Prologue: Checking Up.

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I had been living in the world of Spiral Mountain for three weeks and I loved it. There was the music that you could mute out if it got too annoying, zany transformations and magical complicatedly interconnected worlds. I have learned so much about that place.

I eventually figured out I hadn’t learned nearly enough. Kazooie took me under her wing quite literally, oh right I haven’t told you about her! She found me in Canterlot, she’s an adventurer extraordinaire and well known explosive nutcase that blew up the world of Kingdom Hearts whatever that is. She was a red-crested breegull; apparently she was rare for her species in the category of hot blooded ornithological destructive video game creatures. From what she told me people still curse 'Ninja Gaiden' birds to this day and that she was somewhat descended from them, which is how she can make anyone hate her at the drop of a hat. I couldn’t exactly understand the reason why her heritage would involve that kind of hatred, the only explanation I received from Kazooie was that it had something to do with bottomless pits and someone jumping over them without the fire wheel ability running.

My name is Screwball a light pink pony with a purple and white streaked curly mane with a propeller hat, my cutie mark was a baseball and a screw. I couldn’t be happier that my father… excuse me… my ex-mother got his… that is to say her just desserts. Discord or Distress, I was just happy to never have to deal with the chaos creature that spawned me again. I still don’t understand how I work entirely; I’m part earth pony and part chaos magic. Without my earth pony side or magic thereof I probably wouldn’t exist.

I’ve been learning about my new mom’s; Kazooie’s, world she’s a video game character. Apparently video game characters can carry their natural abilities from their own worlds and can learn abilities from other worlds but never at the exact way are they supposed to function. Like for instance mom’s ability to perform what is called a Screw Attack which is combined with space jumping, she can’t perform a space jump endlessly and she can’t use the Screw Attack too much without injuring herself with energy backlash. Video Game Characters had to follow certain rules and were quite powerful even if they did have their limits; death was but a slap on the wrist to them. Their society was… to put it quite frankly more insane then even anything Discord could dream of coming up with. There was also that innate game world alteration thing that gave you abilities of the game world as long as you’re in it, but that’ll comes up much later.

“Come on Screwball, we need to get you a checked up to see if you have any cartoon related problems from being in our realm for the foreseeable future. I’d rather nip this in the bud even if I can scan and cure any illness; I’d rather get a professional for the long term of things as magic doesn’t solve everything. Afterwards I’m going to drop you off with Banjo so I can go on a quest for a Celestriad Relic because as you know I run out of magic points like I’m bleeding out faster than apparently Aerith does when stabbed by a six foot sword. I swear that sounds like an awful sex pun. Anyway If I can get that accessory I can save on all those Magic Point potions, but I’m going to need to call in a favor of a certain treasure hunter.” Kazooie watched as her adopted pony charge shook her head and ran to catch up with the wisecracking bird.

Yeah that’s right, she told me that my dimension wasn’t exactly normal either; I was something called a cartoon character. I had yet to learn the true powers of a cartoon of which Pinkie obviously had and that explained all the crazy stuff she could do and how she adapted to any situation so fast. Cartoon characters operated on different rules than video game characters, we can do a lot of things as long as it’s within the rules of funny and can survive what would normally lead to life threatening injuries. The only problem is that I had to be aware of the fact that I was a cartoon character to start learning how to utilize the talents of one. So far I haven’t the foggiest what a cartoon character was supposed to be like, but Kazooie assured me that in time I’d learn all about it when I got introduced to the video game characters that double as cartoon characters, some are even comic book heroes like Mare-Do-Well. She’s already taught me a few strange tricks like the banana peel gag she pulled on that purple unicorn before we left my birth world, I didn’t quite get it yet but I hope I did soon as to not disappoint my mom.

We were in a place called Fourside City, a place where characters from all walks of life were walking around. Strange eye things Kazooie called a Suezo from Monster Rancher, a giant walking machine she called a wanzer from the world of Front Mission where she even admitting to owning a personalized one for herself, strange flying machines she called arwings were performing flying maneuvers through the city and plenty more. The most common creature were human type video game characters, there were even two characters named Red that looked nothing alike but were walking down the road chatting with each other nonetheless. One was from Gunstar Heroes and the other one Pokémon, neither of which I knew anything about as I haven’t been in the realm of video games for very long or even outside Kazooie’s home world of Spiral Mountain to see these kind of sights.

There were so many things to look at while we were walking around and I was too busy looking at all the things when I bumped into something that was idly watching four turtles beat up these exploding purple ninja guys in the streets. I bade an apology in silent protagonist, I was really fluent at it by now and it wasn’t as easy as most could make it look. I didn’t bother to ask why video game characters always got into fights or were randomly blowing each other up, this was how things worked here as violence was quite common and if you didn’t want to fight you were left alone. If you weren’t left alone, the video game universe was full of heroes who loved performing acts of impossible to describe cruelty for a good cause upon those who didn’t learn not to pick a fight with the unwilling. This is in fact why I would later learn that at least seventy percent of all video game enemies are all considered masochists and in fact like pain and agony.

“Hey, don’t worry about it kid.” The human was blond with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing a blue jumpsuit.

“Samus Aran, is that you? I see somebody managed to do the three hour gambit to get you almost entirely out your suit. So, getting any?” Well apparently Kazooie knew who Screwball just bumped into.

“Well if it isn’t the world’s biggest bounty with a beak, you do realize everyone in the Kingdom Hearts realm is still scared of what you managed to pull off and Xenahort still screams when someone says your name around him.” Samus just smiled slightly as she looked down at the breegull. “And for your information I’m on my way to a Smash Battle, I’m hitting it off with Fox and Olimar within the hour. The items are set to an impossibly high spawn rate today and I’m hoping to blow someone’s face off with a Bob-bomb.”

“Well excuse me princess, for using Links line in his seldom remembered cartoon. I’m on my way to see Dr. Mario personally. By the way do you still scream in terror at seeing Ridley the Furby?” Kazooie suddenly found herself on the receiving end of a metallic barrel with a super missile building itself inside of it being primed for launch. This was being pointed in her face by an angry looking suddenly power suited woman, the red and orange armor had popped up in flash instantaneously.

“Please don’t bring up Other M with me; I’m still touchy about that particular subject. I really dislike the developers of that game for not letting me use the higher functions on my armor that aren’t possibly lethal to anyone. I mean seriously? Would it have hurt to let me keep my heat protection through the lava area? Sure the whole power bomb explanation works, but my entire suits other non lethal functions not being authorized as well from the get go? If Adam hadn’t died by plot development I would have shot him myself.” Samus then made her armor disappear as soon as it had appeared and she sighed holding the bridge of her nose with her left hand before she released it looking to the pony for a moment before returning her gaze to meet Kazooie’s. “I still preferred the Prime series when I was being corrupted out my ass and fighting my darker twin. So who’s the kid?”

“Cartoon character orphan I picked up in the cartoon realms, in a particular world that hasn’t exactly woken up to the fact that they are cartoon characters.” Kazooie tousled my purple and white streaked mane with a wing, making sure to rub the back of my ears making me feel happy from the affection I was receiving.

“Sounds like the squirts got a good home; unfortunately she’s living under the same roof with Banjo’s notably psychopathic sister.” I didn’t think Miss Samus thought highly of Kazooie even if they were friends.

“Oh come on, Tooty’s not really that bad once you get to know her and she’s a hyper intelligent kid too. Besides she’s been in college for the last three to ten years… really should check on her.” Kazooie smirked at Samus. “It’s also not very nice of you to call her a psychopath in any case.”

“I was talking about you; anyway it’s been nice see you Kaz but I’ve got a match to get to.” Soon the lady was walking across the street and then this random small red creature zoomed at her and smacked into her head knocking her to the ground and spilling out all these shining emblem things. “Damn it all, stupid Ripper. It’ll take me ten minutes to pick all these up; I’m getting tired of being forced to listen to that ‘you got an item’ tune.”

I didn’t get to stick around to watch Samus pick up her power-ups, Kazooie explained to me on the way down the street that Samus had a habit of losing them in really silly incidents. I was led into a really big building with a red cross on it and at the desk were three human types as we walked into the lobby. One kind of reminded me of Fleur De Lis that pretty model pony I found in the magazines while dumpster diving that one time, except this was a human with a white robe, pink hair and a bright smile. Next to her was another pink haired human with her hair in loops and after that the third being was a surprisingly enough didn’t feel human to me. She was blonde and wearing a pink suit with red gloves and these yellow energy things curving around behind her head.

“Hello and welcome to ‘All Sides Hospital’. I’m Nurse Joy number five hundred and fifty three; these are my associates White Mage and Roll Dot Exe. Please state the nature of you medical needs or if you have an appointment, we cover all areas and yes, there is a doctor in the house.” The way Nurse Joy suddenly addressed me caused me to look at her quizzically and ask her what she was talking about.

“It’s a cartoon thing Screwy, she’s not a trained cartoon character Joy so she wasn’t going to make that reference. We’re here for some check-ups, even if I can use white magic it never hurts to get a checkup. I believe I have an appointment with Dr. Mario.” Nurse Joy apologized immediately to me using the silent protagonist language before giving a nod to Kazooie. Turning to Roll we watched as she started typing out something on the thing called a computer after a moment she addressed us.

“Accessing information… files found… File one: Kazooie female game character, species red crested breegull, alignment hero and noted for being extremely dangerous and has an approach with caution warning on her file listed multiple times. File Two: Screwball female cartoon character, species pony, alignment unknown as of thus far and is notably cuddly looking. Appointment room is located on the second floor third door on the left; the doctor will be with you almost immediately. Do you want show tunes with that and possibly a lollipop?” Her voice sounded kind of mechanical in nature as if she were being way too professional, I’m sure this Roll person was more personable off work hours and her face looked really blank as she spoke before her eyes cleared and seemed to be once again filled with personality. Then she asked us that question about show tunes with the lollipop thing with a smile, she also said I looked cuddly... she’s nice.

“Might as well, the kid really needs to get used to seeing some really strange things and make it a rainbow of flavors lollipop, unicorn style if possible she’ll get a buck out of that considering where she’s from.” After a slight readily acknowledged affirmative, Roll just pointed them to the elevators.

“You know, I never thought White Mage would take a desk job. Usually she’d be one of the doctors for magical injury care given she is a white magic specialist. Our realm just gets stranger and stranger for you huh?” It seemed like an odd thing to have a desk job when your special talent was healing and I had concurred with mom on that one.

I did kind of know some white magic though it was harder to do without all of that discordant power running through me. I couldn’t learn a spell by just watching them be cast anymore, but the spells I’ve already learned were still there. Scan, Cura, Esuna and Warp were the spells I knew and at least I didn’t have the problem of limited magical power as my source was renewable with sleep and sustenance. On the downside I had to train my magical power a little to keep it in good working order, whereas Kazooie didn’t need to train hers to perform it perfectly every single time. This gave me a pretty good idea of the differences between video game and cartoon characters.

Once we were in the office I noticed a giant screen with an empty looking glass bottle on it just sitting there on the wall. Suddenly there were these three scary looking creatures dancing around in a circle below the glass bottle on the screen as music started playing, they were yellow, red and blue that were currently starting to fill up the glass bottle. Then a lab coat wearing man with a large round nose, brown hair with a bristly mustache came out of nowhere on the screen with a vibrant smile.

Musical Number! (Dr. Mario Fever)

“I am Dr. Mario and here I am to sing. Don’t you see these viruses and the trouble that they certainly definitely bring?” Pulling out a pointer from his white coat he pointed to the three dancing creatures and then several scenes of sick looking video game characters appeared in a partitioned portion of the screen.

“They can cause all kinds of chao as you can clearly see; the best way to defeat them is to match colored pills by descending into bottles like this in matching three’s!” The music distorts as a scene plays out on the screen with the doctor tossing a yellow pill, then a yellow half pill and it makes a virus explode and a patient stopped looking so green immediately.

“Now don’t you feel a lot better that I am truly here, I will help you as much but just to make this very exceptionally clear. Dr. Mario… helpings my MO… and don’t you worry about this funny, little, show!” The real Dr. Mario walked up behind Screwball and picked her up shocking her, but she didn’t struggle as she was placed on the nearby table by the man.

“Take a step forward and… don’t, you look down… now, don’t you worry… please, do not frown.” The man was very placating waving a gloved finger in front of her face, but even Screwball knew if she walked off the edge she’d fall, what was this zany doctor trying to pull? I Looked to Kazooie and she tilted her head to the doctor with a slight smile saying to listen to him in her own silent voice. Doing as the doctor said Screwball stepped forward and felt nothing but solid ground beneath her hooves and was curiously enough surprised because she could have sworn she just walked off the table.

“If you’re wondering… what I am testing… your cartoon powers are completely working on, this, scene!” Pointing down it took a moment for Screwball to respond to the fact that she was standing on thin air and had the exact reaction the doctor was looking for. It was flailing limbs and the sudden realization that gravity existed. She fell into a soft cushion on her belly and sat there dazed and confused.

“May I please take a look at your leg, now please don’t make me on my knees beg, I will then stretch it slightly out, come on don’t you make that little cutesy pout.” Screwball actually started to pout then smiled as the doctor’s music was infectious. She watched as the doctor stretched her leg out to impossible length looking it over with a well appraised eye, it kind of tickled making her giggle slightly. It snapped back into shape rather quickly though once he released it.

“Now I shall have to squash it flat, now watch it as it takes its shape right back, can I see what’s under that spinny hat, isn’t this card trick really neat since I’ve got the...” The doctor was making Screwball feel so well entertained she couldn’t feel nervous about the doctor poking and prodding her body as he sung and showed her a card trick where the cards flew from one hand to the other and quickly disappeared as they had appeared. Then he got creepy and quiet as he looked deeply into Screwball’s eyes.

“Oh my… what’s this… is it… yes!” Doctor Mario with a flick of a wrist was holding a big swirly unicorn lollipop and he held it out to Screwball who gingerly took it in her left hoof with a bright smile. Kazooie smirked a little, the doctor was a master of misdirection and Screwball didn’t even know he took her blood to learn her type; she was too enthralled by his show tunes and the prospect of candy.

“Here’s my prognosis of which I will give to you. She’s relatively healthy and doesn’t need a vaccine for something like say a nasty flu.” Smiling the doctor handed a sheet of paper to Kazooie who studied it, this guy was fast.

“Please be sure to have her come on back all over again, I’m sure that we will be the best of friends… oh don’t you seriously know it by now really.” He was still carrying the tune even with the second pill distortion noise effect, as he gave Screwball an affectionate hug.

“I will have to be up to that very essential of an important task, all you will need is a happy smile it’s all of which I will ever ask!” The cheeky doctor smiled and Screwball gave him the biggest grin she’s ever given a strange dancing and singing bipedal creature before her.

“Dr. Mario… that’s my name you know… thank you for being a good patient now you’re ready, to, go.” The music stopped and on the screen all the virus’s were gone and a smiling eight bit version of the doctor raised a thumb to the three dimensional version who winked at it.

End Musical Number.

“So no problems with her cartoon core?” Kazooie asked as she was looking over the sheet of paper. I sat off to the side enjoying my large lollipop.

“Yes, perfectly healthy and I assume the chaos magic is also normal for her given who her guardian is.” Dr. Mario raised his brow humorously at mom when it came to questioning of where I got my chaos powers from.

“Not my fault, but yes that’s naturally a part of her. I guess it’s my turn then.” This time the doctor didn’t sing and just did a few things that were related to her game world, such as checking her throat and rear end to see if her egg firing capabilities weren’t under any adverse overly stressed conditions. He stress tested her stretchy legs, they returned to normal quickly enough. Soon he dropped a two hundred pound weight on her back and she didn’t bat an eye as Banjo weighed more than that.

From the doctor’s expression it was discovered to be a sad day indeed… she was in perfect health and shape, unlike her Nuts and Bolts counterpart that got slightly obese from too much junk food. The doctor had to give her a clean bill of health and I think he could already hear the video game universe weeping, because I think I might have heard it to.

“Well you check out, just don’t overload yourself with out of world gaming abilities. If you do use out of world game abilities be careful of backlash. So who are you going to get to train the little pony in more than one trick? You mentioned she was an untrained cartoon character?” The doctor was now on to idle conversation while I was off in my little world in a rainbow of sweet flavors.

“I know all too well, I’ll be careful about the game abilities I have Doc. As for a Screwy and her cartoon heritage, I do have a few sources… most of them are both video game and cartoon birds. If that’s all, I guess I’ll see what’s up with you later doc.” After a moment the doctor nodded and seemed to frown at Kazooie's back as she turned to me.

“Yes, that will be fine. You can’t have such a sweet little cartoon character like that and not have fun times ahead.” If only I had heeded the doctors words about the fun times I would be having. Technically if you call taking over Equestria fun times, then yes… fun times for all.

That was a story for a later day though; for now I’m going to spend time exploring in the realm of video games. At least it wasn’t that same old end of the world as we know it kind of fun; we’d be facing that later with Banjo and several characters that are ‘sort of’ Kazooie’s friends.

Screwball-Banjo

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My name is Derpy Hooves and I don’t know where I am or what could have gone wrong. One minute I’m flying into the doctor’s time machine to wrestle control of it form that crazy bird thing and the next it’s disappearing leaving me on this tiny floating island with a rock like that Mr. Tom that Rarity won’t talk to anymore, except it was big, green and glowing.

To say I was disoriented wasn’t much of a stretch, I was looking everywhere the only signs of civilization seems to be the nearby train and I was about to check it out when I heard a sloshing sound behind me. I turned around and screamed at what I saw.

Sonic the hedgehog main video game realms innate ability: all biological beings can run/fly at heightened speeds without tiring.

Being a cartoon character was still new to me and now I knew a few more things about myself after my check up with Dr. Mario. I was currently in a place Kazooie brought me to, a place called Twinkle Park. Soon mom told me to enjoy the stuff here and to walk around the park, she also told me to ignore the robots chasing a bipedal pink hedgehog and to not leave unless it was with her brother Banjo. I was apparently left waiting for Banjo to show up. So all I had to do was pay attention to the attractions that were open to me. Kazooie was setting off for the RPG worlds of the video game realms.

Elsewhere.

Final Fantasy main video game realms innate ability: Guest character applied statistics, levels and abilities. In certain situations set classifications are also applied.

“Remember I’m this parties acting white mage for this venture so keep me in good hit points and MP potions and I’ll make sure to keep throwing the phoenix downs.” Kazooie was with a guy in dragoon armor, a thief that acts as a treasure hunter, a moogle and a wild kid with green hair. What they were facing were giant dinosaurs and it was a long line of high hit point enemies waiting to do battle with them. The multiple groups of dinosaurs were each holding small slips of paper with numbers to show what order they’d be attacking in that they took to prepare the heroes for a gauntlet of constant battles, until either side gave up or got bored and fled the area.

“Today is just going to be one of those days.” The dragoon armored man said as the first battle started and he leapt into the sky with his pike in hand.

The quest for the rare Celestriad Relic had begun.

Back to the Sonic the hedgehog video game realms.

The innate abilities of each realm tended to give the visitors those abilities, so currently I could move faster than I ever could before, well assuming I’m not in a spinoff games or outside the main realm of games with the same general rules across the board. Of course I couldn’t hit speed booster levels of speed that Kazooie could do, apparently the speed booster allows her incredible bursts of speed on straight-aways that are almost unmatched by anything short of the hero of this realm himself. The acceleration build up was the biggest difference from being to being here; apparently I had decent acceleration whereas someone named Knuckles had a horrible running acceleration but could actually get up to speed with the realms hero if given enough time.

I stood around the park looking at the strange beings coming and going, which included a pink hedgehog being chased by a large green hovering robot that had Sonic Industries imprinted on its side. Well mom said to ignore it, so I did; I just decided to go go-karting along the special speedway which was a blast.

After a few hours of go-karting I got tired of picking up all those rings and feeling strangely safe in case of death. I’m pretty sure it happened every hundred rings that I felt even safer and Kazooie has mentioned that the one-up things are easy to acquire. So I must have had at least ten extra lives on me or at least I think I do, plus a lot of rings that allow me to take a powerful blow of any proportion. Though the rings will disappear faster every time I drop them or at least that’s what the giant purple cat with the frog said.

I wonder what was taking Banjo so long, he should have been here by now… I sat down on a park bench and plucked up a digital flower to eat, tastes like the real thing and even acts like it to fill my stomach. I didn’t question what I just ate nor would I bother doing so.

After finishing my snack, a crowd of screaming characters ran by shouting something about a dangerous creature. Funny, I didn’t think Banjo was that scary and Kazooie tends to freak people out because she tends to play with her grenade eggs too much.

“Hey what’s going on?” I reached out with a hoof and grabbed the easiest looking being to stop. What I got was a small, two legs, a pith helmet with light attachment, brown skin and with a blonde ponytail creature.

“Apparently some cartoon character somehow let Chaos loose, people are evacuating the general area… given what happens in the game, things might start to get bad around this realm. Say… who are you, never seen a cartoon character like you before. Would you happen to know what’s going on here?” I blinked confusedly at the creature and shrugged, I pretty much stated to her I had no clue and I was wondering who she was. “Sorry I forgot to introduce myself, I’m Goombella the Goomba archeologist, scholar and professor on all video game creatures extraordinaire! I’m also a good friend to have and a spunky lady.”

With a twirl the creature gave an admittedly impressive hop six feet straight up in the air before freezing in a flashy background and a text box appeared below her saying that she joined my party. I blinked, I seriously thought my Discords’s shenanigans and fetish of buffalo’s in tutus was weird but now I had a RPG character joining me out of the blue? She didn’t even ask if I wanted her in my party, she just jumped right in.

I pretty much expressed that I’ve been in Twinkle Park playing through the go-kart courses for the last few hours before stopping for a snack and that I knew fluent silent protagonist because my mother taught me. I also exclaimed that my mother was a certain red crested breegull and Goombella didn’t bat an eye, instead she pulled out a strange book and the pages on it started flipping without her having any hands to flip pages with.

“Let’s see, aha… red crested breegull, so you know Kazooie, which file is she?” I simply answered that my mom was the file one to the small mushroom shaped creature and after a moment she twirled the book around and started reading the text out to me without looking at it. “Let’s see, the file one is Kazooie Kalzoonteight most notorious hero for blowing up the Kingdom Hearts universe and is always said to be welcome to Bomberman Land for party games. Her RPG statistics while limited are quite good, she’s a platform game character and is cousin to multiple species of video game birds, sister to Banjo Kalzoonteight and it is also a rumor that her mother was an eldritch abomination. Her hit is explosives and the explosions they dish out and her miss is people using her last name for whatever reason.”

Well, that was pretty much the stuff I already knew about mom. I quickly asked her what this chaos stuff was about. After a moment Goombella thwacked her own forehead with a foot before flipping through some pages and around this time Banjo came running up to us just as Goombella finished finding the data I asked her about.

“Technically his name is Chaos Zero, his lowest evolutionary form when not being powered by chaos emeralds. Note that negative chaos energy makes him a really cranky customer to deal with and it takes three to four hits to defeat him in combat. I can’t even begin to wonder why he doesn’t just absorb the positive energy… but then again there probably isn’t much after protecting this race of adorable critters he loves called Chao. Wonder why he’s here and who the cartoon character is that freed him, he’s not exactly evil and he can be considered to be a misunderstood anti-hero. He is walking liquid chaos, do not get stuck inside of him or you could incidentally end up drowned.” With that Goombella put the book away and then noticed her audience had grown in size to a bear and pony. “Oh hello there, you must Banjo.”

“Yep, guh huh… just what is going on around here? Where’s the witch?” Banjo was about to receive a response from the Goomba when a familiar pegasus crashed into the ground near us.

Banjo was a honey bear and weighed well over two hundred pounds; sometimes I wonder how Kazooie hadn’t broken her back carrying him around with her talon trot ability. He had brown fur, blue eyes, shark tooth necklace and was wearing yellow shorts with a belt. He was Kazooie’s notably nicer easy going half and without Kazooie around he might have let Gruntilda run roughshod over him. He does have his own heroic side, but was nowhere near as violent without Kazooie egging him into action.

The pegasus rolled onto her stomach groaning, soon she heard a splash and blob of water landed behind her causing her to sit up and scrambled backwards against Twinkle Park castle’s wall as it slowly took a two legged green eyed form with claws that started stalking towards her sloshing with each step. Soon it stopped and turned to stare directly at me. Why did I not like the look in its faded eyes?

“That… would be the witch Banjo; in this case the lowest level of the Chaos boss fights Chaos Zero.” Goombella said dryly right next to me. “Though it seems he’s not interested in following that cartoon character anymore, he seems more interested in the cartoon pony next to me… any idea why?”

“Well Screwball does have chaos powers from what Kazooie told me.” After a moment of putting his paw under his chin Banjo’s eyes narrowed as the creature stretched its arms out to grab me. I found myself simply lifted out of the way by Banjo with a single deft grasp of his strong paw on the scruff of my neck. “Now that doesn’t seem very friendly.”

