The eventuality of an anomaly
Here you are, Anon the Copyright Violator, sitting at the local Hay & Chips with your colorful equus minimus friends and partaking in your favorite social activity: pretending to be an actually entertaining person by retelling stories from Earth written by way more talented people than you are.
“And then he was like, ‘Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you,’ and fwoosh! Flew away.”
You always knew—or at the very least hoped—that countless hours invested into binge-watching Netflix will eventually pay off one way or another, and hey, now it’s probably the only reason you can hang out with cool ponies like the ones in front of you.
This time you were trying to retell the plot of The Matrix to the audience that doesn’t know what computers are, which was a dumb idea in the hindsight. Applejack has been snoring on the table for the past half an hour, Rainbow is flipping through the fresh issue of Power Ponies, and only Twilight seems to be paying attention with a mildly peeved face, which she’s been maintaining since an hour ago when you mentioned that the main character carved out a book to store some illegal stuff inside it.
“The end. So, what do you think?”
You are greeted by the kind of silence that makes you doubt your storytelling skills. Thankfully, Twilight breaks it after a while.
“Hmm… I guess it’s not your worst one, but the plot feels a bit… overloaded. Too much worldbuilding with all those ‘computes’, ‘guns’, and ‘phone lines’ for a simple story about telling dreams apart from reality.”
You have to agree that she is making a fair point, although that’s mostly your fault since you kind of botched the exposition.
“True, but look: it’s super easy to adjust the plot to remove all of that stuff!”
You take a deep breath in before anyone can shut you up.
“In the year 2077 A.U., the ponykind lost the war against changelings. By the time the Evil Queen realized that ponies who were born into slavery—without the warmth of Celestia’s sun or the magic of friendship—are useless to her because they feel nothing but despair, it was too late!”
You think you struck the right note with your dramatic voice since now everypony is listening. Rarity is hugging slightly shivering Fluttershy, and even Applejack woke up and looks at you with anticipation. Or maybe you just startled everypony when you started talking loudly, hard to tell.
“To save themselves from starvation in the sunless world, changelings built,” you make a dramatic pause, “the Hive!”
Several shocked gasps at once boost your ego to eleven.
“In their cunning craftiness, they struck a deal with Princess Luna,“ you clear your throat preparing to speak in a changeling’s voice, ”We will keep you all alive, they said, and even allow your subjects to feel the joy of life again if you help us build the Dream Network between the minds of sleeping ponies,” you make your voice low and creepy, ”dreaming of happy, prosperous Equestria… from the day they are born to the end of their lives!”
The second round of gasps, nice!
Your flawless storytelling is interrupted by the waitress.
“Excuse me, it’s ten minutes past the closing time.”
Crap. And it’s not like this is the first time you’ve been warned.
“Oh, sorry. We’ll be leaving right away,” Twilight apologizes quickly.
But… But you were right in the middle of…
“Don’t worry, sugar cube, you can finish your story tomorrow,” Applejack reassures by patting your shoulder. You hope one day she’ll remember that unlike her, you are not made of pure concentrated horse and thus shouldn’t be patted with a hoof unless she wants to leave bruises all over your arm.
“Oh, I work tomorrow all day,” suddenly remembers Pinkie.
“And I must finish the orders for the Gala,” adds Rarity.
Dang.
Oh well, not the first time your stroke of genius goes underappreciated.
You say goodbyes to each other and head to your respective homes. Yours is at the outskirts of Ponyville, literally the cheapest building you could find, but you like it nonetheless.
“Excuse me, sir, would you mind coming with me?”
The words make you jump.
You glance around and see an unassuming gray stallion in a black suit. The shades on his face look a bit out of place, considering it’s past midnight, but what do you know about pony fashion.
He shows you his badge, and you shiver. Crap, is that about that time you put a recyclable bottle into burnable garbage? You were hoping no one would notice.
You are escorted to the town hall. There, you enter a brightly lit room with a heavy table in the middle. You sit across the pony who takes off his shades, revealing his rather forgettable face.
“You can call me Hoof. Agent Hoof. Would you like a caramel bar?” you don’t see where he pulls a plate from, but it has thick bricks of caramel on it so you thank him and take one.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Aggot, you are not in trouble. You’ve been living an admirable life here in Ponyville. Helping your neighbors, paying your taxes.”
