A decidedly unprofessional team of weirdos yoinked out of their comfort zone crashes through fanfic worlds and beyond, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Link your story in the comments and see what happens!
What happened to Crews A through S? We don't speak of them.
Read the disclaimer at the very bottom!
A mysterious organization known only as "The CC" emerged mysteriously on a mysterious night with mysterious motives. Their goal? To explore what was never explored before.
The problem? They've sent out nineteen exploration crews, only for each and every one of them to go missing. Also mysteriously, mind you.
And now, with their twentieth attempt in Crew-T, maybe something interesting will finally happen...
Submit your story down below with an embed, along with the worst summary you can think of, and I'll consider writing a chapter or two around it! I'll be sure to extract maximum clout out of the resulting garbage-tier horsewords. I can guarantee you that I will judge your story off its cover, yoink said cover and write a chapter knowing absolutely nothing about your fic except for the cover. That is your anti-quality guarantee.
(Also if you want I might also take What If-style suggestions.)
Disclaimer: I may turn down your suggestion for any reason, be it personal or technical. This entire story is written as a parody of anything and everything, so long as permission has been granted beforehand in the form of posting your story link in the comments. Expect your fics to be thoroughly mauled.
Emily Anderson groaned. Hardly five minutes ago, she was minding her own business, working on assignments for class. Much like what the author of this story should really be doing right now. Now, though?
She sat up, rubbing an eye. This was some kind of... spaceship? No, this looked too advanced to be a mere spaceship. Maybe some kind of holding chamber? A jail, maybe? Though, she hadn't done anything illegal... to her knowledge. And besides, there weren't any bars to be seen, so it probably wasn't a jail.
"Boo."
"Gah!" Emily scooted back from the black and red small horse thing that'd appeared in front of her. "What are you?"
"Name's Butter Knife. I'm an alicorn that you should maybe be afraid of. Listen, bucko, I have no idea where we are, what happened to us, or anything of the sort. When I woke up, there was this weird, disembodied voice shouting over the intercom. Couldn't really tell what was being said, though."
Emily raised a brow.
"You can't understand me, can you?"
"No, no, I absolutely understand you. It's just that the last time I encountered a talking horse, it didn't look anything close to... well, what you look like."
"Mm-hm," Butter Knife turned away. "And next, you're gonna say that you've actually got friends onboard, while I still have to make do alone."
"Emily?" A distant voice echoed down the corridor.
Emily looked up and squinted. "...Lisa?"
"Told ya."
"Emily!" Lisa repeated, running toward her friend. "Man, am I glad to see you! I woke up thinking that I got trapped in a simulation, but it turned out that that simulation was my life, but really it wasn't, and so I thought it was a dream, but it wasn't, and--"
"Okay, okay, geez," Emily nudged her friend away. "I get it. Another run-in with your whole simulation project stuff. Speaking of which, isn't there, like, another one of you or something? One that legitimately put herself in the simulations to escape some sort of trauma instead of dealing with it in a healthy way? I remember vaguely something about that, but I don't know where I remember it from."
"Huh?"
"Nevermind."
"You two blabber more than Ego Boost." Butter Knife grumbled. "You gonna start a podcast together or something, or are we going to actually figure out what's going on? I'm already getting sick of being around you t--"
"Actually," Emily cut in. "A podcast does sound like a pretty neat ide--"
Butter Knife smacked a hoof against the girl's mouth. "SHUT."
A distant crash caught the attention of the three.
Slicey Dicey lowered her hoof. "Oh... oh no... wait, hey narrator, you got my name wrong!"
Not sorry. So anyway, Emily was already in her attack stance, because she has one of those now apparently. Go take a look at Splintershard's cover art. That's what it looks like. Except she doesn't have her wand, 'cause that kinda went boom and disappeared in Splintershard, and at the moment of this chapter being written, she still hasn't gotten another one yet.
Also, Emi's a pony now, because that's also something that happened in Splintershard.
"Wait, what the heck?" Emily stared down at her hooves. "I... what? I thought I was human again?"
Bread Spread, tell Emi what's up.
"Again, it's Butter Knife. You didn't have any issue with it early on, so what gives now?"
Emily looked at Butter Knife weirdly. Now she knows what it must've been like for folks to watch her talk to Starlight.
"Shut up already, narrator. I run the show here."
Alrighty then, you've got the ropes.
"So. Emi, right? That's what you're called?"
Emily looked up from her hooves and nodded.
"You're a pony, Emi. For the sake of continuity with your story. Also, I can talk to the narrator."
"What."
"Nevermind. As for you, Lisa--keep being you. You're like Ego Boost but less annoying. Right now though, I think we all have a bigger problem to deal with."
The distant crashing grew a little louder.
Butter Knife facehoofed. "Oh dear me I hope it isn't Ego Boost..."
Guess what, Slicey Dicey?
"What? Oh... oh no, don't you dare--"
It isn't. It's Sweetie Giraffe!
"AM SENSE THE SMOLNESS." Sweetie Giraffe's voice boomed overhead. "WHERE THE SMOLNESS. MUST DESTROY."
A floating, disembodied hand materialized in front of Sweetie Giraffe, slapping her across the face. "No destroy. Is friends." The hand whispered as it repeatedly smacked the giraffe. "Friends help destroy other smolness maybe."
Sweetie Giraffe's rampage ground to a halt. She leaned over, craning her neck down to the two mares and one human girl. "You is friends. Us destroy smol."
"Ooo...kay?" Lisa reached a hand to Sweetie Giraffe and gave her a headpat, because headpats are good.
As for Lil' Knifey, she was glad that the narrator actually did something useful for once.
"I NEVER SAID THAT."
Butter Knife proceeded to say exactly that.
Butter Knife screamed.
"SCREM BAB LOUD." Sweetie Giraffe glared at the still-screaming Stabbđź…±. "CAN DESTROY?"
"NO, YOU WILL NOT DESTROY BUTTER KNIFE, THE MOST FEARED ALICORN IN ALL OF--"
Butter Knife proceeded to burst into flames from Sweetie Giraffe's laser-vision, leaving behind only a pile of ashes.
"I--" Emily backed away from Sweetie Giraffe. "Lisa, I... think you should also get away. Maybe call the police if you can. We just witnessed a freakin' murder."
The pile of ashes burst into flames, reassembling bit by bit into a now-clearly annoyed Butter Knife. She pointed a hoof at Sweetie Giraffe. "Alright, listen up, tall girl, I'm the boss around here."
"Mmmmno, I think I'd be more fitting as the boss," Emily gestured at herself. "I mean, I was tasked with preventing a civil war, and my only real companion through all of it was an annoyed pony stuck in my head."
"AM TALL. IS WILL BE BOSS."
Lisa raised a hand. "I... think maybe we should discuss this later. We still don't know where we are, after all."
"Cardboard box."
Everyone looked at the small, Bluetooth speaker sitting against the wall.
"Welcome to the rest of your lives, nimrods. Press the button to continue."
"What butto--" Emily began before inadvertently tripping on the big red "easy" button sitting on the floor in front of her.
"Welcome to Coalation C," the speaker continued. "I see you have pressed the button."
Lisa raised a brow. "May I ask what the button does?"
"No. Also, your shoe is untied. No worries, however. Your laces have now been replaced with a durable, wear-resistant material hailing from the age of space exploration."
"Really?" Lisa widened her eyes. "I--thank you!"
"Your shoes are now velcro sneakers, you dingus." Margarine deadpanned. "You know that, right?"
Lisa looked down. "Huh. So they are."
The other Lisa tapped Lisa on the shoulder.
Lisa looked up. "Oh dang, there's two of me now. Where'd you come from?"
The other Lisa shrugged. "I'd ask the same, but I'm pretty sure at the moment that this is a simulation. It's got ponies, after all. Only place I know of with interactive ponies is the simulation I built in my teens to run away from my life problems instead of dealing with them in a sane, healthy way."
Lisa blinked. "I... uh, okay? Question, do you know anyone by the name of Emily from your world? Or at least an Emily that you go to school with? From my understanding, we've all been abducted by some mysterious force from our home universes and thrown together in this spaceship-looking place."
"Cardboard box," the Bluetooth speaker repeated.
The other Lisa shook her head. "Don't know anyone by that name. Really the only friend I can clearly remember anything about is Samantha. You have a Samantha in your world, right? Y'know, the one who plays Pinkie Pie the pony as a character, kinda crazy when she feels like it? Theater kid who can't dance because she's just that bad at it?"
Lisa shook her head. "I did meet a Samantha back in third grade, but I don't think we really did very much together. I heard she's a pretty good actress these days, though."
"Are we not going to bring up the fact that there are two Lisas here now?" Emily grumbled. "Also, other Lisa, are you okay?"
"...Yeah, why?"
"The whole running away from your life problems thing. Don't your parents miss you?"
"My parents have been dead for over a decade. I live with Professor Argall and my brother, Tim."
"Ayyyyy," Butter Knife placed her hoof on the other Lisa's shoulder. "Welcome to the dead parents club, Lizzo."
Lisa's eye twitched. "I... you--you lost your parents? And you live with your teacher? What kind of messed-up world do you live in?! And you even got your simulation project to a fully-working state, too! How did you do that so quickly?"
"I mean, I worked on it continuously starting from grade school up into my teenage years, so..."
"Okay, okay, sorry for butting in again--" Emily butt into the conversation again. "--but how old are you?"
The other Lisa looked at Lisa. She raised an arm, pointing at her counterpart. "Older than her, most likely."
"No seriously, how old are you?"
"Twenty-six."
"Ollllld, you're ooooold!" the Bluetooth speaker mocked. "Hey, can someone bring a walker down there for Granny Liz?"
Thousand-degree knife proceeded to punt the speaker across the floor.
"DESTROY?" Sweetie Giraffe raised a hoof above the speaker.
"Yes," the other Lisa nodded. "You may destroy."
"Another question." Emily raised a hand.
"I'm not a teacher, you know."
Emily lowered her hand. "You're taking all of this really well so far. Why are you so calm?"
The other Lisa--
"Okay, narrator, give us a break already," Butter Knife shouted at me, the narrator. "If you keep saying 'Lisa' and 'The other Lisa', then I will personally come to you and beat you with your own keyboard."