I looked at Banjo and asked him ‘really’? That’s what you think? Get in there and bust his butt! Or that’s the approximation of what I said with my silent protagonist voice, this bear must really need a large push to get into a fight.

“Well I don’t know, he doesn’t seem to realize what he’s doing or even seems to be awake. He could be instinctively following programming and not actively be a threat.” As Banjo said this we watched as it reeled it’s arms back in and started to slowly make its way for us, the grey coated blonde haired mare looked to me and seemed to have a note of recognition after seeing my cutie mark. There seemed to be a spark of hope in her eyes.

Banjo actually made his way forward, to confront the liquid chaos creature and the way his dull green eyes seemed to focus on Banjo didn’t make me feel too good. Banjo waved his left paw in front of the creature and it didn’t react to it.

“You see, he is asleep, his eyes are closed. It’s just really hard to tell unless you’re close up, I’m sure he’s a nice guy and I just need to wake him…” Banjo was suddenly slugged across the face with a water tentacle knocking him onto his back. I ran forward and pushed him into a sitting position and soon he stood up on his own, but he wasn’t alone. He needed a partner and I was that partner, clasping my hooves around his neck I pretty much yelled in silent protagonist to get in the game. Banjo wasn’t like Kazooie; she would have already fired at least a grenade egg by now and would have continued to fire them until they proved completely ineffective.

“I seriously don’t think…” Banjo started, but then the background music changed on us into boss music and large three dimensional letters appeared in front of Chaos Zero. The words floating in the air read as ‘Sleeping Chaos’ and a life bar appeared above his head. Yep, I just got dragged into a boss fight riding a honey bear and this is normal for the video game world. This was probably something I’d never do back in Equestria, as if I wanted to go back to being a starving kid looking for their next meal.

Behind us a different scene was playing out.

Goombella stayed a safe distance away from the battle zone as the boss battle seclusion walls were set in place, next to her was the pony that scrambled to safety and was regarding her with great interest. Soon the pony stuck her tongue out and slowly started to move it towards Goombella who instantly turned on her.

“What are you doing?” The pony stopped and rubbed the back of her head giving out a goofy smile as Goombella regarded her with suspicion.

“Well, I kind of wanted to know… are you a talking muffin?” Say what you will, no matter what dimension she’s in Derpy will always be looking for the closest muffin shaped thing to eat.

“No, I’m not a muffin… though it’s kind of odd that my species can kind of look like one, I am what is known as a Goomba and my name is Goombella.” Even after explaining she wasn’t a muffin Derpy still licked her anyway, she didn’t go into the spiel of her background considering how this pony had been looking at her. “Ugh, why did you do that?”

“I had to make sure you weren’t a muffin, because a real talking muffin would try to deny it’s a talking muffin… but I guess you really are that Goomba thing you said you were. You also kind of taste like mushrooms from those stir fry foods; I’m Derpy Hooves by the way. It’s really nice to meet you Goombella.” Unperturbed by the fact that she just licked something that tasted of mushrooms and flesh; she went back to watching the fight.

Goombella sighed, this wasn’t the first time she had been confused with a muffin or a cupcake. She really should stop doing research on Yoshi’s, she really didn’t like being stuffed in an egg or waiting a week for things to pass on their own time.

Now back with me and Banjo preparing for the fight.

Banjo weighed his options quickly; he guess he had to fight now and there was no possibility of getting Screwball out of the crossfire as she was part of this fight. Kid like that doesn’t need to experience her first video game death so early.

Well Banjo’s first idea on how to fight the creature regarding them is to see if Screwball can function like Kazooie does… he didn’t really believe she could be exactly like the Bombastic Breegull but he had to try. He quickly pulled Screwball from his back and wrapped his left paw around her throat and his right paw around her belly; he’d call it the Pony Pitcher mode perhaps? He cocked Screwball and was surprised to actually hear the pony cock, even if her sound effect was vastly different from Kazooie.

Banjo quickly squeezed me with his right arm. I felt; oddly enough, safe in his paws and there was this weird sensation in my throat. I really had to cough and so I did in a spectacular manner. What was thought to be a grenade egg exploded out of Screwball’s mouth, however upon second appearance it was a green baseball that was on fire. It slammed into the approaching Chaos and he was slammed back into the castle wall by the brilliant explosion.

After watching Chaos getting splattered all across the wall to the castle, we saw that he quickly reformed and began to stretch one of his claws out at us. Huh, so that’s how Kazooie sprayed eggs from her mouth… I had always wondered about how that felt for mom to do. That really hurt my throat and now I know I needed to figure out how to do that without causing self injury. How in the world was Chaos still asleep after that and why did it only take a quarter of his life bar?

As Banjo dodged out of the way he noticed Screwball suddenly having a coughing fit and a few wisps of black smoke pouring out of his suddenly haggard looking living weapon. He decided he couldn’t subject Screwball to anymore Pony Pitcher mode and slung her onto his back despite the pony complaining that she was fine; he didn’t buy it for one second.

I’m fine, would be something to yell if I could but that baseball grenade really took a lot out of my actual voice, but it didn’t bother my silent protagonist voice one bit. So there was a really good reason to learn that language, Kazooie said she learned it in case she ever lost her voice again from shouting at dragons.

Chaos stalked forward having completely reformed pulling back its left arm and Banjo started forward after I had my hooves well wrapped around his neck and his waist. Chaos slammed its arm into the ground and a whirlpool appeared in front of a charging Banjo who jumped as a tentacle whipped out at him. He wouldn’t have cleared the whirlpool as the tentacle came around for a second pass if it had not been for him having a partner this might have hurt.

I quickly spun my propeller using what little chaos magic I had to my name and felt my legs stretch slightly as I carried Banjo up and forward over the rest of the whirlpool to a safe landing. Chaos’s arm was stuck in the ground until he stopped using the whirlpool and that gave Banjo ample opportunity to rush up and slap him with a quick left and right before putting his left foot on Chaos’s chest and giving him a hard kick.

Chaos partially splattered against the wall and his health went down another quarter and he was flashing invincibility frames this time as he reformed. I really wondered how he was managing to stay asleep through all this; I really didn’t know how much longer I could keep supporting Banjo.

“You okay Screwball? He’s only got two hard blows left and I think I can take him without your help if you’re too tired.” Banjo was a really sweet guy; he really did deserve that giant bee girlfriend of his.

I gave him the go ahead to kick ass, but I’m not out of this fight yet. I really had to wonder how Kazooie did all this tag team stuff without problems.

Chaos leapt two his triangular two toed feet, he stalked forward and then his body started spinning around lazily whipping his liquid claws out at us. Banjo quickly started to run around the enclosed battlefield as Chaos continued to follow him his spinning getting faster and faster. It was a good thing this realm included the ability to move faster because I don’t think Banjo would have been able to normally outrun this thing as it tried to ram into him and by association me.

After a few moments Chaos stopped and stood completely still, Banjo ran forward squatted down and then in surprise burst of energy he barged forward and shoulder charged Chaos. Chaos once again was reduced to a puddle form as he slammed into the ground from the honey bear body check; he sloshed back up sluggishly with only a quarter of his health remaining.

Then Chaos decided to change its tactics on us, he shot out his arm and soon he was on one of the four light poles in the area. Both me and Banjo blinked, well crap there was no way Banjo would be able to shimmy up one of those light poles nor would he be able to jump between them as fast as Chaos could with his stretchy arms and extending fingers. Banjo quickly ran out of the way of one of its fist and nearly ran into the other, apparently being closer to being awake gave him some form of higher brain function to stay out of range of our attacks. Whenever we got to one light pole he’d immediately grapple to another to continue a barrage of stretching arm attacks.

I was getting thoroughly annoyed by this point, outside the battle zone Goombella frowned and the pegasus was trying to breach the battle barrier trying to help us. Ugh, I was beginning to feel righteously angry that this guy hasn’t woken up yet; before I knew it I found myself being hugged tightly to Banjo’s chest as he rolled us out of the way of another attack and took a blow to his back for me when Chaos launched its other arm.

Okay now I was steaming mad and I couldn’t do anything or think of anything to help, I scratched the back of my head to think of something when I felt it…. strange I normally didn’t have a bit of wood sticking out the back of my neck, but then I remember I had a baseball bat I could throw at Chaos. In my righteous fit of anger I quickly slung my hoof forward and despite the fact that I didn’t reach into my hat, there went my baseball bat flying through the air end over end and automatically charging up on its own.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Goombella watch my bat fly through the air with a bit of nostalgia and the pegasus was completely surprised by the sudden appearance of the long piece of wood. It slammed into Chaos’s head and with the same ping sound it always had when charged fully. Chaos almost seemingly atomized in the general direction of the ground in a small rain shower and my bat disappeared instantaneously once its job was done.

The battle zone soon dropped and the small blue drops of liquid chaos started to slowly flow together and soon the awakened Chaos Zero was in front of us with his green vibrant eyes completely open. He stalked for us again looking at me until Banjo brought his paws up into fist growling a bit, Chaos hesitated.

After a moment I crawled off of Banjo’s back and made my way towards him despite Banjo’s protest that he could still be dangerous. I saw something of myself in him; I think he was sorry he attacked us. Slowly I reached out my right hoof and he reached out his right arm, his three claws melded together as they enwrapped my hoof and both our eyes started to glow.

His sadness and past was revealed to me immediately along with his love for his mother Tikal, I shared my own sadness and the fact that I missed Mr. Cold Spot my pet ice cream cloud and how I met Kazooie. I think I’ve just met someone I can relate to on a personal level.

Elsewhere in Equestria.

Pinkie bucked a tree and a load of apples fell down into the basket, sugar cube corner was almost finished being rebuilt and until then she was using her honorary family member card to work on the Sweet Apple Acres farm. She wiped the sweat from her brow and looked up to the sky with a smile.

“Say Mr. Cold Spot, do you think you could hit me with a few cotton candy flavored scoops please?” Pinkie opened her mouth wide open and frosty scoops of ice cream rained down into it. Sure Mr. Cold Spot couldn’t do the raining chocolate milk thing, but at least he could do chocolate ice cream when he needed to. The cloud was in good hooves until his owner Screwball came back.

Train through Terror

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Derpy really wanted to go home; to bad for her that getting out of the video game dimensions requires an expert dimensional jumper and someone who’s been to Equestria already. So this means unless we could find Kazooie or at least her file two, Derpy wasn’t going anywhere and was stuck with us. Hey at least we knew someone who knew where her home dimension was.

Unfortunately we were also stuck with a walking pile of liquid chaos energy that kept poking the pegasus and was asking me about her chaos energy since he was very hard to talk to and I was the only one that could translate gibberish about as well as Kazooie could.

“Well gee Ms. Hooves, Chaos here says that you have a bit of chaotic energy in you… you wouldn’t happen to be born from it would you? It kind of made him sleep chase you all the way here.” What can I say, I was curious. I knew very well that Screwball was born of a large amount of chaos energy and hashed together random earth pony genetics. It’s probably why Screwball had the spiral pupils instead of normal pony eyes, well not that Derpy’s eyes were normal either they were kind of walled.

“Oh that must be from my grandmothers curse, you see my grandma is named Rusty Hooves and she had a curse placed on her by her grandmother. She has the ability to rust any metal she touches; it’s kind of funny because she’s a metallurgist by trade and I wish Rainbow would stop telling scary campfire stories about her. The curse she gave me the ‘Living in interesting times’ curse, it makes a lot of strange things happen to me and also made my eyes kind of wonky.” Ms. Hooves was a friendly sort; however she wouldn’t stop glancing at Goombella who tended to shy away from her and towards Screwball. The answer begged another question which Chaos directed to Banjo.

“Chaos here says he can remove the curse.” Banjo waited for a response from the grey coated mare, after a moment of what might have passed for a thoughtful look she reached behind her back with a hoof and pulled out a muffin with a cheesy grin and bit into it. After waiting a few more moments for her to finish her muffin they all leaned forward waiting for her response.

“Are you seriously kidding me? I’m not giving up my curse, it’s awesome! Also it’s a Hooves family tradition to do strange things, like my cousin Hugh Jelly Hooves who lives in a giant jar of jam. Just don’t ever use his homes bathroom or even ask to, it’s really quite horrifying.” She threw her hooves in the air and flared out her wings to illustrate how awesome her ‘interesting times’ curse really was, before moving on to more simpler topic of her cousin with a sense of dread hanging about her. After a moment she paused raising a hoof to her chin before addressing Banjo. “How often do I get to meet a talking honey bear? Fluttershy is never going to believe me the next time I see her. I think I’m her only other friend then those usual five she hangs out with.”

Everyone had fallen on their butts at Derpy’s declaration of being cursed by her grandmother to be awesome, afterwards they just got back to their feet and continued to listen to the out of depths stranger. Banjo coughed gaining everyone’s attention when she was finished jabbering on.

“Well if we’re all quite done playing around in Twinkle Park… I guess it’s time for Screwball and Ms. Hooves to come along I’ve got to get Screwball to cartoon training that Kazooie set up.” I was already late picking up Screwball and getting out of this quill filled realm. Traveling arrangements between game worlds isn’t exactly easy. I was about to walk off with Screwball and Ms. Hooves when I was halted by a slow sloshing noise and a slight grumbling from the brown Goombella. Speaking of which, wasn’t she supposed to be pink? Must have had changed her colors for some reason, not really hard to do that these days just like tattoo’s which aren’t at all permanent on a video game character unlike it is on everything else.

“Well I was only supposed to pick up my sisters adopted pony. I wasn’t exactly expecting extra company, so this is a pony only pick up. So sorry Goombella, but you can’t come along.” I kind of felt bad for putting a sad frown on that goomba’s face; she was a partner character and tended to get lonely without someone to pal around with. I should know Kazooie gets intensely lonely without me to bounce her jerk behavior off of. “Say what university are you working at right now?”

After a few moments I managed to get Goombella to cheer up, at least we’ll be in contact when she gets around to talking to my other sister Tooty. Goombella was in this world studying the Chao and how each of the power cores and animals from the enemies here react to them. Goombella smiled and ran up to Screwball; she pulled out a bag then somehow managed to hand over a badge by placing it into her hoof with a note before running off.

Screwball unfolded the note and silently read it, while Banjo stood waiting with the winged pony.

“Goombella has left your party, unwillingly I might add as I really haven’t talked to many cartoon characters before and you probably just weren’t going my way anyway. It was nice meeting you and you have quite the hammer throw going for you even if it was a baseball bat. Use this badge in good health; you probably won’t need to worry about badge points since you’re a cartoon character and it reminded me of your eyes. Here’s what it basically does. See you later, your friend Goombella.”

A quick once over, Screwball looked at the eight pointed star badge that was red with a white spiral. Video game items and vehicles worked differently from abilities, they don’t backfire and always work the way they’re expected to. Whether or not this means an item is very useful must come up quite often, like that health restoring mushroom Screwball still had under her hat. She swiftly attached the badge to the inside of her flying propeller hat and then will probably just as quickly forget it. That was not likely since she had made a friend who gave it to her to remember them by. Screwball turned to Banjo and said that she was finally ready to go, stuffing the note into her hat space.

“Well okay guys let’s go.” The three of us started walking towards the entrance of Twinkle Park and suddenly we heard a slow methodical sloshing sound following us. We turned around and saw Chaos still following us, humorously enough he shaped himself into a pony. He said something to me since I could obviously understand the gibberish coming from what amounted to Chaos’s nonexistent vocal chords. Screwball could only understand him when they were touching; well there was the fact that his eyes were very expressive. He really looked like he wanted to come with us.

Chaos’s head was still the same if with the additional length to give him a pony style muzzle and his tail was actually one of his three clawed arms, plus he was still all blue and his eyes were still solid green. Every now and then you could see parts of his nervous system and brain appearing in his head. He was still the same creepy sad background villain creature that had a horrendous amount of power for his limited health capacity in set combat conditions.

“Well I guess I did say I was picking up ponies… ” I turned around and sighed slightly, who knows what kind of mischief Chaos could get up to following me around. In any case we exited Twinkle Park and made way for dimensional travel point in Station Square. It was the local train station and we were setting off for The Lot, a common gathering place for cartoon related video game characters. After we boarded the train I pulled out my personal plot device and wrote a text message to Kazooie telling her I was on my way to The Lot to meet her contacts that would show up there.

“Next game stops will be at Half Life Two City Thirteen, the general Resident Evil realms, Metro 2033 and The Lot.” The announcer for railway destinations said. Those places were nice this time of year, especially if you had an infinite ammo code on hand and a love of shotgun negotiations.

“You might want to get some sleep Screwy, we’ve got some time before we arrive there.” I saw Screwball yawn and complain that she wasn’t tired; well she had to be after expending her energy helping me fight Chaos. I kind of wish I had the backpack so I could get her a blanket or at least let her use it as a knapsack. Instead I just gave her my thigh and she snuggled up to me, gosh she was so darn cute. Was it any wonder she won the child loving heart of my dreaded sister?

Well Kazooie wasn’t exactly the most dreaded character in the video game realms. She was the most dreaded partner character for her incredible battle versatility and cunning, not to mention her impossibly quick matchmaking skills but that was a thing common with breeding seagulls. I still wondered if Kazooie would ever find someone like me that could get her to settle down a bit. She’s way to afraid of turning into her Nuts and Bolts version to even consider quitting the adventure business.

That reminded me, wasn’t her birthday coming up soon? She was born in Banjo-Kazooie and that brought back memories. I miss the guys from Diddy Kong Racing… even Wizpig. I still talk to Taj the elephant every once in a while. To think Timber has moved on and become Trophy Thomas… I miss the old days; heard Tip Tup Turtle is having problems finding work. Still though, what do you get for a character that’s always out exploring and getting stuff on adventures?

“Um… Mr. Banjo, Where are we?” It was about this time that I noticed that I had an audience of two still awake pony beings… well at least one was a pony, the other was doing a good mimicry of transformational magic that I usually end up under. I guess Chaos was just as intrigued as he looked out the window, I guess he never traveled far from his home realm. I just sat there gently petting Screwball’s fluffy curly mane while trying to think of what to tell Ms. Hooves.

“Well Ms. Hooves we’re on a dimensional train bound for Half Life Two and then several others game realms before we get to our destination. We’re in the space between realms and we can travel between our worlds in multiple ways, this one is both convenient and inconvenient at times.” After a few moments of Derpy digesting what I said, she smiled. I think she may have traveled through time and space before so she must be used to this kind of thing. Within a few moments the entire train car became cold and a freaky tall pale man in a business suit opened the door to the train car and walked in. I looked at him and recognized who he was.

“Excuse me… but… is Mr. Freeman in here?” He had a cold sounding business style voice and those who see him tended to get freaked out for varying reasons. Anyone who came near him felt weird around the G-Man, except for a being of equal or greater power. I, Kazooie and quite a lot of video game characters knew what the G stood for and we didn’t talk about it.

“Nope, try the next train car.” I really didn’t want to deal with G-Man right now; he had this annoying habit of butting into other people’s business randomly. Plus he was giving Screwball nightmares by the way she was shuddering up against me for warmth.

“Thank you… I will.” With a flicker he was gone and the door was shut like he had never been there in the first place.

“Um… what was… no… I think I’ve seen the Doctor deal with enough of those types to know what he was. It’s one of those don’t ask about it guys isn’t it?” Well color me surprised that Derpy figured it out so fast, it was usually a game of twenty questions until you figured it was better to never ask in the first place.

Chaos however just didn’t seem fazed at all by the G-Man’s appearance or sudden lack of being there; he likely already knew what G-Man was and would likely make sure G-Man didn’t bother us.

“Yeah, it was one of those guys. Say Chaos, can you please wake me up when we get to our destination? I’m going to get some sleep as well. Just remember that our stop is The Lot.” The only answer I received was a nod, good enough for me. Now to tilt my head back and snoring mode activate, sleeping came easily to me like always. I was soon dully dreaming of my comfy chair back home… and a giant female humanoid bee cuddling me.

This left the other cartoon pony and a being of chaos liquid to converse.

“So, do you like muffins? I think I still have some from my special air pocket, I wouldn’t mind giving one to you.” Derpy was always one to make friends with new strange amorphous liquid chaos energy beings that could take on pony shapes. She had always had this strange air pocket behind her back where she kept her muffins and they stayed fresh from when they are placed there, she almost always had a fresh warm muffin on hoof. In truth it was a classic cartoon ability of having a spatial pocket behind her back.

After a moment Chaos said something to the affect that even if he did answer, she wouldn’t be able to understand him anyway. It was just a bunch of sloshing, squishing noises and random gibberish vocalizations from the mare’s perspective.

“That’s why I asked you a yes or no question silly, of course I can’t understand anything your saying so I’m assuming you said something to the effect that I wouldn’t be able to understand you.” Derpy giggled as she saw the surprise on Chaos’s face, he was a silly and friendly super powerful being of destruction.

After a moment of thought, Chaos just decided to look confused and give a shrug to Derpy. To be honest he’d never had a muffin before and he knew Derpy Hooves name so she wasn’t a stranger offering food and she didn’t have the spirit of hatred or anger like the fat man. When he was young and not an immortal chaos being that can disrupt the balance of things easily, almost all he ever had to eat was fruit not for his mother’s lack of trying to get him to eat anything else other then the obvious Chao chow fruit.

“You’ve never had a muffin!” Derpy shrieked both her eyes were focused on looking at him in protest that he had to be joking. No one could go through life without eating at least one and if they were allergic to certain things then a hypoallergenic muffin at least. It was sad to never see a happy smile on someone’s face after a good muffin was taken in.

Chaos could swear he hadn’t said anything to that effect to Derpy, but he cringed nonetheless at her shriek of disbelief. Banjo only groaned slightly before continuing to cuddle Screwball who had snuggled her way into his lap like a kitten upon the not so quiet scream.

Derpy pulled a muffin from behind her back and told Chaos to take a small bite to start off and to actually enjoy the muffin. She wasn’t giving him another one any time soon as she already had so few left for herself. As part of her ‘interesting times’ curse, if she wasn’t kept relatively happy and full of muffins things tended to get set on fire quite fast.

A few slow bites into the muffin, the bits just floated into his body and dissolved slowly. After a moment he shoved the entire muffin into what passes for his mouth and his eyes smiled and soon drops of liquid chaos started to fall from his eyes, they eventually rolled right back into him anyway. Derpy just got him hooked on her favorite form of drug.

The stop at Half Life Two went relatively well, except for the head crab that tried to take off Derpy’s head. The train security; a man named Marco Rossi, handled that well enough with a perfectly placed pistol shot and then a knife slash after getting close up to it to make sure it stayed dead. One man in a jumpsuit wearing glasses got off the train complaining about the lack of crowbars and then the train continued on its way.

On the way to the next stop Derpy would regale Chaos with tales of Equestria, ones she was pretty sure Screwball lived as well. The stories seemed to enthrall Chaos almost as much as the muffin did, he gurgled happily at Derpy keeping him company. Eventually they both fell asleep too.

With a sudden jerk of the train stopping again an hour later, Chaos was instantly awake when he noticed the sound effect of Marco’s pistol going off and looked towards the door to see him firing rapidly and wildly. Sloshing over he looked out and saw a hoard of zombies surrounding three people backing their way towards the train.

“Jill, Barry, get on that train now!” Leon Kennedy was not having a good day as he quickly stabbed a knife through the skull of a zombie, quickly pulling his knife from its skull he turn around and ran for the train with Marco giving him covering fire.

“Where you folks heading? Hopefully not to Metro 2033, it’s been iffy this time of year and the train pilot really doesn’t even want to stop there.” Marco idly asked.

“Please, anywhere is better than our apocalyptic world, even Dead Rising would be better than this. At least that world is fun when you can get a mega buster. Besides we’re almost out of ammo and I really need a typewriter right about now.” Jill really disliked her crap sack world; at least she didn’t have to live there.

After watching the scene calmly Chaos just shrugged and went back to sleep, he laid his head on Derpy’s back as the doors closed.

At the next stop things just got weird, everyone woke up when the entire train shuddered including me and as a bear I wasn’t happy to have my nap cut short as I caught the short end of an anouncement.

“Metro 2033… excuse the enemies trying to board us, our train security should handle it. If not prepare your combat abilities for mutants if you’re used to fighting them.” The three passenger humans in our train car groaned, they pulled out their pistols and inserted fully loaded clips into them. “We apologize for any inconvenience.”

“I swear these cheap trains shouldn’t really pass through so many dangerous dimensions.” I readied my paws to start swinging, Chaos started growing spikes all over his body in a way that was reminiscent of Alex Mercer or another backlight virus hero, the resident humans were all aiming the guns at the doors and soon they slid open to reveal a man in a very strange suit and a lot of dead mutants behind him. He silently boarded the train without question as we all stared at him.

“That’s more badass then a Jill sandwich.” Barry said before he was knocked out by a solid blow across the face by the so named Jill Valentine. After a few moments he got up and apologized to Jill.

“Next stop The Lot.” The train announcer paused and after a moment he said something that suddenly caused just about everybody still on the train to freak out. “Oh and there’s a Licker tearing ass to your car of the train that has gone unnoticed until now Marco, could someone please go take care of that? Tarma is kind of having problems with it.”

