Ponies on Red Dwarf

by Sound Shard

Chapter 9: Operation Roasted Marshmallow, Part 3: Under Normal Circumstances

[Starbug]
Cadence, Shining, and Rarity crouched in front of the Total Immersion gaming pod. A slight glow emitted from the pods in which held the two in its grasp.
"Three! Two! One! FIRE!" yelled Pinkie Pie. The three shot somewhat corresponding blasts of magic at each pod, creating a void of pink, light blue, and navy blue. It burst, releasing each and flinging them out of the containment pods. They were both still unconscious.
"You did it wrong," said Pinkie Pie, reading a book that was never previously there. "Says here you need to apply three swalzts of magic each, except Cadence, who has six, then Rarity would use a forle of magic, leaving Shining with a forle and a half, and Cadey with two forles and three swalzts, creating a level five Seigro vortex blast! Shining, you only used one forle, and Rarity, you only used two swalzts, leaving us with a level two Seigro-Tentei combination vortex blast!" read Pinkie and slammed the book shut, leaving a bunny ear in the page, to keep her place. Everyone stared at her blankly.
"What is a swul-set, what is a for-lay, what is a See-yay-grow, and what is a Tint-yay?" asked Cat after a while.
"A swalzt is a measurement of minor magic, a forle is a measurement of major magic. Seigro was an olde-magick, or whatever, practicer, griffon, and he invented the vortex blast power scale, so they named the blast after him. Tentei was a zebra that was able to create a portal and a vortex using herbs," explained Shining.
"The combined method, using the Seigro scale to measure Tentei portals and vortex, would be the Seigro-Tentie method," finished Cadence. "Pinkie, how do you know these things?"
"In the book," said Pinkie and waved the book in the air. Cadence grabbed it with magic, with Pinkie Pie still holding on. She flipped thru a few pages, and, sure enough, Pinkie had read it word for word. Cadence grew frustrated and thru it across the room, Pinkie, with a loud "Gyah!", along with it.
"Grrr! What did we do to them?" Sweetie Belle shouted, horn sparking with frustration.
"Well, you didn't do anything, kiddo," assured Rainbow.
"We just need to get them to the infirmary," insisted Kryten. "Holly may have vital information in her database."
"Helluva lot faster than a book!" said Cat and grabbed the book from the dazed Pinkie Pie in the corner of the room. The title "A Basic History of All Things Magic" flashed in bright purple traditional Equestrian writing before being placed into a tube for Holly's scanners to read as the nine returned to Red Dwarf, to report back to Rimmer and Applejack.
Ponyville
"I just don't believe it!" a warm-gray stallion with a mahogany mane, to another light orange Pegasus stallion with a forest-green mane. They both wore matching white and Columbia blue vertically striped shirts and hats. The shirts and hats read "Light Eye's Ponyville Realty", with name tags. The earth pony with the mahogany mane's read "Cymbal Bright" and the Pegasi's read "Orange Leaf".
"What?" asked Orange Leaf.
"Well, you know, Ange, we've had Rarity as a tenant for almost five years now. If I remember... What year is it?" Cymbal Bright asked.
"2016"
"Make that six years! She's lived with us for six years next week! Just up and the sudden, her house burns down, and she, the artisan she may be, managed to teleport, and her parents were taken by strange beings. Hard to believe. Rarity is the first and only tenant I've ever known personally!"
"You're not the social type, Cym."
"Exactly!"
"Well, coming from Bon-Bon..."
"I know, I know, she was born in the West Equestrian Valleys, gossip is her specialty!"
"Well, and her sweets shop sure does make a mean taffy!"
"Well, you've got her there. And a nice pl-..."
"Don't even go there."
Suddenly, a voice rung thru their heads, at the same time, repeating the words "Cake Dimension" before blacking out.