Fine. Since the first Lisa knows Emi, she will now be known as Splintershard Lisa, or S-Lisa, for short. The other evidently comes from Pony-Me, so she will be P-Lisa. Better?
"Finally he listens to me," Do Not Put Me in a Toaster grumbled, rolling her eyes. "So. Plisa. You gonna answer?"
Nobody responded, for only Butter Knife knew of these new nicknames.
"You--" she pointed a hoof at the Lisa from Pony-Me. "The author of this story has made the arbitrary decision to officially nickname you Plissa. And you--" she swung her hoof to the Lisa from Splintershard. "--have been nicknamed Slissa."
You added some extra 's'-es there, buddy.
"Because I want to."
Fine. Plissa raised a brow at her forceful nicknaming. "Anyway, I was asked why I was so calm. While I certainly don't have any evidence to prove it is the case, I personally think that this is either a strange dream, or I entered another simulation and forgot why I did so. Either way, this is getting interesting, so I'm going to stick around for as long as I can."
"And another questio--"
"SHUT." Butter Knife jammed her hoof in Emi's mouth. "Enough from you. Do not bother the elder Lisa."
"Seriously, guys," Plissa folded her arms. "I'm not that old."
A walker slid up against her leg.
"I SAID I'M NOT OLD."
"Hey, Butter Knife?"
"Yes?"
Emily pointed behind the mare. "What's that?"
Butter Knife whirled around and punched the imposter square in the face, sending them flying with enough force to go boom and die, leaving only their legs and a big ol' bone sitting on the floor.
The cardboard box ship crashed down into the water, causing a massive ker-sploosh.
"HOLY HECK WHERE ARE WE?!" Butter Knife screeched, staring out the window as the spacecraft they were on began to sink. "I THOUGHT WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE THREE MINUTES AGO!"
~~three minutes ago:~~
"Huh." Slissa pressed a button labeled 'headset'. "I wonder what this button does?"
A headset dropped down on her head, knocking her out cold and causing her to fall over onto Emily, who, upon being knocked off-balance by her friend, fell backwards over the back of Slicey Dicey, sliding beneath Sweetie Giraffe, and bonking her head again on the 'crash-land ship' button.
Come to think of it, why does that thing have such a button?
"Sounds more like a convoluted plot device you forced us to play out for the sole purpose of crash-landing our spaceship, mister author."
Yeah, fair enough. Thanks for pointing that up, Buttery Smooth.
Butter Knife groaned.
"Huh. So that's why we aren't in the middle of nowhere anymore."
"But we are?" Plissa joined Butter Knife at the window, which was beginning to become submerged. "Looks like we're in an ocean."
A frantic pounding came from the outside of the ship. Probably Spike or something. Idunno, I didn't read the story. "Come on, get out of your ship before you drown!"
Sweetie Giraffe's ears perked up as her cutie mark became a '>.>' face. "DESTROY INTRUDER?"
"No, don't destroy intruder." Plissa sighed, turning away from the window. "I'll answer the door."
Plissa opened the door. "Oh, hey, Spike. Be sure to clean your feet before you come inside. You're sopping wet."
"I--" Spike shook his head. "No, no! I'm here to get you guys out! You've crash-landed on this planet just like I did, and I already had to save Fluttershy or something like that earlier, so get out before I have to drag each and every one of you out by the legs!"
Fluttershy poked her head into the doorway, waving a hoof.
"C'mon, we have this neato island place that we sometimes get food from! It's totally not populated with things that would rather eat us instead!"
"Mm-hm," Plissa made a face. "I... think you should find a different place to get food from."
"Like?"
"The ship's pantry!" Emily popped up behind Plissa with a pile of granola bars. "Look what I found!"
"Oh, um... thanks," Spike took the bundle of granola bars. "I guess that helps with the food situa--"
Emily dumped another pile of granola bars on Spike.
"I think that's--"
Emily dumped another pile of granola bars on Spike.
"No seriously--"
Emily lifted another ball of granola bars above her head, but was stopped by Butter Knife.
"Stop it." Butter Shanking Tool™ grabbed the granola bars and lowered them. "Get some help."
Spike raised a claw. "But--"
"Have a Sweetie Giraffe for your troubles."
Sweetie Giraffe proceeded to be absolutely yeeted out of the door, colliding with Spike and Fluttershy and sending them to the island with one-eyed, four-legged carnivore thingies that I saw one mention of while skimming the story. The door slammed shut behind them.
"Alrighty. Plissa, you look like you know how to fly a spaceship. Get us off this thing."
"Who--me?" Plissa raised a brow. "I know how to work with computers, but I've never piloted--"
"Too bad, so sad, you're the captain now. Make your dead parents proud."
Spike watched the ship begin to lift off out of the water as he stood on the flaming shores of the island. Sweetie Giraffe continued to rampage in the background, obliterating every single creature in sight.
And then the ship nosedived and crashed into the island itself, destroying the last remaining traces of the entire carnivorous, one-eyed species and rendering them extinct.
Crash-land except the island is now obliterated and everything is on fire and oh dear Celestia we're doomed aren't we?
"Okay, geez, we get it." Shanky Shanky rolled her eyes. "And here I thought that I was the edgy one. Also, yes, we're aware that everything is on fire thanks to us crashing down on the island."
"Everyone hop on the Sweetie Giraffe!" Emily yelled. "She's right outside the ship! We can climb down her neck onto safe ground!"
Sweetie Giraffe proceeded to incinerate the already-flaming remains of the ship, causing the four inside to fall face-first on the ground below.
"Ow." said no one in particular.
Sweetie Giraffe lasered no one in particular until they ceased to exist.
"Who the heck was that?" Slissa pointed a thumb at the ashen remains of no one in particular. "Alright, head count, everyone. Let's make sure there wasn't any friendly-fire now, 'kay?"
"I IS HERE."
"Yes, you are here, Sweetie. Other me?"
Plissa raised a hand.
"Alright. Emi? Yup, Emi's here. Butter Knife?"
"I am eternal."
"Yeah, I kinda figured. Anyway--" Plissa turned to the rest of the island. Of which was currently still on fire and rendered clean of any evidence of the one-eyed carnivore things ever existing. "Now what?"
Ah, yes. The dreaded question.
"We could always see if Spike has a ship we could borrow," Slissa began. "He seems to be familiar with spacecraft."
Spike wheezed comically, a puff of ash escaping from his mouth as he faceplanted on the ground in front of the five.
"Oh hey, there he is."
Fluttershy flew past in the background with her hooves filled with the singed remains of the one-eyed carnivore things. Nobody knows to this day what she did with them.
"So." Spike unwrapped a granola bar and began munching on it. "I heard you guys need a new spaceship?"
"Wait," Shin Shanker pointed a hoof at Spike. "I thought you were practically beat to a pulp just now!"
"Nope. That was half a minute ago. I'm better now."
Butter Knife facehoofed. "I swear, if this author keeps on doing things solely to move the plot forward, I'm gonna kill someone."
A mind-numbingly loud doorbell sound chimed through the air. Moments later, the sky farted out a shiny new spaceship, which landed on top of Spike. Yes, this is now a Spikabuse story. I think. Idunno for sure though, he really do be vibin' down there with his granola bar tho.
Spike raised a thumbs-up from beneath the piece of spaceship that landed on him.
See? Not Spikabuse! He's fiiiine.
Butter Knife screamed something inane about the author ruining the story. Probably not important enough to narrate anyway, 'cause we have a plotline to finish!
...
...
Sweetie Giraffe, the two Lisas, Emily and Butter Knife said their goodbyes to Spike (who was still stuck in the ground) and Fluttershy, who had curiously-red stains around her mouth and on her hooves. With Slissa once again at the controls, the ship took off without a hitch.
Wait, did I say Slissa? Oh. Well, the ship took off without a hitch then, save for the camper trailer dangling off one side by its trailer hitch, because I never specified what kind of hitch was not included. Oh, also, Plissa took over from Slissa before any damage could be done, so I guess that's a good thing.
Spike watched the ship take off.
"Man. And here I was thinking that we'd be able to get on board and get off this crappy planet."
Fluttershy walked up beside him, chewing on something. She held out something brown and shriveled. "Want some jerky?"
Man. I'm a lazy bum who doesn't wanna read all 12k words of the actual fic this thing's supposed to be based on, so it's skimming ti--
A loud buzzer blared overhead. Milky Smooth took her hoof off the button. "You really should keep stuff like that to yourself, y'know that, right? Also, for the last time, it's Butter Kni--"
Poke-Your-Eyes-Out was ejected from the ship's airlock... and right onto the top of an airplane passing underneath.
But wait, weren't they just on a world filled with water and carnivore thingies that taste oddly like beef? (Don't tell Fluttershy that I took some of her jerky.)
...Why do I smell nuts?
Butter Knife groaned, phasing herself through the fuselage of the aircraft and landing face-first in Rainbow Dash's lap. Because we gotta make the plot go somewhere, and that's Rainbow Dash's. If you get what I mean ( ͡• ͜ʖ ͡• )
"Wh-hey!" Rainbow Dash smacked the ancient and all-powerful mare hard enough to send her careening into a nearby empty seat, conveniently ricocheting in just the right ways to buckle her up in the seat. I mean, it isn't that crazy for such a thing to happen... have you seen how much flying the Wonderbolts do? They've got to be pretty strong, right?
So anyway, Rainbow Dash was really annoyed now because firstly, she was on a freakin' airplane, and secondly, she just went through this whole PTSD-flashback thingy brought on by the mere fact that she was sitting onboard a plane. Man, birds are annoying, y'know?
Hold on a moment, actually. I hear someone knocking on the do-oh my, speaking of birds, it's our friend the fried chicken dealer! Have you got this week's delivery, good sir?
"You're late on payment. Again. You know what that means, right?"
"Alright, listen up, buckethead," Shiny the Shankhog reached a hoof through the fourth wall, into my dimension, and into yet another fourth wall to pull the (totally-not-real) fried chicken dealer into the airplane with her. "You will shut up and let the story keep going. I don't care if you're related to the Colonel, or if you're actually dashingly attractive, or if you're ready to sacrifice me to the dark gods. Just shut. Up."