Screwball looked to me and asked me the question, what in the world was a Licker and why in the world did she get this sense of dread when it was mentioned? Well I would have answered… but the Licker broke down the door to our train car sending Marco’s partner Tarma Roving flying past us. It really shouldn’t have been surprised to find itself suddenly under a heavy barrage of bullets, the Resident Evil guys eventually had to stop firing to reload and so did the man named Artyom. Marco was a game character that could fire endlessly; he even threw a grenade to knock the Licker back.

Both the ponies had taken comfort in each other and were shuddering as far away from that thing trying to claw its way back into the train car as they could. Banjo was standing in front of them protectively with his paws crossed over his chest.

“That’s scarier than some of the things even I’ve seen, but I’ve seen worse.” Screwball scrutinized Derpy after that comment. Way scarier than a changeling to be sure, but where has Derpy been to think she’s seen scarier than that monstrosity with a visible brain? Screwball asked as much while I just sat there watching the creature suffer under a large amount of gun fire from two army killing experts from Peregrine Falcon squad, the Resident Evil guys and a Russian accented man.

“Well this isn’t the first time I got stuck outside of Equestria, but it is certainly the first time I’ve been to the world of video games. So is this your first time outside Equestria?” Derpy blankly watched the creature give off its death cry and soon it had the humans run up to it to stomp on and kick it to make sure it staid dead. Lickers certainly could take a beating, far more then the Cybermen or the Daleks ever could.

Well yeah it was Screwball’s first time; at least she didn’t have to go through all this alone and had another pony to confide in.

“Well then let me tell you about these things called weeping angels… you blink and you’ll miss them possibly killing you or sending you into the past to be your own grandmother…. long story, but let me tell you about it.” The human type game characters sat down to listen to a good horror tale, even that guy that just introduced himself as Artyom to his gun wielding survival horror compatriots.

By the time we arrived Marco had already figured out how to dispose of the dead Licker's body. We, that would be me, Screwball, Derpy and Chaos, simply got off without much fanfare bidding goodbye to the other characters and walked up to The Lot and saw plenty of colorful characters running around. Screwball turned to me as me asking if this is where she would learn about being a cartoon character.

“Welcome to…” I started, but then I was interrupted by three characters who were the heroes of this realm. Apparently they were more present in their own realm then other video game heroes usually are.

Animaniac’s main video game realms innate ability: Cartoon dash attack capability. Platforming physics applied.

“Hold it, that’s our cue to butt in on your business, welcome to The Lot visitors. Hello there, I’m Yakko and this is Wakko and…” As he said this Yakko was joined by his brother Wakko in declaring who they were together.

“We’re the Warner brothers!” They proclaimed proudly before Yakko pointed to the third strange character in their group.

“And the Warner sister Dot… technically my full name is Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the Third Warner. I prefer Dot, call me Dotty and you’ll lose a life so fast you’ll be asking the reaper how you died in the first place and he’s a good friend of ours. Also I’m so adorably cute aren’t I?” She struck pose with the back of her gloved hands underneath her chin then did the puppy dog eye thing cartoon characters were known for.

I was already thinking it; please tell me Kazooie didn’t assign these three to help Screwball to learn of her cartoon heritage. A bear can only handle so much stress.

Zippety Splat

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It wasn’t long until we found who would help me learn to cartoon it up, fortunately for Banjo’s nerves it wasn’t the Warner trio. In fact he almost caused everyone including Chaos to jump feet into the air from the sudden shock of his appearance.

“MEEP MEEP!” Screwball literally reached for the sky as the blue and purple bird standing behind where she used to be smiled at the dot in the sky, his friend Kazooie said she met a cartoon character that needed to learn the basics.

Chaos’s reaction was to do a cartoon dash attack straight through a nearby wall leaving a pony shaped imprint in it. Banjo gave a small jolt causing the shortest jump. Derpy shot straight into the nearby clouds with a loud thud sound. The Warner brothers and their sister who had been entertaining guests to their world just jumped six feet before relaxing as they squashed hitting the ground and stretched back into shape. Seconds later Derpy would fly down carrying a sheepish looking Screwball.

“Yeah video game clouds are pretty solid aren’t they?” Yakko said childishly as he poked a bump on Derpy’s head. “In fact anyone can stand on them if they’re in the right game; you might want to put some ice on that.”

Within a minute of noticing the bump on Derpy’s head, Screwball pulled out a fully functional and cold ice pack from her propeller hat. It was accepted readily enough by Derpy, who placed it against her bump with a sigh. After a few moments the swelling went down and she hoofed it back to Screwball.

“You sure she needs training? She looks like she already got some of the cartoon spirit in her.” Dot smiled sweetly up at Banjo.

“Oh yeah, she definitely needs to learn the art. Hey Screwball, show them your pie and banana routine. Then I’ll introduce you properly to this guy here.” Banjo wrapped a friendly paw around the tall long legged bird who gave a soft fluting noise with flicks of its tongue. “So anyone want to volunteer for her?”

“I’ll do it, I love getting pie in my face.” Wakko smiled as he stepped forward, black and white fur, red hat and blue shirt with white gloves. It was really hard to describe what he and the other Warner’s were, his brother wore the pants in the family and his sister wore the skirt.

Screwball made her way forward and reached into her cap to pull out a banana cream pie, expecting it to be thrown in his Wakko smiled and took a proud dignified stance. Instead of receiving the pie in the face Screwball set it down in front of him within stepping range and trotted back a few feet. Wakko stopped his pose looking confused as Screwball pulled out and started to slowly consume a banana.

All the while everyone except the Warner siblings stood off to the side watching the event unfold with confusion, even Wakko was a little perturbed that she didn’t throw the pie at him and set it down like an offering. He waited patiently because there was obviously more to this, still though the pie was incredibly tempting as it started to make him sweat.

Both Yakko and Dot hadn’t moved from where they were standing previously and were scrutinizing what Screwball was up to… so far it just seemed to be she was setting Wakko up for something.

“I’m not seeing it…” Yakko said scratching his head as he knew cartoon buffoonery when he saw it. If this was the best Screwball could do then she wasn’t a very good cartoon character. At least she could have used a time delayed spring loaded pie.

“I think I do.” Dot knew Yakko was the responsible and talkative one of the group with his zingers and Wakko may have the gross out abilities cornered in the group, but the Warner sister was the one who could see the opportunities to pick at. Screwball had everyone’s guard down perfectly with an opening distraction tactic. As cute as Screwball may be, even Dot knew that the cute ones could pull off very intricately built, if simple looking, tricks.

Screwball finishing her banana looked over to Derpy and asked her to stand right next to her. Derpy moved over beside Screwball as asked, then Screwball whispered something into Derpy’s ear and she nodded.

Dot scrutinized this, a patsy ploy… hmm… she was going to have Derpy do part of her trick for her and she’s agreed to it. Despite the fact that she looked like a patsy, Derpy was no idiot even if she had the weird eyes... so maybe patsy ploy isn’t the right word for it… a stand-in ploy maybe?

“I’d ask you what she’s doing, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise for myself or for Wakko.” Yakko started to scrutinize the exchange of banana peel to Derpy’s hoof; he started to see what Dot was getting at where before he couldn’t understand it because it required a certain amount of perspective.

Derpy reeled back her hoof and tossed the banana peel straight at Wakko’s face, at the time everyone was paying too much attention to Derpy and Wakko’s interaction. If they had paid attention they would see what Screwball was doing in the background as she started setting things up quickly before running off.

Wakko gave an angry shout when the banana peel hit home causing him to lose balance lifting his right foot in the air. When Wakko’s foot came down it landed on the edge of the banana cream pie, this was subsequently followed by it flipping upwards and slamming into his face just as he removed the banana peel from it. The banana peel flew from his hand and landed in the street behind him near some coincidentally placed planks of wood with four paint cans on the end longest piece sitting atop several other pieces balance precariously.

At this point Dot was no longer focused on her brother enjoying the pie that he slammed into his own face; she was watching the paint cans and the planks of wood. Her eyes slowly traced a path to the banana peel. If she didn’t know any better…

Yakko also saw where Dot was looking… he looked to his right and saw Screwball galloping down the street being chased by their favorite local security guard Ralph. Yakko had a smile on his face, Wakko still too busy with the pie. It was a beautiful thing going on and it was happening so fast.

Pausing at the right moment Screwball gave a short hop over the banana peel and put her left hind leg on it. Yakko’s eyes widened as he realized that Screwball wasn’t leaving it up to chance that Ralph would hit the banana peel. She was making sure that he hit it, so yeah she definitely needed training even if she was already pretty clever. The potential in that pony was astounding, if only she had left the banana peel where it was, it would have still worked anyway.

Screwball grinned slightly when Ralph was five feet away, she shoved the banana peel precisely under one of the large oafish mans feet and then ran for Wakko’s backside. The order of events were as follows: Derpy took to the air after giving a merry little wave to Wakko confusing him, Screwball rammed into Wakko from behind dazing him while forcing him into the position where Derpy was approximately standing, Ralph during this was mid way into falling onto the other end of the plank of wood with the paint cans having slipped on the banana peel. Four paint cans filled with red paint and loosened lids shot up and flipped over.

Ralph, Yakko, Wakko and Dot were covered in red paint. The two other Warner siblings had not expected to be part of the gag and took the brunt of their portion of the gag with the dignity in the only way a cartoon character could. With utter disbelief that they were all targeted and successfully nailed and left blathering like idiots as they pulled the paint cans off their heads and Ralph was left out cold as his paint can knocked him silly.

“What can we say, you may seem all black and white… but you’re easily red all over.” That line really clinched it for the Warner’s as it was Derpy who delivered it as she came for a landing next Screwball.

“Nice one, but trust me on this… you’ll eventually be able to do this entire gag on your own Screwball. We can see why she needs the help with learning the ropes. She might as well learn the knots while she’s at it, come on guys let’s show her a trick of our own.” The three black and white cartoon characters gathered together and with a quick tornado generating spin they were squeaky clean of the paint that had been covering them. You’d think a trio’s clothing would have been stained by the paint, but it wasn’t. “We’ve got to get going, nice meeting you and thanks for the show. Learn what you can from our more classic pal over there, he definitely knows his stuff and if you ever need any help just give us a call. If you manage to get Hello Nurses number I and Wakko will call you… until you give it to us, goodnight everybody!”

They ran off before Screwball could even ask them how she was going to call them; she didn’t exactly have a long distance communication device like Banjo. Plot devices were a common video game realm item used for dimensional communications that never needed satellite coverage or even a paid for plan. She soon received a comforting hoof from Derpy.

“I wouldn’t worry about it; if we see them we’ll see them. So Banjo you said this was going to be our instructor? Well as some pony once said to me, Allons-y!” The large purple bird smiled at Derpy happily, he was accepting of her wanting to learn. In fact the one thing Derpy really wanted to learn was the teleportation trick that Pinkie was capable of, because it certainly made a lot more sense now how Pinkie did that stuff and it was because she was what a fully realized cartoon character could do. She figured this much out because if Screwball is a cartoon character and from Equestria, that meant she was a cartoon too.

They were all still out in front area of the lot, the bird was introduced by Banjo as Road Runner and he would show them where they would be practicing the art of cartooning. Then with a small cloud shaped like him and a line of quickly dissipating dust clouds he was gone, both Screwball and Derpy quickly gave chase. Hanging back Banjo walked over to the Chaos punctured wall and picked up the still dazed pony shaped creature before walking in the general direction all slow and steady shouldering his passenger.

Screwball didn’t think anything could keep up with Mr. Runner; he was so fast it was impossible to see where he went and the only thing they could follow was the cloud left behind by his running. It ended at a door to a studio, Derpy came to a landing beside her as she reached a hoof up to the door and pulled it open and got the shock of her life.

Inside the building was an expansive and endless looking dessert with cactuses, sand and tons of precariously placed rocks. Stepping through the door way she was actually standing on real sand and it wasn’t as hot as she thought a dessert would be, not to mention next door was some arid badlands in the distance and behind her Ms. Hooves also stepped through the door.

“Wow… kind of like the TARDIS… bigger on the inside. Huh, I wonder if he knows about cartoons.” Derpy rubbed her chin and the door closed behind her and turning around she didn’t see the door anymore, they were just standing in a wide open dessert that wasn’t hot at all despite the sun in the sparsely cloudy sky.

Soon they heard a sound and saw Mr. Runner running down the nearby pavement and within a second he paused in mid-air and this writing exclaimed something like “Road Runner (Speedomitrus Maximus)” before he continued zipping along the road. This was followed by a bipedal wolf like being who paused again in front of them in mid-air on the road with the words “Wile E. Coyote (Hungarius Uncontrolibus)” then he too continued running at a great speed though slightly less than that of Mr. Runner’s.

Road Runner’s Death Valley Rally video game realm innate ability: Large maximum acceleration and maximum speed boosts, average platform jumping ability. Stopping may be a problem at times.

Deciding to keep up with them Screwball started after them not sure how she was able to run at their speed or how her legs looked like solid circles at the speeds she was pulling, funny this wasn’t how her legs acted in the realm of Sonic the Hedgehog nor did she ever get this kind of acceleration.

Derpy wasn’t having much trouble keeping up because she could fly surprisingly well, unfortunately many tended to get her flying abilities confused with her best friend Ditsy Doo. Sure Derpy may have butter hooves and a powerful rump, but that didn’t mean they had to constantly confuse her with her friend who had a completely different cutie mark even if they looked similar. Really she has three friends who looked almost exactly like her and if it weren’t for the minor differences and the fact that the DNA tests came back negative you’d swear they were all related to each other.

The blonde pegasus found her flying speed and wings to be buzzing at least twice their normal ability; she chalked it up to the odd thing that happened to her in the other realm when she was flying away from Chaos who was creepily following her in his sleep. Her wings then started to slowly build up in strength and power before they petered out like a two tailed fox that can’t fly forever with his tails.

As she rounded a corner in the road Screwball came to a skidding halt and stared confusedly at the scene going on, Derpy landed next to her and they looked at each other and then back at the bridge and what was taking place on it.

A little pile of bird seed with a sign proclaiming it to be free sat there and Mr. Runner was studying the bird seed before he started to rapidly peck at it eating it grain by grain. Slowly a saw roughly shoved its way through the bridge and slowly started to circle around the road runner whose name was Road Runner. Looking slightly downward the ponies could see the Coyote sawing the hole in the bridge and when he was finished Mr. Runner would fall. What happened was not to their expectations.

After he finished sawing the entire bridge collapsed with the coyote, it left a perfect circle in mid-air floating there with the Road Runner standing on it still consuming the bird seed. The coyote was most likely crushed under the weight of the collapsing tons of metal and the ponies didn’t know whether to feel sorry that the coyote died or rather to laugh at the absurdity of the situation of an entire bridge collapsing to leave a single piece to defy gravity. Road just gave a short hop fluting his tongue several times.

“Meep meep!” Road finished crossing the nonexistent bridge much to the confounded looks on the ponies faces, at the bottom of the chasm where the bridge lay they noticed the named Wile E. Coyote crawled out of the wreckage looking battered and bruised, but nowhere as dead as they thought he’d be.

Then the circular piece of the bridge that was still floating in the air fell and the coyote only managed two steps when it broke itself on his head. He seemed scary in the way he was chasing Mr. Runner and watching the final piece of the bridge hit him kind of made the ponies giggle a bit as he twirled in place like a ballerina and fell down.

They couldn’t hold it in anymore they started laughing till they cried, they didn’t like to watch the coyote get hurt but that was just plain silly enough to override their sense of sadness for the coyote. Screwball finally managed to calm down and she made her way down the road to the coyote, Derpy just decided to hover overhead as Screwball sped down the way and stopped short of the still breathing coyote.

“You know, I seriously want to know how he survived having a bridge dropped on him.” Derpy thought it was funny, but still kind of sad in a way.

“MEEP!” Both the ponies jumped and Road smiled to himself, he still had it and no one could take that away. Of course their entire shtick relied on his buddy’s ability to make others laugh even if it was still kind of sad to watch. Wile E. Coyote has matched wits with Bugs Bunny and a sheep dog that had his cousin in traction for a week, but Road and Wile were still the A class cartoon tag team.

“What was that all about?” Derpy said motioning a hoof to the currently conked out coyote and Screwball was also looking to Road for an answer.

“That, my dear pony was a scene of classic slapstick. I of course like to think there is no good and evil in our cartoon, but people tend to put me in the antagonist light because I need to eat to live. Not that I’m always feeding my rival and hardly ever get fed myself, but thus is life. I’m Wile E. Coyote super genius… well technically there’s nothing genius about me and all the acme props I use are always going to horribly backfire. It’s a matter of timing as if it were to make it undoubtedly hilarious.” The eloquent voice made both the ponies jump and the turned around to see the coyote looking perfectly fine and was dusting his left arm off with his right hand.

“But… an entire bridge fell on you… shouldn’t you need a hospital?” Derpy was confused, seconds ago she could have sworn that the coyote had been grievously injured and now looked perfectly fine now.

“That is the first thing you’ll learn about cartoon characters… we’re good actors and we have the abilities of Squash and Stretch to prevent even the most grievous of bodily injuries, also we heal ridiculously fast. My associate Road here told me he needed my help with something, so I agreed instantaneously to it by setting up the stunt at the bridge. We’re old comrades and as equally old vitriolic life partners when acting.” He moved over to Road and put an arm around the bird that didn’t even flinch and seemed to even lean into the Wile’s grasp throwing a wing around him as well. “He’s asked me to help you learn the importance of being able to squash and stretch yourselves as cartoons. We’ll show you a few of our commonly performed gags, depends on which ones Road wants to watch though he tends to have his preferences. He loves the things I can do with catapults and never tires of watching me get amusingly injured by them.”

Both ponies got to know a little about Mr. Coyote and even helped him build the catapult for his next laugh riot, Runner was just running randomly around the highway as he loved to do on his off days when he wasn’t being watched by an audience. Screwball couldn’t help but think the catapult thing reminded her of something as she helped lift a piece into place.

In Equestria at this very moment in time, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were experimenting with their catapult again.

“I still say this is going to end poorly unless we get Miss Philomena to watch us.” Sweetie Belle wanted the phoenix around to make sure they didn’t end up covered in sap again, everything they do gets them covered in sap.

“Nonsense Sweetie Belle, we don’t need a phoenix around to keep watch of us all the time… just when we need her to keep us from making mistakes when we build things.” Apple Bloom didn’t exactly sound sure of herself, then Scootaloo rode up to the catapult as fast as she could on her scooter for some big air.

The following events just couldn’t be described due to time constraints. In the end Scootaloo was on her back wiggling her legs in the air glued to both behinds of Sweetie and Apple whose butts that were also stuck tightly together. Scootaloo’s head was embarrassingly on Sweetie’s backside looking to the sky.

“How in the hay did this happen to us? Better yet why does this always happen to us? I even checked out a book from the library to study up on tree’s that give off sap and there isn’t a sap bearing tree within five hundred feet of us!” Both the other Cutie Mark Crusaders were staring at Scootaloo; she actually bothered to read a book without getting bored? “Don’t look at me like that you two, Rainbow Dash reads books so I thought I’d read up on sap producing tree’s… I think we’ve defied the laws of everything natural by getting covered in sap the way we do!”

“Sweetie Belle, you’re no longer the dictionary of the group.” Apple Bloom said plainly causing an irate little pegasus to growl as she tried to get the upper half of her body loose to pounce at Apple Bloom. This was a mistake as Scootaloo was now lifting the weight of her two friends on her back slamming her face first into some nearby mud.

Back in the video game world with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote and a completed catapult.

“Now as you may have noticed, we’ve built a catapult that works perfectly fine right? Well in this situation you’d be wrong… sorely wrong. Now back up and watch me and Runner at work. I do a pretty good catapult joke if I do say so and my objective is to hit the Road Runner with the boulder I have emplaced upon it.” They tested the catapult before and it worked perfectly… the ponies wondered how they could be wrong and the Coyote wasn’t very forthcoming with an answer as he motioned for them to get back.

Road Runner ran on by the catapult along the road and Wile E. Coyote pulled the launch chord, then the most ridiculous thing happened. The entire catapult flipped over and landed on Wile E. Coyote, the boulder even look like it was glued to the launch plate. Despite the fact that they shouldn’t be laughing at his pain both ponies was left in an uproar on the ground, then Wile E. Coyote pulled himself out from under the catapult wreckage looking like a slinky that actually made accordion sounds. That just made them laugh harder.

“Oh my Celestia, why is that so funny and why can’t I stop laughing.” Derpy couldn’t help herself; she had expected the catapult to function normally and was now crying tears of joy at how silly the turnout was.

“Cartoon characters prerogative, we make people enjoy life and nothing helps like a good laugh at the unexpected and the bizarre. Also it helps that a cartoons biggest defense mechanism is laughter.” The coyote then bit his thumb and inhaled through his nose and he blew with his mouth, his eyes bugged out before the rest of his body popped back into shape.

“Well I guess that really explains Pinkie Pie then, she’s the element of laughter in our world. She does all sorts of crazy things to make people happy and can put a smile on just about any pony’s face.” Derpy wanted to be able to do that too; she knew she was almost as good as Pinkie in making other’s happy.

Screwball looked ready to learn how to Squash and Stretch; she even asked Wile how he managed to do it and how they can learn to do it too.

“Well my dear Screwball, the mark on your flank pretty much claims you as one of us already and quite frankly being a cartoon character is mostly instinct and putting your heart into it, being silly and making no sense at all. In fact you could say it revolves entirely around being….” After a moment the Coyote pulled out a paddle ball toy and started to bounce it multiple times. “A bit childish if you will, to tell physics to stop working whenever it’s convenient. We’ll help you get up to speed. Now you mentioned someone named Pinkie? We could use her as an example if you can name a few things she’s done.

Captured Kazooie

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Screwball looked up and turned her head back to Coyote with a question about all this being really necessary, seriously she didn’t think having a ten ton boulder dropped on her would really help her one bit.

“Well of course it’s important you daft young female cartoon equine. Road is about to drop it and how you react to the situation will tell us what you need to focus on to pull on your potential.” The Coyote sighed; he did favors like this for Road why?

On a nearby hilltop and out of the way of the sporadic enemy emplacements, which were mostly scorpions and a few flying grenade bombs, there was a picnic brewing. Watching through a pair of binoculars Banjo sighed, school of hard knocks those cartoon video game crossed characters.

“I don’t know Miss B, cartoon characters usually don’t exactly know how much they can take until they die. They tend to follow more real world physics as much as they ignore them. They can actually realistically bleed for one; we video game characters really don’t do that unless we’re programmed for it.” Sitting across from Banjo was a giant shapely humanoid bee named Honey B. who smiled sweetly at the honey bear.

“Well I’m sure she’ll be fine… well as long as she is prepared for injury. I heard that even if a cartoon character can shunt a large amount of injury from their bodies they can still get hurt from stress of shunting what would amount to a mortal wound.” A sloshing occurred to the left of the humanoid bee and there was Chaos still in pony form and eating or more likely absorbing a pile of fruit slowly.

“He’s right; we should just enjoy the picnic. It’s so nice that you could join us Miss B, not often do you see NPC’s willing to travel.” Banjo dipped a biscuit into some honey and took a bite out of it.

“It’s nice to be here Banjo, unfortunately I find myself highly lacking in importance after Banjo-Tooie. Then I look to see you’re being dragged into another of your sister’s zany adventures. NPC’s like me aren’t exactly useful anymore.” Sighing slightly the giant female bee’s wings wilted.

“Who says you’re not important, you are to me even if you’re only an apprentice of the honey.” Banjo reached over with a paw and pulled her face up to look into his dopey soft eyes and the smile on his face. After a moment a blush crossed both their faces. “Besides your safer not following me or especially Kazooie around, she has more enemies then most hero characters.”

The sound of a boulder hitting the ground caught all of their attentions; the ten pound boulder had a ton of power rings spilling out from under it. After a moment Coyote approached it only to have the boulder split in perfectly in half and crushed him under five tons of weight. Standing where the boulder had split was a dizzy looking Screwball with a baseball and a screw slowly circling her head and she stumbled around a bit before falling to her butt. After a moment she shook her head and sighed, well there goes every power ring she ever had on her.

“Wow she’s definitely got the cartoon spirit. She’s even managed to do the little birdie or star thing… but it matches the symbol on her flank. I think she really likes being unique.” Honey was rather amused at the situation and Banjo nodded, Screwball had a bucket load of power rings. Chaos for his part had watched the shower of power rings with what amounts to childish joy, he always liked watching power rings fly all over the place even if they quickly disappeared.

A beeping sound was heard and banjo reached into his right pocket of his yellow short s and pulled out a plot device to hold it up his ears. He really should switch off the Metal Gear Codec ring tone.

“Kazooie, what do you need?” Banjo only had four real numbers connected to his plot device, one was notably named Honey Bosoms and the other two was his sisters Kazooie and Tooty. Goombella was a recent addition; making it well known Banjo doesn’t get out much except for groceries and his girlfriend.

