The Derp, Cometh The Ladder
The six mares were ushered into a lounge, then left to wait with apologies.. Rainbow Dash zoomed about the area in a blitz, then, losing interest just as quickly dive bombed one of the plush couches, sprawling out over most of it. Fluttershy all but buried herself in the last little space, sitting tight and compact, more than a little anxious.
“Pretty nice!” Pinkie said, bouncing along the walls with what, for her, was relative calm.
“I hope we’re not here long,” said Rarity from the couch opposite. “I really can’t abide waiting with things like this.”
Twilight, meandering along Pinkie’s wake, looked thoughtfully over ever hung picture and transcript. “We’re right on time, I checked. But we only just got here so-”
Applejack tussled the unicorn’s mane. “Don’t you fret, not everypony is so punctual as you.”
Rarity shifted to a more comfortable, and more provocative, position on her couch. “Especially not her.”
“Hi guys!” called the sudden, bubbly voice of Derpy. Rarity bolted stiff upright. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, shaking her wings and rump. Small bits of broken glass fell from her feathers and tail.
“Hi Derpy!” Pinkie called. She bounded over, hefted the gray mare up in a mighty hug, spun ‘round with her then set the pegasus down. “What’s up?”
Even Dash sat up with interest as Derpy took their unanimous attention. She pulled envelopes, six in all, from under her wing.
“I don’t know if you know,” she began, “but I got in! I’m an intern here!” Pinkie exploded, literally, with delight. After three ricochets off the walls and a trickshot bounce off Fluttershy she landed exactly where she’d started.
“I’m working for-” the lights went dim, and the room seemed to grow several sizes - “The Ladder!” Derpy declared cheerfully. Lightning crashed in the distance, then everything returned to warm and cheery normalcy.
Twilight pouted unconsciously as she tried to make sense of that, Rarity thought the whole display a little tacky, while Fluttershy whimpered and bolted under Dash’s wings. The blue and pink mares grinned.
“So those are our placements?” Dash asked, gesturing the envelopes.
“Yep!” said Derpy. “Since you’ve all already down a few placement matches The Ladder-” there was the darkness again, and a roll of distant thunder- “has decided that everypony’s ready for placement.”
The pegasus tore open the first envelope, one marked with a purple star. Twilight gulped, but otherwise felt fairly confident. She had well and truly displayed her EMP (extremely magical pony) capabilities after all.
Derpy cleared her throat to read, but ended up sneezing all over the document. “Sorry,” mumbled with a silly little smile before reading on.
“Twilight Sparkle,” she said, her bubbly voice defying the gravity that the unicorn felt. “Race determined to be...Brotoss.” A large flat screen television mounted to the wall and lit up. In the electric blackness of it, a face portrait of Twilight appeared. The symbol of the brotoss blazed into existence next to her likeness.
Twilight felt no surprise there, only satisfaction. They were, of course, the logical and soundest choice.
“Matches played: two. Victories, zero-”
“What?!” the unicorn shrieked. “I took on a zerg base single-hoofed!Single. Hoofed!” Her memory was certain of that because after all, she’d only been mostly insane at the time.
Derpy shrugged and held out the page. “Sorry, Twilight,” she said, and her genuine feeling made the unicorn feel bad for her outburst. “The Ladder” -*boom, roll* - “decided it. That match you were versus the cerebrate specifically. You ended up drawing it, because you didn’t actually manage to defeat it.”
“I did!” Twilight cried. “I was there all afternoon tickle-cannoning it!”
“By then everyone got bored and left.” Twilight groaned and toppled to her back.
“And my second matchup?”
“Also a draw, I’m afraid. It was expected that you’d have a dance off with the zealot after he teased you, but since neither of you did there wasn’t much of anything to go on.” Derpy helped the stricken unicorn to her hooves. “There there, at least there weren’t any losses either.”
“That’s right,” Twilight murmured. No wins, but no loses either. Breaking even was ok... She went and took a seat.
“Ok, next one is...Pinkie Pie.”
Confetti and kazoos punctuated the moment. Nopony questioned it.
“Pinkie, your race is determined to be...Zerg.” The earth pony cheered, though she was probably equally enthusiastic for any outcome. That said, she pulled out a cupcake that was green and bulbous, and remarkable detailed to look like a zerg egg. She bit into it with a shameless munch, paused, then handed Derpy a muffin made in much the same way.
Her picture buzzed to life on the screen, with the spiny spiral denoting the zerg next to it. Some crumbs and chewing later, the talk resumed.