"Praise Butter Knife."
"That's better." Butter Knife buckled up the quaking fried chicken dealer in the seat beside her. "So, uh, Rainbow Dash. What's up with the whole PTSD thing? Asking because I'm pretty sure I just got dropped on my head out of a spaceship onto a moving airplane."
Rainbow Dash raised a brow. "I... don't think that's a reason to ask."
It was at this moment that the author realized that he isn't 100% sure if he's writing Rainbow Dash correctly 'cause holy heck has it been a while since he wrote her.
So anyway, it's been like, a full day now since the author started writing this chapter, and he's been doin' homework for the past four hours or so and decided that he'd rather not continue writing this chapter at the moment.
"Tsk tsk. Lazy." Clink Clank scolded. "If you wish to post this chapter early, then so be it. At least it saves me some pain for the time being."
"Who are you talking to?" Rainbow Dash raised a brow.
"Nonya."
Intermission: keyboard-slamming with Twilight Sparkle!
"Alrighty, class!" Twilight stepped into the room populated by the entirety of Crew-T. Butter Knife struggled against her restraints. "Today, we're learning about the proper etiquette of keyboard-slamming."
Emily raised a brow. The bubblegum bubble she was blowing popped. "What if we already do that every day?"
"I've seen your livestreams, Emi. You need to stop destroying keyboards. This is why I've forcefully kidnapped you and the others and brought you all here."
"Oh."
"So--" Twilight brought a keyboard out from under the podium and dropped it in front of her. "This is a keyboard. You may be wondering now; how does one properly slam a keyboard?" She lifted a hoof above the device. "Now, observe."
She proceeded to curbstomp the keyboard in half. The two Lisas cringed.
"There are, of course, other ways to go about it," Twilight stepped aside, letting a visibly-annoyed Spike sweep up the remains of her most recent victim. "And on top of that, there are also many causes for why one may wish to slam a keyboard."
Sweetie Giraffe raised a hoof. "IS BECAUSE KEEB TOO SMOL?"
"Yes," Twilight dodged Sweetie Giraffe's eye-lasers. "That is a valid reason. Any others?"
Slissa raised a hand. "What about if you made a stupid mistake in a game in front of a live audience?"
Emily made a face at her friend for the obvious callout. Slissa smirked in return.
"Also valid."
"Wait--" Emily raised a hoof. "Didn't you just tell me that you brought me here because I need to stop destroying keyboards? You just barely destroyed one yourself!"
"It's the etiquette that we're focusing on, Emi. Not everyone feeds their keyboard into an industrial wood-chipper after losing a game of go-fish on the internet."
"Fine." Emily folded her forelegs. Man, that's still a weird thing to type instead of 'folded her arms'.
"As I was saying," Twilight continued, "There is a proper and improper etiquette to the slamming of keyboards. Emily here has demonstrated the improper etiquette in the past. Proper etiquette in the art of keyboard-slamming involves enacting physical harm upon the device under your own strength, such as when I earlier trampled my own keyboard. Does anybody else have an example of what constitutes as proper etiquette?"
Slicey Dicey raised a hoof. "Picking apart every component and dissolving them separately in large vats of acid?"
"Mmm, you're getting there."
Plissa raised a hand. "How about slapping someone else with the keyboard?"
It took a moment for Twilight to think about such a scenario. "...Yes, I believe that would still be proper, as even though the physical harm comes from the harming of others with the keyboard, it is still under your own strength."
Plissa silently cheered at her own ingenuity.
"My, would you look at the time!" Twilight pulled a watch from behind the podium. "It's time for the author to go to bed! Class is dismissed. Thank you for attending!"
And so everyone left. Except Butter Knife. Butter Knife is still strapped down to her chair.
"What's this button do?" Emily pressed a button on the dashboard while Plissa piloted the spacecraft. "Haven't seen this before."
A thermonuclear bomb shaped curiously like Scootaloo proceeded to fall out of the spacecraft, landing smack-dab in the middle of Equestria.
And then a crapton more of them started raining down, because explosions are cool and this chapter is now approved by Michael Bay.
"Alrighty, ponies, GET IN YOUR TIN CANS." Twilight barked through a megaphone. "It will be somewhat safe to re-enter the now-irradiated Equestrian society in several decades' time, if not longer."
She proceeded to be completely and utterly demolished by a passing radscorpion.
"So remind me again, why am I suddenly the backup pilot?"
Margarine Tub shrugged, shoving Rainbow Dash up against the controls. "The pilot and copilot and whoever the heck else was in here mysteriously got thrown out the window by an unknown force shaped mysteriously like a large flyswatter, so you're in charge now, pegasus."
"Whuh?"
But Butter Knife was gone now. The copilot seat was currently occupied by a still-quivering Fried Chicken Dealer.
Rainbow Dash turned her eyes back to the windshield. She felt her heart beating heavy in her chest. She wasn't supposed to be doing this! She couldn't do this!
"~~~Remember who you are~~~" a mysterious, disembodied voice that sounded mysteriously like Lightning Dust. "~~and that is a looooooseeeer~~~"
Redheart slapped Lightning across the face. “Get it together! The lives of the passengers are in your hooves. Now I know you two haven’t flown since the incident, but you need to work it out and land that plane in one piece.”
Yes, I just copied a single line from The Red Parade. It is for plot reasons that Rainbow Dash has reached into the aether of the sky and pulled Lightning Dust back onboard for the sole purpose of slapping her across the face.
With that being said, Lightning Dust was promptly yeeted back out of the plane with the power of friendship and a bucket of fried chicken.
Now then, how was she supposed to land this thing?
Rainbow Dash reached for a button on the dashboard.
"No!" Shinkshank the Buttered scolded, swatting Rainbow's hoof away. "That's the button that makes fart sounds I think!"
Butter Knife's hooves flew over her mouth. She glared at the ceiling. "Don't you dare make me say the word 'fart' again."
Well guess what, miss Bread-Spread?
Butter Knife groaned. "Are you going to keep on alternating between names?"
Yup. Also, you said the word fart again just a few moments ago.
Knife Butter screamed, surprising Rainbow Dash into making the plane nosedive. The Fried Chicken Dealer tumbled backwards out of the cockpit, his buckets of fried chicken he had concealed beneath his trenchcoat spilling into the rest of the plane, much to the glee of the passengers, for they finally had some good fcking food.
Dang, that's a run-on sentence up there. Neat.
So anyway, where were we again? Oh yeah. Airplane. Free-fall. Rainbow Dash as pilot.
Let us treat this as a free-fall situation. As you may know, the acceleration due to gravity on Earth and Earth-like planets (planets with a similar mass and density to our own world) is -9.8 meters/second2. Ignore air resistance, even though we are working with an entire airplane designed specifically for not being in free-fall. If the starting velocity of the falling airplane is -152 meters/second and five seconds has passed, what will be the volume of the scream that Rainbow Dash lets out as they spiral closer and closer to the unforgiving ground?
Oh geez, we've got Trixie in Mareplane? And she's summoning... line breaks?
With the power of all the line breaks put together, a line-break parachute emerged from the back of the plane, greatly slowing its descent at the cost of causing many, many ponies to pile up against the cockpit entrance. Don't worry, ponies from Equestria are hardy creatures.
Say, where's our favorite edgy girl in all of this?
Dangit, Trixie, we don't need any more line breaks!
Trixie barfed out one more
line break. She currently has motion sickness. Deal with it.
So anyway, I "found" Butter Knife. She is currently holding on for dear life (even though she's immortal) on the edge of one of the airplane's wings. I wonder how she got there?
"YOU PUT ME HERE, YOU IDIOT." Efink Rettub shouted back in her own Royal Canterlot Voice. Of which actually sounded more like a whiny child. She is canonically a whiny child.
Butter Knife only screamed more because she knows that I, the author, hold ultimate power over her fate. Therefore, her existence must serve to appease my writing desires, and that means she is holding onto the wing of an airplane slowly drifting downward on a parachute made of line breaks.
Finally, after what seemed like 706 words (I'm counting up to the number 706 itself on Fimfic's editor), the airplane finally touched down on the landing strip. Of course, it was still completely vertical in position, so everypony was still smushed up against the cockpit door. Rainbow Dash sat quaking in her nonexistent boots. The Fried Chicken Dealer was nowhere to be seen.
Oh wait. There he is. He landed a water-bucket clutch. What a pro-gamer move. Can we get a pog?
As for Slicey Dicey, she peeled herself off of the airplane's wing and vowed never to have herself be dropped headfirst out of a spacecraft onto a moving aircraft ever again.
Rainbow Dash smashed her face into another one of Celestia's cakes. Because it's a prank. Haha funny funny prank.
"Is she..." Plissa pointed at Rainbow. "Is she okay? I mean, we did just land the ship on top of the castle and all, but I don't think it's normal to be smashing one's own face repeatedly into multiple cakes."
"Psh, she's fine." Butter Knife cantered up to Rainbow Dash and dunked the entire mare into the next cake. "See? Better than ever. The less I see of that rainbow eyesore, the better. I prefer black and red and nothing else."
"Ahem."
Generic Black and Red Edgy Alicorn OC #42069 looked up just in time to be blasted in the face by Celestia. Short to say, she was less than impressed, being the (unfortunately) immortal mary sue that she is.
"Hey, I heard that!"
She got blasted in the face a second time.
"And you!" She pointed her hoof at Celestia. "Stop it. Get some help."
"It'S Just a PRANk BrO."
Celestia proceeded to be banished to the closest black hole by none other than Shinkle Shankle (who may be coming for your ankles). Equestria froze over shortly after, killing absolutely everyone and everything.creating a wonderful winter wonderland for the rest of time because this is a rated-E story dangit.
Butter Knife watched the snowball planet shrink away into the distance as she and the rest of Crew-T departed on their ship to the next Equestria. Yes, there are multiple. How do you think I mine these story universes for clout?
"Twitermelon Sparkle!" Waterbow Melon called, tumbling down the watermelon chute of the School of No Cents, "Where is my money?"
"Cents are not allowed here." Twitermelon replied. "Money in all forms is hereby and forever onward illegal within school grounds."