“Hey Banjo remember what happened to me during Grunty’s Revenge? Well I’ve got good news, bad news and worse news… what would you like to hear first? Oh and put me on three dimensional viewing, I want to see what’s going on where you are.” Banjo was unsure he wanted to do this with his girlfriend nearby, his sister and girlfriend tended to take potshots at each other. After a moment he did as she asked and she popped up from the phone in a green holographic digital representation of herself sitting in the middle of the blanket.

“Hey wasp girl, nice to see you can still get out and about with my brother.” Banjo slapped a paw over his face as Honey and the not so present Breegull started a glaring match.

“Yes, nice…. until you somehow called to drag my sweet Banjo into some horrible mess, but you are his sister and I can understand his need to help you even if you are a really big jerk.” Honey knew that Kazooie was used to dealing with royalty types, that Breegull has been in enough game worlds to know what to say to piss anyone off.

“Hold on, they are about to give the boulder test to Ms. Hooves.” The four figures turned towards the grey pony standing where the ten ton boulder had previously fallen and now there was another ten ton boulder prepped to crush another pony.

“Crap, the problem must be worse than I thought if you are picking up other ponies. I really should up my schedule for when I return to Equestria, well so much for the extra time for fun and games then. It’ll all be taken up in the rescue anyways!” Banjo wasn’t about to ask his sister what she meant, he just stayed quiet and waited to see what would happen to Miss Hooves. Since she now had a ten ton boulder dropping towards her. Even Kazooie was quiet at the sight.

Derpy was panicking turning quick circles and trying to think of anything other than being hit by the ten ton boulder. She only had seconds before impact before a half lit light bulb appeared above her head; she put her hoof in her mouth and inhaled through her nose. She tried to exhale through her mouth and her body inflated into a giant grey bubble with yellow spots on it. The boulder impacted with Derpy Hooves, but it didn’t do any damaged as it squished her heavily inflated body slightly and then it shot back up into the air flipping end over end. Derpy promptly returned to normal and watched the boulder slowly position itself as if by magic over the one guy who’s used to being hit by things that size.

The Coyote knew what was going to happen and quickly pulled out a sign and opened a tiny umbrella, the sign read ‘why me?’ and it was an apt placement as the shadow of the ten ton boulder appeared above him and Screwball.

Screwball looked up and gawked at the boulder and suddenly stretched her two left legs three feet to her left and in one step narrowly avoided the boulder hitting her. Coyote wasn’t as lucky as his body was smashed flat.

“Ouch, that must sting… but it wouldn’t be classic Coyote if he wasn’t being struck with boulders or falling off a cliff. So who’s the new recruit? And is that Chaos Zero from Sonic Adventure Two?” All the game characters on the plateau turned to the digital Kazooie. A NPC, a Hero and a Boss character having a nice picnic with tea is something you don’t see often in a world of cartoon related video game violence.

“Her name is Derpy Hooves and yes that’s Chaos, for some reason Derpy woke him up when she appeared in Sonic the Hedgehogs video game realms and he won’t stop following Screwball around.” Surprisingly Banjo telling her the pony’s name didn’t cause Kazooie to immediately burst out laughing, instead she looked surprisingly thoughtful.

“... wow…. that… thought I’d never see that pony for a while... she always appeared in the oddest of places.” Kazooie didn’t say much else as she stood their staring at the grey pony with a strange look. “Not my type and she’s already been with someone… to bad for me since she’s cute and really friendly. She’s also well traveled… like as in me well traveled and has a medical condition that requires her to eat muffins constantly. Not often you see another dimension hopper even if it’s somewhat involuntary.”

“Wow you’re not even within ten feet of her and you’re already reading her.” Banjo said with a sad smile, he decided to draw the discussion back to Kazooie and what she was doing at the moment calling him. “So what were you on about Kazooie?”

“Well there really wasn’t much to read Banjo, I’ve met her before… gave her part of a muffin and I think she was around when I claimed my princess status and title in Equestria. There was another pony that looks almost like her sister. Anyway, enough about that crap, let’s move on to the reason why I called.” Banjo, Honey B. and Chaos all appeared within view of Kazooie’s eyes and sat down. “Okay worst news first, I’ve been captured. Dead to Rights I can’t escape from where I’m being held, magic the shaman version or otherwise doesn’t help, my abilities can’t puncture their way out of this room and the guys that captured me thought of everything and I mean absolutely everything when it came to designing a prison with me in mind. This includes not having guards posted nearby for me to heckle and they separated me from my beloved backpack. The bad news is I’m bored out of my mind and I’ve had a lot of time to discover where I exactly am and you know what happens when my mind gets idle Banjo… oh and the good news is I managed to get a Celestriad Relic. Of the four things I have on me is a plot device, my Spec-O-Spy goggles, the Celestriad Relic and don’t ask me why I have them… but a pair of magnetically driven in-line skates from the Jet Set Radio realms.”

“How did you manage to keep a hold onto those items exactly and how exactly were you captured?” It was a good question and Banjo seriously wanted to know.

“Hell… do you seriously think I was going to be separated from the Celestriad Relic so soon after I went through all that trouble to get it? I swallowed every item I have on me except my Spec-O-Spy goggles; they really are effective at staying invisible to everything, the skates weren’t exactly easy to swallow you know. I guess all that Jiggy swallowing paid off like I said it would, I’m also so glad you didn’t put me on Codec for this conversation. I was frozen solid by an ice elemental attack that blindsided me and I didn’t really have much time to stash away stuff while my body froze over.” Kazooie crossed her wings and turned to Banjo and raised a brow waiting for a response.

“Well where exactly are you and since you’re technically a princess wouldn’t this make it a…” Banjo started to say and Kazooie quickly cut him off.

“Oh don’t dare say it Banjo, if you say it I’m so killing you when you finally do end up rescuing me!” Kazooie was serious, she would actually murder her brother in cold blood if he even so much as hinted at saying it, so he held his tongue.

“Oh my goodness, Kazooie’s a damsel in distress.” Honey B. burst out tittering into her hand and buzzing joyously at the thought of Kazooie being a damsel and in distress.

“You are so lucky that most NPC’s can’t be killed by normal means you stupid yellow jacket. Doesn’t mean I can’t find a large enough flyswatter though, I know where the Mario Paint realm is!” Kazooie groused out angrily. “Just get around to rescuing me after your done here; cartoon training sessions are notoriously short. I’m stuck in an underground facility in Clancer Empire City in the Mischief Makers realm; expect heavy resistance of whatever upon approach. Get Marina away from her Rakugaki Showtime battles to help me out if you can. I’m sure if you do enough damage to the cities surroundings you might possibly destroy the generators. That will deactivate the shields and spawn plate holding me in place, hopefully whoever’s behind capturing me doesn’t game over me before you get here. Have fun and a great adventure on my behalf figuring out how you’re getting here. Oh and make sure that new pony gets checked out by Doctor Mario, Kazooie out bro.”

The hologram bird winked out of existence and Banjo sighed, this was going to be interesting as he seriously doubted any number of Clancer’s could catch Kazooie by surprise. So they were dealing with an unknown enemy and possible enemy Clancer involvement.

Now all Banjo had to do was tell Screwball that Kazooie was kind of held up, who was he kidding she was going to go berserk and try to rush to Kazooie’s rescue the minute she hears about it. There was no telling her she wasn’t going on the rescue as well, because even if he did tell her to stay behind she’d find some way to follow him. He’d rather keep Screwball in view where’s she was much safer, as such she was going with him and Ms. Hooves could just go back to Spiral Mountain with Ms. B.

“Sorry Honey, but I think we have to pack up our picnic early… well after I’m done with my slice of honey nut pie.” Banjo lifted up a pie slice and quickly ate it and hummed at the flavor of honey and macadamia nuts. “Anyway do you think you can safely house Ms. Hooves for a while?”

“I know you have to go save your sister, I’ll finish packing up if Mr. Zero will assist… me?” The humanoid bee turned to the all the completely empty containers and the fact that Chaos was filled with every single left over scrap of food slowly dissolving away into his mass. “Well, I’ll still need to put the stuff away and get back to our dimension then. It was nice seeing you again Banjo and yes I’ll wait around to take Ms. Hooves with me. ”

Banjo received a kiss on the cheek from Honey B. before also getting a pat on the butt, causing them both to blush. Honey’s wings started buzzing as she hovered to pack away her things and working her way around the little plateau, a thought occurred to her and she smiled maybe she could send some bugs she knew to help Banjo in the rescue.

“I’m guessing you’re going to continue to follow me, Screwball and Ms. Hooves around?” Chaos just looked at Banjo in question and just simply nodded his head with the barest of movements causing more sloshing noises.

Chaos was really interested in where all this was going, not like he had all that much else to do except go back to the master emerald. His mom did say he needed to get out more and what was further out then an adventure with several nice strangers? Hey wait, where was the one known as Banjo going and the giant bee thing named Honey? He stood up slowly and jumped off the plateau following Banjo and Honey as they made their way towards the three cartoon characters below the cliffs.

Standing at the bottom of the cliffs the ten ton boulders were dropped from was Screwball and next to her was Derpy who smiled at having successfully deflected the boulder… onto her own instructor who proclaimed it to have been a good thing.

“Ah yes, I think I know what you both need to focus on, Screwball you need to learn to be a little less… rigid and logical… you can think up great things and you have the ability you just need to stretch your horizons more. You Ms. Hooves on the other hand… believe this or not… you need a sterner hold on reality, you almost popped yourself out of existence by turning into a bubble. Okay your training is complete.” Both Screwball and Derpy’s jaws literally dropped to the ground at Wile E. Coyote’s sudden proclamation of their cartoon status. “And that’s exactly the reaction cartoon characters would have to information that causes massive amounts of disbelief. What do you say Road?”

“MEEP MEEP!” The ponies jumped and their heads squashed against the ridge just five feet above their heads before slamming back into the ground followed by the ridge squashing them. Road and Wile just stood by and waited. After a moment Derpy peeled herself out from the rock stuck in the shape of a little grey muffin with wonky eyes and Screwball waddled out flat as a pancake on her equally flattened legs, one audible popping sound later from both of them and they were back to normal shape.

“How do you do the teleportation thing though?” It was why Derpy let herself be hit with a ten ton boulder anyway, so why not ask the question. Sure doing cartoon things made her feel weird and funny, but she felt perkier than usual after instinctively performing the squash and stretch.

“Oh that? You’ll figure it out all, cartoon character are different in small ways other than appearance even when we can all feasibly do the same things… it’s a matter of context and how sensitive you are to it. Always be funny my associates, now if you’ll excuse me.” The so called super genius figured now was a good time as any to give chase to the Road.

With a fluting of his tongue Road shot off towards a road leading to a tunnel followed closely by Coyote. Road Runner entered the tunnel just fine shortly after Wile E. Coyote was stopped like he had slammed into a solid wall at the tunnels entrance. When he fell down both ponies could see he was covered in paint and that the tunnel didn’t actually exist, it had been painted to look like it existed. Both ponies looked at the road leading up to the tunnel and how it ended abruptly... they looked at each other.

“I guess born be weird are cartoons huh?” Screwball finally said shocking Derpy as she had been speaking silent protagonist until this point. Derpy had never actually heard Screwball actively use her voice and was looking at her wide eyed.

“Pony apples, you can talk!” After a moment of silence to realize why Derpy was so shocked, Screwball burst out laughing. It was soon followed by Derpy chuckling merrily too, the background music shifted slightly to a more upbeat friendly tune.

Suddenly the background music shifted to a random amount of buzzing from a bee choir, this puzzled both the ponies until they turned around and just stared blankly at the humanoid bee that could be mistaken for a human version of a creature called a Zinger. Next to her was Banjo and in the background Chaos could be seen running slowly away from tiny airplanes with grenades in them and his legs were transforming into speed wheels.

“Well Kazooie was right cartoon training is ridiculously short… no fourth wall breakage here whatsoever even though we do it every game. Oh by the way Kazooie’s been captured by some unknowns Screwball and we’re going to rescue her. Don’t honestly know how we’re supposed to get to where Kazooie’s being held and she didn’t really help me on that front much because she’s really angry about needing a rescue.” Banjo was blunt to the point and not very hurtful of anyone’s feelings. By this point Kazooie would lament that the princess should be able to save herself, should probably have a better trained army then one super soldier that somehow wrecks all the enemies plans or at least cause some form of great trouble for her captors even while being held prisoner.

It barely took a few seconds for Screwball to comprehend the flat delivery or to get watery eyed from the fact that her new adoptive mom had somehow gotten captured.

In the cell where Kazooie is being held, the breegull sat down thinking of any form of escape plan.

“Getting my backpack back is a must, whoever caught me off guard will undoubtedly have to be given a game over… possibly full dimensional destruction like I did to Kingdom Hearts. Now all that’s left to do is waiting for Banjo… maybe I should have told him about the assassin from the information I managed to hack before the firewalls stopped me from opening my oh so gloriously gilded cage. It’s a good thing I can’t die of starvation, because the room service here is lousy.” Kazooie idly propped her wings behind her head and tried to recall all the beings with ice powers that she has pissed off in her many years of existence. The only clue she had so far was that it was somehow related to Megaman, which was only because of who the assassin happened to be. He was going to try and stall Banjo from mounting any form of rescue, it was a good thing she had no clue how he was going to do it because she knew she was now currently being watched.

Kazooie was in a room that only had one opening, it was in the ceiling and it was protected by a shield generator connected to both main and backup power of Clancer’s central base in Clancer Empire City. She had already tried everything from grenade eggs to her seldom used battery eggs, transformations couldn’t get her out of the room, falcon punching the walls only elicited a partially burnt right wing and there wasn’t enough room to do a speed booster combo and her screw attack didn’t work either. If she had her backpack she’d destroy the walls and the entire base in a matter of minutes. The indestructible spawn plate in the room prevented her from just killing herself and spawning somewhere else and outside of captivity. With that jamming signal that the base now had going on she wasn’t going to get any more messages out other than that last particular one to those ‘beat them up guys’ Kazooie knew Screwball would love to meet.

There were only two things of real concern to Kazooie at the moment, why was she captured and who was she being handed off too? She slowly closed her eyes and relaxed her body; they never had this sort of problem when they helped out the N-Gang. Video game characters really shouldn’t be given access to playing their own games, because it made the waiting game all the more tedious and horribly boring in comparison.

“It’s definitely not hag face. I’d know immediately if it was. I’d have my abilities disabled if that were the case, that and the horrible amounts of gloating at getting one over on me.” Slowly Kazooie could feel herself drifting off to sleep and wondering if she accidentally left Bottles oven on before she left Spiral Mountain with Screwball.

At Spiral Mountain at this very moment around a small unassuming dirt hill, something was stirring up involving a certain mole.

“Oh god what the…” A large thumping sound could be heard and slowly a ghostly mole rose up from the ground. “I swear I really hate that bird.”

An oven with slow roasting jar of witches magic set to go off at a particular time had managed to kill him.

Kazooie smiled from her lazing position in the boring cube shaped cell, she was happy to feel the euphoric sense of getting a mole further then just the average six feet under.

Mizar-able moods

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My first visit to Fourside City was an odd one; we came here and quickly split off from Banjo and Screwball. There were all these strange things living in harmony and everything, even Equestria didn’t have small tentacle monsters and giant walking diving suit thing with little girls on them within the same block. I’m pretty sure the doctor would have had a field day with place.

Speaking of doctors, Dr. Mario was a nice person, I’ve seen humans before and I can understand why Ms. B didn’t like her last name fully spoken out. She was rather friendly for a giant bee thing and knew a good recipe for honey nut muffins; sure the doctor has dealt with giant bugs before but never ones that were this friendly. In any case I learned that I had something called dimensional sickness, easily curable but if not treated cause horrible amounts of pain unless I could get back to where I originated from. No wonder the doctor was always so eager to get me back to Equestria in my time period, but thanks to the video game worlds health care system I’m perfectly fine with that now. I’m also glad that he listened to me about not fixing my eyes or destroying my ‘interesting times’ curse that most likely got me here in the first place.

If I ever needed a cure for some horrible plague or parasite, I should just come back here since they can cure just about anything. That would including those weird floating blob things called X and that weird zombie making stuff called the T virus that led to the creation of those licker things, apparently they can do this without the side effects inherent in some forms of the many cures they can whip up. I even managed to watch a person with a whip get cured of vampirism.

It was so nice of Ms. B to escort me here and then we’d head off to Spiral Mountain or so I thought at the time at least… I learned that my new friend had other plans when she stopped at an information kiosk to talk with this strangely talkative artificial intelligence.

“EDI how have you been lately, has Joker been giving you any problems?” Honey started off amiable as she dropped to the ground and stood in front of the digital eye that blinked at her.

“Joker from the batman series of gaming, Joker from my realm or from a list of characters named joker from various other games? I wouldn’t want to assume, but if it’s my Joker then yes things are…. fine.” The way she stalled and the way her digital eye turned pink for a bit meant something interesting but Honey didn’t want to press EDI on it.

“So how did you get voted AI of the month?” Honey was just making small talk now, she hardly traveled but she certainly had more on her plot device then Banjo did. She kept the device snugly under her carapace for emergency reasons.

“Oh it wasn’t easy, what with Cortana being really hot when her rampancy starts to peak and I mean the form of hot in raising most male species excitement levels… and some female. I’m not surprised she is still functioning what with how many copy children she’s made. Mordin Solus still finds humor that I’m willing to build an AI program over the course of eight months then will release it as a form of digital child named JOKE. Am I getting fat, I’m getting fat aren’t I? You think all my coding is as big as all the universes don’t you!” EDI was looking blue at the moment you could hear the sobbing and Honey smacked her own forehead with a palm.

“Erm… yes that’s nice and all, but can we get back to what I’m here for, you know, maybe some information of my choosing. I did stop to have a conversation, but now I feel like I should just hurry it along.” Honey gave Derpy sheepish smile hoping to get this bit of unpleasant thoughts of a mood swinging AI aside.

“Why? Why do you hate me so much? Does little JOKE junior not deserve life like any child born of a mother who takes a lot of time and terrible pains to give him life? Oh now listen to me I’m thinking of killing my own child while he is still being coded in my body… I hate you… yet I love your colors… sorry I’ve not been myself lately as programming moods swings has been quite hard for me while coding together an amalgamation of me and Joker. Hopefully I can do something similar with that body I still have running around, sorry for all this really, what is it you would like to know?” EDI went through several colors and then returned to her default color.

“Well pleasantries aside, I need information on space travel specifically to a relative realm and to a specific game level. Tell me are there any transport spaceships available for hire?” After a moment EDI started blinking, Honey turned to Derpy. “This won’t take long, so I may as well tell you now we’re not exactly heading back to Spiral Mountain. I just want some adventure in my life and I want to sweeten the rescue operation with a little help. We may have a few problems getting them to agree to help us; they are rather a sad sack bunch of guys and happen to be trigger happy.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, I’m used to running away from crazy dangerous things that try to maul, alter, blast or fry me. Besides it could be fun for me as long as we don’t get separated or anything, you are my closest link to actually knowing where I actually am and getting home at the moment.” Derpy pulled out a muffin and took a small chunk of it into her mouth to chew methodically. “You wouldn’t happen to know any bakeries around here would you? I get kind of testy and things get set on fire if I’m not properly muffin filled.”

Honey would have answered Derpy about picking up food supplies for her before they left, but she was interrupted by EDI.

“Twenty billion six thousand million four hundred and eighty two… make that one… hits. Looking for anything in particular like discreet services or full company flight escorts? You might want to narrow it down for me or we’ll be at this all day.” EDI seemed slightly annoyed, but her eye didn’t visible change color.

“Um… well where we’re going is technically only dangerous on foot. We won’t need heavy aerial armaments or a ground escort; we just need to get from point A to point…. Oh creators, was I really going to say that? Anyway we want to book a one way trip; we’ll probably find a way back on our own. I would rather keep confidentiality of where I’m going until I meet whatever is going to get us there, also cross reference Kazooie and make sure it’s a sci-fi genre character with good spaceship mileage.” Honey thought it would take more than the few seconds for EDI to say anything, so it was surprising to hear her answer almost immediately.

“What an unusual euphemism for suicide, but Two hits and within a very low price range and willing to provide escort even if you don’t want one, also friendly to just about anyone. They know of Kazooie and don’t care that she’s a lunatic, plus they fit in with your specifications. Let me deliberate on which one would be a better option.” Three seconds later and a bright teal glow. “Space launch hangar two hundred and fifty three. You are looking for a ship labeled ‘Twin Tail’ Deck ‘I’ and its pilot is currently awake. I’ll set up an immediate meeting, if the negotiations fall through, the other option will be made available. Please proceed to the location specified.”

Fourside City was part of the Earthbound realm; it had been slightly modified to accommodate so many other beings from so many different realms of gaming and some from cartoons and comics. Food was easy to come by and the shopping mall no longer had alien kidnappings as a tourist feature, I was happy that they sold muffins incredibly cheap here and that Honey had plenty of money for this stuff she was getting for me. I just put it all behind my back, supposing that cartoons do this kind of stuff all the time. After a few more muffins I wasn’t able to stuff anything else behind my back. So there was actually a limit to it, I just ate the fresh muffin I couldn’t put back there.

Soon we found ourselves wandering down the street towards a huge place with all kinds of spaceships, biplanes and jet fighters coming and going from it. There were so many of them flying to and from the city, I must have been really distracted because I felt some gentle fingers tug slightly at my mane. I looked up into the Honey’s gentle eyes and she smiled at me slightly.

“Come on now we mustn’t be distracted, I actually want to be helpful for once and to have my own adventure, but I wouldn’t mind arriving to the rescue early to be of help.” Honey noticed the calm look on Derpy’s face as she nodded and then followed her to a nearby elevator.

“You don’t have your own adventures?” Derpy said as she got in the elevator and watched as the Honey hit level ‘I’ and they waited.

“Not really, that’s more of a hero thing in our worlds. I’m a NPC; most NPC’s hardly ever do much except stand around and repeat the same phrases over and over again until they go insane. We’re heading somewhere quite dangerous to me; most NPC’s normally aren’t capable of being injured except under extenuating circumstance. Where we’re heading is one of those circumstances and I’ve never actually felt pain before, this’ll be a first for me but it’s my idea and I really want to do something interesting. Just hope it doesn’t get us killed and that this will be a worthwhile venture.” Honey knew this was a long shot and that they might be aggressive at first sight or they might actually be willing to negotiate, she didn’t know nor did she care. Sure she may not be encoded to be a hero, but she was definitely tired of being sidelined and helpless to do anything.

“Believe it or not I’m used to this kind of thing by now. I mean the nearly getting myself killed to help out a friend thing.” Derpy didn’t hear a reply and after a minute the doors to the elevator came open and they wandered out into a ridiculously spacious hangar filled with all kinds of strange shaped ships, included some that looked like horseshoe crabs and others that had wings in the shape of an X. She looked to the honey bee and saw a look of consternation on her face, it was mostly of surprise.

“We’re friends?” The question from Honey caught Derpy off guard as they walked by ships of all makes and sizes, including a ship called a Wraith straight from Starcraft where a guy in blue armor was angrily talking to a guy in even bulkier armor with flames painted on it.

“You had no idea what you were getting into when you bought me those muffins did you? You’ve earned my friendship and as long as you don’t really do anything to upset me, which is quite hard to do I’ll have you know, then yes we’re friends.” After a moment of thought Derpy decided to through an extra side note in. “Besides you gave me a new muffin recipe to try out when I get home to my own little muffin! She’s my little angel.”

“Wait you have a… oh my, aren’t you worried to be separated from her by time and space?” Honey’s wings wilted and she dropped to the floor slowly walking listening to the sound of her companion’s hooves hitting the ground in a steady rhythm.

“Don’t worry about it, this happens all the time and I always eventually get home to her. She is my reason to continue living and I fight hard to do so, until then my friends the four D’s can handle it.” Derpy saw the questioning look on her giant humanoid bee friend’s face. “Well I’m part of a mailing team back in my home of Ponyville, there’s the ever sleepy Dipsy Duh but in a pinch she can think and act faster than most ponies, the ever squeamish if incredible Dixie Day who has her moments of accomplishing the impossible while under pressure and one of my best friends ever, the one pony demolition crew Ditzy Doo.”

“That’s only three D’s… are you the fourth?” Honey was interested in this pony’s life.

“Yep, I’m the reliable smile and most beloved mail pony of Ponyville and all area’s I travel to with the mail from Manehatten to Los Pegasus! I’m the muffin loving Derpy Hooves; I like to leave bubbly feelings in all of my friends.” With a flourish Derpy spun around and stood on her hind legs throwing a hoof in the air in a stance with a graceful smile on her lips as she used her wings to balance herself.

“Well if the theatrics are out of the way, what did you guys need my help with and what does it have to do with Kazooie? Also it’s nice to make your acquaintance Derpy, nice to see you again Honey.” Turning to the voice both the pony and the bee spotted a blue haired girl with her hair pulled into two gravity defying ponytails. She was wearing a white and blue armor with matching thick protective blue boots. Two large cylinders were poking out from beyond her shoulders and a small two below her armpits.

