Caramel and Barley realize that they've made a terrible mistake. They seek to right their wrongs, and when things are most dire, an ally appears to give them guidance.
Caramel and Barley realize that they've made a terrible mistake. They seek to right their wrongs, and when things are most dire, an ally appears to give them guidance.
Written for the Ponyville Ciderfest Storytelling Adventure. Check out the group for all the stories written for the event here!
In 2023, one of the con mascots, Fizzy Glitch, discovered the magical Book of All Stories and accidentally trapped everyone inside. Anything written on its pages becomes true. Three factions formed, trying to control as many pages as possible before the book closed and the spell ended, each shaping Equestria to their liking. The Heroes wished to keep Equestria the way it was, Chaos sought to reshape into something more, and the Villains wished to rewrite the past and assert dominance upon everyone. Guests throughout the con were given choices, which gave pages to each faction. These pages decided the outcome of each chapter and ultimately, the story of the con itself. The con itself is over now, so we're unveiling the full story with all its possibilities.
“Hey, Barley?” Caramel asked as she bucked an evil clay golem in the chest.
The golem staggered back with an “Ooloolooloo!!!” before exploding in a preposterous rain of clay.
“Kinda busy right now, Caramel!” Barley spun around and kicked several clay golems away from him. They fell to the ground and exploded in a suspiciously similar fashion.
A monstrous, brown-and-purple, pig-badger-jellyfish creature stepped forward and shouted, “You Pony Rangers will never defeat me, the almighty PB&J!” His mouth moved, but it didn’t quite sync up to what he was saying. “For the glory of the Monster Empire!”
Caramel snorted. “Excuse me, but we’re having a conversation here.” She looked back to Barley. “It’s an important question, though. Are we the bad guys?”
Barley looked like he’d been hit with a frying pan. “Caramel, I literally wrote us into a campy superhero story with our last Page. I can’t think of anything more ‘good guy’ than that. Speaking of which…” From his belt, he pulled a shiny medallion made of green metal, performed an elaborate series of poses, and shouted, “It’s Transformin’ Time!” Green lightning flashed all around him. “Green Pony Ranger Power, Go!”
The lightning grew brighter, and as Barley posed and spun – very unnecessarily – an elaborate, green spandex costume appeared all over him, complete with a helmet that bore the symbol of wheat.
Caramel smiled broadly. “Oooh, I always loved this part! Pink Pony Ranger Power, Go!” She followed Barley’s motions and transformed in a similar fashion, albeit with a mug of cider emblazoned all over her gear.
The villains waited patiently for the transformation to finish, at which point PB&J pointed and shouted, “Attack!”
The Pony Rangers leapt into action! Using all kinds of martial arts, they fought off the rest of the clay golems. Hooves flew like lightning! Clay rained down and conveniently disappeared! Sparks flew, often a second or two after our heroes landed a blow!
As they fought, Caramel continued. “I just mean, I feel so bad for Fizzy. The way we treated her, how we shot down her ideas… That doesn’t feel like something that the good guys would do.”
“Yeah, I know,” Barley sighed as he suplexed PB&J. “Still, things are getting out of hand.”
“This was your idea - hiya!” Caramel countered - both Barley’s point and the charging golem.
“I mean with the factions and stuff! The villains are loose, and who knows what Discord is up to. The guests could get hurt–huhuhuhuHUHA!” Barley finished his observation with a 20 strike combo that sent PB&J flying end over end oddly slowly. He let out a huff and waited for the wires to lower PB&J back to earth and looked back to Caramel. “We don’t even know why she did this.”
“I guess that’s true,” Caramel paused to sweep the legs out from under a golem, causing it to topple backwards into four others coming up the slope towards her. “Still, it can’t hurt. We just have to find her.”
The monster rolled away after landing, gasping and panting for breath. “You’ll never find Fizzy Glitch!”
Just then, a massive image of Fizzy Glitch’s nirik form appeared in the sky.
“Drat!” PB&J yelled as he beat the earth.
Caramel called to the sky. “Fizzy! Fizzy, it’s us!!” She waved up to the image.