Rare Water(melon) was led away in meloncuffs in the background for giving away cents.
"What the actual heck are you watching, Sweetie Giraffe?"
Sweetie Giraffe looked down from the portable TV she had set up on the tallest shelf in the ship. "AM NOT KNOW. BRAIN CELL PLINK PLONK. WANT WATCH MELON SHOW."
It was at this moment that Twitermelon Sparkle suddenly became half-dragon, on top of already being half-pony and half-watermelon. She is now 150% alive.
"I'VE NEVER FELT SO ALIVE." Twitermelon sang in a voice so terrible that she was able to evade the copyright ninjas of the music industry.
Pretty sure it's clear as day at this point that I haven't read a single word of the story beyond the description lol. Light Heart has ceased to exist because no real-life folks in a story about pure carnage without explicit permission. Instead, they have been conveniently replaced by a potato with a smiley face drawn on in sharpie. Plus cardboard wings and horn, of course, since alicorn and all.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for... a single reference to the story itself, brought to you by ya boi Tonkus scrolling through the first chapter and stopping on a random paragraph!
Spike chuckled. "Maybe we should fuse together to become one of those ultimate lifeforms."
> Thousand Degree Knife heard that.
"FUUUU-SIOOOOON!" Spike the earth pony and Spike the dragon yelled in unison, running full-speed at each other because dangit we can't always be cramming references as-is into this hot garbage. The watermelon between them made a sickening crunch sound, much to the horror of all of the watermelon hybrids nearby.
The two Spikes proceeded to slam face-first into each other. Butter Knife smiled, knowing that the threat of another being rising to her level had been quelled.
Sweetie Giraffe turned off the TV and threw it out the window, resulting in everything else nearby being sucked into the vacuum of space as well. Except for Sweetie Giraffe. She's too tall for that.
Churned Cow Juice Utensil Used For The Purpose Of Cutting And Spreading screamed.
Watermelon chapter the second: I'm not reading that 14,000-word chapter.
"Celestia, O', Celestia!" Twilight melodramatically raised a hoof to her forehead. Tell me, Celestia, am I truly making friends?"
"Neigh, noble Twilight!" Celestia fainted out of the window and faceplanted on the ground. "You have not made friends, for you are simply befriending your fellow Equestrians!"
Twilight gasped. "Are you saying that I must perform the act that none have succeeded in?"
"Necromancy is a dangerous art, dear pupil. You mustn't disrespect it, regardless of the many failed attempts to carry it out."
A watermelon slowly rose from the ground. It had a sharpie-d on smiley face scribbled onto it.
"Hark!" Celestia gasped. "A success! Noble Twilight, the dragon-watermelon-unicorn hybrid of the Sparkle bloodline, you have performed the impossible!"
Twilight smiled and trot away with her new undead watermelon friend.
"You're still watching that?" Slissa wandered past, eyeing the TV duct-taped to Sweetie Giraffe's head. "I thought you threw the TV out the window and killed everyone by having them be sucked into the heartless void of space."
"You're welcome for not dying, by the way." Shinkle Shankle the Ankle Crankle grumbled. "Also, screw you too, narrator."
Aw, thanks for the acknowledgment.
"WATERMELON ENTERTAINING." Sweetie boomed. "AM IS LIKE WATERMELON SHOW NOW."
Sweetie Giraffe's favorite fruit is now canonically watermelon. The end.
Emily pointed at the omnipresent camera that always exists in convenient locations. "We're live! Say hi to the world!"
"Uhm... hi?"
"Aw, do it with more enthusiasm!" Emily lit her horn, forming a magical megaphone in front of Slissa.
"HELLO, WORLD!" Slissa screeched at the top of her lungs. Somewhere on the opposite side of the ship, WillCutYou's ears began to bleed.
"YOUS DISTURB SLEP. WHY LOUD?" Sweetie Giraffe stomped up to Emily and Slissa. She lit her own horn and smited Emily's magic megaphone. "NO LOUD. QUIET ONLY. WANT SLEP."
"Where we goin' next?" Slissa draped her arms over the back of the pilot's seat. "There's a lot of places that I wanna go."
"Dash."
"Huh?"
Plissa brushed her counterpart's arms out of her face. "We're going to Dash. Rainbow Dash."
"Dash--like the punctuation?"
"Eyup."
The ship proceeded to crash-land into filly Rainbow Dash's house. Buttered Toaster groaned at the inconvenience. Not like they were actually going anywhere in the first place...
"Dash-" Derpy yelled, "you okay?"
"-" Rainbow Dash answered. How do you pronounce a hyphen, anyway? Teach me your ways, technicolor filly.
"She's not gonna hear you, y'know." I've-Run-Out-Of-Names grumbled. "Also, good. Now you can call me by my real name again."
Fine, Cookie Cutter.
While Butter Knife screamed loud enough to annoy Sweetie Giraffe, Slissa and Emi went to go say hi to Rainbow Dash and interrogate her on how exactly to pronounce a punctuation mark. This chapter is getting stupider by the second.
Most likely by now, it should be obvious that your brain-dead sleep deprivation goblin of an author hasn't taken a look at even a single paragraph from the fic this is supposed to dunk on, and I'm keeping it that way.
So anyway, next on the list is to yeet a new recurring character into this already jam-packed cringefest!
"Hi! I'm Zoey!" Zoey Zoey'd out of the ground--right beneath Dash.
"Ascher?" Plissa raised a brow.
"Nope. Wayve. My dad got arrested for crimes involving selling microwaves. His name is Michael Rowe Wayve. Mike Rowe Wayve for short."
Even Sweetie Giraffe had to facehoof at that pun.
"So... what about Zoey Ascher then, Zoey Wayve?"
"Oh, you want to see her? Sure thing! Lemme just contact the Zoeyverse Council."
Zoey vanished back into the ground, leaving a very confused Rainbow Dash sitting in her place.
"Dashie!" the mare named Windy Whistles that shall be henceforth referred to as 'Rainbow Dash's Mom' shouted from the porch of the house. Wait, do cloud houses even have porches? What would a cloud house porch be made of? Would it be--
"Rainbow, are you making some new friends over there?"
Rainbow Dash looked between her Daring Do book and the heap of eggheads that crash-landed into her house not too long ago. Surprisingly, nopony else seemed to notice the building-sized hunk of metal sticking out of the cloud house. Actually, speaking of which, what is the cloud house itself made o--
"SHUT." Butter Knife cut off the narration. "Enough about cloud houses!"
Fine. No more cloud houses.
All of Cloudsdale proceeded to vanish from existence and everyone began to plummet toward the unforgiving ground.
"So, about what happened back there." Emi sat down on a random bench, Lyra-style. "Who was that girl that popped out of the ground?"
Plissa paused for a moment, not just because she was once again steering the ship. "I... suppose, a long time ago, before I became who I was now, she was my sister."
Emily nearly choked on her own saliva. "Wh-sister?! You never told me you had a sister!"
"Had is the keyword. I'm not who I originally was. My earliest memories are of a strange, almost absent life, if it's even possible to be absent from your own life at all. I know I was young, for one. The other thing I knew was that I was more or less my older sister's 'mini-me'. I wanted to be like her. Like Zoey."
"Man. My Lisa never went through anything like that. At least, I don't think she did."
"Of course--" Lisa let out a brief sigh. "It's all in the past now. After that life seemingly ended early, I woke up to a new one, with a new family. You already know the situation regarding my parents."
"Yup. Hey Plis, do you think we should land on that planet there?"
"Sure. Not like there's anything else to do."
Sweet Apple Acres proceeded to be flattened by the village-sized spacecraft.
"Hark, there be villains!" Princess Cookieheart, the princess of cookies who for reasons unknown will from now on through the rest of this chapter speak with an accent that I have no idea how to describe. "Fellow mares, protect my love, Discord, with your lives!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa--" Butter Knife stepped out from the ship's underbelly. "Just because we flattened your little town's main economic driving force doesn't mean we're villains."
Cookieheart raised a brow. Butter Knife proceeded to be sacrificed to the cookie gods.
"Eek!" Fluttershy yelped, pointing a hoof at the evil monsterfly hovering dangerously close to Discord. "A monsterfly! Somepony stop it before it takes away Discord!"
Fluttershy got a slap in the face from Cookieheart. Discord is her true love, not Fluttershy's.
As for the monsterfly, it was the puniest living creature in the area, so Sweetie Giraffe had long-since smited it. And Discord, too, for reasons unknown.
The cookie gods proceeded to be sacrificed to Sweetie Giraffe in an unfortunate turn of events that began with Sweetie Giraffe being placed on the cookie altar.
"I'm baaaack!" Zoey yelled, reappearing again, this time by quite literally just walking out of the air. Princess Cookieheart looked clearly confused. "And this time, I'm Zoey Wayve!"
"Okay, Miss Wayve, just get on the ship!" Slissa grabbed Zoey by the arm. "We've got a really angry mob surrounding the ship now that we've accidentally destroyed their one source of income, and I'm not about to let myself get toasted over that!"
Zoey proceeded to be unceremoniously yoinked into the ship's hull. The entirety of Crew-T proceeded to lift off, never returning to that specific Equestria again.
So anyway, I didn't bother to read more than just the comments and the long description. Might skim some chapters, but eh. Time to judge this book by its cover.
...Oh heck, I found a neato line to yoink.
...
...
Thanks to the magic of timeskips, the ship has once again crash-landed. Blame Emi for distracting Plissa. Again. Also Zoey, who was apparently doing something in the engine room.
So anyway, they're in some weird forest now. Every single one of 'em.
"I hate it here." Butter Knife Butter Knife'd. "Ew. Don't turn me into a verb."
Butter Knife continued to Butter Knife about her life problems as some metal bowling ball from space thing smacked Sweetie Giraffe on the side of the head.
"FEEL PAIN. WHAT HIT?" Sweetie boomed, turning and staring at the metal pod. Also, Sunset Shimmer is there too, except...
The girl bowed “I am Sunset Shimmer, I may look like a child but I am actually sixty years old.”
"HOLY CRAP, ARE YOU A LOLI?!" Zoey gasped. "I thought that wasn't scientifically possible! Dermatologists must hate you!"