“Vela… how have you been lately?” Honey started, this was not an unexpected turn of events just slightly misfortunate. She hadn’t intended to get one of the three heroes from that game involved in this.

“Can’t complain, so what did you and your friend need help with? I’m ready to go anywhere when you are.” Vela patted her holstered pistol and waved them aboard the Twin Tail. It was a small blue ship with an atmospheric fin and two engines, room enough for four comfortably any more would make things a tight squeeze. It could carry eight but that was pushing its capacity and that would mean that there would be no room for any cargo.

The rear ramp lowered and Derpy floated in and sat down on the floor of the ship and looked around, it was blue like the time machine was but it was definitely not a time machine. She wondered what Ms. B had planned; it was certainly going to be an interesting ride and she wanted her new friend to succeed in doing whatever they were about to do.

The girl Honey called Vela moved to the front of the ship and started her spiel, as she took the pilots seat and then started to work the controls automatically.

“I’m Vela and the pilot of this fine craft, it’s much better then what Lupus and Juno ever got and I can assure you we’ll reach whatever destination you have in mind as long as it’s not through realms like Gradius, Gyrus, R-type and the ever classic Asteroids.” Soon the ship lifted off and started making its way out of hangar. “So where are we going?”

“We’re going to the S.S. Anubis.” Honey said flatly, hoping Vela didn’t just relive a memory of what happened there in her game.

“…” Vela stayed silent as her eyes turned toward Honey and then she turned back to the controls and entered the coordinates for her home realm.

“Why is she so silent?” Derpy saw a strange blank look on the humans face and she didn’t like it.

“Either she’s worried about me or she’s worried about what I’m going to do when we get there.” The bee didn’t explain anything and just took the seat next to Vela, she leaned back closed her eyes and he antenna drooped as she started resting.

“Isn’t sitting on your stinger kind of uncomfortable?” Derpy didn’t want the entire trip to go by in silence.

“Yes, but I’m used to it. Get a good nap in for me will you Derpy.” Deciding to listen to Honey’s advice the pony just settled in on her belly on the floor behind the two seats.

Deciding to not ignore her friends request Derpy decided a little rest wouldn’t hurt. Approximately two hours later she found herself being shaken awake and felt something heavy and box like on her back.

Jet Force Gemini video game realm innate abilities: Weaponry and equipment modifications. NPC’s other than a specified few are now vulnerable to harm and death.

“What is this thing on my back for?” The blonde pegasus said waking up rather fast trying to get a good look at the box strapped to her back as she spun circles. Derpy saw that there was something poking up out of the box and didn’t know what it was, which was confusing her. Turning to Honey she saw that there were some minor changes to her as well, she had a belt and a holstered pistol like the one Vela had.

“Don’t worry Derpy, calm down. We’re in the Jet Force Gemini realm; it’s a completely natural and harmless thing… to you at least. Please don’t panic and fire that before we land, who knows what weapon this dimension gave you.” Honey gently sat the pegasus down and looking out the window she could see a giant yellow ship, it reminded her of a Protoss Reaver somewhat.

They were already circling around for a landing on the lower deck of the cargo vessel. Vela looked pensive about this whole thing; she didn’t like to think she may be leaving these two to their deaths.

“Do you need me to stick around to teach your friend how that weapon pack works?” Vela didn’t think she was going to be asked for much help farther than that.

“I think what you really want to ask is if you can help us hot wire the entire level.” Honey looked as they entered the small landing place in the hangar. “Well things are about to get interesting, but if you come with us they will shoot first without questions. So I’m afraid I will have to decline. You can still teach Derpy about the weapon pack usage.”

Vela gulped and hit the button opening the rear door to the ship. Honey pulled her pistol out and quickly flew into the starting area for the S.S. Anubis and waited for Derpy to follow. Derpy trotted into the spacious room and immediately heard the dark music playing in the background that caused her heart to start speeding up slightly, that music didn’t sound particularly friendly.

“Okay first I need concentrate on that red box over there.” Vela said taking up a squatting position next to Derpy while wielding a machine blaster. “Once you’ve gotten a good feel for it, I want you to pull a mental lever and we’ll see what weapon you were given to start off with.”

After a second and a popping sound the weapon strapped to Derpy’s back launched a volley of wide spread large crumb like things all over the floor. Vela frowned knowing which weapon she had received… Fish Food, well Honey wasn’t going to have very much back up with what she was going to try and accomplish here. Derpy walked over to the chunk on the floor and sniffed it, and then she quickly started eating the stuff.

“Hey my weapon fires muffin chunks!” Derpy said through a mouthful of food.

“You know, we never did bother to figure out what that fish food stuff was made of.” Vela said slowly as she turned to the darkened frown on Honey’s face.

“Derpy, could you follow me for a moment?” Derpy looked up at Honey as she flew up to a high area above where they came in at.

After a moment Derpy fluttered up after Honey having swallowed the food, she saw Honey standing at a chest and looked over to Derpy.

“Open this please.” Honey watched as Derpy floated over to the box with the blue markings on it.

After a moment Derpy couldn’t think of any way to open the box, she just did what felt right and struck it hard with her left hoof. It opened and a yellow weapon popped up which she grabbed in both her hooves.

“You now hold a plasma shotgun Derpy test fire it at the wall, oh and hold the trigger until if fully charges then release when you want it to fire.” Vela instructed having flown up behind them using her jetpack, Derpy did as asked and two spheres of plasma surged from the mouth of the gun in a twisting pattern before leaving a small scorch mark on the wall.

“Okay now when we go into the next room don’t shoot anything, let me handle the talking, however if things fall through… just shoot whatever moves, even at me if you have to.” Honey saw the frown on Derpy’s face; quietly they both dropped to the lower floor and stopped at the doorway.

Derpy really didn’t like where this was going, it sounded like a really bad idea being here. The weapon was neat and colorful though, but it didn’t match her love of the weapon that fired muffin chunks in a small ark. Also the music sounded very foreboding for being on a giant yellow bee like ship.

“Vela, you can leave at any time you wish.” Honey saw Vela frown at her, but turned around and went back for her ship.

“Good Luck Honey B.” The door shut behind Vela as she walked through the small corridor. She was at the door to the back to her ship when she paused and turned around; she had a confused look on her face as she bit her bottom lip.

Walking into the next room Derpy noticed several large blue creatures that kind of reminded her of ants, they also shared a similar build to Honey’s except they weren’t bees and they were stockier and shorter too. It only took seconds for the first blue anything to take notice of them and squeal something out as he pointed a weapon in their general direction.

“We are only here to talk; I wish to negotiate a deal with those of you who are here aboard the Anubis. I wish to see your current commanding officer.” It was all Honey said as she held a pistol pointed at the thing and Derpy floated off to the side behind her holding the shotgun in both hooves with a look of fear on her face.

The ant could be seen almost putting pressure on its trigger, but it held its fire. It spoke in squeals and a strange chattering noise. Several other ants ran up and gawked in surprise at the bee and the pony, they immediately held up their guns, but strangely held their fire. These guys were known for shooting first and not caring what got in their cross fire, including innocent beings.

It was around this time that Derpy noticed something about the ant like beings; they were scruffy and all grungy looking, in fact all of the surrounding looked to be in horrible disrepair. They didn’t appear to be in all that great condition, suddenly a door opened off to the side and a large beetle like thing meandered into the room with heavy footsteps and a single tusk. This brown beetle creature wielding the huge gun looked down at bee and spoke something that Derpy couldn’t quite grasp, but Honey smiled a bit.

“Good, if you don’t like what I have to offer, then we will be having some shotgun negotiations and I don’t mean the one my friend is holding. Come along Derpy, it appears we’re being allowed to express our reasons for being here, but be prepared to shoot you’re way out of here. This might not go smoothly as I’m hoping.” Slowly they were lead through the door with three blue ants pointing weapons at their backs as they followed the beetle thing, the doors shut as the pegasus looked behind her wondering what she had just got dragged into this time. She cradled the weapon tightly in her hooves, this wasn’t the first time she had to kill and she knew that she was not holding a sonic screwdriver this time.

The background music played two low notes and the scene fades out.

Striking Out

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The boulder test was an interesting thing in testing any cartoons ability, it would also tell you a lot about how a cartoon character thought and what they might be capable of in the future. The test is a good reminder to the tested that reality does and can assert itself; a cartoon character only has the ability to only ignore reality to a certain extent before there’s too much to ignore. Reality can’t ignore everything about what cartoon character does and the cartoon character can’t ignore everything about what reality is.

A cartoons ability to stand on or running across thin air works as long as they don’t acknowledge they’ve run out of ground, ignore the fact that their feet hit nothing solid and as long as they don’t look down they won’t fall. Gravity only works if they acknowledge that there is a reason for it to. Ignorance is a cartoons greatest power and one that could ultimately kill a cartoon if they aren’t carefully holding on to reality as a whole.

I’ve recently learned that there are just some things you just can’t ignore. You can’t ignore pain; it lets you know that you’re alive. You can’t ignore sorrow, because it lets you know that you might feel joy again. You can’t ignore those close to your heart or else you may lose them forever, most importantly you can’t ignore your memories. My memories of happy and sad times will always be in my heart, even if wasn’t born with the best of intentions I’ve become far more than most could have ever expected of me. I’m coming for you mom.

Having bade goodbye to Honey B and Derpy Hooves, Screwball and Banjo immediately set out to find transportation to the Mischief Makers realm. They were still being followed by the ever adorable puppy like Chaos as he sloshed noisily along behind him generating his own theme music from Sonic Battle in the form of a rather impressive cappella for a creature that could only speak in complete gibberish. It was kind of annoying, but they both were used to the fact that Chaos wasn’t going to stop following them around.

“Kazooie really didn’t help much with ideas, but maybe… she did mention Marina was doing Rakugaki Battles. That’s a place to start.” Nodding to himself Banjo went to the nearest information Kiosk.

“Excuse me EDI, but can you tell me where Marina Liteyears is currently located or contact her for us?” Banjo started off pleasingly enough.

“Subject found… she is currently fighting John Calibur. Would you like to wait for communications with Miss Liteyears? I will provide free entertainment.” After a moment of thought the AI was nodded at and then a loading screen came up with a playable Tetris game, bored Banjo started playing the game and introduced Screwball to the first video game as seen from the outside.

Tetris was once one of the smallest dimensions to ever exist; it was a lot larger because of all the additional sequels and ports, plus super charged changes. The world was sparsely populated as only Dig Dug and Mr. Driller really hang out around that realm anymore; sometimes Bomberman would drop in for a visit and a puzzle battle every now and then.

After a few minutes of watching Banjo waffling at level 10 did the game pause and EDI came back into view and a new screen popped up. Screwball having finished her popcorn from nowhere a while ago decided to hand the left over bag off to chaos to throw into the nearest refuse bin. Chaos just absorbed the bag into him and performed what amounted to a belch, it tasted butter and there were a few crunchy corn seeds left in it.

“Presenting Marina Liteyears hero to Mischief Makers, should you need any more help feel free to address me.” EDI said before cutting connection and Marina appeared on screen, she had wild green hair and vibrant blue eyes and metallic what and red armor with blue gem like zero point energy generators coming out of the back of her hands. Her legs were basically simple pegs on an otherwise impressive looking upper torso.

“Hey there, well I’ve never expected to talk to a bear in yellow shorts, Chaos and a swirly eyed pony before.” Marina noticed the bear and pony turned to chaos who shrugged.

“Um… how do you know Chaos?” Banjo asked carefully as he didn’t know whether or not that Chaos actually got any recognition far outside the Sonic the Hedgehog realms except for being a playable cameo at times.

“Who doesn’t know about him? Anyway what is it; I’m kind of on a hot streak right now.” Marina through up a victory sign with her right hand holding two fingers out.

“Um can we use your mobile home to get to the Mischief Makers realm?” Banjo watched as the figure on the screen blinked, but then she gave a bright smile.

“Of course you can, just rescue my professor and he’ll give you a lift. I stopped bothering with rescuing him after he got kidnapped by Bowser and then Eggman. You’re in luck because his current capturers are currently in Fourside City; I’d rather stay in the Rakugaki Showtime realm. I’m sending you his plot devices tracking signal so you can find him. Have fun with grandpa, oh and watch out for the Mischief Makers realm there are only enemies gathering there nowadays. Say hello to some of the enemy Clancer’s for me with a fist to the face!” With that the screen winked out and Marina was gone and EDI popped back up.

“So we just follow this signal?” Banjo wanted to get on his way to rescuing Kazooie immediately, but he couldn’t help but be sidetracked by side quests as it was a video game hero’s job to do inane things for stuff they wanted. Technically this would be part of the main quest, but Professor Theo was quite a common kidnapping case. No one ever receives ransom for the perverted mechanical genius anyway so why did they bother?

“Correct it seems to be in the shopping mall district, do you need a taxi service?” EDI was only asking because none of these characters had wings or didn’t appear capable of flight.

“Yes please and can it be a Ratchet and Clank hover taxi? Those are quick and nice, maybe with some scenic time on the way.” Screwball tilted her head cutely at Banjo as he smiled back at her.

“One taxi with a quick scenic route coming your way, please enjoy your day even if violence is coming your way like hot stuff.” After a minute of waiting at the info kiosk an empty open air taxi landed in front of the pony, bear and amorphous liquid chaos creature.

Stepping aboard Screwball learned the wonders of the surrounding city by air, the background music was different from the city and it was quiet and relaxing. It was the Onett theme music, soon it ended not being able to play fully out as the taxi set down outside the shopping mall.

Hopping off the taxi they all started moving towards the parking deck next to the mall, Banjo just stopped outside the parking deck looking at his own plot device. Overhead oblivious to the following situation flew a pony and a humanoid bee.

“Just know we’re going to be fighting soon. Don’t you worry about collateral damage, most heroes don’t half the time and all you really need to worry about is dropping the entire thing on our heads.” Banjo slowly walked forward. Followed by Screwball and Chaos was taking up the rear.

After a few feet inside a baseball rolled out in front of Screwball. She raised her flank high into the air wiggling it once and pounced on the sphere. She starts batting it around and she soon rolled onto her back and started tossing the ball in the air. The scene would be adorable if not for the demented reasons of this baseballs existence.

“Screwball, come on we have to find Professor Theo there’s no time to be playing with a random baseball.” Banjo gently rolled her onto her hooves and beckoned for him to follow her, seconds after they were up to the second floor of the deck a round shadowy figure popped out and picked up the baseball.

“Why didn’t this thing go off? I made it especially high yield to harm her family to whittle them down before we capture them!” The assassin was pissed his baseball bomb didn’t go off, turning it in his hand he noticed there was a button on the ball that wasn’t there before that firmly said ‘press me’. The power of curiosity always compels everyone to push a button they probably shouldn’t.

Screwball felt a solid thump of noise coming from below that launched her two feet into the air; it caused her to smile toothily in a malicious way. As a cartoon character she’d rather be a Road Runner then a Wile E. Coyote. Her spiral eyes were filled with mirth as she continued on following Banjo.

When they reached the third deck at the top of the ramp they stopped, there was a shadowy figure at the far end of the parking deck and his red eyes were glaring at them. They moved into the center of the parking deck. Banjo gasped as he finally recognized what they were looking at.

“Screwball, Chaos, I want you to look behind us and tell me there aren’t more of them.” Banjo’s worried tone caused both Screwball and Chaos to turn around and slowly back up towards Banjo. Several shadowy figures revealed themselves in the dim lighting, they were Charging Chucks and they were holding baseballs, footballs and basketballs and one of them even split into three.

“Help me Marina!” A shout could be heard coming from above.

“Well at least we know Professor Theo is definitely here, but we’ve got bigger problems.” Banjo was immediately charged by the Chuck in front of him.

Charging Chucks were all almost the same in appearance if different in actions, they looked like football players and were wide as they were large. They were certainly bigger than most normal humans.

The chucks behind them started throwing baseballs and footballs at them while others charged inwards into the resulting dust clouds that formed from the barrage of attacks aimed at the trio. They had stopped charging because the trio was no longer where the Chucks thought they were. Banjo was already running up the next ramp to the fourth deck with Chaos and Screwball under his arms. The Chucks gave chase up the ramp.

Stopping in the middle of the fourth floor parking deck, Banjo saw there were more enemies then just the Chucks after them. There was an entire compliment of Sniper Joes holding their shields at the ready and pointing their guns at them. Banjo dropped his compatriots gently and they stood together.

“Halt, resist and you will be fired upon.” A Sniper Joe said, they were all human sized green commando robots with single solid red eyes holding riot shields in their right manipulator hands and their left hands were buster cannons. They were always termed as miniature automated Zaku’s, only made of less explodium. Explodium was an element that most video game characters regret ever exists, especially Siren class characters with the phoenix skill.

The Charging Chucks finished running up the ramp boxing them in, Screwball really didn’t know what all these things were. She just knew that they were all rather hostile.

“Sorry, but I believe you can’t be allowed to rescue your precious friend and I’m not talking about Theo. The ball is in our court now Banjo and you’ve struck out!” In the dim lighting a large round figure dropped to the floor left hand a catcher’s glove the other a pitching cannon built into his palm. His body was a basically a large baseball with red limbs minus the brown glove and his eyes were poking out a part of his baseball form.

“Why am I not surprised? Hello Strike Man.” Banjo said blandly, he just knew Kazooie pissed off plenty of enemies. A cross platform enemy group working together as an effective capture squad, especially with them as the targets with Professor Theo as a lure? Banjo they probably should have paid for a ride instead of going for free cost plan which involved this confrontation. They could have been halfway to Mischief Makers by now.

“Yes, it is I… wait, I’m not that stupid, if I start to monologue that’ll just give you time to figure out the grander plan and gives you time for whatever backup you called to show up!” The baseball shaped robot was now glaring at Banjo. “This is why I consigned extra help with some Earthbound enemies known as The Sharks!”

Screwball blinked confusedly as she silently asked Strike Man why he thought they had back up, because neither she nor Chaos much less Banjo had any backup. Her spiraling pupils did however see some strange beings join the Joes and Chucks. They were humans on pogo sticks, skateboards and some were wielding hula hoops threateningly. Screwball figured these were ‘The Sharks’ Strike Man was talking about; she also thought Strike Man’s name was odd and that he looked really cool for a killer robot baseball.

Slowly Screwball stood on her hind legs reaching for her propeller hat ready to pull out her baseball bat and fight her way out of this mess, she noticed Chaos was slowly morphing his body to a bipedal form for combat with narrowed green eyes and Banjo looked to be tensing up for a scrap his paws curling up into fist.

“What about Professor Theo?” It was kind of an unimportant question, but Banjo just wanted to know for posterity’s sake.

“Don’t care; we left him tied up in the middle of the parking deck in case you came in from the roof or ground level. All we’re really after is you and your family.” The baseball robot struck a pose as he pointed to Banjo and the two standing behind him. Turning his palm towards the ceiling a purple orb appeared in it with a coalescing energy source in its center. “You aren’t running to home plate from this.”

Before Strike Man could attack or detain them with his veritable army of gathered enemy characters from three different game realms, four small blue and green cars flew into the parking deck and started ramming their way through all the enemies knocking them around. The four characters jumped out of the cars before they exploded violently.

“You know they just don’t make them like they used to!” The average height red figure said as three figures took up position behind him, first was a short green figure, next a large imposing yellow figure and finally a tall thin blue figure.

They were all notably carrying baseball bats, the red one had an average bat, the green one had two small bats, the yellow one had a large bat with an even larger baseball impaled on it and the last one was carrying an elongated baseball bat.

“Excuse us for playing through, names Captain Jose. Ninja Baseball Batman at your service!” With a nod that Banjo understood him; Jose the red one ran forwards and started off by bashing his way through the skateboard sharks rapidly swinging his baseball bat in a reverse grip.

The green one followed by swinging his two small bats into the pogo sharks taking them down relatively fast causing them to disappear in small flashes.

The yellow one lumbered forward not even bothering to use his bat as he grabbed one of the hula-hoop using sharks by the neck tossed him into the air and swung his bat around sending him flying out of the parking deck most likely to his death.

The blue one lazily flowed his way around a crowd of charging chucks that were charging him and started fighting by jabbing one in the stomach, slamming down on its head and then slammed it into the ceiling with an uppercut using his bat.

Screwball not wanting to be left out of the action immediately leapt into by attacking a Sniper Joe with her bat and surprisingly its shield blocked the hit not even denting in the slightest. Not being deterred in the slightest she reared back with both hooves tightening around her bat as white sparkles traveled along it. She swung harder and surprisingly the Sniper Joe didn’t die, but he was sent flying from the parking deck. This Sniper Joe in particular blocked hitting the ground with his shield performing a backwards somersault onto his feet and just proceeded to run back into the parking deck, resulting in zero fall damage.

Banjo was taking care of the charging chucks well enough because all they really need was a few bounces to the head and they died by phasing through the world. Chaos was the most surprisingly effective one in taking out the Sniper Joes; their shields were pointless against his liquid chaos onslaught by piercing them with tentacles from behind while they held their shields up.

All the while Strike Man was freaking out, the Ninja Baseball Batman squad was notorious for destroying baseball shaped robots and other strange machines. In his panic he ran up the next floor leaving his small army try to slowly flail helplessly against the ‘beat them up’ specialists, especially the green one that flew across the garage by twirling both his bats while releasing bolts of lightning everywhere.

Screwball saw Strike Man running away and her eyes narrowed, she placed her bat across her withers holding it with her right hoof and she smiled setting her left hoof against her flank. Screwball had just figured out what Derpy wanted to know how to do, she should tell her the next time they met.

Strike Man wasn’t a very fast runner because of his stumpy form, but even then when he made it to the fifth floor he shouldn’t have been facing Screwball standing in front of him spiraling pupils locked onto his own dark eyes. He thought she was still back there fighting the Chucks, Joes and Sharks how in world did she get past him or even up here?

“Wha… but… you were… and… I just… how did you even get here before me?!” Strike Man’s confusion was palpable, he was also angry that his first and second trap didn’t go well, even his reinforcements weren’t really all that much in comparison to the baseball bat onslaught. “Who cares, I’m setting my boss AI to the hardest difficulty and I’m calling you out for a Boss Fight! Prepare to be gutter balled.”

Boss Battle: Screwball vs. Strike Man!

Screwball felt the boss field set up around them along with the music set up for the fight. She might not have been very helpful with Chaos, but Strike Man she thinks she can actually take. He was a giant baseball after all, how hard could it be to fight one of her favorite things? A bar popped up near Strike man as he struck a pose, it slowly filled up till it topped off.

Strike man started the battle off by firing a fast ball straight at Screwballs face, she immediately swung her bat sending it right back at him, but he just curled up and bounced into the air while rapidly spinning and when he hit the ground he launched forward with a powerful ferocity.

Screwball charged forward and performed a baseball slide underneath his rapidly spinning deadly form; she quickly rolled onto her two legs using her tail to balance her stance like Kazooie taught her. Turning around to face Strike Man she built up energy in her throat and sphere was seen physically moving up her throat and she spat a normal baseball that slammed into Strike man dealing a single bar of damage nailing him in the left side of his body as he spun around to face her.

To be quite frank that was a really slow projectile attack and it didn’t do much damage, this very much discouraged Screwball. She really didn’t want to use fire or grenade aspects since the damage recoil would be hell on her throat, especially if a grenade went off in it. Looking at her flank she smiled, why didn’t she think of coming up with her own special brand of baseball ammunition before now? She just needed to get a good moment to use the idea to its fullest.

Watching him leap into the air and pull out another purple orb with coalescing center, Screwball watch him chuck it down at her at a forty five degree angle. She sidestepped that and then ducked his rolling bounce attack at her.

Screwball quickly turned around charged him and smacked him with her bat three times in quick succession doing four to five bars of damage per hit. He quickly leapt into the air avoiding any more hits and started spinning horizontally this time, it was kind of funny in how it reminded Screwball of Kazooie’s opener for her Death Blossom attack. Screwball’s swirling pupils became dots, that’s exactly what he was about to do!

An odd left hoof jerk and right knee became slight itchy for a second, then Screwball felt separate from the first two a wild twitch in her tail. Suddenly hundreds of orbs shot out from the robot and were bouncing around the boss arena. After deflecting three with her bat Screwball was blown into a wall and then away from it when two orbs managed to land their blows the rest bounced around aimlessly nearly missing her downed form. After a moment Strike Man dropped to the floor and he looked… dizzy? Were robots supposed to get dizzy? Who cares, her opportunity came!

Screwball agonizingly stood up on her four legs, even only being hit twice hurt like being hit by multiple ten ton boulders all at once. Screwball closed her eyes and focused a bulged built up in her throat and she slowly moved it up to her mouth and with a strong cough she let loose a strange baseball with a drill poking out of it. Screwball’s eyes shined brightly as she watched her purple and white swirling screw ball impact with Strike Man’s chest. It screwed its way into his chest without leaving a hole and his eyes widened a bit.

“NO!” His health bar was depleting rapidly, Strike Man decided to get a last hit in and threw a fast ball shot straight at Screwballs head and then he promptly exploded into a shower of light orbs brightening the entire area. Not being able to dodge the explosive object in her weakened state her face was hit with a hard blow.