Barley stepped forward. “Fizzy! We need to talk!”
“I mean, obviously,” the giant Fizzy rolled her eyes. “I haven’t even asked you guys what you thought, yet! Seems like you’re having fun!
“Fizzy, if you’re mad about what happened before the con, we’re sorry about your idea!” Caramel shouted up at her. “Things like that happen, really! I promise we’ll do better!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Fizzy’s grin didn’t seem to reach her white, blank eyes. “Water under the bridge!”
Caramel frowned, but Barley stepped in front of her.
“If that’s the case, we really need to talk, Fizz. This whole multidimensional story thing is causing a lot of trouble–”
“Oh, like letting you live out your childhood fantasy of being a Pony Ranger?” Fizzy’s grin showed an uncomfortable number of teeth.
“That’s not–”
“Come on, Barley, live a little! I’ve got this.” Her grin disappeared in an instant. “For once you could try appreciating what I’m doing for you.” The bitterness suddenly fell from her face. “I know!” The image of a Page appeared in the sky next to Fizzy, and she narrated as she wrote. “And then Pig-Badger-Jellyfish grew to the size of a skyscraper!”
The monster cackled with delight. “Mwahahaha!!!” His voice boomed across the valley as his body swelled, larger and larger, until he was enormous! “Now not even the Pony Rangers can stop me!”
Barley staggered back. “What do we do? I don’t have any Pages left to write us a giant robot!”
Fizzy threw up her hooves in confused frustration.
“It’s Pony Rangers! You’ll figure it out. Just enjoy the ride!” She shook her head. “I swear, trying to do the guy a favor.” The image of Fizzy spun around and disappeared from sight.
“If we don’t have a giant robot, what do we do?” Caramel asked, concerned.
“Well, usually, in dire straights that the normal team couldn’t handle, the Extra Ranger would show up and–”
A voice shouted from behind them, “Sounds like you ponies could use a little help!”
Caramel and Barley turned and said together, “Lavender Alicorn Ranger!”
Behind them, standing daintily but heroically, was a Pony Ranger with wings! She posed as she pulled out a Page and wrote with her magic, “Luckily, nothing can beat the power of friendship!” She leapt, did several flips and twirls, and landed dramatically by the other rangers. “Let’s do this!”
They all joined hooves and called in unison, “Orbital Friendship Cannon Blast!” They glowed, and high above them, a star glinted with bright light. From it, a massive rainbow laser descended, right onto the monster.
“What? Nooooo!” cried PB&J. The rainbow laser enveloped him as over-the-top rock-and-roll music played in the background. The monster pulsed with energy, and he toppled over with a large BOOM as his body disintegrated in a shower of sparks.
Barley mumbled to himself, “Why do they always explode?”
Lavender Alicorn Ranger removed her helmet and shook out her mane, revealing that she was none other than Twilight Sparkle. “Nice work, everypony. Looks like the day is saved.”
Caramel removed her helmet as well. “Yeah, but Fizzy wouldn’t listen to us. I even tried apologizing, but she blew it off.” She frowned. “I think it’s more than just that idea, Bar. We hurt her feelings badly.”
Barley gasped as he pulled off his helmet as well. “She said I could try appreciating her for once…”
“Yeah, and she got annoyed when you didn’t want to play along with the giant monster!” Caramel pointed out.
“We’ve gotta figure out what’s made her so upset…” Barley’s eyes slowly lit up. “But we don’t have to do it alone!”
“Thankfully, I came to help you–” Twilight stepped forward.
“The guests!” Caramel gasped, her face lighting up with excitement.
“Exactly!” Barley said, slapping down his hoof in excitement. “If we can get everyone at the con to interact with Fizzy, maybe we can figure out what to say to her!”
“Yeah!” Caramel nodded along. “They can go talk with her, enter into pages about her, and even do activities related to her! Maybe even do stuff to show they appreciate her! Every little bit will help us figure this out and get through to her.” She turned to Twilight. “Right? This is a great idea.”
Twilight stood stalk still, smile and stare mismatched, like a deer in headlights for a second, and then loosened up and gave a beatific smile.