g O T H I C Mansion
"Ruby! Ru-u-u-by!" called a wandering Cyclops. "Where are you?"
"Up here, Iris!" called a small ginger girl dressed in all black. She was hanging from the ceiling by a trapeze. A skeleton wearing a t-shirt and jeans was on another, hanging upside down by his knees, painting a mural on the ceiling. "Well, he was going to show me a new painting, bu-u-u-t... I'm stuck."
"Alright. Jump down, Ruby! I'll catch you!" promised Iris. Ruby jumped and fell towards Iris, but, lacking depth perception, Iris had no idea where Ruby was really landing, so Ruby missed and created a hole in the floor, landing hard.
"Oof. You'll catch me, all right..." mumbled Ruby and rubbed the back of her head. Iris let out a small sorry, when Ruby's cat pranced over.
She made a motion life a horse walking, and held up two digits on her paw. She then limped a bit, and pointed the direction she was coming from. Iris scratched her head.
"What...?" she said and squinted her eye.
The cat grew frustrated and motioned for them to follow her. Iris and Ruby ran after her.
An olive skinned girl in a long periwinkle dress ran in circles, mumbling something about lightning.
"What is it, Misery?" Ruby asked the girl. Misery shook her head.
"These things. They can't be good," she said and pointed to two shapes on the sidewalk. One had wings. It looked as if they were seriously injured. It was quite obvious they were still breathing, on that note. A large raven in a suit flew down.
"All right, all right, what's all the commotion?" he asked in a very, for lack of a better adjective, high-class voice.
"Poe, what are these things?" Iris asked the bird while pointing to the two objects. Poe prodded them with his claw, and shook his head.
"I don't beleive it," he mumbled. "A Pegasus!"
"A Pegasus? The winged horse?" asked Skull Boy, walking up behind them. Poe nodded. "Wow!"
"Is it deadly?" asked Misery. Poe shook his head.
"The other form, seems to be, well... Just a pony," Poe reported. He poked the Pegasus. It whinnied and accidentally bucked Misery in she face.
"Not deadly, huh?" came an accented voice from a bat with a scarf as he waddled over to the scene.
"Scaredy Bat, could you help us move these two?" Ruby asked the bat. Scaredy Bat.
"Oh no, I am much too afraid of horses!" he politely rejected. Ruby groaned, and she dragged the pony away, while Iris lead the dazed Pegasus into the mansion.
"Well, let me be the first to say, welcome to your new home!" greeted Iris to the Pegasus in the foyer. "I'm Iris, nice to meet you!"
Cloudsdale
A certain blonde-maned, wall eyed Pegasus walked thru the streets of downtown Cloudsdale, wearing a messenger bag stuffed with newspapers around her neck, shouting and flying up to ponies who offered to buy one.
"Extra! Extra! Missing pony cases at large! Un... what does that say?" she yelled while reading the headline off of one of the paper. Or, at least trying to. "Uneye-dent-of-eyed causes at hoof. Crystal Princess and Element Welders unavailable, Princess Celestia ignoring issue!"
"That's Element Wielders, Ditzy, and why are you handing out papers?" corrected Thunderlane as he flew by. Ditzy grew frustrated.
"I told you, I go by Derpy now, and it was Ivory's part time job, but she's one of the missing pony cases. I'm always looking for a new job," she explained. Thunderlane chuckled.
"Still paying off debt to Ponyville, I assume," he teased. Ditzy... Er, Derpy blushed.
"No... Well, yes, but... How do you know about that?" she asked.
"Well, I heard about it while I was down in Ponyville for the hurricane thing. You know, with Fluttershy?" Thunderlane explained. Derpy, to the best of her ability, tried to roll her eyes.
"Pff, Fluttershy..." she mumbled and went back to selling papers. A ways down the road, Thunderlane saw three ponies around him disappear into black smoke, until he himself heard the words "Ausgezeichnete Dimension" and he disappeared, too.