You smile sheepishly, taking a bite of caramel.
“And haven’t committed any serious crimes besides throwing a recyclable bottle together with burnable garbage...”
You choke on caramel and start coughing.
“But that’s not important. You’re here because we need your help, Mr. Aggot. All we want is to know who told you about the Hive?”
Ah, that’s what this is all about. Stupid ponies, never believe you are capable of coming up with original ideas.
“No one! Well, I did draw a teeny-tiny bit of inspiration from a cult classic movie from my home, but everything else is my own idea! Cool, isn’t it? I think I’m gonna contact a movie studio or something. It will make me millions!”
You confidently chomp off a large chunk of caramel bar.
“You disappoint me, Mr. Aggot,” replies agent Hoof, putting his shades back on.
Crap, your teeth get stuck in caramel. Your try to move your jaw, but it’s too viscous.
“Uuum-uum!” you mumble with a pained expression, pointing at your glued-up mouth and pleading for some tea to melt the caramel down, but the agent only stares at you through the shades.
KABOOM!
The nearby wall explodes, revealing Bon Bon in a trench coat.
“Come with me if you want to live!” she shouts, throwing you over her barrel and bolting out of the room.
“Uuum!” you mumble, hoping to convey everything you want to say at the moment.
“Catch!” she throws a thermos with hot tea at you. You drink while she runs, hitting your teeth with the thermos because of that.
“What’s going on?” you shout at her after restoring your constitutional right of free speech.
Fzzzoop!
Before she could answer, Daisy who you just ran by gets engulfed in green flame and transforms into an agent. You think you caught a glimpse of black carapace for a moment. Now two agents are running after you.
“Hold on tight!” shouts Bon Bon, jumping over Lemon Hearts who transforms into another agent with another 'Fzzzoop!' as you fly over her head.
“Think quickly! Blue bon or red bon!” She throws two candies over her shoulder. You greatly impress yourself by catching both. Perhaps you accidentally learned kung fu sometime in the past two minutes.
Crap, how can you answer such an important question on such short notice?
“I’d honestly go for a green one, always liked the taste of sour apples.”
Bam! Bam! Bam!
“You have to decide now!” she shouts, dodging green lightning bolts.
You make the only right choice, throwing both candies into your mouth.
Glub... Glub... Glub...
Suddenly, you wake up submerged in mysterious green goo, with thick tubes plugged into places of your body where they don’t belong.
“Mmm!” you mumble, desperately removing the tube from your mouth. It goes all the way through your esophagus. Wow, you had no idea you have no gag reflex.
Finally, you notice where you are: in a small pod stuck to a dark cliff wall, surrounded by thousands of similar pods. It would be pitch black outside if not for the sickening green glow emitted by the pods. The whole scene looks unnecessary dramatic and demands nothing less than an epic crescendo from the background orchestra that is unfortunately missing.
You don’t like where this is going and quickly make the right decision.
“Hey, you! Yes, you!” you shout at a nearby changeling drone flying between the pods.
He buzzes towards you with an angry expression.
“Sorry, just woke up to take a leak. Could you put me back, please? I’ll just plug this where it was, and let's pretend that nothing happened, okay?”
You quickly put the tube back into your throat in one smooth motion and submerge yourself back into the goo. Damn, since when you are so good at this?
The changeling flares his horn and strikes your forehead with a green beam of energy.
Bzzz!
The unfriendly world without hugs or pancakes you would rather not spend any time in fades to black.
You wake up in your bed, soaked in sweat and breathing heavily.
It’s a nice day outside. Birds are chirping, your fridge is humming, and even your stomach is not hurting from overeating the sweets for some reason.
You check between your teeth for any traces of caramel and find none. Which is great, because the resident dentist Minuette had already made a fortune from your suffering.
Someone knocks on your door, and you reluctantly walk towards it in your pajamas.
“Oh, hi Pinkie.”
“Hi, Anon! Today’s the day, remember? You promised us more of your stories!”
Oh, thank Celestia, it was all just a dream. To be honest, you were getting a bit uneasy about the nightmare, but hey, at least you learned your lesson from it.
You smile at the happy pink pone at your door, sit down and hug her.
“It’s alright, Pinkie. I know my stories suck, and y’all don’t have to pretend to like them.”
She smiles and hugs you back.
“If you say so, Mr. Aggot.”