The weird monkey baby thing Sunset was holding by the tail coughed, breaking the awkward silence that was the next two and a half seconds.
"So... uh, anyway--" Plissa straightened out the wrinkles in her soot-covered shirt. "We apologize for the crash landing. Some of us don't know that distracted driving is dangerous."
Sunset stared at the ship and the forest fire it created. A tree fell in the distance, though it didn't seem to make a sound.
"Wait, why do we all have airpods?" Emily took the magical airpods out of her ears. "No wonder why the tree didn't make a sound!"
The plot-device airpods vanished from existence once again. Baby monkey gremlin thing that's apparently named Goku started hitting Sunset.
"Fiesty kid you got there." Zoey commented.
The old man named Gohan standing ominously nearby finally stepped closer. "Hungry, too. Here, take this, Sunny."
"Hu--" Sunset turned her head at the perfect moment to get smacked square in the face by a bottle full of milk.
Goku snatched the bottle and swallowed it whole. It is 1:54 in the morning and this is what I'm writing. This is my life now.
So anyway, because the author doesn't want to bother with reading nearly 70,000 words for a trollfic, we are now going to experience a leap forward all the way to the current chapter as of the writing of this: chapter 63!
"HOLY CRAP WHERE DID ALL THESE SMALL CHILDREN COME FROM?!" Zoey screamed as she and the rest of the crew phased into existence.
Sunset Shimmer shushed the girl, returning her attention to the five babies crawling around on the bed like the spiders they are (not).
"Da." One of the babies began, slowly pounding on the bed. "Da. Da. Da. Da. Da. Da."
Vegeta, whoever that guy is, wandered into the room. The rest of the babies now joined into the chant, also pounding in perfect synchronozation.
"DA. DA. DA. DA. DA. DA. DA."
"Uh, Slis?" Emily whispered into her friend's ear. "Why are the babies hovering ominously?"
Butter Knife chuckled, letting the glow of her horn die down along with the chanting.
A woman entered the room.
And now, for another line yoinked straight outta the story!
The female’s eyes narrowed “Disappointing.” Sunset frowned as the woman walked over with the man following behind. The woman looked at Sunset with disdain “I am Marie Winters from Child Services and the man behind me is Jake.”
Jake from State Farm took a quick look around, immediately spotting the entirety of Crew-T, who seemed to be just as confused as he was.
"Okay, so why are you here, then?" Sunset looked at Marie. "And why is Jake from State Farm with you?"
"This is not a suitable place for children to be raised."
"Yeah, no kidding," Jake added. "I mean, five kids to a single bed? This hospital needs to provide some bedding to this poor mother!"
And so they requested extra bedding for all of the kids and then took a nap. The end kthxbai.
The next day, Crew-T finally departed from the strange planet and reality, leaving a raging forest fire in their wake.
Zoey was ejected from the ship. No imposters remain.
Zoey watched her evil clone float off to who-knows-where. "Sooo... where are we going?"
Plissa shut the airlock. "I don't really know myself, to be honest. I've just been following the markers on the map that the CC gave us. According to that thing, our next destination is some place where a guy named King Sombra took over a place called the Crystal Empire. I have very vague memories of the place, though I don't quite know where they come from..."
...
...
So anyway, we've already spent too long on this before-chapter scene, so by the power of awful narration, the ship has now landed on yet another incarnation of Equestria. At least this time nothing was on fire. Yet.
"Hey, why's Celestia so angry lookin'?" Slissa asked, unaware that she canonically has no idea who the heck Celestia is.
Celestia frowned harder. Moonlight the bat pony OC continued to wreak havoc on the land without Crew-T's involvement. King Sombra was there too. He was eating nachos, because that's what I'm imagining him doing right now. I may be slightly hungry.
Let's see now... blah blah blah, Crystal Empire is now under control of Sombra, Moonlight and Sombra are probably kissy-kissy with each other... ah yes, the other villains.
This is where the author takes a moment to think about what villains there are, as he has mentioned many times before that he hardly cares about canon and in fact hasn't watched most of the show outside of a couple of seasons.
Queen Chrysalis landed face-first on the side of Crew-T's ship like the bug on a windshield that she was. Plissa rolled her eyes and turned on the windshield wipers.
"You're gonna turn into a garden gnome for that," Kween Crispylisp growled. Butter Knife silently thanked the gods above for having a different character be terribly misnamed.
Plissa raised a brow. She turned the windshields to the next-highest setting, watching the wiper blades repeatedly smack the furious Bug Queen across the face.
"Listen up, ol' buddy ol' pal," Chrysalis teleported inside the ship, looming over an unamused Plissa. "You are going to get your friends back into this tin can of yours, fly away, and let me and my friends continue wrecking Equestria. Capiche?"
Chrysalis suddenly found herself gagging in a cloud of bug spray. Do not mess with the closest thing this story has to an annoyed parent.
"Look, guys, I'm being banished to the moon!"
Butter Knife froze up at the sound of that voice. Every hair on her body stood on end at that horrid, horrid voice.
Moonlight hopped off the back of the motorcycle that I am now saying that she and King Sombra ride together, sauntering over to the pony by the name of Ego Boost that was currently being shoved down a yeet cannon.
"Tsk tsk," she said in a tone that probably is the farthest thing from how she actually talks. "Shouldn't have gotten in our way."
Ego Boost was then fired out of the cannon. Shickle Shackle breathed a sigh of relief before glaring through the fourth wall at me, the narrator.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot that Celestia is there. Well, I suppose she's even more annoyed now that somepony else is using her yeet cannon that was built specifically for firing Luna at the moon all those years ago.
It is here where the author has now realized that head empty smooth brain plus sleep deprivation equals no more ideas. Let's revisit the title of this chapter.
Moonlight the bat pony OC now has a wooden bat. She is about to commit assault and BAT-tery. Because that's exactly what a villain would do. I think.
Dear Celestia I need a break from everything school related.
"Finally, we land somewhere normal." Plissa groaned, sinking in the pilot's seat. "Looks like the next destination on our map took us to this space station thing. Anyone need to use the restroom?"
Short to say, everyone needed to use the restroom.
"Okay, headcount time. Other Lisa?"
Slissa raised a hand.
"Emily?"
"Here."
"Butter Knife?"
"Ever-present and watchful."
"Sweetie Giraffe?"
"AM HERE."
Plissa looked up. Way, way up.
"Yup, you're here alright. 'Kay, looks like we've got everyon--"
"Wait, what about Zoey? She left the ship with us earlier, didn't she?"
Plissa groaned.
"Zoey! Zooo-eey!" Plissa called, walking down the long, empty halls of the space rest stop. "Geez, this place is big..."
Sweetie Giraffe silently agreed, for she was able to actually fit underneath the ceiling.
"Why are all the lights off?" Emily wondered aloud.
"Beats me. This place is spooky. I feel like a stereotypical horror movie character walking through this place."
"You imbeciles know nothing of true horror..."
"Who was that?" Plissa whipped around. "Oh. It's just Butter Knife being edgy as usual. Wait--" she pointed her flashlight at a wall. "This... this was the base of operations for Crew-A?"
The group moved a little closer to the text on the wall. It wasn't painted in blood or anything--that'd be too stereotypical. It was just the usual big block letters that one would've found on things like billboards.
But enough about that.
"Yeah, it's Crew-A's base alright. Look," Slissa pointed a finger at an arrow pointing down the hall. "The command center's down there. Maybe that's where Zoey went."
They continued walking, at some point passing beneath a dusty-looking intercom speaker.
"In...truder... det-cted..." a slow, robotic voice wheezed. "Div-rting... res...ources to def...ense..."
The most depressing-sounding alarm began to blare overhead, though "blare" was definitely overstating it.
"Oh, what now?" Plissa rolled her eyes, sweeping the flashlight's beam across the hall in front of them. "Are there gonna be traps or something now?"
A small frog hopped into the light.
"Huh. Guess that's all there is then." Plissa squat down, holding a hand out to the frog as Slissa belched behind her.
The frog proceeded to ascend to a higher plane of existence and vanish. The twist was that there wasn't any trap at all. The alarm was just to alert the folks who once lived there. You just got got. You heckin' heck. You--
So ya boi Tonkus took a nice long break from writing this chapter and now has no idea what happened or what he wanted to have happen. Time to yet ideas into the void again as usual.
"Finally, there you are, Zoey!" Plissa pointed her flashlight at Zoey Wayve. "Are the other Zoeys there with you?"
"Yup! And I even made some new friends!" Zoey held up a space-octopus. "I'm naming him Tenta."
"What about Octi?" Emily cocked her head. "Tenta makes you think he's got ten tentacles."
"Ooh, yeah that's a good idea."
And so Crew-T acquired the old pet of Crew-A without ever actually solving the mystery of what the heck happened to Crew-A. Maybe we'll learn, maybe we won't.
Crew-T was flying through space as usual, just like Crews S, R, Q, P, and so on. Though, Crew-A originally had wagons with rockets strapped onto them and fishbowl for helmets. There's... kinda a reason why they aren't around anymore.
But, that's for another lore chapter! Right now, the crew's headed for the funniest place this side of space, Uranus! Bask in its gassy blue glory!
"Stop stop stop stop STOP!" Emily screeched, pulling the brake lever with all her might. "Man. Plissa, you drive this thing?"
"Yup."
"How does a spaceship brake, anyway? We only have thrusters on one side!"
Plissa shrugged. A little red blob drifted past the window in the background. Yes, it's a crewmate. Yes, they were sus. No, they weren't the imposter. They were the brake system. Amogus crewmates are incredibly massive for their seemingly-diminutive size, you see, and so by Newton's Third Law, which states that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction, a sufficiently-massive crewmate being ejected even at a low acceleration will result in an acceleration in the opposite direction, thus acting as a momentary acceleration that acts to slow the spacecraft.
What in the name of Celestia did I just write?
So anyway, ignoring the need for crewmates to be extremely dense in comparison to "normal" matter in order for a single crewmate's ejection to halt the ship's velocity, Crew-T now hovered before Uranus.