C a n t e r l o t
"Mmmfrrhmmfcmr!" Princess Celestia yelled at the basketcase pile of goop pacing in front of her, hooves and wings tied with some enchanted ropes, with a sock shoved in her mouth, and an inhibitor strapped to her horn, not of pony design, feeding magic to the soot-black slime ball that was Discord.
"Oh, quiet, you old coot!" he demanded, voice back to the way it was. "This magic is the only thing stopping me from talking like Twiki on dialup! Yeah, it's a human thing, don't worry.
"So, how you like that little doohickey strapped to your horn? Made by my boss, sucks your magic into me! Nice guy. You may notice I act differently. Well, going on four years as a BALL, of LIQUID, does not help a man's sanity.
"Well, a man is... Oh, forget it. Sure, leave your little subjects to believe I'm harmlessly stuck in .a .s .t .a .t .ue,,,,, su .r .e! Oh, watch that cord!
"So, anyway, explain to me why you'd tell the Elemental Six, or whatever you call them, that the Harmony spell against me converted me to the form of your choice, leaving what's left a stone? Well, you are notorious for lying. What, with that ridiculous story you told those idiots? That I ruled the land in an unfair reign of chaos and disaster? Ridiculous! You named me Discord for that back-story, my name was originally Kimiko the Great! Ponies worshipped me for my kindness and fairness. I maintained a state of harmony and happiness that you could never match as my second-in-charge, but you wanted that power.
"So what did you do? You banished your very own sister to the moon, her daughter and her subjects to the Arctic North, with some bloke, Sombra, and trapped the Royal Shapeshifters crew in a far, distant land nopony has heard of, and sat down, created fairy-tales, sent them out and started over. And you expected us not to be pissed off when we returned? The Changelings, who lived off the love they got from fans in their traveling circus, returned and fed off the love of somepony you could care very less about, and only responded when she was about to reveal you.
"Nightmare Moon. Your sister. A smart, mild-mannered, and quite a bright young mare! Well, when on the moon, she developed so much hate for you, so much malice, all this, just for your spell to end. She comes down, and she is beyond angry with you. Of course, you're the 'princess' of the sun, so night shall shroud you for your deeds against her. She destroys the elements to prevent from forgetting, and immediately before she's about to reveal the truth, bam, you're in the bushes outside, you cast a spell for weapons of mass destruction, the Elements of Harmony. Harmony my posterior! These elements caused Luna to forget all that ever happened, and took away her brightness, too, poor thing, so that you could rule without worry of being overthrown.
"But, isn't it just plain coincidental, you're niece arrives, she has nothing to rule over, a month later, BOOM!, hey, guys, Crystal Empire is back! All these ponies are coming back, and King Sombra. Yes, I knew Sombra, he was a flat-out, well, as that Fluttershy character would say, big, fat, meanie. He whined and cried about how little he got, so he taxed the poor. His original plan was to tax the rich, because they had enough bits for more taxes, but, his most trusted, and richest, advisor said no. Tax the poor. They'll never notice! That was very miserly of us, wasn't it, Marigold Sunbeam?
"Yes, I remember your real name. And why should we be surprised by that? Oh, we don't have to even get into me, although we already have. But why not Discord 2.0, Beta? Yes, you took my personality and uploaded it onto this... thing. So, ooh, lucky me, I get to go through painful tests and experiments. Well, something went wrong there.
"You see this thin gray line holding together these spheres? You don't, but you developed it. It ended up giving me this ability. Give me a name of a dimension."
"Mmmf fmmmhmmn!"
"Factory Dimension it is!"
An orange and red pony appeared beofe them. "Er... I did that wrong. This is from the Filosophy Dimension. Meet Orion Comet, but this isn't Orion you think you know. This Orion didn't take the Young Flyers Exam. This Orion has never been to the Rainbow Factory. This Orion has never been to Cloudsdale. I just made a copy of his personality. Give me another. Good. Sunflower."