“These are all great ideas, you two! But, you should also really try to find her and talk with her.”
“I mean, yeah, of course.” Caramel said. “We just have to do all this first!”
“Yeah, let’s get to it!” Barley said, turning and trotting off. Caramel quickly followed after him.
Twilight lingered for a second more, that smile still on her face… only for it to slip into a scowl for just a second.
“You coming?” Caramel shouted back over her shoulder.
“Anything to help friends in need!” Twilight said, trotting along after them, pleased as could be.
“Hey Barley,” Caramel asked as she sipped from a flower-shaped teacup labeled “DrInK mE.” She shrunk to half her size, but she took a bite of the “EaT mE” cake and regrew. Besides the vertigo and nausea, it was actually pretty fun.
“Yeah, Caramel?” Barely sat in a rocking chair made of licorice. He tried to pour the two of them some tea from a teapot, but all that came out was bubbles. Barely harrumphed. “At least it wasn’t scorpions this time. What’s up?”
“Oooh!” Pinkie Pie squealed, adjusting her oversized hat. “Bubble tea! Bleeeeh…” She held her mouth open with her tongue sticking out and feverishly bit at the bubbles that flew by. “Mmm. Needs more sugar!” She reached across the table at the massive spread of cakes, candies, confections, and carefully crafted confit. The table hovered and the chairs bounced along a checkered landscape like it was made of rubber, but none of the four of them seemed to mind. “You having a good time, Izzy?”
“No,” she growled in her purple-striped kitty costume. Before Pinkie could answer, she leapt onto the table. “I’m having the best time! Hey, do you think I can melt down those rock candies into a pretty glass chandelier?”
Pinkie gasped. “That would be perfect! And then when the party gets really intense, you can swing from the chandelier and eat it at the same time!!!”
Izzy and Pinkie giggled and continued their planning, and Caramel finally turned back to Barley. “Do you think we’re the bad guys here?”
Barley recoiled. “Caramel, look around: would the bad guys be bouncing along a weirdly-colored countryside, having a tea party with friends while the fate of the world is in the balance?”
“I’m not sure the good guys would be doing that either…” Her head hung low. “And besides, you only agreed to this because Pinkie said she’d give us some of her pages afterwards.”
“Well, yeah…” Barley cast a glance aside. “But it’s important. And you said you wanted to have fun with it, right? And we both could use a break after all the craziness at the convention yesterday.”
“But I feel so bad for Fizzy. The way we treated her, how we shot down her ideas… That doesn’t feel like something that the good guys would do.”
“Yeah, but is it just that? Was that the only reason she did all this?” Barley fidgeted as he tried to pick up a jelly doughnut, but he bit in and found it was just a rice ball. “I felt bad about the whole thing, it really was my fault, but this has gotten out of hand. We have to do something to convince her to fix all this.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he looked into a glass of purple lemonade, and he could swear he saw a nirik face flash in the reflection.
“Hey!” Izzy shouted. “You’re not playing with us!”
Pinkie’s gaze grew icy cold. “You Pinkie Promised you’d have a tea party before I gave you the page.”
Caramel waved her hooves. “We’re sorry, Pinkie. We’re having fun, but we’re worried about Fizzy Glitch. It’s hard to party when we’re so concerned about our friend.”
Pinkie brightened up immediately. “That sounds like a good ol’ fashioned friendship problem, and lucky for you, I know just mare to help!”
“Is it you?” Barley asked with a wagging tail.
“Nope!” Pinkie grabbed a page from a stack in her back, then slammed it on the table. “I’d really love to, but it turns out that when you have the ability to throw parties in multiple dimensions simultaneously, your calendar fills up really quickly. I’m gonna throw a party for everypony in the multiverse!”
“Sounds ambitious.”
“Thanks! And speaking of ambitious, there’s a certain princess that’s always happy to help.”
Izzy clopped her hooves together. “Ooooh, can I do it? Can I summon her?”
“Sure thing, Izzy!”