"Yooooo, it's Sunny!" said nobody in particular, 'cause literally nobody in Crew-T has ever met Sunset Shimmer. At least, not yet. No idea if they ever will to be honest, though I think one of Zoey's incarnations had a run-in ages ago.
Sunset Shimmer's imaginary character waved from within whatever ship it was that she was in. A missile rocketed past and detonated on the ejected crewmate.
"Alright, Emi, you keep manning the controls. Me--" Plissa pointed a finger at Slissa. "--follow. We're gonna take a look at this tin can's defense system."
The two Lisas left the main control room. Emi was left alone, which is a very dangerous thing to do. She narrowed her eyes. "Wait... none of this looks real..."
A giant shadow hovered over the ship of whoever it was that somebody called "Sunny" earlier.
"Ho-ly CRAP, nope!" Emily turned the ship around. "Nope, nope nope nope! I am not dealing with a solar system-sized hand today!"
As for the hand, a human Rainbow Dash plucked Sunset Shimmer's ship out of Uranus' orbit and chucked it into the sun.
"Alrighty, where are we now?" Emily yawned, wandering into the cockpit. "Anything new, Lis?"
Slissa shook her head. "Nope. But I can say that I've gotten a lot better at piloting this tin can!"
They proceeded to ram through the roof of Sugarcube Corner... and the rest of Ponyville, for that matter.
"Ugh... Lis?" Emily groaned. "You okay after that?"
But the figure slumped over in the pilot's seat wasn't human. For that matter, Emily wasn't human either, but that wasn't news. What was news, though, was that they were now various eeveelutions. Because yay pokemon.
"Look! There's more dog-cat-fox things in there!" A voice shouted in the distance. "C'mon, they look hurt!"
"ALRIGHTY, NARRATOR." Butt Knif kicked the door down. "WHY'D YOU TRANSFORM ME AGAIN?"
The narrator shrugged. It wasn't his fault this time. Not entirely.
Shanky Wanky rolled her eyes. "Well, at least it looks like I'm not the only one this time. Where's Plissa? She wouldn't have crashed the ship like this."
"Right here."
Sharp Yet Somewhat Blunt Piece of Metal Intended For Use in Spreading Milk-Based Wheat Product Topping looked up, ignoring the increasing verbosity of her name.
"I'm not really sure what happened, but I can say for sure that we aren't the only ones who've been transformed." Plissa hopped down in front of Butter Knife. "C'mon. We should check on the others. Emily, you watch after my counterpart until help arrives. 'Kay?"
Emily saluted. "Yes ma'am!"
"Well then." Plissa squinted in the sunlight. "Looks like Sweetie Giraffe's doing just fine."
The tallest freakin' Flareon anyone had ever seen loomed overhead. She glared down at Plissa. "WHY AM NOT PONE?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out! Hang in there!" Plissa shouted back.
Shick Shack Paddy-Whack rolled her eyes. "Did you actually need me to tag along, or am I just useless baggage for you to drag around?"
"Whoah. That's a tall flaming dog-fox thing." A voice behind them mumbled.
Plissa looked over her shoulder. "Oh, you too?"
Sassaflash raised a brow.
"I'm... guessing you aren't Zoey."
"Nope. I have no idea who Zoey is. Though... do you know what we are? I saw you crash-land not too long ago, and since you're also dog-fox-cat things, I was thinking that maybe you'd know."
"Oh, you're asking about what we are?" Lisa glanced down at her yellow paws. "Well, for starters, you're a Jolteon now, just like me."
"You know?" Sassaflash gasped. "Were you the ones who transformed us, then?"
Plissa shook her head. "No, we weren't. I only know 'cause I was into a video game called Pokemon years ago."
"Oh."
"So anyway," Plissa pointed up. "Sweetie Giraffe up there's a very angry Flareon, and Butter Knife..." she frowned, cocking her head. "...is an amalgamation of a Leafeon and an Umbreon. Weird."
Twinkle Shankle hissed.
"Sooooo... anyway," Plissa scratched her head. "I think we should probably get going now. Fix up the damage we caused from the crash-landing and stuff. I hope you figure out how to turn back! I can tell that you probably have plenty enough to deal with, so I'll leave with the rest of my crew." She blinked, glancing at the still-frowning Butter Knife. "Oh yeah, and we should probably figure out how to turn back as well."
And so, with the power and might of the undo button, all damage done to Ponyville was instantaneously reversed, which incidentally also reversed the transformations of the crew. Also, Slissa will now be under heavier supervision while piloting. Unfortunately, for the ponies of Equestria, their Eeveelution problem will never be solved outside of Starscribe's story, 'cause the story the crew just yeeted themselves through is canceled.
Oof.
Crash Course through the Tonkus-verse: The Beginning
"What's that you got there, Sweetie?" Zoey wandered into the backrooms with a juicebox. "Looks funky."
"TIME MACHINE." Sweetie Giraffe boomed. "CAN MAKE TIME GO BACKWARD. SEE HISTORY."
"Really?"
"YES. WANT EXPLORE." She ducked down, peering into the inside of the time machine. "TIME MACHINE TOO SMOL. BUT NO DESTROY. I STAY. YOU GO."
"O...kay?" Zoey finished her juicebox. "I guess I'll have Plissa join me, then."
"WHY YOU NOT ACT WEIRD NOW? YOU NOT ACT LIKE CHANGE DIFFERENT ZOEY ALL THE TIME."
Zoey shrugged and wandered back out of the room.
"A time machine?" Plissa raised a brow, being dragged along by Zoey into the backroom. "Since when did we have a time machine?"
"'Dunno. You wanna try it out with me?"
Plissa glanced out the window. The ship was parked at a space McDonald's, so there wasn't any need to pilot it at the moment. She could just make out the shape of Butter Knife obliterating a 20-piece chicken nugget meal. She turned back. "Yeah, sure. Not like there's anything else to do."
"Alright! Let's go then!" Zoey opened the door to the time machine, hopping inside. "Ooh, when should we go first?"
Plissa rubbed her chin. "Hm. Maybe six or so years ago? We've visited plenty of worlds at this point, but I'd like to see what things were like from back then."
"Sure."
And so they proceeded to travel somewhere between six and seven years ago but I didn't make it specific 'cause I didn't bother to go back and look at the date on the garbage-fire script I wrote ages ago for my first full-on story.
"Hey, Plis, can I call you Lizzy?"
"Sure. There's no other Lisa to confuse me with right now."
"Also, why are we in a tree?"
"No clue."
Lisa opened the door, peeking outside. Sure enough, just like the view from the window, they were in a tree. "Alright, let's take a look around this place, shall we?" She stepped out, carefully placing her feet among the branches. "Watch your ste--"
She proceeded to watch Zoey slip right between the branches and out of the tree.
"Ow."
Lisa climbed down from the tree, jogging to where the girl had landed. "You alright there? That was a pretty big fall."
"...Yeah," Zoey sat up, wincing a little. "I think I'm okay. Little bit bruised, that's all."
"Come on! I heard something go thump over here!" An oddly familiar voice yelled.
Lisa rolled her eyes. "Here it goes again."
"Name yourselves!" A... she turned her gaze downward ...middle schooler shouted, pointing a finger at them. "Are you with MindGlitch?"
"MindGli--" Lisa couldn't finish before giggling. "MindGlitch? What sort of name is that?"
"C'mon, Zoey, get up!" The boy continued shouting. "Get away from that stranger!"
"Who, me?" Zoey pointed at herself. "How'd you know my name?"
"Whuh?" The boy turned his head as the rest of his friends caught up. "Wait--there's two Zoeys now?"
"Potatoes!" The other Zoey squeaked.
"I vaguely remember something about doing that." Zoey shrugged. "The whole potato thing, I mean. But... I don't exactly think that I'm the same as her beyond looks."
"Ooh, is your name Zoey too?" The... other Zoey grinned. "Are you, like, my long-lost twin or something?"
"Noooooo... I think?"
"Is everyone here just going to ignore the random adult here?" One of the boy's friends groaned. "She's just standing there... menacingly."
"Hey!" Lisa yelled. "I don't look that mean when I'm annoyed! And I'm not with whoever this 'MindGlitch' dude is, either."
"Fine, lady." The boy crossed his arms. "What are you doing here, then? And why is there another Zoey?"
"Time machine." Lisa and Zoey both answered. They looked at each other because answering at the same time was a corny thing that only happened in corny stories, meaning that this story you're reading is now corny.
"Oh. So you're from the future, then?" The boy looked at Zoey again. Then to Lisa. Then back to Zoey. "Is that your aunt or something? I don't recognize her."
"Wh--no!" Lisa snorted. "We're not even related!"
"So you are a stranger then!" The other Zoey gasped. "Stranger danger! Get away from her, me!"
Lisa facepalmed. "Okay, you know what? Let's start things over. My name's Lisa, this is Zoey. We're friends 'cause Zoey works the front desk at my work when she's bored, though she's apparently got several other Zoeys floating around in that head of hers."
"You're my little sister?" The other Zoey raised a brow. "I guess you do look kinda like her... but when did you get bigger than me?"
Another facepalm. "Did you not hear me? We're just friends. I have no blood relation to Zoey, or any of you as far as I know! I--" Her eyes locked onto what was more or less a toddler version of herself wandering out behind the other Zoey. "--oh geez. Zoey, I think I finally get why there's two of me and several of you."
"Hm?"
Lisa shuddered. "We're... recycled characters."
The boy backed up. "O...kay. You're just crazy, aren't you? Only we can time-travel! We have the Or--" His eyes followed past Lisa's deadpan glare to her thumb, and finally to the still-smoldering time machine sitting atop a nearby tree. "oh."
"Anyway," Lisa folded her arms. "We've already introduced ourselves. Mind introducing yourselves, now? It'd only be fair."
"Fine." The boy grumbled. "My name is Sammy Gearings. These are my friends. You already know who Zoey is now, and... uh, our Lisa as well. Brodie's the one on my left and Caleb's to my right."
"Aight."
"Aight?"
"Aight." Zoey repeated. "It's like 'alright', but without the 'l' and the 'r'. Aight."
"Oh. Okay."
"So, uh, anyway--" Lisa scratched her head. "Mind telling us a bit about the stuff that's currently happening around here? There was a time machine on our spaceship and Zoey wanted to explore a little, so I went with her."