A golden pony with long, curly auburn locks landed before the two. Discord took her head in claw and looked at it from different angles.
"Erin 'Sunflower' Olsen. Discovered Equestria, first human. Black tide ate Earth, mostly, but it was stopped. But this Sunflower never went to Earth, she's lived in Ponyville all her life. She never met Lucky, never worked at Fetlock Express, never even thought about entering the Iron Pony competition! One more."
A light orange Pegasus stallion with dark green hair, and a skinny build faded in before them. He wore a shirt that was blue and white striped, vertically.
"Orange Leaf. Not the one you may think of. This orange leaf never met Pound Cake or Pumpkin Cake, never even knew the cake family. They never convinced Sweetie Belle to dye her mane, or help her devolp advanced magical powers. Nor have they ever spoken to Scootaloo.
"Do you catch my drift, Celestia? There are 52,043,192 Derpy's in Equestria, half of them actually named Ditzy Doo and go by Derpy as a nickname, and Over 3,000 have traveled with The Doctor. But not all of them here. Hell, there are over sixty billion Rainbow Dashes!
"There are infinate universes out there, Celestia. Well, if you would've left me alone, and let me be, and stayed Marigold Sunbeam, and none of this would've happened. Well, here, let me give you this. The one you sent to another dimension? He left, but didn't go after you! Congratulations!
"Well, he's going to kill the Element Wielders! Yay! Well, this could have also have not happened if your scheme against Luna worked. She remembers, you know, and has revenge plans. I hope you're happy, Marigold, I hope you're happy."
Discord batted the sock out of Celestia's mouth. She smacked her mouth and nodded.
"I am happy, Kimiko. And you know, under normal circumstances, I'd kill you. But, I'm so glad you went ahead and retold me my dark past."
"You're a regular GLaDOS, you know that?"
"I know her personally. Because of the whole dimension thing."
"Hey, guess what, Celestia!"
"Whaddaya want?"
"This entire thing was recorded! The crystal over there had it, a hidden camera! And guess where it's feeding. Live."
"You're not saying..."
"So, loyal subjects, you know I'm not a liar! I've never lied to anypony. The whole thing with the rainbow one, I showed her what she showed herself, the worst disaster that could happen to her. Well, there. Your princess is a fraud.
"Do you have any more chaotic abilities to give me, by the way, Marigold? Oh, did I forget to mention that? Silly me. I would've never been able to have the power to cause that chaos. She gave that power to me. Anything to say, Mrs. Sunbeam, or are you willing to just let it go?"
"That is all true, Twilight. I'm sorry. Just... Remember me when Discord's boss kills you."
"I know me and Ivory don't want to. But to be honest, Boss is a weird guy, it's a 51% to 49% chance. Well, princess, have you ever wondered what the inside of Red Dwarf looks like?"
Discord snapped his fingers and the two were gone.
Red Dwarf
"No, no, no, no!" screamed Rainbow Dash as she flew in circles around the hospital beds Lister and Twilight. "This can't be, and to think I defended that b..." She knocked something over. "...h!"
"Rainbow, stop it, we all know Discord was just a-bein' Discord. We shouldn't trust nothin' he says!" comforted Applejack. "I'm sure that he's just a-lyin'..."
"You know, you should think before you speak," a voice said from behind them. They all whipped around to find Discord in a silky, oily form, with metal spheres taking place as his pupils and joints. "I just frigging told you I never lie."
"What the smeg?!" yelled Lister and sat straight up. "What's going on?"
"Eesh. Do the spell wrong?" asked Discord. Pinkie nodded. "Ah, well, Twilight should be up in a second." He threw Kryten a flashdrive. "Stick this in the machine connected to her head. I don't know about the boss's plan, but mine was to reveal Celestia for who she really was. Still unsure on Ivory's, though..." A loud explosion was heard from below. "But it might have something to do with that."