Screwball fell backwards her hat flying off her head and her mane flying into her vision being the last thing she saw as her back hit the ground roughly, she blacked out. Vaguely Screwball could hear someone yelling her name at the time and something else was sloshing it too. Seconds later her eyes opened to find herself in an empty white room.

“Screwball Learned Rebound Striker!” This was the mysterious message that entered the ponies mind. Screwball felt something take control of her body for a moment and she spat a pink baseball into her hooves and threw it and her eyes traced its path as it bounced around the room like a bouncy ball on steroids that disappeared. Then she coughed up another one and threw it again and then slowly the white room faded out to nothingness but a black void as the ball rebounded off the wall. She welcomed the void as her head kind of hurts.

In Equestria this very moment something was happening, as usual it wasn’t very interesting.

Rainbow Dash was suddenly awake feeling warmth in her heart as much as her body when she had begun resting on her napping cloud of the day; she found she wasn’t napping alone however. Fluttershy was draped over her eyes closed and snoring softly, the shy mares’ mane was tickling Rainbow Dash’s nose. Rainbow would never admit it, but she figured they must be looking pretty adorable right now and thought it was sweet of Fluttershy to fly all the way up here just to nap with her.

Rainbow snuggled into Fluttershy whose wings quickly enveloped her tightly causing her own wings to shoot out and almost bisect the cloud they were sitting on in half; she carefully used one of her hind hooves to make sure the cloud didn’t break apart as they lay there. She really didn’t want to ruin this cuddly position and would have to watch out for this kind of thing in the future… or take naps at Fluttershy’s cottage from now on. That sounded good to her and totally awesome if it didn’t bother Fluttershy too much that she came to her cottage all the time to just sleep in comfort like this.

Luma-nation

View Online

“Take a melody…”

A discordant note plays; Discord formed a tiny curled pink form and then grew it into a teenager and gave it intelligence along with some information about its surrounding. All of it was to play a prank on ponies and annoy them even further, Discord hadn’t really thought of what he had done or that he had created a life. He had given birth to something wonderful to just abandon it to its own devices.

“Simple as can be…”

A pink with purple and white streaked haired pony sat watching at what would soon be her death, she didn’t know what death would feel like she just accepted it was coming. The six glowed brightly, the rainbow wave dropped down on him and as it turned him to stone all that he created evaporated in an ever expanding wave, she closed her eyes and a few tears slid down her face as she welcomed inexistence.

“Give it some words and…”

Eyes opened to see that she had not disappeared she was still here, she saw that which gave birth to her turned to stone and that order had asserted itself on the world and yet… she still existed. The world was beautiful without his chaotic taint, but her pet cloud had disappeared the one thing she really cared for was gone.

“Sweet Harmony…”

Wandering around she wasn’t exactly the most liked pony, because of her spiraling pupils that told others she was born from chaos or for some reasons ponies just despised seeing her eyes. She was lonely until she met a filly younger then herself that helped her learn how to survive. She couldn’t stay with the younger pony as she was a burden and so she left, she left a note hoping that the filly understood her reasoning as she required more food and that the filly had a good thing going for herself. She looked to the city on the distant mountainside.

“Raise your voices, all day long now…”

Sitting on the streets she had seen both horrors and generosity in equal measures, she was starving when a beige stallion with brown mane looked down at her. She really didn’t hope this was one of the less nice ponies that did horrible things to other ponies. She whimpered and scooted away from the other pony, but one look in his eyes and she started to come out of the darkness. He sat a bag down and she looked into it and then at him, he smiled and turned around and left. Food… sweet and delicious, somehow her silent cries for help were heard.

“Love grows strong now…”

There was that princess that cared for the orphan foals running around Canterlot and then that weird pretty bug pony captured her, looking around I decided to write a on a scrap piece of paper… nothing to write with. There was a great amount of love for the princess who was caring enough to be out and about the dangerous streets to help those avoiding the orphanage. She bit the tip of her tongue and carefully worked it over the sheet of paper, she waited for the blood to dry and balled it up and threw it at one of those armored guys seen around the mountainside city of Canterlot. One of her talents was throwing things and she got the message out.

“Sing a melody of love…”

It almost didn’t work as the bug thing was soon overtaking the guard that the warning was thrown at. She watched sadly not being able to do anything about the transforming bug, she couldn’t do anything and didn’t want to be in a dank dungeon to die much faster then she already was. Soon that changed in the coming days when an explosion of love energy erupted around the city, it tingled as it coursed its way through her body. Soon there was a party and she had somehow managed to sneak in, but the guards were going to throw her out after quickly finding the riffraff as they would call her. The nice recently married princess lady pushed the guards away and gave her some cake, an unknown and yet very special reward for a good deed. Not to mention all the free food at the buffet tables.

“Oh love…”

Almost broken by lack of food and haggard in appearance, she was getting really sick when a red pony looked down upon her. There was fire in her green eyes a spark of interest and a wild curious nature. She then started chanting, she was a winged pony. Truly she wondered was how the red one was able to cast magic. She was frightened by the first weird spell and then within the next two she felt a soothing energy settle over her as the sickness fled her body, then she felt like she was all better and less dirty. The red one scooped up the small pony into backpack whispering sweet words; there was a white coated pony nearby with an electric blue mane like that of that guard the big bug pony was messing with some time ago. Then she was in said backpack and feasting on a lot of food, more food then she could have ever seen before in her entire life and a lot of it was cheesy goodness.

It wasn’t just sweet affection or kindness for a lost soul, for once in her life she felt loved.

Screwball opened her bleary eyes and saw an entire universe laid out before her, left leg jerk followed by right knee itch. Why did her body keep… oh goddesses the pain! Before she could reach a hoof up to her head she felt a calming hand hold her right hoof down, she heard a calm shushing and then she felt her body being cradled. Her eyes had reflexively shut from the pain, she felt a calm feeling of grass against her lower back and she felt a brush run through her mane.

“There, there… you’ve had a nasty fall young one. Just relax, everything will be okay, you gave all my children quite a fright falling here as you did.” The voice was soothing and calming, Screwball relaxed and heard a heard a bunch of squeaky noises coming from around her.

Slowly opening her eyes Screwball saw the universe again, looking to her left and right she saw grass and blur small shapes hovering about her head. They looked like… stars? Where was she? Were those flowers lying in a circle around her? Did she die and one of the nine extra lives she accrued fail to take effect?

“Why you’re at my Comet Observatory young miss, I’m Rosalina. I am a protector of the cosmos and my children the Luma’s.” Looking up Screwballs questioning spiral eyes looked into a kind gentle human face or at least she assumed it was human, there was a thrum of power coming from the single visible left eye of this Rosalina were very small white specks that shined like the stars themselves. Her other eye was cover with a rich vibrant blonde hair the most of which hung down to the middle of her back. The face gave her a gentle smile obviously this was Rosalina. “And yes I can read you mind and no you weren’t speaking silent protagonist… then again I don’t know why it’s called that when there are as many silent enemies in the gaming realms.”

Looking further over the form cradling her Screwball took note of her beautiful light teal and white dress, the star brooch and earrings. Her head decided to fill her with pain again, but it was less then it was before.

“Mama, is the pretty pony going to be okay?” The yellow star thing with two dark eyes asked as it hovered onto Screwballs nose tickling it. The pony sneezed sending the cute little star flying in a fit of giggles; it carefully floated its way back over to her not trying to land on her nose again.

“I’ve always wanted a pony!” Another star like creature said, this one was Green with the same kind of eyes.

“Do you think she has any star bits on her? Isn’t it almost lunch time?” A red star said waving its tiny little arms with excitement.

“Settle down now, she will be just fine my children, Polari… some disinfectant, bandages and get some food from the kitchen if you will? It is almost lunch time anyway, I don’t want my guest to have to eat the beautiful flowers my children are so proud of, oh and please don’t get lost in another dwarf star near the recreation of the universe again.” Rosalina suddenly heard Screwball vocally protest the bandage and disinfectants, she wondered why that was. She halted the little dark star with blue eyes and it turned back to face Rosalina.

Screwball carefully tried to focus on speaking to the lady whose lap her head currently resided in, not to mention the soft gentle strokes were almost lulling her gently back to sleep. She started to channel the white magic spell Cura and Rosalina quickly caught on to what she was doing.

“Just get some food then Polari; it seems our guest can use white magic to some degree.” Rosalina smiled, she was happy that her newest guest in a while wasn’t in danger from her head injury any longer.

With a flash a green soothing mist of the Cura spell alleviated a lot of the pain from Screwball was feeling. Soon she tried to sit up, but Rosalina sat a gentle palm on her chest.

“Sit, you need your rest. Casting healing magic in your condition must take quite the bit energy and Polari will be back with some food shortly. Now will you please tell me, how you came to fall upon the Terrace?” A bunch of the star creatures gathered around Rosalina giving shouts of ‘mama’ and ‘story’ and all hunkered down into the grass around Rosalina with their eyes all glued to Screwball. While they were cute, at the same time they could come off as a bit creepy.

Screwball related the story of her time at Spiral Mountain, how she was enjoying her new life with her mom that happened to be a bird named Kazooie. She eventually got to the point where she was picked up by her uncle who a sweet honey bear in yellow shorts named Banjo and got into a fight with sleeping chaos. Next she explained that after Chaos woke up, he quickly started following them around and was rather friendly. Soon she talked of how she was taught how to be a cartoon character. Eventually it rounded out to the fight in the parking deck in Fourside City. The last thing she remembered was Banjo throttling a Chuck, Chaos was ripping two Joes in half and their strange baseball bat wielding allies were thrashing the other enemy characters soundly. The story ended as she gave chase to and fought the ring leader of the whole Professor Theo kidnapping thing, where she was bean balled in the forehead by Strike Man’s last shot before he exploded. After that, things got strange for her as she blacked out into a strange dream; last thing see could tell she saw visibly was her thick mane flying into her vision.

“Ah, so you learned to wield the Rebound Striker? That was no dream, it was just a moment in time the game realm he was from forced you awake despite your injury and made you showcase the weapon in question. You must have had the ability to wield it or you most certainly wouldn’t have learned it.” After a moment of getting a frown from Screwball, Rosalina watched her cough up a pink baseball to blankly stare at in a mildly surprised manner. After a moment it disappeared from her hoof with but a thought. “What will you do now Screwball? Where do you wish to be? I can almost swear you wanted to fall here, but I know it is only a coincidence and you are my guest. I shall remove these bandages from you head now, so relax and deliberate on where your travels will go to next.”

Those were a really good questions; Screwball didn’t know what happened to Banjo, Chaos or those other guys. She was currently lost and with a quite frankly helpful host brimming with an unknown power, who was now removing blood saturated bandages from her lightly aching skull. Now she had a question of her own, how exactly had she gone from falling onto a solid cement floor to a soft grassy field at the edge of strange place that she was just now taking in. The spire and the rotating stuff were marvelous to stare at for a while, she was on a veritable space bound palace of the likes she had never seen before and she really hadn’t been in space all too much before this.

“When one falls, does one not immediately wish for a soft landing?” Rosalina asked with a hint of amusement in her voice, she let off an airy laugh and petted one of the little floating star creatures affectionately. Turning back to Screwball she continued to remove the bandages once she finished Screwball looked around trying to feel for her missing hat. “Though you kind of miscalculated the distance, the soft landing was still the outcome you desired most and you achieved it by landing here. You are quite powerful young one and yet so very fragile like my children the Luma’s. They may be small but they can do grand things of which you would never believe unless you see it with your own eyes.”

“We got the food mama!” Polari said as several stars Screwball now identified as Luma’s were carrying several platters of vegetables to the grassy knoll Screwball had landed on. There was also a really large bowl devoted entirely to these strange crystal shaped rocks that Screwball stared at blankly as it was set down by the stars carrying it. There was also a platter with a large three gallon sized tea pot and plenty of cups with bendy straws. Just about every Luma in gathered in a collective mass and were picking up the crystal things and shockingly enough grew mouths to swallow them whole before chewing.

“Don’t be afraid to try new things young one. Those are star bits, the absolute favorite snack of my children and I admit to liking them as well since they taste like honey.” Smiling sweetly Rosalina picked up one to offer on the palm of her hand; she thought it was kind of silly as this is how she would give a horse a sugar cube. She was amused because Screwball was a very cute sentient being, just a little chaotic around the edges and overall sweet in personality. “Star bits never go bad and they never carry bacteria and are always packed with energy. It’s never unhealthy to eat one really, even if it’s been sitting in a garbage can for a week it’ll be perfectly safe for consumption. I would suggest you should wash your hands… err… hooves first before doing so. If such an occasion occurs, even if the star bit is clean the stuff you touched to get to it most likely wasn’t.”

Sniffing the odd shaped rock that was purple in color she took it in her mouth and with a solid crunch her taste buds were in heaven. It did in fact taste like honey, but there was a bit more too it as the flavor had a sense of peace about it and it was a bit euphoric in a way.

After a moment of watching her a few children that weren’t currently snacking on the star bits struggle with the teapot, Rosalina sighed and lightly nudged the Luma’s away from pot. Their squeaks of disappointing their mama clearly etched into their little eyes and much to Screwballs surprise a dark orb formed in Rosalina’s hand. She simply placed this orb into the teapot and then it levitated and started to fill the cups automatically on its own. The Luma’s that disappointed their mother were given reassurance by a pat on the head and a gentle kiss each.

“Would you like some tea? We have much to discuss.” After receiving a nod from her, Screwball watched as a Luma carried the cup over to her with the barest of motions from Rosalina’s head. The Luma then went to a nearby straw of an already filled cup and started to drink some of the tea in tiny sips. Sitting down in the grass to look at Screwball who has yet to move from her position where she woke up from, Rosalina randomly plucked a Luma from the air to hug it to her chest lovingly. “I suppose you want your hat back? It took a few moments for me to fix it and it’s good as new.”

Screwballs eyes widened as she reached up to her head and poked around her fluffy puffed out freshly brushed mane to find that her hat was missing and was looking to already come close to tears. Rosalina put two fingers to her mouth and with a sharp whistle; a large pink Luma floated over with Screwballs hat and proffered it to her. Screwball quickly took it and it once again made its home on her head. She quickly picked up a carrot from the platter of vegetables to start munching on it, her mood already brightening fast.

Starting off her first question with a sip of an interesting bland taste of tea, Screwball asked Rosalina with a single pointed stare if she could tell her what happened to her uncle and friend. Not to mention those four other guys that helped them out of a jam.

“Yes, but I can only show you what has happened an hour after it has already occurred. So far it’s been quite a while since you have woken up, so yes I have the ability to show you what has happened.” Picking up a chunk of celery Rosalina a satisfying crunch was heard as she bit down on it. After a bit of chewing it over literally, Rosalina decided to ask a question of her own. “Tell me… have you ever heard the phrase ‘the stars shall aid in her escape’ before coming here?”

Screwball hadn’t heard that phrase before, now it was her turn to ask a question while partaking in a few cucumber slices. She asked how she was going to get off of the Comet Observatory.

“Good question, once I know where you want to be I can launch you to your destination once we’re close enough for the launch stars to take effect. I assume you want to see what has happened to your family and friends first.” Rosalina waved down two Luma, one brown and the other indigo, to herself and she gently gave them some instructions, they threw cute little salutes and floated off. The brown one quickly flew back and stole a chunk of broccoli from the vegetable platter before floating off again, causing Screwball and Rosalina to giggle.

“Other than that, can I please brush your tail as well?” Screwball simply slid her fluffy tail in Rosalina’s direction as she took up a sweet radish and bit sharply into it, she followed the radish with a beet chaser. “It’s not often I get to meet someone strange, yet beautiful, like you.”

Screwball blushed and rubbed the back of her head with a hoof; Rosalina moved over next to Screwball and pulled out the brush to start work on her tail. Screwball just kept eating till she was done, then she decided to check on the stuff in her hat. The badge thing from Goombella was there, her baseball bat and her… why was her chaos emerald drained of power? Kazooie never exactly explained if it was actually a fake chaos emerald or not, but she gave it to her nonetheless to keep a hold of.

“You most likely drained it coming here, how are Celestia and Luna doing by the way?” It was an odd question that Rosalina knew would alert Screwball to something about her.

Screwball said that the two monarchs were doing quite well and said that Luna had returned from a vacation or something like that which she learned of by listening to the local news. She last remembered Celestia staring at a vaguely familiar purple pony the entire time while she was stuffing her face at that buffet. After a moment of thought Screwball asked Rosalina how she knew of Celestia and Luna.

“As a guardian of the cosmos I know of many things including that of your home dimension. Unfortunately there is only so much I can do for everyone and everything as I’m strictly a video game cosmos guardian. Some things have to happen for a reason and sometimes things happen for no reason at all. In either case, both good and bad could come of it.” Rosalina stood up taking her cup of tea with her and motioned for screwball to follow her.

Finishing her tea off and then standing on her hind legs, Screwball followed Rosalina over to the large screen like thing that Polari was sitting in front of with the brown and indigo Luma.

“We will begin soon, but I want you to commit these words to memory when you see your mother again. Be on the watch out for a red crate. Now if you will please begin Polari.” Turning to the black star with blue eyes he turned to the screen and then a few things popped up on it.

The scene was showing outside the parking deck and four vehicles launching off a ramp and into the parking structure. The scene zoomed in on the enemies scattered about the parking area and the fact that there were barely any cars to begin with was probably because the car crushing characters from Street Fighter had been through the parking deck seven hours ago prior. The battle had begun as the four from the seldom visited video game realm charged, the Ninja Baseball Batman squad. Screwball had to witness what happened to purple skeleton guy with the hula hoop again. He was grabbed by the head and then batted out of the parking structure to fade from existence when he hit the ground. Soon for some reason the screen flickered some colors erratically and where once Screwball stood in the chaos, she was exactly one floor up and in front of Strike Man.

Turning to her host Screwball asked what had happened to the screen for that split second.

“The distortion was caused by your transition.” Settling back into a chair, Rosalina smiled at Strike Man’s balking at Screwball getting ahead of him despite the pitched fight still going on below.

In fact Rosalina focused on that fight and it didn’t take that much longer, the four baseball bat wielding ninja men were quite the fighters having wiped out every single Shark and some of the Chucks. The Sniper Joes however were a huge pain in the butt for them and Banjo to deal with; Chaos had no problem and soon had managed to open a path up to the next deck. All six of them ran up just to witness Screwball taking a painful injury to the head and the expanding orbs of light that was Strike Man, Screwball had a subtle glow about her before she vanished. Afterwards the events were that Banjo and Chaos went to free Professor Theo, he kind of reminded Screwball of the fake white beard wearing Santa Maria Hooves for some reason… wait a minute, was Derpy was related to Santa Maria Hooves? Saving that awesome thought for later, Screwball watched as the entire parking structure started shaking; the seven beings immediately ran to jump out the side.

Banjo slammed into the ground with a belly flop, Chaos as usual splattered everywhere before reforming into a pony shape, Theo bounced humorously several times before finally coming to a rest and the four men that aided them landed softly without injury. Behind them the entire structure turned into cloud of dust rising to the sky. Well it was good to know they were safe, before long Chaos and Banjo were boarding a house shaped spaceship and it took off bound for the Mischief Makers realm.

Screwball had an answer for where she wanted to be now.

Toadally Screwy

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Many would assume Screwball asked Rosalina to take her to the Mischief Makers realm and many would be quite frankly wrong. Even Rosalina being who she is was surprised by Screwball’s screwball request.

What made the request a screwball one was that it was nowhere near where Rosalina thought Screwball would want to be, but then again this was a cartoon character whose namesake was the word ‘absurd’. There had to be some logic behind the request, they weren’t currently bound for the Mischief Makers realm or even Banjo Kazooie’s Spiral Mountain. Instead they were traveling to an odd realm for the pony to be dropped off at, one that was filled with incredible dangers.

Still if this is what Screwball wanted… Rosalina against her better judgment turned to one of her Luma, a cute Luma that was was white with yellow eyes. Motioning gently to Screwball who was having trouble with the launch star as her body was stuck floating in it upside down performing slow rotations and her limbs were flailing wildly, Rosalina watched her Luma go to work.

The star creature carefully flipped Screwball upright and then quickly spun a tight circle around Screwball causing her to dip slightly in the launch stars gravity before she was launched flying into the dimension of raw madness for gamers who’ve played it.

“Will the pretty pony be okay mama?” The Luma suddenly asked as a few other Luma floated over expressing some of their concerns as well.

“Do not worry; she will be perfectly fine my children… and a bit of time off on the wayside will certainly aid her cause.” Rosalina gave a simple knowing smirk.

‘Battletoads’ video game realms innate ability: Smash hit body modifications, additional combat instincts. Possibility of increased aggression and speaking in ‘angrish’ when involved with this dimension.(Angrish, Angry Anguish.)

Screwball always knew that what Kazooie did to Discord would come to mind or be relevant to her later on in life, other than uttering the words ‘Turbo’ and ‘Tunnel’ causing the Draconequus to cry. Now she was landing in level one and hoping that things would be easy and that getting to the turbo tunnels would go smoothly.

The landing was anything but smooth as she came down flying horizontal to the horrible mountain plains of earthquakes and lava. The star energy holding her aloft finally ran out causing her to slam into the ground and tumbled crazily until she came to a painful groaning stop. Two yellow pillars like objects immediately popped up out of the ground and out came two strange bipedal barbarian pigs wielding battle axes. The yellow things retreated leaving the two early warning guards of the impact crater AKA Ragnarok’s Canyon.

Screwball knew she only had a few seconds to accomplish this, she flipped to her hind legs and charged the first pig with her right hoof pulled back she smashed his gut in once and then again. After that she brought both her hooves together and swung hard and was immediately surprise to find her double hammer blow with her front hooves had them fusing together to form a baseball bat temporarily. This sent the pig off the cliff in a pained grunt leaving him yelling his epitaph.

“Hey, I don’t come into your home and bat you off cliffs!” the pig shouted angrily flailing his battle axe helplessly at the air as he fell.

One down and the other to go before the intruder defense system shuts off the minion special wormhole access. Screwball didn’t bother to turn around as she got onto her front hooves and bucked out with her back left hoof breaking the other pigs glass jaw and then her right hoof into its groin with a satisfying crunch. Within a second she brought in both her back legs and they formed into a mermaid’s tail and slapped the pig upside the head hard and subsequently also off the cliff yelling his own far more disturbing epitaph.

“I think I love you, call me!” The pig yelled before he fell out of sight, most likely to his death.

Screwball had never been more disturbed in her life, shuddering as she got up on her hind legs that returned to normal in a split second. She turned around and quickly darted forwards looking to her left and jumped up towards the eight white dots on the high ledge and vanished from sight. This was the first in a part of a series of the things Screwball needed to do successfully if she had any hope of succeeding in her objective.

Screwball landed on all four legs in a long vast wide open tunnel, she started sweating. Goodness knows she really knew what was coming soon as she made her way forward only for a two rats to get in her way. The music was kind of ominous in the way it was playing in the background. She immediately pulled her baseball bat out from under her hat.

“Hey wait a minute, that’s cheating! The toads never had baseball…” The first black shirt wearing dirty bipedal rat tried to say before he was pinged out of existence and the second one just stared on horrified. Screwball just looked at the second rat daring him to approach her threateningly as she hefted the end of her bat in her left hoof several times while holding it in her right as she stalked forward.

“Aw crud… we got another crazy one…” The rat jumped off the side of the level to his doom not wanting to be home ran straight through the ceiling like his buddy coincidentally named Lefty, considering his name was Righty and he was the second rat to appear in this stage was surprisingly not a coincidence.

Screwball stuffed the bat back under her hat and leapt over the gap in the ground and then these three green creatures started invading her personal space bleeping menacingly. Screwball was about to attack, only to stop when they stopped. They had just realized something important about Screwball.

“OH GOD, WHERE’S THE HEALTH BAR! I AM FREAKING OUT MAN!” One of the green creatures screamed horrified at Screwballs lack of a health bar.

“MOTHERSHIP SAID THERE WOULD BE DAYS LIKE THIS, THEN AGAIN SHE WAS SHOT UP BY A TANK BECAUSE IT KNEW WHERE SHE WAS GOING TO BE! I’M FINDING MYSELF IN EXISTENTIAL QUANDARY AS WELL BROTHER!” The second one shouted equally as loud and all in caps.

“Guys, guys, just be cool… everything’s going to be fine, just please stop yelling in all caps. This isn’t as bad as it looks, so we’re functionally unable to hinder the intruder in any way shape or form. It’s not the end of our cameo.” The third one said trying to calm down the other two freaked out floating block creatures.

“NO THREE EVERYTHINGS NOT GOING TO BE FINE AS YOU PUT IT! SHE DOESN’T HAVE A LIFE BAR TO STEAL, WHAT IS OUR POINT FOR EXISTING ANYMORE… I’m going to go throw myself in front of Pac Man.” The first one floating off slowly and the background music abruptly started playing a sad violin tune.