Izzy grabbed a page and a bright blue crayon and began writing. As she did, she narrated, “Of course, the party wasn’t complete without a princess in attendance. Fortunately, they had sent an invitation to none other than…”
“Wah!” Twilight Sparkle screamed as she appeared in a puff of green, fiery smoke. She crashed onto the table of treats, spilling cream and sugar all over her plain blue-and-white dress. She rubbed her head as she stood up. “Where am I?”
“Party!” Pinkie shouted while Izzy stared at her page, confused.
“That checks out.” Twilight reoriented herself on the bouncing table.
Barley leapt onto the table with her. “Princess Twilight! We need help with a friendship problem.”
Twilight straightened herself up. “I’m all ears. What’s wrong?”
Caramel leapt up to join them. “We think we might have messed up. We had a bad night with our friend, Fizzy Glitch, and before we knew it, she used the Book of All Stories and now all…” Caramel waved a hoof at the quite mad tea party they were in, “...this has happened!.”
“Hey!” Pinkie frowned, adjusting her tophat, irritating the caterpillar that had made itself comfortable on top.
Barley nodded. “We want to figure this stuff out, but we don’t know how.”
Twilight rubbed her chin. “Hm… Well, have you talked with Fizzy Glitch?”
Both Barley and Caramel looked away.
“Not since all this happened,” Caramel explained
“Well, clearly you need to find her and talk with her about everything,” Twilight said, sitting straight. “Communication is the core of any good friendship!”
“Yeah, but we don’t know where to begin! I’m sure she’s angry at us for the way we forgot about her idea, but there has to be more to it. It’s not like we can just… ask for help…” Barley trailed off, his eyes going wide.
“Well, why do you think we called in Twilight, silly?” Izzy giggled as she popped her own head off and began juggling it in her own hooves.
“That’s it!” Barley turned to Caramel. “The con guests! We can get them to help us figure out what to say to Fizzy! She’s been running the con, they’ve had to have interacted with her!”
Caramel beamed. “That’s a great idea! They can go talk with her, enter into pages about her, and even do activities related to her! Maybe even do stuff to show they appreciate her! Every little bit will help us figure this out and get through to her. ”
Barley flapped his wings and hovered with joy. “Yeah!” He dropped back onto the table. “Oh, but that’s going to be tough, especially without any pages.”
Twilight took a step forward. “No problem.” Her horn glowed, and several pages flew from her bag. “I’m here to help.”
Caramel and Barley cheered, and Twilight quickly opened a green portal with her magic pages, which all three of them leapt through with haste.
Izzy froze. “Did they… just break a Pinkie Promise?”
“That’s okay,” Pinkamena said. Izzy whipped her head around to see Pinkie, mane straightened and eyes pointing in different directions, sitting between figures of Barley and Caramel that were made of candy. “I made us some new friends.”
“Hey Barley?” Caramel whispered as she ducked behind a stalagmite in the deep, dark cave.
“Not a great time, Caramel!” Barley shout-whispered in reply. He flapped up to the cave ceiling and clung to a stalactite. Water dripped down its surface, and his muscles burned with the exertion. “Any ideas?”
A snarling pack of diamond dogs raced down the cave at them, howling as their claws raked at the stone floor beneath them.
Caramel dug deep in her pockets and found a page, already covered in ink from top to bottom. She squinted and saw a small corner with some space left. With a quick hoof, she whipped out her trusty pen and narrated quietly as she wrote, “The ponies left no scent trail, and the diamond dogs rushed right past them.” She cowered behind the stalagmite and hoped the dogs didn’t have a page of their own.
“For The Pink Queen!” the lead dog, a shaggy monstrosity with long fangs shouted.
“For The Pink Queen!” the pack replied.
“And for treats!”
The pack cheered and slobbered all over, their mouths watering at their promised reward. They sniffed at the air, and one of the diamond dogs veered off towards Caramel’s hiding place.
Barley gulped above. His wings spread out, and the tried to calculate how quickly he could swoop down and pick up Caramel. A split second difference could mean a nasty bite… or worse.