---

Ivory Wisp 2.0, as she could be called, was downstairs, on a very vow deck, fiddling with equipment, when a loud explosion could be heard from behind. She turned to look, and it was her boss. Of course, he was just a walking figure of computer mesh.
"I bRoUgHt ThE EHSP, aRe YoU rEaDy?" he asked. Ivory 2 shrugged.
"Well, you could say that. Put it in here," she pointed to the console she had destroyed. Her boss threw a green blob with a face at the device and it dissolved in.

---

"Well, they've disabled the lift. We'll have to teleport" Kryten reported. "But I've identified the problem. They have released an EHSP on board."
"Esp?" asked Ivory
"E-H-S-P." spelled Kryten.
"Ih dear... That siunds bad..." Ivory decided. Kryten nodded.
"Very. Emohawks can be very dangerous. They drain someone's primary emotion," Kryten explained. "For instance, Rimmer would become Ace."
"That git? I'd hate that!" exclaimed Rimmer. A face appeared in the place of Holly's.
"Oh, Be CaReFuL wHaT yOu SaY, rImSy. PeOpLe MiGhT bE lIsTeNiNg!" it warned. It sounded distantly like Rimmer himself. "Oh, AnD bY tHe WaY, gOoD lUcK aGaInSt DiScOrD!"
Discord waved and smiled as the face disappeared. "He's such a nice guy!" he said, and slowly converted into a puddle-ish form, slipping thru cracks and disappearing himself. Suddenly a loud creaking could be heard, and another Lister, Kryten, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight stood in front of them. Kryten blinked.
"This doesn't go well, I see," he said. The other him nodded and phased off.
Twilight came galloping down the hall at them, Lister tailing behind. "Ah, ma'am, sir, I see you're awake. Just in time. So, here's the story so far..."
Ponyville Home for the Mentally Unwell
"For the last time, I am not a coconut. Now, if you please, tell me what leads you to believe walls are evil?" a beige unicorn stallion with red hair sat in a padded room with an orange pony in a straight jacket.
"What is the point of walls but to SCREW PONIES WHO RUN INTO THEM?!" he yelled. "Now stop speaking Portuguese and talk to me, Commander Coconut! I am on your side! The musk melons will fall to our eventual might!" He attacked the chair behind him and began to gnaw at the straight jacket.
"Please calm down, sir, the... Urgh... I can't believe I'm saying this... The musk melons are already dead, our army grows in pure power..." the unicorn groaned.
"Yes! The army falls! Give me a glass of tree juice!" yelled the orange pony. Suddenly, a voice said the words "Sanity Dimension". "Take me with you, Cathy! I am prepared!" The unicorn stabbed him with a syringe of tranquilizer. They didn't call him Dr. Needles for nothing. He facehoofed for a moment, just to calm himself down, but when he looked back up, his subject, Blitz, was gone. He himself heard the words "Why Dimension" and disappeared into a cloud of blackness.
/*\Mysterious Ocean/*\
A squirrel in an astronaut's suit stood in front of a sponge with a face, pants, appendages, and giant red karate gear. They bowed to each other and yelled a loud "YEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!".
The sponge went to chop at her face, only to be stopped by her suit. She delivered a blow that shattered the sponge to pieces. Cleanly, with no blood. The sponge picked himself up and reshaped into a sponge again. The squirrel smirked.
"Y'all been practicin'. Ah can tell," she complimented and walked towards a giant dome. The sponge ran after her.
"Sandy! Wait!" he yelled in a high pitched voice. Sandy turned.
"What is it, Spongebob?" she asked. Spongebob pointed at the sky.
"What are those?" he asked. Sure enough, two dots were in the air, growing bigger.
"Ah dunno, li'l guy. Maybe som'thin's a-droppin' in the ocean?" Sandy said and squinted at the sky. One fell faster than the other, and hit Sandy square in the chest while yelling:
"Aaaaayyyeeeee carumba, Shelly, we're going to hit the base in no time at all. The S-Y-52 will dance all the doo-da-day if we don't! Yeehaw!"
Of course, these words were mildly gurbled, being underwater. The figure got up. "Hey, got any air? Hate ta say it, I might explode with out it!"
The other figure landed in Spongebob's face, horn taking out a chunk of.
"Er, sorry. Here," the second figure apologized and used his magic to levitate it back in his face. "I'm afraid that's the first sane thing he's said today. I, luckily, have just put a water breathing spell on the both of us. We're going to die soon, though, this spell doesn't last forever."
"Well, y'all are in luck. Come on over ta my tree-dome, Ah've got air in there! Ah'm Sandy, this'ne here is Spongebob. Welcome to Bikini Bottom!" the squirrel stuck out her hand. The second figure shook it.
"My name is Doctor Needles, this is Blitz. He's insane," he introduced.
"Run, Jerome, run! The Fleebleebleebees are coming!" Blitz yelled.
Red Dwarf
"Alright, everybody ready?" asked Kryten. Twilight, Pinkie, and Lister reluctantly nodded. "Good then!" Kryten said and pushed some buttons.
Suddenly a loud creaking could be heard, and another Lister, Kryten, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight stood in front of them. The other Kryten blinked.
"This doesn't go well, I see," he said. The first Kryten nodded and phased off.
"Let's try that again! It's fun!" yelled Pinkie Pie.
"Wait, how did Spike get here?" asked Twilight. Spike gave her a quizzical look.
"I've been on your back the entire time!" he explained. "And... We made it!" yelled Lister as the four arrived in the bottom sector of Red Dwarf. As expected, Discord appeared before the two. A strange music began to play.
" .L .i .k .e .i .t???? .E .r,,,,, .s .o rr .y,,, o n e,,, .m.o.m.e.n.t . . ." he malfunctioned and tampered with a device strapped to his back. He reverted to a normal voice. "Try that again... Like it? It's called Aphex Twin. Some old human music. I find it almost eurythmic. Down to business. I... am supposed to kill you. I've never killed somepony before, so let's see how this goes!"
A blast of the black liquid that was Discord shot across the room, splatting Kryten in the face. It returned, taking Kryten's head with it. Discord chuckled. "This is too easy!"
"You've forgotten one thing! I'm spare head number two! Kryten's real head is upstairs, clearing his cache!" Kryten laughed. Discord rolled his eyes. "Now, Lister! Twilight! Pinkie Pie!"
Pinkie Pie pulled a pink cannon wit h wheels out of the blue and shot Discord with a blast of confetti, that had been lit on fire. Twilight hit him with a combustion spell, but it welled up in his chest with the confetti. Lister then busted out a bazookoid and shot Discord in the place all this fire was building up.
"Everyone's a critic," mumbled Discord before blowing all over the room.
"That will only hold him momentarily! We must go!" Kryten's disembodied head instructed. Half his face was burned off. "Put me back on my body."
Twilight used her magic to levitate Kryten's head back on his body and screw it on.

Ivory 2.0 was galloping around frantically, shaking her head.
"They're coming, they're coming!" she yelled. "I can't believe they got through Discord!"
"DoN't WoRrY, wHeN tHeY gEt HeRe, I'lL jUsT tElL tHeM tHe TrUtH!" the mesh figure next to her. Kryten, Twilight, Lister, and Pinkie Pie burst thru the door.
"And that would be?" asked Twilight. The mesh figure leaned against a nearby pillar.
"eAsY! My NaMe Is AcE rImMeR!"