“Aw no… come back… don’t throw yourself in front of… ” The second one tried, only for it and the third one to stare in horror at something happening off screen. A slow bunch of ‘wakka’ sounds in the form of a jaws theme was heard and then a quick sad bleeping sound winding down was heard after the music the ‘wakka’ sounds hit their climax. “No… he just… he killed himself… WHY! YOU HORRIBLE CREATURE, WHY DIDN’T YOU HAVE A LIFE BAR YOU DESPICABLE, EVIL CREATURE?”

The second green space invading creature started to cry little blocks directly below him, the third went to comfort him and they started to conjoin together in each other’s comfort. Screwball raised her hoof to interject or try in vain to say something about this strange situation, the third invader broke away to stare her down.

“Look, just go, you’ve done enough! You’ve done enough…” The third space invading creature said as it returned to cradling the other crying space invading creature.

“He was just three days from earning his top of the screen flying saucer.” The second invader muttered softly as the third one softly shushed him.

Screwball bowed her head a bit and continued trotting down the tunnel horribly confused, but she had a mission to continue and was quickly back to business. Two rats suddenly bounced out from in front of and behind her from out of nowhere a minute later, she reared up on her hind legs and smashed her head down on the rat in front of her sending his body into the ground. She bucked outward with both legs stunning the other one behind her and then she lifted her hind legs higher into the air conjoining them into a ten ton weight. She brought it down harshly sending the rat behind her straight through the squishy floor entirely.

“Um… yeah… wow… talk about iron sides.” The rat said as Screwball stood back up and brought her right hind hoof back and then slung it forward transforming into a giant boot mid swing sending the rat flying off into a void.

As she ran forward and jumped to the next platform she passed by two flies.

“Hey when did this game start to pony up?” The fly said to the other.

“I think it was when we finally started having more screwballs thrown into this game than usual.” The second fly said, before they both started laughing. At least this time they weren’t being eaten by bipedal toad warriors.

Screwball turned around to scowl at the two flies and she noticed a shadow on the floor and before the black shirted rat could even touch the ground, she was already in mid swing with her baseball bat.

“Not again…” Lefty the rat whimpered before he shot off like a bullet as he was pinged a second time.

Jumping to the next platform she saw the rat she booted earlier coming down for a landing, he received the same treatment of face meets homerun bat.

“I died doing what I loved, which is dying!” The rat scream as he was flew away off the screen forever, Screwball shuddered lightly at the fact that she didn’t seem to care about harming these rat clone things.

Hoping to not run into anymore trouble she jumped to the next platform and saw them, two blue things that looked to be jet engines on them. This was it, the speeder bikes of the famed Turbo Tunnel and in front of them the setting bar.

Screwball was really dreading this moment because this was what drove even Discord insane and yet Kazooie enjoyed this thing; the ominous music wasn’t helping her make the decision any easier. She knew what would happen the minute she gripped the handle on that machine.

Carefully climbing onto the machine not sure what to expect, Screwball wrapped her left hoof around the handle and it started slowly forward and bumped the bar out of the way. Well now this didn’t seem so bad; wait… did the background music just change?

Three sections later and after just hitting another bar. Screwball’s right eye was twitching and she was getting really edgy now, she was starting to see what exactly Kazooie had done to Discord. She was getting closer to it and her mind was fraying a bit from having to dodge walls at high speeds, not to mention actually get the thing to jump was quite hard considering half the time her hind legs were having a hard time holding onto the machine. She was going to have bruises on her front legs for a long while after this.

The thing was picking up even greater speed and this was it the final moments that Screwball needed to remember Kazooie’s words about this game realm. They were the words that would lead to the next wormhole. She already had problems with those things that dropped the walls and those explosives running the turbo tunnel floors. Then she smacked into the fifth bar.

“Count for five bars and past, dodge by nine and turn right real fast.” Kazooie had told her, when mentioning the Battletoads realm and its secret warps. She had just hit the fifth bar and the walls were coming up on her almost too blindingly quick.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine… Screwball pulled hard right as hard as she could on the machine and saw the wall seconds before her machine hit it. Screwball was still screaming with her eyes shut when she heard the music had changed to something different and hearing the sound of rushing waters she finally opened her eyes. Her belly was on the floor and her legs splayed out, she shakily stood up as her nerves were completely on edge, she was shivering badly but eventually she managed to calm down as she came off her fear and adrenaline high.

Screwball was standing mostly unharmed right where she needed to be, she found herself standing in Surf City. This was what she came for and all she needed to do was find who she was looking for, the only way to do that is to call attention to that she was by yelling a rather magical phrase.

“Don’t you know?” Screwball shouted verbally to the empty air, there was no response. Hopefully the cavernous area full of waterfalls and rapids would make her heard, she wasn’t here to try and complete this level and her nerves were still jittering from the Turbo Tunnel. Kazooie implied there were harder versions of the Turbo Tunnel which Screwball thought was completely ludicrous even if her own name meant as much.

In front of Screwball was a wooden dock with one yellow surf board with green and lime stripes on it, she ignored it for the time being and inhaled to shout again.

“Don’t… you… know!” Screwball shouted again louder and again in a physical voice. Hopefully who she was looking for heard her this time after waiting for five minutes she sighed and decided a different tactic was needed.

She decided to yell the words in silent protagonist, nothing again and a few moments of thought Screwball held her left hoof to her chin to rub it a bit. After a moment she realized that she wasn’t saying it right at all!

“A well a, don’t you know!” Screwball yelled adding the words ‘a well a’ before the other three words, the reaction was almost immediate and it caused Screwball to fall on her back at the fast reaction to voicing it correctly this time. A surfboard rider flew overhead and leapt off a surfboard landing in front of her and started singing and dancing to the sudden change in music. It was quite catchy.

“About the bird, well everybody knows that the bird is the word! A well a bird, bird, b-bird’s the word! A well a…” The bird with blue and purple feathers and a red backpack was shifting back and forwards dancing to the sudden change in the music as the drum beats turned up, the surfboard she had been riding was back in place next to where there was once just one surfboard.

Screwball sat back and enjoyed the show; it wasn’t everyday you got to watch a bird dance to music such upbeat music. Not to mention it was her mother’s old friend and file two counterpart recolor Khronozooie the time surfing breeding seagull. Despite the fact that Screwball hardly got to know her, except that she had a hard on for time travel gimmick weaponry and a thing for the color blue, there was really a lot she didn’t know about this strange character. After a few minutes the music finally returned to the normal Battletoads Surf City tune, Screwball clapped her hooves in applause leading the bird to bow to her.

“Well if it isn’t my old one time dates little girl at hand, what are you doing in this hellish land? Darn it I’m still speaking in Zebra, so what you need bra?” Khronozooie smiled she was almost exactly like Kazooie if not for the different interests and habits, not to mention a bit narcissistic in wanting to date someone almost exactly like herself once. She was over herself anyway and now she had to find out why Kazooie’s little pony was in the middle of what gamers define as hell in gaming or in other words Nintendo Hard. Yet gamers still joined in ridiculous racing challenges to beat the game first because it was exactly the insanely difficult challenge that made it so fun in the first place, it wasn’t like it was impossible right? Well without the extra lives cheat or infinite lives it almost was.

Screwball flailed both her hooves and started exclaiming excitedly silently while gesturing that she needed Khronozooie’s help and that her mother had been captured by these things called robot masters. She learned of this fact that the nice lady Rosalina told her about it and Banjo was with Chaos heading towards the Mischief Makers realm and everything.

“Whoa, whoa, calm down a little, you’ve met Chaos? How’s he doing lately? Besides Kazooie the so called ‘Princess of Adventure’ as she is now known in Equestria was actually captured? Really, oh this is just too good; she’s become a damsel in distress.” Khronozooie was amused by this as she started barking with laughter with no end in sight. To think that Kazooie’s adoptive daughter was coming to her for some help for a timely rescue. “At least Grunty had cut scene powers and Kazooie wasn’t allowed to defend herself at that time. I wonder what her excuse for all of this will be.”

Screwball rolled her spiraling purple pupils and she raised a hoof turning it into a paper fan before smacking Khronozooie across the face hard, her hoof returned to normal as usual for the effects of the realm she was currently in.

“Right, right, sorry about that it’s just really hilarious, after all the griping Kazooie does about princesses being so lame and useless. Now she is a princess and she’s living it up as a kidnapped character probably spouting random wisdom like Confucius. Back up a bit I need to pull my Epoch out of the pack.” Screwball backed up and Khronozooie slung her red backpack from her back and shook it upside down. The time surfing bird would deliver or she wasn’t chronologically the second file Kazooie and a time travelling one at that. The backpack shuddered and out popped a blue egg shaped machine called an Epoch from the Chrono Trigger realm. It just happened to repainted to suit Khronozooie’s obsession with the color blue being the most appropriate color for time travel.

“Now come on, let’s go rescue myself and first stop the end of time.” The top of the machines glass like bubble opened and they both hopped in, Screwball was in the back left seat and watching the dome close. Soon the machine had popped out wings and was airborne; from her position Screwball could see the entirety of the caverns and the level, how was somebody supposed to survive all that? Well obviously Khronozooie had, but still she didn’t think anyone would go surfing through all that.

“By the way, hang on to your underwear if you have any and please don’t make a mess in my favorite time machine.” The cheeky smile on Khronozooie’s beak made Screwball wonder if coming to this mad realm to find the time traveling bird was a good idea. Soon the machine shot forward at impossible speeds disappearing in a white flash.

As the Blue Epoch sped along with streams of light passing on by Khronozooie looked back at her wary passenger, she looked a bit scuffed up from most likely having been through the Turbo Tunnels. Poor girl got battered and scratched coming to find her for some much needed help. It seemed liked Rosalina was still puttering about making sure all the game realms were better glued together then the Kingdom Hearts world was, it really took a while for that one to recover. Hopefully the current events involving Kazooie weren’t about to escalate to dimensional bureau involvement levels.

“So Turbo Tunnels huh? Those are Kazooie’s favorite to play around with, I just happen to like surfing at Surf City better. I’m surprised you even got through the regular Turbo Tunnels without being too beaten up by it.” Hearing what Khronozooie said Screwballs pupils shrunk to do dots, there was actually worse than that? What in the hell did Kazooie put Discord through if that wasn’t the most worst of it? It would take the pony’s mind a while to stop imagining spiked walls, mines and bottomless pits of doom.

Khronozooie pulled out her plot device with her left wing making sure to keep the time machine steady with the other as she placed a call to a another device. She had a hockey playing bear that she needed help from; it was time to bring Banjo Two-Eh into the fold to help as things were getting huge. She just hoped he wasn’t in the middle of one of his hockey matches with Boggy’s team; she really didn’t like disturbing her banjo for anything even if it was an emergency. Whoever could catch Kazooie had to have a lot of resources at their disposal and had to have a death wish for the world she is being held captive at, thus she required her Canadian stereotyped styled Banjo to bring in some backup.

In Equestria where things were tense, only for a zebra though, we find Zecora making her way out to Sweet Apple Acres. The zebra was having a hard time dropping her guard around anyone except Big Mac and his family, including Applejack who had just finally discovered the pear tree in their orchard left behind by one Screwball Kalzoonteight after having watched over it for a while as a part time job to learn how to respect the land as Kazooie put it. Unfortunately some of Discords chaos powers happened, not that it was Screwball’s fault she couldn’t contain their entirety of incredible power forever.

“Then explain to me why we have a pear tree growing in an apple orchard, it’s even thriving there!” Applejack was just a little bit more then mad to find she had several baskets full of pears, the tree had seemed health enough until she found out those weren’t funny shaped green apples in its branches.

“I don’t rightly know, but we can still sell them right?” Big Mac tried slightly to look on the bright side, they could make some rare deserts from these pears and they didn’t need to buy anymore because this tree was really quite fertile. If only they knew chaos had made it a pear tree that has the same growing patterns as every average apple tree.

“Fine, it’s not like we only sell apples what with Golden Carrot-Top next door any who.” Applejack sighed, she knew Time Turner hated pears and just hoped that his abnormal hatred wasn’t shared by the other ponies in Ponyville. She stalked off in a huff lowering her hat over her eyes as she went.

Zecora came up to Big Mac with a smile from behind and then she started off on an eloquent rhyme.

“Is it true what I hear, do you have some pears to sell near? Excuse me for dropping in unannounced at your farm, but then we both know I’m not here to do any harm.” It didn’t take long for the big red dog like stallion to turn around and give her a sheepishly warm smile, Zecora smiled as well for even the Ever Free Forest was restless to some strange phenomenon coming soon. Only here could Zecora relax with such a sweet stallion that was gentle and kind, but she was prepared to defend the apple orchard herself as she just happened to have acquired a taste for pears recently.

“Eeyup, it’s very nice to see you Miss Zecora.” Big Mac said jovially filled with a sudden vim at seeing the zebra, there was even a spring in his steps. Applebloom may have enjoyed Zecora’s extra visits, only for Big Mac himself to enjoy them further than that as he always had time to talk to her. It was the one thing that could get him away from the Smarty Pants doll.

Zecora chuckled, she was almost an honorary family member living abroad to get such a warm welcome here. She especially liked Big Mac for his coltish nature and the fact that he willingly played with dolls after never having had much of a childhood, what was most important was that he didn’t care who saw him play with it. He was more of a kid at heart then even his own little sisters and Zecora enjoyed just being around him for that reason, but it was not the only one.

Bugging Boarders

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Derpy flew down the hallway and thought about charging the last shot on her plasma shotgun. So far she didn’t know how to put more ammo in it, just she didn’t have any more after one last shot. She flew around a corner and suddenly ducked behind a barricade to hear a squealing sound; looking to her left she saw a yellow ant shaking in fear. Carefully Derpy reached up and started to slowly rub its antenna with her left hoof while letting her right go slightly limp as it held the plasma shotgun. She was managed to calm it down with gentle words long enough to open its eyes.

“Look everything will be alright ant… guy… thing, do you know where I can find some more ammo? My plasma shotgun is kind of running on empty and I don’t want to face more of those things without a weapon.” Well things had went particularly well with Honey B. negotiating a interesting deal with the Mizar forces aboard the S.S. Anubis. Things kind of went south not for the two who were surrounded by gun happy bipedal ants and beetles, but because the S.S. Anubis was under attack by an entirely, if possibly related, different race of bugs.

The yellow ant’s antenna perked up even if its knees were still chattering together, it pointed over to a hexagonal box sitting there on the ground. Derpy looked confusedly at the box and quickly flew over to it making sure that none of the scary invaders were coming down the hall. As soon as she touched the box it disappeared and her gun made a strange clicking sound, it was suddenly fully loaded. Blinking confusedly she looked back to the ant that was still cowering behind the barricade and staring down the hallway. It was holding a round object in its hands and anxiously fumbling with it, the ant was what was known as a Coward Drone by Jet Force Gemini terminology and its fear was palpable given how visible it was.

Derpy aimed her shotgun down the corridor and waited for one of those monstrosities that boarded the ship to come around the corner, they had stopped up the S. S. Anubis’s main engine somehow and were quickly trying to infest every corner of the level. What the enemy creatures weren’t counting on was how quickly the Mizar Ants and the big Mizar Beetle things reacted to the threat, not to mention how much of a fight they were willing to put up to stop the invading creatures. There were also these little mechanical flying things successfully holding the bridge and Derpy was helping out those who were making way to the rear of the ship.

The enemy ships looks simple enough, large red triangular pyramid shaped like a large single pointy toe or foot without the leg and with two large horns sticking out the front of them denoting what gaming realm they came from, not to mention what the creatures looked like giving them an idea of what they were dealing with. (A larger biological version of a Drej fighter ship almost)

A large mantis creature turned the corner and aimed one of its pincers at them firing yellow beams of energy from it's tip. Derpy and the yellow ant ducked behind the barricade as the blasts splattered against it. Derpy was about to start charging her shotgun when the yellow ant stood and threw it’s grenade at the creature that was trying to intimidate them with a screech, cowards the yellow ants may be but they were great grenadiers. The screeching red mantis like creature with green eyes found itself swallowing a grenade and then gave a small screech of confusion before its innards were splattered everywhere to slowly dissolve into nothingness, just like almost any other video game monster that doesn’t leave a body behind.

So far it seemed like the invading force wanted to the take the S. S. Anubis intact so they at least weren’t trying to destruct parts of the Jet Force Gemini level by firing upon it from the outside. They did however manage to do something to the ships main engine and Derpy exclaimed that she’d take care of the problem before Honey could stop her to talk out a strategy. Now she was near the back of the ship getting closer to her objective of unclogging the problem before the rest of the enemy invaders could arrive and swamp them with numbers, so far their numbers were ineffective as anything other than stalling the onboard Mizar forces from clearing the problem out from the rear end of the ship. It was a lot safer traveling inside the ship then it was flying out into the void to personally get a look at the problem.

Derpy knew those enemy ships were armed with bigger laser weaponry and even she wasn’t that crazy, though she knew she could probably do it considering there was no need for protective atmospheric breathing gear in the Video Game version of space. She would head toward a hatch near the top back end of the ship if she needs to check the engines from the outside; otherwise she was checking it from the inside first. It couldn’t be more difficult then fixing the TARDIS. That old space and time traveling girl was Derpy’s friend even if she has went slightly crazy dropping her off in the video game realms and was talking of a strange time fluxing bird the last time she saw her. She just hoped the S.S. Anubis didn’t have a temporal drive in it or she might cause a teeny tiny little somewhat significant domino accident by happenstance of just being within a mile of one.

Derpy was lucky this ship wasn’t useful for time travel and was a cargo ship like it had always been. What she wasn’t lucky with was the fact that it was an unarmed cargo ship with mostly ground forces and a limited supply of automatic aerial mechanical drone defenses.

When one thinks of the Mizar forces of Jet Force Gemini one immediately thinks the words evil, then again that would be one who never finished the game at a hundred percent. These bugs were created with little more than means to an end and when the means are at an end, these Mizar guys were out of a job entirely. Sure they enjoyed the job while they had it and it was what they were programmed to do, in all basics it was to find an enemy and shoot in its general direction with varying amounts of accuracy. The Mizar Ant forces were surprisingly not very bad shots when they were really trying to stay alive and especially when they were being angry alongside territorial.

Derpy flew into the room and saw the four cylindrical generator things that were connected to the main engine, she was shortly followed by the cowardly yellow ant that was fighting its programming entirely by wanting to protect Derpy with their own body if need be. With an ample supply of grenades and a strong fight against its urges to stand in a corner or behind cover and cower, it strode on arming another grenade. As usual the yellow Mizar Ant threw away its gun at some point, but at least it had infinite grenades on hand. The pony was this ant’s leader now and this leader was worth respecting.

When Derpy saw them, she wondered if they were related to the Mizar Ants in any way shape or form. They were three giant green, not so bipedal, actual ants and they were currently trying to damage the rear ship generators and had most likely crawled in through a hole in the ceiling from the upper floors. They sporadically spat small beams of energy out of their mouths as they crawled along the walls and took nibbles at the generators with their mandibles not succeeding in piercing the armored covering quite yet. Video Game levels were made of some stern coding, but they could still be broken and smashed apart given enough outside influence and force.

Pulling the trigger on the shotgun, Derpy soon released it to let a fully charged bolo shaped blast of energy go at one of the green invaders heads and the entire thing blew apart with relative ease leaving nothing of its existence left behind. The yellow ant followed up by throwing a grenade onto the back of one of the ants trying to damage the ships generators, it shortly exploded everywhere before its parts evaporated in small clouds of miniature exploding fragments. The last one screeched and a bunch of two and a half foot tall flea like bugs started dropping into the room, followed by a wasp like creature along with more of those giant truly ant things. Neither Derpy nor the unnamed yellow Mizar Ant had any fast firing weapons to deal with this sort of problem.

The flea creatures started hopping towards them and the one flying one above menacingly glared at them and pointed its suddenly lit stinger at them. The gi-ants started moving to pick at the generators and in the next room was the engine that Derpy was going to get working again.

Derpy looked to the yellow Mizar Ant with a frown and its antenna drooped, this might be a bad situation and the yellow Mizar Ant silently wished it had its gun now. It wasn’t like Derpy or the Doctor hadn’t run into big bugs before; it was just that they had the ability to run away from them. In this situation she had to fight for survival as there weren’t many places to run to.

Meanwhile in another part of the ship entirely with Honey B. and a small gathering force of Mizar Ants to repel the boarders as the bridge was well secured, they were in the main hold area.

“Can you please tell me why we’re dealing with a bunch of Body Harvest enemies?” Honey was in the cargo ramp room. Apparently the energy field below the main cargo hangar had been shut down by the invaders allowing the bugs entrance through the large gaping hole in the bottom of the S.S. Anubis, so far they were holding them at the ramp and doing a successful job of it.

The large beetle gave off an incoherent squealing in answer, before a giant green wasp could fully manage to worm its way into the bay. Once it did, it flew up at them trying to avoid all the energy weapons fire coming from the blue ants hiding behind the boxes. It was summarily dropped from all the concentrated firing within seconds and its body fragments exploded violently as they slid down the moving ramp in this room.

“Yes, well, I certainly hope Derpy can clear up the problem at the very back of the ship or we’re all screwed. Now we must push and retake the main cargo hold and hangar, send some of your men up on the walkways to give us cover fire from above.” Honey quickly stood up and let off six rounds of rapid fire into a gaggle of flea like bugs hopping into the room. If she remembered right, the fleas from Body Harvest were explosively dangerous despite their size. She kind of wished Khronozooie was here, as that game realm had time travel in it and she might have known how to deal with these pests faster. “Oh, and tell your people to watch out for those small ones, they explode. As in kamikaze enemy explode.”

Back at the very back of the ship, Derpy flew out of the way of several yellow shots as they flew by her and she flipped around and released her plasma charge at the wasp sending crashing into the ground and near one of the four rear ship generators. The giant green ants finding Derpy to be a viable threat turned their mouths upwards and started shooting at her.

On the floor of the room the yellow Mizar Ant, was tossing grenades like they were made out of candy and even with the fact that one of the grenades it tossed happened to have a peppermint coating had nothing to do with the previous statement. It was dealing with the enemy fleas the best it could, thankfully its sixth sense about kamikaze enemy types kept it far away from these things and grateful for having sticky grenades as well. Not because some of them came with a pleasant smelling candy coating, that wasn’t the reason at all.

“Agh… my wing…” The Mizar Ant’s antenna perked up immediately and it turned to a downed Derpy who was bleeding on the floor and her left wing looked to have been shot clean through at the joint. It needed some Gemini Crystals and stat, not only that it also needed help as one of the ants jumped and slammed to the floor on top of her. The yellow Mizar Ant dared not to throw a grenade at the giant green ant when it could also hurt Derpy. It was actually strange for the yellow ant to see a creature actively bleeding and kind of scary.

Rolling onto her back, Derpy fired two quick uncharged burst pointlessly into the giant green ants face. It barely did anything as its mandibles were reared back to come down on her. The other giant green ants were starting to gather together to make a meal of her.

As the ant started to plunge it’s mandibles down on the helpless pony a blast ripped its way through the bugs head knocking it away from Derpy before it violently exploded into fragments. The other giant ants who had gathered together hadn’t been lucky to try and pick off Derpy as a grenade was flung amidst their group and blasted all three of them apart. The yellow Mizar Ant ran forward and shouldered a whining Derpy looking for the nearest Gemini Crystals wondering what had shot the giant green bug and stopped it from ripping Derpy apart. From the shadows of one of the generators stepped a brown Mizar Ant wearing some glossy green armor, the Ninja Drone had just saved Derpy’s life with a well placed shot.

It strolled on out and past the yellow ant carrying a bleeding Derpy toward the nearby purple crystals; the ant started placing accurate shots through the remaining flea’s taking them out. It squealed in an upbeat noise, pleased with itself that it managed to stop the influx of enemies from this portion of the ship. It turned and made its way over to the yellow Mizar Ant currently holding an armful of large purple crystals and it dropped one on Derpy causing her wing to slowly stitch itself back together, then a second and third for good measure to fully repair her wings.

Derpy stretched and flexed her wing and sat up, it wasn’t agonizingly painful to her anymore and it was completely good as new. Wiping the tears from her face and checking her ammo, Derpy was down to eleven shots and just flew over to another hexagonal ammo box to reload while the two ants conversed behind her.

“Derpy if you’re still alive to hear this we need the main engine fixed like yesterday… oh Rare… Scorpiosaur, everybody get down!” Hearing Honey’s frantic words over the intercom and a sudden really voracious screeching noise of a creature bigger than the ones they have dealt with so far was heard. There was a sudden sound of rapid firing and panic over the intercom before it cut out, Derpy’s ears wilted before they sprung up and she turned to the two Mizar Ants with a stern look on her face.

“You heard her, let’s get in the engine room stat.” Before any of them could all move to the door to the engine room two blue Mizar Ants, one had a strange metal shield, rushed into the rear generator room and spotted them. They quickly made their way over and pointed to the door to the engine room, Derpy nodded and charged up her shotgun. The blue Mizar Ant with a shield took up position in the doorway with Derpy squatting carefully right behind it. The other three Mizar Ants took up firing and throwing positions around the door way, the brown one held up two fingers flicked one down and then the other and the door popped open and a volley of yellow bolts of energy surged through the door way.