Caramel held her breath as the diamond dog sniffed all around. She could smell his breath as he huffed. The scent curled around her hiding place, and as the dog licked its lips…
“Hey! Drover! Don’t lag behind!”
The diamond dog growled, then loped away to join his pack.
As their footfalls faded into darkness, Barley and Caramel breathed a sigh of relief. Barley swooped down and trotted to Caramel. “Good thinking.”
“Yeah, but I think that’s all we’re getting out of this one…” She held up the page, full of ink and with no space left.
Barley sighed. “We’ll deal with that in a bit. Now, what was so important that you almost gave away our position?”
“Oh! Well, I was wondering something: are we the bad guys?”
Barley collapsed to the floor.
“...Barley?”
He stood up and brushed himself off. “Caramel, we stumbled into a whole monster rally and found out Cozy Glow forged an alliance between the dragons, some of the diamond dogs, and a whole host of other nasties to get all the pages for the villains. How are we the bad guys?”
Plainly, she responded, “Because of how we treated Fizzy.”
Barley opened his mouth to protest, but he had no words. Instead, he slumped onto the floor, staring listlessly into the dark.
“I just wish I understood why,” he said, finally.
“We ignored her ideas for the con this year…” Caramel began.
“But is that it?!” Barley snapped. Caramel looked at him and saw it wasn’t in anger, though. He was afraid, panicked. “I… I really wanted to say sorry to her, but was that one mistake worth unleashing all of this?” His head slumped back down. “We have to do something about this. Even if it’s all our fault. People could get hurt.”
He looked around at the dark cave, lit only with the faint illumination of glowing moss. In the darkness, he squinted at a pattern in the stalagmites and cave markings. They looked like the face of an angry nirik staring at them, but only for a moment.
Caramel frowned, but then, she furrowed her brows and set her jaw. She stood up triumphantly. “Oh, c’mon, this isn’t that much worse than when Pinkie cleared us out of cider right before the convention. We’ll figure something out.” She offered a hoof.
Barley looked at it and then let out a laugh, grabbing hold and pulling himself up. “You must really have wanted that cider to compare losing it to getting chased through the dark by Diamond Dogs.”
“Don’t give up hope. We’ll work hard, like we always do, even if there’s no deus ex ma–”
“Hello?” came the voice of Twilight Sparkle. “Barley? Caramel? Is that you?”
“Twilight!” Barley shouted. The two of them rushed towards the voice and the light of a green lantern. As they wheeled around the corner, they saw her, wings flared and smiling.
“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you since I saw you enter that portal.”
“Thank hoofness you’re here. We were just talking about the mother of all friendship problems we’ve found ourselves in, and well, the Princess of Friendship would be a huge help right now!” Caramel said, walking up to Twilight, an exhausted but relieved smile on her face.”
Twilight nodded. She fished a few pages from her bag. “So I heard! It’s why I came looking for you. Have you spoken to her yet?”
“We don’t even know where she is,” Barley said, dismayed.”And even if we did, I don’t even know what to say to her at this point…”
Twilight frowned and started to speak, but Caramel, who’s eyes were getting wider, spoke up first.
“...but we could get help!”
“Well of course, that’s why I’m–” Twilight began.
“The con attendees!” Barley shouted, eyes lighting up as well. “She’s been running the con while we’ve been lost! They must have seen her around and talked to her!”
Caramel beamed. “That’s it! They can go talk with her, enter into pages about her, and even do activities related to her! Maybe even do stuff to show they appreciate her! Every little bit will help us figure this out and get through to her. ”
Barley flapped his wings and hovered with joy. “Yeah!” He dropped back onto the table. “Thanks so much, Twilight! We should get started right away. Can you help us?”
“My pleasure,” Twilight said with a smirk.
And then a horrible roar and the distant orange glow of dragon flame filled the cavern.
“...but maybe we should get out of here first,” Barley said, sheepishly, and much, much quieter.
Twilight nodded sagely, and with a few strokes of her pen, she opened a portal to someplace far, far away.
Barley and Caramel shared a very quiet hoof bump and dashed inside. Twilight smirked to herself, then hopped through, following closely behind.