Sammy nearly choked. "You guys have a spaceship?!"
"Apparently. No idea why or how, though. The rest of the crew and I just sorta... showed up. There was this disembodied voice welcoming us too, if I remember correctly."
"Man. I wish I had a spaceship."
"Also, does Caleb happen to have any younger sisters?"
Caleb shook his head. "No, why?"
"Just asking, since you guys somehow jumped to the conclusion that I was your Zoey's little sister but all-grown-up. A spent a good chunk of my life living in a simulation I made where I was the little sister to my actual younger brother, Timothy, who went by the name Caleb in the simulations."
Sammy furrowed his brows. "...What?"
"Parents died, used virtual reality to run away from my problems, ended up becoming my younger brother's little sister. Don't think about it too hard, 'cause I also have memories of being a pony named Twilight Sparkle in that same simulation, with my brother being a little dragon named Spike."
"Pony?" The other Zoey gasped. "You were a pony?"
"In a simulation, yeah--" Lisa nodded. "Obviously not in real-life, though. So anyway, what're you kids up to?"
Sammy hesitated. "I don't think I should be telling you. My own uncle was being controlled by MindGlitch before."
"Oh."
"Though... you don't seem to be possessed, so I think it should be safe to tell you. Having an adult around might help in the fight." Sammy balled his fists. "Who knows what that villain, MindGlitch, could be up to now?"
"Okay, okay, first of all--" Lisa interrupted. "I still have no idea who this 'MindGlitch' dude is. Second of all, you guys are kids. What the heck are you even doing?"
Sammy sighed. "Come. I will show you all you need to know." He turned around and began to walk away.
Zoey elbowed Lisa. "Since when did that whole 'older sister becomes younger sister' thing happen? I thought 'the you turning into Twilight Sparkle' was the simulation!"
"No clue."
"Did I sound cool back there when I was explaining?" Sammy's voice came from behind the door of the small shed-lab thing. "I even tried lowering my voice a little bit!"
Lisa opened the door.
"Oh, right, right," Sammy immediately took on a more serious demeanor. "Explanations. I am Sammy Gearings, first-known wielder of a powerful..." he hesitated at the mention of the word. "...magical artifact called the Orb." He lifted a hand, allowing for the glassy ball sitting on the table beside him to levitate into the air. "It was originally a book, but after chanting one of the first spells contained within said book, it became... well, this."
"Interesting, I suppose." Lisa's eyes wandered to the small refrigerator nearby, which was visibly overflowing with various potato carvings. This whole conversation was getting more awkward by the second, to be honest.
For purposes called "It's 2:13 AM and I am not reading my middle-school fever dream again at this time", all explanation about the Orb and MindGlitch has been skipped.
"Oh... uh, gee, that's... interesting?" Lisa cringed at the fact that Sammy had a rival whose sidekick had taken on the nickname of "Stupid". What was it with kids these days?
A deep, bellowing cackle began to fill the room. "Good evening, my chumps and chump-ettes!" MindGlitch stepped out of the portal. "My, what a crowd we have here. I suppose they will serve as a fine distraction for my purposes..."
MindGlitch raised a hand, pointing a finger at Lisa and Zoey. "My loyal minions, destroy them!"
Lisa and Zoey braced for an invasion of giant yellow tictacs. This wasn't the case, however.
MindGlitch glared at the Orb in Sammy's grasp. "Before that happens however..." He lowered his arm and began to creep towards the boy. "That power belongs to me, Wielder! I will not stop until I am its sole possessor! We shall do battle day and night if need be, and--" An audible thwack came from behind the villain, who proceeded to drop face-first onto the floor.
Lisa tossed the textbook back onto the table. "There we go. Fixed it."
"What."
"Do what you want with this guy." Lisa turned to leave."This is getting too weird. Zoey?"
Zoey nodded.
"What."
"What can I say? He left himself open. Did you really think I was gonna stand here and do nothing for the sake of plot purposes?"
"Huh???" Sammy sputtered. "What are you even talking about? Plot purposes?"
"Yup. Listen--" Lisa gestured to herself. "I'm not the only version of me out there. Heck, for all I know, I might not be the real Lisa Garnet. I was minding my own business one day, and the next thing I knew, I was sucked into some parallel world along with some others to be part of some sort of exploration team."
Sammy's eyes widened. "E-exploration team? Parallel worlds? Are you saying that the multiverse theory is--"
"Perhaps," Lisa shrugged. "But what matters more is that each and every one of these worlds that we've visited thus far is some form or another of My Little Pony fanfiction."
Yet again, the room fell silent, save for a single "What."
Zoey winked, pointing double finger-guns at Sammy and his friends. "Welcome to horseword-land, buckos."
"I..." Sammy sat down, staring up at the ceiling. "Gee. My Little Pony fanfiction? Seriously?"
"Mm-hm. Guessing you weren't in one before, based on your reaction. Sorry to break it to ya, but we probably split your timeline the moment we arrived, 'cause based on how we came in a time machine and not... well, our usual universe-hopping spaceship, you're basically our distant ancestors."
More confusion noises came from Sammy's mouth.
"What she's saying is that we all come from the same author." Lisa deadpanned. "The world as you know it has probably ceased to exist in the timeline I come from, and those of you lucky enough to escape have been recycled to heck and back." Her eyes turned to the other Zoey's little sister. Then back to Sammy. "Anyway, yeah--the two Zoeys here are the most obvious case of character recycling." She gestured to Zoey. "On a personality level, they seem pretty close to one another, and as you pointed out, even by appearance they're similar! It's obvious that my Zoey is more or less a reincarnation of your Zoey... minus the... er, potato obsession that your Zoey has."
"Some of you, yeah. Myself and Zoey know that there have been previous incarnations of ourselves at the very least. You two--" she gestured at the other Zoey and her little sister. "Are quite possibly the original. I don't know all the details, but it seems like at minimum, our reincarnations have a tendency to find each other in some way or another."
"Oh, so is there another Sammy where you come from, then?"
Lisa shook her head.
"Oh... okay."
"Yeesh." Zoey elbowed Lisa again. "Did you have to be that blunt?"
"No, no, it's fine. I just... was wondering if more of us ever lived on past..." he huffed. "well, our stories, I guess. You said that this world doesn't exist anymore where you come from?"
A nod.
"Do we... at least get an end to our story?"
"No, unfortunately. As is the fate for many stories that exist in written form. The Orb lives on, but you do not."
"Lis? Lizzy?" Zoey tugged at Lisa's sleeve. "Hey, you alright there? Since when did you know so much about the author multiverse? Hello--"
"It's hard." Lisa whispered.
"What's hard?"
"As a creator of worlds, it's hard to put them down. I know that personally, with the simulations. The characters you make become almost a sort of second-family to you. They were my second-family, to me."
"That's not explaining how you know about the Orb, Lis--"
"Deep down, something... someone still doesn't want to let go, regardless of outward words and actions."
"Ooo-kay, I think I'm just gonna take Lis here with me and go now." Zoey grabbed the rambling Lisa's hand and led her out the door. "It was nice meeting you all, though! Maybe we'll meet again?"
"Maybe!" Sammy waved.
Tonkus-verse: gettin' crafty, then gettin' P O N Y
Lisa rubbed her head. "Ugh... I guess so." She pushed herself up, though she continued to lean against the wall. "What happened back there?"
"I have absolutely no idea. Does it look like this middle schooler's got a clue?"
She chuckled. "Fair enough. I should--"
"Nuh-uh, no you don't!" Zoey pushed Lisa back to the ground. "I'm gonna be running the time machine, and we're taking you back home to the ship." She grunted, dragging Lisa by the arm. "Can you walk? Er..." She shaded her eyes, looking up to the time machine perched in the tree. "Climb?"
"I... can try."
Lisa rolled onto the thin canopy that somehow supported the time machine, panting. "Th-there we go. I climbed the tree."
"Alright. Just get into the time machine, and we'll be off."
"You're sure acting mature for someone your age."
Zoey shrugged. "Considering how most of the time I don't really even know who I am, I'm not sure if I really am a middle schooler or not. That other Zoey we met earlier is still somewhere inside of me, along with every other version of me that's existed under the sun, remember?"
"O-oh. Yeah."
She watched Lisa crawl into the time machine before entering behind her. Zoey stood before the controls, frowning. "Um... by the way, how do you work this thing again?"
"There... should be a home button somewhere. Press it."
Zoey proceeded to slap the home button with her entire hand.
"Zoey?"
"Zoey?" Lisa repeated, sitting up in the time machine. "Zoey... I don't think we're home."
Zoey groaned as she lifted her face from the control panel. "Why's everything so... blocky?"
It was at this moment when the two realized that they were in Minecraft. Lisa opened the door and looked outside to find Sammy again. Except this Sammy was also a blockhead in the most literal sense, and...
"Hi, I'm Sammy." Sammy waved a boxy hand. "I'm a Pichu gjinka."
Lisa slammed the door shut. "...Yeah, no. This isn't part of any story universe and only ever happened in the author's head."
Sometime in the far future, Butter Knife heard the narrator groan.
"Guessing you're feeling better now?" Zoey watched Lisa sit down in front of the controls. "You definitely seem better at least."
"Yup."
"Ooo-kay," Lisa opened the door again. "Let's forget that that ever happened."
"Yup."
The two stepped out of the time machine.
"Who are you?" A light magical aura suddenly enveloped them both. "Are you with Aniceturs?"
"N-no?" Zoey looked at her... hoof. "Oh. Looks like it's smurf horse ti--"
"Stay on topic!" The tan stallion in front of them shouted. "Answer me--were you sent by Anicetus?"
Lisa shook her head. "No, we're not. We don't even know who you're talking about."
"Is this what you come here for?" The stallion brought out a strange, glassy ball, letting it hover gently within his aura. "If so, I'd recommend turning back. Before I use it on you. You're powerless here, Anice--"
"Stop."
Zoey looked to Lisa... who now looked like Twilight Sparkle. Because of course.
"Sammy, that's your name, right?" Lisa pointed a hoof at the orb. "I figured, 'cause we've already met two of your previous incarnations. I promise you, we're not here for anything malicious. Our time machine seems to be taking us through every story universe that's existed within this author multiverse to date."