“Ok, Pinkie you... have two matches played and...two victories! Yay!” Both mares did a little dance. The various other mares were caught between congratulations and bewilderment. Pinkie’s icon drifted on the screen, settling over Twilight’s.
“That’s really nice, Pinkie,” Fluttershy whispered bravely.
“Aww, thanks!” and the yellow pegasus was grappled in a bear hug of epic pony proportions.
“No...problem!” Fluttershy managed to wheeze.
“It says here,” began Derpy, reading some finer, italicized print, “that The Ladder” -*boom, crash*- “was, after searching for the right word to describe it’s reactions to your plays...’Flabbergasted.’ “
“I am a flabberghast! Whoo whoo!” Pinkie cheered. She did a little dance and shuffled out of the way.
“Next up is...Fluttershy.” The mare in question squeaked, and an encouraging shove from Dash put her in the limelight.
“Oh my,” she whispered. Derpy laid a downy wing on her. “It says here you’ve gotten zerg.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said softly. She tried to step away, but bumped into Pinkie.
“What are you apologizing for?” the party pony asked. “We’re totally gonna be zergies together! Like two zerglings in an egg! Come here, you.” Pinkie proceeded into hugging/mauling Fluttershy once more.
Derpy coughed. “Umm, Fluttershy, there’s a bit of a problem here though...it seems you cheated in one of your matches!” The colleced mares all gasped. Fluttershy went tiny as she could and hid in her mane.
Dash was up in arms, but not literally of course. “What gives, Flutters?!”
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered.
“Cheating is not cool.”
“I’m sorry!” Dash, seeing her distress, laid off, but huffed and sat back down.
“When did you go and do that?” Applejack asked, kneeling next to the huddled pegasus.
“In my first match, I was so nervous, I...I...I didn’t want to let anypony down, so I used a little cheat...”
“Yes, of course darling,” Rarity chimed in. “Creating trillions of yourself that conquered the entire universe is just one of those little things...”
“Rarity!” Applejack barked. The unicorn gave a dainty shrug.
“I am certain that, cheat or no, it was very enjoyable by all.”
Fluttershy harkened back to the crushing waves that spilled across continents, the worlds, the very cosmos itself. The crumble of civilizations and species, and the countless little pops of sapient creatures turning into yet another filly Fluttershy to carry on the conquest of creation. “It was nice...”
“See sugarcube? I’m sure you’ve learned your lesson, no harm done.”
Derpy nodded. While The Ladder-” *Crack, boom, Twilight screaming ‘Oh come on! This is in no way natural!!*’ and being politely ignored “-had to count it as a loss, it does say here that it was otherwise a very appeasing match.
“Well, that’s something positive,” Fluttershy said with a cautious smile.
“Absolutely!” Pinkie Pie chimed in.
“And you did win your second matchup, fair and square.”
“Yay,” she whispered with what, for her, was great enthusiasm. With that, the screen lit up with Fluttershy’s icon, which snuggled itself above Twilight’s and under Pinkie’s.
“Three done, three to go,” Derpy said. “Ok, Applejack, it’s you next.”
“Alrighty.”
“Your race is determined to be Te- oh hey a muffin!” She said the name incomprehensibly as she munched through the treat. The appropriate eagle crest symbol flared into being alongside Applejack’s image.
“Matches played: two. Victories: two! Congratulations.”
Applejack tipped her hat down. “Oh shucks, it was nothing.”
“The Ladder-” *Boom, Twilight teleporting all over the place to find out the source of the faux-lightening and thunder rolls, grunting with exasperation and curling up to sulk next to Rarity, crash*- “quite liked Darla, as well. It said she was...darling.” Derpy looked rather embarrassed.
Nopony laughed. Pinkie Pie shook her head forlornly. “The Ladder isn’t so good with jokes, I guess.”
“Ha! It didn’t do the lightening and the-” *Crack, boom!* -”Okay, you know what? I don’t even want to know, so there!”
Rarity gave her an absentminded pat on the head. “Oh Twilight,” she said, “don’t get so worked up about these things.”
Derpy read on. “Oh! It says here you’re also getting a commendation for the feelisest match so far as well?”
“What?”
“Take a look.” Derpy stepped away and gestured to the big screen. The image changed to a recording, with the familiar orange farmer in quiet contemplation with a sizeable tank, staring out across the sunlight fields of the Acres.
Applejack frowned, blushed, and then asked Derpy to skip the viewing. Luckily, they did and carried on. When the scoreboard came back, Applejack’s image was up top, next to Pinkie’s.