The magical aura around the two mares dissipated, dropping them to the ground.
"Huh. Multiverse, you say?" Sammy scratched his head... about as best as a pony could scratch their head using a hoof. "Is Anicetus going after you as well, then? You said something about my... previous incarnations."
"Nope!" Zoey shook her head. "We're just time traveling! It turns out that the times we stop at are outside of our control, because plot purposes!"
"You say plot purposes as if we live within a story." Sammy mused. "Are you suggesting that we are?"
"Suggest? Nah, I know we are. We've got a friend back home that can talk to the narrator, even!"
Sammy fell silent, making the pony equivalent of the ">.>" face in a way that I have refused to describe. Also because plot purposes. I think.
"--Anyway--" Lisa cleared her throat. "You are the third incarnation of Sammy that we have met, though from how you behave and your connection to the... Orb, you called it?"
The stallion gave a nod.
"I'd wager that you may very well be the same Sammy as the one we met not too long ago, when our time machine got stuck in a tree. Or at the very least, narratively equivalent to him."
"You're surprisingly okay with this, Twili--"
"Lisa." Lisa corrected. "Don't mind the fact that I look like Twilight Sparkle right now. It's a long story. Literally. And yes, I know that I have a tendency to do that. It's a trait I share with a few other characters, to my knowledge. I did fall ill near the end of the previous chapter, though."
"I... uh,"
"No need to respond if you're at a loss for words."
Sammy shut his mouth. Hardly anything had actually happened within Wielder of the Orb: Of Magic and Ponies, after all, so there was nothing to say about him. Like, the closest thing to an actual plot continuity is something to do with McDonald's food and paintball. That being said, that's all this narrator's gotta rant about.
"Soooo... is there anything we can help you with?" Zoey was the first to break the silence. "Or at the very least, are your friends around? I have a feeling that not much actually happened leading up to now."
"No clue. We just got here not too long ago after escaping a zombie-infested dimension."
"Alrighty then."
"Ah-ha!" A swirling portal tore itself through the fabric of space-time, dumping a shadowy figure into the world of Equestria. He collapsed with a quiet crunch, followed by an even quieter "Ow."
"Anicetus!" Sammy lit his horn again, picking up the Orb. "I didn't expect for you to follow us here this quickly."
A trio of ponies came rushing to Sammy's aid as the figure slowly rose again. "What a pretty world to ravage." The figure began to hover closer to the group. "Such vibrant flora and fauna... ripe for the slaying..."
The figure lunged at Sammy, but was stopped short by some kind of invisible barrier.
"What a dastardly trick!" The figure threw off its cloak, revealing itself to be... a shadowy figure. Wow. Continuing on--
"Whuhhh?" Sammy scooted further back from the figure, looking all about for the source of the shield. "Er... thanks, Lisa!"
"Your little sister's here?" Brodie the pony looked at pony Zoey. The other pony Zoey. The one that isn't currently passable as a ponified Smurfette.
"She did nothing!" Zoey-that's-passable-as-a-ponified-smurfette shouted back. "She's just as confused as you are!"
"There's two Lisas now?" Caleb flinched as Anicetus threw himself against the shield again. "What, did everyone get duplicated here or something?"
"Nope! We're from the future!" Zoey shouted again. She gasped. "Wait, I know what that shield is! It's plot armor!"
Anicetus stopped bashing on the barrier. "Say what now?"
"Plot armor!" Zoey repeated, grinning from ear to ear. "Sammy from Wielder of the Orb was never meant to lose, so no matter what happened, everything always turned out for the better!"
Sammy made a face at smurf-horse. "That's... the stupidest--" He threw his forelegs out, inadvertently punching Anicetus through the shield and completely annihilating him. "--huh. That sure didn't happen when we were in zombie-world."
"Because you never actually went to zombie-world." Zoey emerged again from behind their conveniently-placed bush that they were hiding behind while Anicetus was attacking. "I know I don't look like the Zoey you know, Sammy, but I remember! We were dumped here in Equestria, with the only reason given being that we supposedly jumped realities!"
And then the world froze and nothing happened after that because that's basically how the OG Wielder of the Orb ended.
Just kidding.
"So, you're saying that the world we're currently living in... was meant to be a major section within a larger story?"
Zoey nodded. "Yup! With the intention to write the story that the first Sammy that we met came from up to the beginning of this one! I have no idea where I'm getting this knowledge from, by the way!"
"...Weirdness aside," Lisa placed her hooves on the table. "What will you do now that the threat's apparently gone for good?"
"Go back home, I guess. We came here to get away from Anicetus. Though, now that I think of it, I have no idea how he was able to overpower us in the zombie-world before this one."
Zoey waved her hooves in the air. "Plot purposes!"
"...Right. Plot purposes." Sammy groaned, rubbing his face. "I... haven't really had time to think about it until now, but sheesh, we're living in a story? Does that mean we have no free will?"
Unbeknownst to Sammy, the author silently chuckled as he continued to play with his puppets.
"Yeah, to an extent."
"Dang."
"Granted," Zoey added, "I don't think that this story universe is the one that we think it is. Something about tampering with timelines and splitting the canon." She looked up. "Hey narrator? You think you can talk to me, your most-recycled character to exist?"
I suppose. You hear me now, Zoey?
Zoey gasped. "Holy heck, I hear you! Are the events of this story canon to any of the stories we visit?"
No.
"Aaaaand she's gone off the deep end." Lisa picked up Zoey in her magic and stood up from her chair. "Sorry 'bout... er, everything. I hope you can still find peace after what you've learnt."
Sammy watched the mare walk out the door with Zoey in tow. The other Zoey silently ate french fries under the table. Because potato.
"How many times are we gonna end up in a world with a Sammy in it?" Lisa poked her head out of the time machine.
Sure enough, there was yet another incarnation of the boy, standing right below them. Also, they were stuck in a tree again.
Apparently.
"Hey, is that Twilight Sparkle?"
The sick-looking mare poked her head out of Sammy's duffel bag at the sound of her name.
"It is! Twilight!" Zoey gasped. The branch beneath her creaked. "Hold on, hold on, lemme get down from here. Sammy, right?"
"Yes. How do you know my name?"
"Wild guess!" Zoey dropped from the tree with a soft thud. She popped up again, brushing the leaves and grass off of herself. "Anyway, what's going on here? Why's Twi stuffed in a duffel bag?"
"Her so-called 'magic' is leaking into our world, I think. I'm afraid that she might lose whatever natural barrier she has and turn fully human if we don't do anything."
"Eh, easy fix." Zoey pointed at the Orb. "Just send her back."
Sammy looked at the time machine, then to Zoey. "You're... not my Zoey, are you?"
"Nope! But I might be related to her!"
He moved the Orb away from her. "Then how do you know about the Orb?"
"We have a time machine, Sam. We've visited you, like... what? Two? Three times now?" She turned around. "Lis! You gonna come down or not?"
"I'm fine up here!"
"So, anyway--" Zoey turned back to Sammy. "If you're so worried about her, why not just send her back to Equestria? You know how to open portals, don't you?"
"Yeah, but the Orb doesn't currently have the energy required to--"
"We have a time machine that for the purposes of plot convenience can charge up the Orb to its full power!"
"...Plot convenie--"
"Hit it, Lis!"
A metallic thunk echoed overhead, followed by a mechanical whirr as a laser cannon emerged from the top of the machine, aimed squarely at the Orb in Sammy's hand.
"Woah woah WOA--"
With Twilight safely returned to Equestria and the Orb so overloaded with power that it self-destructed, MindGlitch or Anicetus or whoever the heck he was in this particular story no longer had any reason to invade, and thus many years of potential cringe were wiped from existence.
"Still can't believe we had a laser cannon on our time machine." Lisa hummed. "What do you think powers it?"
"Everything's fine," Butter Knife forced a grin, failing to cover the emergency indicators with a hoof. "It's all fine, everything's good, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE."
Plissa sipped her coffee. Then turned her attention to the window. "Hey, what's that?"
It was at that moment when Crew-T's ship collided with the Equestrian Pride. Oops.
"Hey. Why are there more ponies?"
"HAHAHA I AM EVIL AND STUFF AND I WILL TAKE OVER THIS SHIP BECAUSE I AM EVIL AND I WANT TO RULE AND TAKE OVER AND--" Sombra cackled over the intercoms.
Plissa sighed. "I'll go get Sweetie Giraffe."
"So..." Celestia leaned closer. "You're saying we don't have to evacuate Equestria."
"Yes, yes! For the last time, yes!" Butter Knife wailed, throwing her hooves in the air. "Sombra's gone!"
Celestia's eyes darted across the room. "You sure?"
Butter Knife facehoofed and left the room.
Chapter the last because this story's gonna be replaced by something else and stuff i guess
"AYO." Butter Knife collapsed the door into nothingness. "YOU HEAR THE NEWS? WE'RE FREE FROM THIS HECKHOLE."
Sweetie Giraffe looked up from the newspaper she was burning.
"OUR EXISTENCE IS COMING TO AN END!" Shackles Shanks cheered. "WOO!"
"What." Plissa poked her head in. "Oh. We need another door."
"But what about Crews A through S?" Slissa kept her eyes on the windshield of the spacecraft. "What about the CC? Or everything else that we didn't get to hear about?"
"Cardboard box!" the speaker on the wall blurted again. "From cardboard boxes you came, you shall now return! See you hecks in the next one!"
"Huh?" Emily, who I think inadvertently became human again at some point in this story, scratched her head.
"Hold on tight!" Slissa's grip on the steering wheel tightened. "There's a large cardboard box up ahead, and I don't think we can steer clear of it!"
"Butter Knife look!" one of the Zoeys ran into the room with welders' gloves on. In her hands was the Cactus Box™. "I found this in your stuff!"
"Oh oka-hey! Don't go through my stuff!" Butter Knife swatted the cactus box out of Zoey's hands. Unfortunately, this resulted in her activating the snare inside it that physically sucked her back inside.
Butter Knife screamed as the ship careened into Cardboardlandia's Cardboard Markets.
cking food.