“Next up, Rarity!”
“How splendid.”
“Your race is...Brotoss!” This cheered up Twilight a bit, and Rarity gave an elegant bow.
“They were very charming, after all. And so precious, too!” Rarity paused and, amidst the grins of the other ponies huffed and regained her composure.
“Ah, ahaha,” she managed to laugh in her embarrassment.
“Two matches played and...one win, one draw!” Rarity pouted a moment, considered it, then seemed settled on contentment. Her icon moved in above Fluttershy’s.
“The Ladder-” *Boom, Crash!* “sends it’s personal compliments for teaching that annoying voice some manners, as well.”
Rarity smiled. “A lady does try.”
"And that just leaves you, Rainbow Dash.”
“I knew it all along I’d be last.”
“Oh?” Applejack cocked an eye.
“You ever hear of saving the best for last? Yeah, you know it’s me!” Dash beamed such a cocksure grin that nopony could hold it against her. She flared her wings triumphantly.
“Let’s get on with it then!”
Derpy giggled and smiled. “Okay, okay Dashie, settle down!” She tore open the last envelope. “Rainbow Dash, two matches...your race is...oh another muffin!” Another such delectable treat conspired to distract Derpy Hooves, but she soldiered through the tastiness.
“Two matches *nomnom* Two... *nom, gulp* oh...!”
“What?! What is it?!” Dash said, suddenly all concern.
“Well, it concerns your second match...Apparantly it isn’t in the rules to go and beat the opponents head into their keyboard and thus sabotage the game.”
“Heh, that was totally awesome.”
“Be that as it may, it wasn’t in the rules, but I was asked to look through very carefully through them anyway, because it seemed inherently wrong.”
“So what’s that mean?” Dash asked keenly.
“It means you keep the win on a technicality, but it’s a proper rule now, so don’t do it again.”
Dash punched the sky and struck a strut.
“Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Who’s the best? Who’s the best?”
“Colgate,” Derpy said with absolute factual certainty.
“Wait, what?!”
“Colgate,” the mare repeated, a little slower and louder for Dash’s benefit. She pressed a button on the screen and it flicked to a series of clips.
A barren, hellish world of red dust...and a blue pony, tearing the black tooth from a nightmarish creature of limbs and claws.
The clearest of blue skies, with a blue pony grappling with a mutalisk, spiralling in free fall. She hadn’t seemed to notice or care that she plummeted to her doom. She was explaining, quite loudly to deal with the sound of the whooshing air, yet otherwise in completely reasonable tones, to the shrieking monster about the etiquette of flossing.
The video switched from one impossible scene to another, each more dazzling and amazing then the last.
Derpy gave a sad smile. “It’s a shame, actually. She’s only on a sixty six percent win ratio.” She sighed. “It’s because the Brotoss don’t have jaws, or teeth, you see. All the matches with them end in draws, because they know her reputation and are too scared to cross her and won’t try anything at all. She’s actually really nice, you know.
Anyway, welcome to The Ladder-” *Boom, crash!* “I’m sure the new match ups will be very fun for everyone involved.”
Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Rainbow Dash were in a three way tie for first, with Rarity, Fluttershy and Twilight trailing respectively.
“Okay then, thanks for coming by, and congratulations coming through the placement phase!”
“Mhmm,” the gathered six murmured. Their jaws were clamped shut, and their eyes kept flitting to the obvious, and less obvious, entrances as each mare wondered and feared her own vigilance in dental hygiene. They shifted surreptitiously towards the door and, one and all, broke out in a race to their shared bathroom.
The tube of toothpaste never stood a chance, poor thing.
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Hehehe, I knew Dash had to be at the top, she's too awesome not to be. Technicality shmecticality, she won that fight fair and square, and did what many players dreamed of doing to their obnoxious opponents; major bonus points for that in my opinion.
Eh, keyboards were going to be broken either way.
WAIT. Teeth is really just the thing we use to assist in consuming sustenance for energy. And the Protoss/Brotoss get their energy by what can be rounded up as photosynthesis, with the Khali replacing water... (I think...) through their skin, thus, Colgate can clean up their skin since it would most likely get covered in dirt and grime and the blood of their enemys.
At least it's something.
Woohoo! A chapter that actually ties everything together somehow! I love continuity and early-season references. The only problem I have is the thunder effect. With it going off so often in the middle of sentences, it makes things difficult to read. I suggest alternate text.