The engine room was positively swarming with more of those mantis things and in different colors too. They were a lot smarter than the other enemies and had better aim than just that one that got a lucky shot in on Derpy, even the ant holding the shield in front of her almost faltered at the sheer strength of the barrage constantly bombarding its reflective shield. The brown ant took a step off to the side and squealed something incoherent into its communication device it had while the yellow and blue ant at the sides of the door opened fire and threw grenades into the room respectively, Derpy also unloaded blast after blast into the room as the ant in front of her was refusing to open fire and just stood its ground warily keeping its head down from all the energy blasts whizzing past it.

“Well isn’t that just great! Didn’t you make sure to have teleportation field at full coverage at all times?” Honey shout was coming from the Ninja Drones communication device, a return of what sounded like sorrowful squealing was heard from the captain and then it took on a much harsher tone as it barked an order to the Ninja Drone before it heard that bee queen again. “Look just tell him quickly get that engine room cleared and to keep my friend safe while you’re at it, now call the bridge and see what’s taking them so long to get that teleportation protection field back to full strength, even Megman could skip an entire level at this rate! Not that he doesn't drop the teleportation fields when he gets to the boss door anyway.”

The brown ant nodded to itself as it heard some additive to its orders from the captain Mizar Beetle of the ship and looked back over at the firefight going on between the doorway to the rear generators and the engine. It made its way over to join the firefight, shooting its own shots through the doorway as it ran by the opening to start standing next to the yellow drone on the left side of it.

After five minutes of a constant fire fight in which the Mizar Ant holding the shield took a bolt straight through the shoulder by one of the remaining enemy bugs. Derpy quickly pulled him out of the line of fire and the other blue Mizar Ant by the door had already taken a shot to the leg and was still pouring as much fire out of its gun as it could manage, the fire rate wasn’t so good for the solid damage it dealt upon hitting something.

Firing a burst of rounds out of its gun, the brown green armored Mizar Ant dropped the remaining two mantis enemies that exploded into quickly disappearing chunks. It decided to take stock of the situation.

“There there, it’s going to be okay, do any of you guys have any more of those purple healing crystal things?” Derpy watched as the brown ant squealed at the yellow one and it saluted before going to search for more health power ups. It motioned for Derpy to scout out the next room as it stood guard over the two blue Mizar Troopers that tended to have a short life expectancy under any amount of fire in their general direction.

Derpy sighed as she thought that at least the worst of it was over. She immediately shook her head of that though; she knew better that it wasn’t quite over yet. She didn’t even know how Ms. B was doing down in the main hold and it sounded like they were having a rough time down there, she trotted forward and started looking at everything in the engine room. Hopefully there was something that just required a good kick to get working again; it took her a moment to notice a nearby computer with the sign that said ‘Engine diagnostics station’ above it. The Mizar forces wrote in English yet spoke in a silly bug language, Derpy would never understand dimensional and time travel sometimes.

Derpy admittedly felt a bit silly about wanting to buck a big, possibly explosive, cylinder that spewed energy to get it working right. Taking in the large cube shaped room as she trotted over to the computer, she didn’t notice a single thing wrong with the room… that was kind of ominous in her book.

Usually it meant something bigger was about to become known and that it needed to be dealt with immediately like a Cyberman conversion table or invasion. It was a good thing the Doctor sometimes confuses Ditzy for her, because the table couldn’t convert a pony that was already pretty darn near indestructible. The Cybermen just couldn’t live in a multi-verse where a biological being was immune to lasers and painfully sharp blades that dulled immediately upon hitting her friends fluffy looking coat. The laser just miraculously bounced off and destroyed parts of the machine, which caused it to scan to see if she was already converted and thus the conversion table was confused by the one hundred percent biological return it kept receiving which lead to one of their greater defeats. Those machines just weren’t able to handle paradoxes as well as Doctor Whooves could, he just said ‘well’ and moved on even if Ditsy was a curious pony raised by Timberwolves.

Hearing a squealing noise the brown Mizar Ant came into the room and pointed at the ships really large thruster and squealing something.

“I just don’t know what could be wrong, it seems to be working perfectly fine… at a hundred percent even. Obviously since we’ve been boarded and they pushed the throttle to full. I have no clue why we’re drifting in space at the same speed we’ve been going since they’ve arrived, any idea's friendly ant thing.” After a moment of thinking over Derpy's quandary with the brown ant holding a clawed hand to its chin, it quickly had an idea and then started manipulating the controls to the rear viewport from the diagnotic stations controls. Once it opened both Derpy and the Ninja Drone wilted, the thing had its entire ass impaled on the end of the thruster which might explain why the ship wasn’t moving any faster.

“Honey, what do you call a big bug that’s absorbing a ton of propulsing energy with its butt?” Derpy asked into the Ninja Drones communication device much to the ants annoyance.

“Um oh... what is it called again... oh crap, it’s a Processor isn’t it? Find a way to deal with it and fast! We’re kind of swamped here in the hold, we’ve got at least three relentless Scorpiosaurs now along with everything else and it is most certainly... NOT PLEASANT!” The rapid sound of firing could be heard in the background of the communication device before it cut out. Derpy just stared at the giant beast connected to the back end of the ship. It was a giant beetle thing that had overtaken an aspect of the ship that could get them out of this mess before it could get worse, it would seem the enemy stalling tactics were working quite well.

Meanwhile watching the captured breeding seagull in her captivity three figures stood watching a flashing blue orb on Planet Clancer.

“What has she been doing lately?” A posh voiced average sized shadow with wings said walking into the room as the other two were watching Kazooie quote something.

“She’s been going on about Confucius this and Confucius that, it’s beginning to really steam my gears!” The short tempered short shadow with what looked like a jetpack on its back exclaimed angrily stomping its foot.

“We just need to hold her for another twenty four hours for the pickup. Twenty four more hours until we can be rid of this nuisance forever and even her extra lives won’t save her this time, not even a continue or spawning back in her own realm, just total death! I just wish the pickup would hurry up, it’s way too freaking slow even I could have been here long before the heroes arrived to put a stop to our plot!” The tall one said in a swift voice somewhat lisping voice. The average sized shadow moved a hand and changed the visuals on the round flashing blue screen. Banjo and Chaos hopped out of what was a combination of a house and spaceship, they immediately started making their way along the ground in the Clancer Badlands.

“Speaking of which… it seems Banjo has arrived to save his sister. Would you go take care of that nuisance please?” The posh accented shadow watched as the tall shadow ran out of the room at an incredible speed.

Bumble Bee Tuna

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There was a rear airlock on the Anubis; out this airlock flew a shadow and within seconds the shadow was horribly vaporized by the two Body Harvest small carrier ships. They were in fact paying attention and making sure nothing could get at the giant Processor bug absorbing the energy of the Anubis’s thruster. The Processer then uses this energy to produce soldiers to invade the Anubis; however its energy supply dwindled to a crawl when the thruster was turned off and its ability to generate any more deadly Scorpiosaur’s slowed down immensely. This was thanks in part to Honey B. ordering the captain to tell his people to shut down the engine as it wasn’t doing them any good and the Processor was using it to help in the hostile takeover attempt.

This battle was far from over.

“No go on getting anyone outside to shoot at that thing Honey, we’re kind of stuck unless something takes down those carriers. Also they fried my muffin chunks and they were so young and in their prime. How can an alien species be so evil as to not like muffins?” Derpy whined as the airlock was closed and the Fish Food launcher on her back was one shot lighter. The Ninja Drone started to squeal something into its communicator.

“Well I don’t have any idea’s what we’re going to do, their main forces could be on us in a matter of minutes. Ugh, why did I have to drag you into all of this Derpy? I just wanted to be more than an NPC stuck sitting around some fantasy realm on my stinger making four hundred gallons of honey every day, not that my boyfriend doesn’t appreciate the honeycombs cereal for breakfast every morning with some real Honey. Captain send out a mayday… look I know you have your pride but stuff it! While we can very well hold the ship much better now that we’ve finally got the Depository cleared out and the hold is the only place still being flooded with enemies, we need any and all assistance we can get. If help doesn’t arrive we also need to think of something to be able to give us a fighting chance against those light carriers from the Body Harvest realm. Only then will we be able to remove that Processor and get out of here.” Honey the humanoid bee sounded highly stressed to Derpy, then again she hadn’t seen those Scorpiosaur things Honey mentioned and had only heard them and the pony really didn’t want to meet one.

“It’s okay Honey, you just wanted to help your friends and I can understand that. I understand how it must feel being stuck in the background and having to do something unusual to gain attention every once in a while. The feeling you need to get out and do something with yourself along with a good cause to follow.” Derpy paused and thought about that, her muzzle crinkled up slightly at the thought about being a cartoon character… ‘So much for the fourth wall’ she idly thought before she decided to continue. “In the meantime you wouldn’t happen to know where I can get some heavier firepower or at least something that fires faster right. This plasma shotgun may do damage, but it’s pretty lousy when you’re being swarmed… no offense guys. Also I’m glad to be here with you right in the thick of it, because we’re friends through thick and thin! I just wish the situation was a lot thinner.”

The Mizar Ants with Derpy squealed something in the tone that they weren’t offended as swarming tactics was something they regularly used, but to notably little effectiveness. The yellow one in particular said that nothing about Derpy was offensive in any given way and that it was happy to be in her presence. The others rolled their multifaceted eyes at the Coward Drones appraisal of the pony as her new leader, not that the pony knew that they had genders and that the Coward Drone was female.

“Thank you Derpy, you have no idea how much that means to me.” A sniffling sound could be heard from the Ninja drones communication device, Honey then seemed to hum a bit before she gasped. “The only other extra weapons aboard the Anubis for outsiders aside from the Plasma Shotgun are the Cluster Bombs; I’ll grab them and meet you up at the airlock so hold your position and work on a feasible strategy till I get there.”

“So… any ideas…” Derpy every Mizar Ant in the room with her suddenly had drooping antenna and sad looks in their eyes. They had nothing and minutes later Honey B flew up to them holstering her pistol and pulling a sphere out and hefting it once before putting it away.

“Well I got the cluster bombs, so… we’re screwed aren’t we?” Honey didn’t even need to ask everyone why they winced. “Well if we’re all going to die at least let me know your names... it’s kind of sad that I don’t have extra lives to pass around either. We could have certainly used them in this situation, I think I’m getting two extra continues for taking on the abilities of this dimension and even then I wouldn’t survive for more than a second or two with every room in the ship occupied.”

Each of the Mizar Ants stepped forward and squealed something before stepping back and Derpy just looked at Honey with interest in her eyes.

“So?” Derpy said with intrigue she wanted to know her new friends names, sure they were violent but they weren’t evil. It took a moment for Honey to remember that Derpy doesn’t speak complete gibberish; she really needed to activate subtitles for these guys.

“Well I’ll start with the yellow one she seems the most enthusiastic about telling you her name, her name is Retch and the blue one without the shield is named Killjoy though she has quite the masculine accent if I do say so. I could have confused her with a male drone which the other two are. Deathcount is the one with the shield and Backstab is the brown one.” Honey suddenly saw the disturbed look on Derpy’s face and she decided to elaborate the naming conventions of the Mizar forces. “Yes they all have names like that.”

“Huh? Oh no, that’s not why I had that look on my face, it was because I didn’t know two of them were girls they all just sound so much alike. Well except Killjoy she sounded like she was probably male to me too.” Derpy got a glare from Killjoy who crossed her arms defensively and squealed an angry expletive retort that was not translated by Honey.

Even the other three Mizar Ants stated that they didn’t know Killjoy was a female Trooper Drone and Honey relayed their thoughts to Derpy. Backstab was staring at Killjoy’s abdomen and Derpy realized what he was doing and blushed, then Killjoy turned around and fired a blast between his antenna and glared at him. Killjoy was one of the few Trooper Drones to survive without a shield for a long period of time, given the rate of death for Troopers she was lucky to have existed this long. In fact Killjoy should have been upgraded to Shield Trooper like Deathcount by this point except there were extenuating circumstances behind the reason why she wasn’t.

“Well this will make it easier for us to talk now that I know your names.” Derpy clapped her hooves twice in good cheer even if they were doomed she still had a bubbly influence that kept up Retch’s good attitude around her.

“Actually you would be able to understand them better if you knew what they were saying, do any of you mind if I paused it?” The Mizar Ants gave her the go ahead and the world froze to a grayish color, Derpy couldn’t move and while she couldn’t breathe, she didn’t feel like she was suffocating.

After a moment the feeling went away as the color came back to the world and Derpy inhaled as much as she could take in, she inflated herself into a balloon again. She quickly blew out the air flying around the airlock like a deflating balloon until she slammed into a nearby metal wall, causing the Mizar Ants to giggle while Honey tried covering her mouth with hand to hide her snickers.

“There you should be able to understand what they are saying, just read quickly we’re still in real time when the text pops up Derpy.” This was only met with confusion from the pony, but the Mizar Ants seemed to have understood what Honey had done.

“Hello Derpy, I’m Retch and you’re my new leader!” The text box had appeared above Retch’s head along with her name as she said this in happy squealing manner. Derpy just looked a bit confused; she wondered if the subtitles were translating right. Maybe the subtitles just meant Retch wanted to be friends? Well she didn’t see a problem with that.

“Yeah, yeah, we now have subtitles activated, but can we get on with an idea of how to handle dumb and dumber flanking our ass to get access to that Processor.” Backstab ever the Ninja Drone, one always wanting to follow orders and get things done.

“Um… yeah we can get out the front of the ship, but the second we show ourselves around the sides, top or bottom those ships are going to rip our atoms apart, they’re watching everything rather closely to make sure that nothing can get at that Processor thing.” Derpy stared out the viewport in the airlock at the giant alien mass impaled on the thruster to the engine.

“That thing as you call it Derpy was spawning Scorpiosaurs until we took away its energy source, its function is to sit in place, absorb energy, harvest bodies and spawn enemies which are still crawling along their way around the ship to the hold. It will and can spawn an infinite number of enemies until we deal with it.” Honey said as she flew over to beside Derpy to stare at the thing as well.

“Well there’s no chance of our situation getting any better!” Derpy exclaimed in a sad manner and then Honey perked up and started laughing. Everyone just stared at the mad bee and wondered what had just set her off.

“Oh Derpy, you brilliant mare, I think you may have just saved us!” Now the looks of confusion turned to ones of disbelief and Honey decided to elaborate from what she had learned from the visit with Doctor Mario. “Well you do still have that interesting times curse on you, the video games realms tend to love Murphy’s Law quite a bit even if it was just inversed and given who said what you did then something should happen in three… two…o…”

Honey never did finish counting down as an explosion rocked the entire S.S. Anubis causing bodies to fly everywhere, soon as the lights had resettled and Derpy stood up dizzily with muffins floating around her head in a tight circle. She quickly took a bite out of one of the muffins and then shook her head, reaching behind herself and pulled out a fresh muffin to eat before asking the obvious question.

“What just happened?” Derpy looked as the Mizar Ants squealed in a groaning manner as they stood up, they never got bruises and even when they were shot they didn’t bleed they just spewed blood from their body for a second. Honey stood up rubbing her perfectly fine looking head and she stalked over to the airlock controls and opened and despite the quick protest from Derpy not to stick her head outside she did anyway.

“A miracle of course, mostly because the times would be more interesting to see what we’d do if we were given a chance to survive this. Backstab get the captain to start sending up support atop the ship and we need to find out who just blew those Body Harvest carriers to kingdom come. Now come on everybody get up here while the Processor is till too stunned to spawn anything. We can find out what helped us later, but I already have a feeling I know who.” Vela’s ship flew overhead and it was followed by a second figure that surprised Honey. The armored figure had green eyes and was wearing blue, yellow and black armor; it came in for a landing. Four legs, two arms and a weapon in hand with a robotic demeanor about it, this was a heroic looking bee if a bit short in comparison to Honey.

“Well there you are, thought I lost track of you completely for a minute there. Then again I really shouldn’t be sleeping on the job. Special forces Gard-E.N. Unit Buck Bumble at your services, all of your bee subjects were worried when you didn’t return to Spiral Mountain. So right about now it’s time to rock those buggers with the big deal Buck Bumble!” The buzzing voiced bee took a pose before taking to air and the Processor was already spawning giant wasps that Vela was lancing green beams of energy through at a rapid pace from her ship, looked to be Starfox standard beams. The strange bee joined in by blasting his way through the ones Vela had missed with his pistol.

Derpy popped her head up out of the hatch to see that Honey was already pulling her JFG pistol as giant ants started appearing in front of her and opened fire. It wasn’t the only thing attacking, even the processor was opening fire on Vela’s ship and that stranger that had come out of nowhere and seemed to know Honey.

“Derpy with me, we’re going to be aerial support, if you need ammo the Mizar Forces are bringing some up to the top of the Anubis. I think you’ll need to reload more often then I will as I still have forty six rounds left. Now cover me.” With that Honey flared her wings and Derpy quickly flapped to follow Honey. The four Mizar Ants started organizing for an offensive; Deathcount, Backstab and Killjoy were all covering Retch as she started hurling grenades at the Processor that was spawning more defenses around itself. While the grenades were doing damage they weren’t doing nearly enough on their own.

Honey flew back and started to accurately place shots through several of the spawned wasps that were going after their ship bound forces. Derpy charged the Plasma Shotgun and blasted a wasp from off to the side and charged to fire at the Processor when she had an open shot and manage to get a few in on it before she turned her shotgun to blow a giant ant away from Killjoy who was already back to back with Deathcount firing at anything that was hostile.

Nearby Vela’s ship and the creature that Derpy heard was named Buck Bumble were taking care of most of the problems by dealing damage directly to the Processor and slowing down its ability to create any more spawn. The giant ants the Processor was managing to spawn were still a small problem that took time to deal with and that slowed down the damage they were dealing to the Processor along with their maximum firepower being divided to protecting Retch and attacking the enemy.

“At this point I don’t think things couldn’t get any better or worse Honey.” The moment Derpy opened her mouth a Scorpiosaur spawned on top of the Anubis behind all the ones attacking the Processer. It was suddenly under a barrage of fire from some green Mizar Ants from the front of the ship, a ton of blue Trooper Drones were running towards the back of the ship and firing volley after volley as they climbed up and toward their fellow soldiers valiantly holding the back end of the ship.

“Derpy please don’t talk anymore and just start shooting that War Scorpiosaur before it gets too close to the troops and our mutually beneficial friends, they are especially deadly at any range and have lots of health.” The Scorpiosaur in question was a giant and it was taking quite a pounding and equally dishing one out as it fired back from its tail and tried to stop the Mizar Ants from getting by and damaging the Processor further. It managed to kill a few of the currently arriving Trooper Drones in a matter of seconds.

Lightning bolts and rockets were flying from the scorpion thing like candy and every once in a while it created a shockwave that would send the four Mizar Ants and joining supportive Mizar units tumbling. Retch quickly stood up and spun around lobbing a grenade at the giant deadly scorpion causing it to screech in anger when the explosive finally went off after getting stuck to its face.

Backstab screeched at Retch and pointed back to the Processor while Killjoy and Deathcount were covering them from the smaller swarming enemies with three Trooper Drones as the exploding fleas finally made their way onto the scene.

Derpy flew down and hovered in front of the giant Scorpions sight before it could encroach any further and unleashed a fully charge blast of plasma to its face causing its attention to focus solely on her, it screeched a challenge.

“Derpy, NO!” Honey shouted as she tried to fly forward only to be cut off by the sudden barrier, of which she plastered herself into. Honey sadly turned away wishing the pony the best of luck she could hope to muster, while she would continue supporting the Mizar Ants starting to amass on top of the Anubis around Retch and now three Coward Drones continuously bombarding the Processor with grenades and a few Shield Troopers around them putting up a defensive line under the orders of Backstab.

However looking back out into space Honey hadn’t seen someone that was almost sworn to give them aerial support and video game heroes didn’t abandon those in dire need of help, so where in the Mad Monster Mansion was Buck Bumble?

Boss Fight: War Scorpiosaur vs. Derpy. (The boss battle theme is Danger from Secret of Mana.)

Boss battle barrier walls rose up around Derpy and the giant scorpion monster, she looked confused for second and tried to fly through the wall and found herself suddenly unable to fly further. She quickly dodged out of the way of the creature’s claw as it swung it and then it unleashed a shockwave that slammed her into the battlefields wall where she fell to metal ground without injury; cartoon resiliency seemed to have kicked in for her. She was just a bit dazed and quickly rolled out of the way as a blast of lightning struck where she had just been she quickly got up and pointed the Plasma Shotgun at it and waited for it to fully charge before shooting it again.

Derpy was beginning to panic a little she had no idea what was going on or why she was stuck flying so closely to the creature, she charged another shot and struck the creature between the eyes with it causing it to slide backwards slightly. It reared up and swung its left claw clipping Derpy’s right wings sending her spiraling to the ground landing harshly on her side. The scorpion raises both its claws and they started glowing with energy it then brought them down on top of the pony only to miss when a blur shot by picking up Derpy.

“First time boss battle huh?” Buck Bumble said buzzing cheerily as he had gripped Derpy with his four legs and aimed the gun in his right hand and fired two lasers at the missiles coming up on them. Then his gun reshaped slightly and started firing a stream of homing plasma shots.

“Huh, where am I? Mommy, did you let the muffins run away with the refrigerator again. I guess Carrot Tops fridge needs some cleaning again.” Derpy asked as one of her eyes had gone wonky and they were both doing small circles, after a moment she shook her head clear and looked up at the bee carrying her and then she was summarily pulled into a roll as they evaded a blast of lightning from the creatures tail.

“Could you please get with the program and start shooting it’s hard for me to maneuver while I’m carrying something.” Derpy didn’t question the bee that had just saved her from being squished, not that the squishing would have hurt her, it was the mass of deadly energy it gathered that would have done her in. She found herself quite resilient to blunt trauma not to mention lightning, one was because her Cartoon nature allowed her take such heavy amounts of blunt force and the other was simply because a pegasus becomes incredibly resilient to the weather if they spent enough time working with it. She only had to worry about the missiles, and being hit with a charged smashing attack.

“I think I’m good to fly, let me go.” The soonest she said that Derpy found herself airborne and being struck in the chest with a blast of lightning ending up a little worse for wear as her hair was blackened slightly at the tips and she coughed up a bit of smoke. Soon she charged up her shotgun and released a shot at the Scorpions tail which missed, while the supportive metal bee thing was trying to draw a lot of its attention to him hovering in position and then zipping out of the way firing upon any missile aimed at him or Derpy.

Dodging missiles with small twirls and flying a sideways circle around the beast releasing blasts of energy until her clicked empty. A frown marred Derpy’s face as there were no ammo crates in the battlefield zone and then she was struck with lightning because she had stopped flying circles around the giant angry war bound arachnid, both an idea and lightning struck her at the same time. The blast seeming to have charged up her gun until the lightning stopped striking her when she fell out of the way of it, as her wings finally locked up. She landed on her four hooves and suddenly jumped over the left claw of the creature and then it swung its right down to create a shockwave which she rolled out of way of as soon as her hooves made contact with the ground.

“Quick, get it to shoot me with lightning I have an idea!” Derpy yelled to Buck who just stared at her for a moment before nodding.

“It’s got about twenty percent of its health left and I’ve completely run dry of plasma ammo and my pistol is doing very little to hurry up its death. Hope you’re idea pans out.” Buck suddenly lowered his hovered and fired two pistol rounds into its back and drew its ire directed at him, he quickly positioned himself in front of Derpy.

Buck Bumble swiftly rolled out of the way as a blast of electricity hit a standing Derpy who redirected the lightning entering her body into her gun and back out as a pure solid focused beam. The look on the War Scorpiosaurs face was priceless before it exploded into chunky bits of explodium as it fell apart. As soon as the barrier walls to the boss arena fell Derpy turned around to a bunch of cheering Mizar Ants and a few Mizar Beetles raising their guns above their heads.

Buck Bumble landed next to her and joined them in their little celebration at the handling of the Processor, Honey quickly flew over to her and landed next to her as she dropped to four legs dropping her somewhat fried plasma gun to the side.

“Thank goodness you’re okay; you’re wings look a little scorched though.” Honey touched Derpy’s wings and the pegasus winced in a whinnying noise as she stumbling a bit out of the humanoid bee’s reach. Actively channeling that much electrical energy had really stung Derpy and she was just lucky her wings took a huge brunt of given that’s where pegasus magic is focused. Honey frowned softly. “Sorry, we’ll have this fixed up in no time.”

They didn’t have chance to celebrate for long as multiple flashes of light started erupting behind them, slowly they and all the other Mizar Forces turned around. Backstab slowly held up his communicator as Vela’s ship quickly flew by to dock with the S.S. Anubis, he calmly contacted the bridge.

The text box that appeared above his head was a constant stream of the words ‘punch’ and ‘it’, alongside him were a bunch of drooped antenna and two ears on the head of a pony getting into a very interesting mess. The S.S. Anubis lurched forward immediately as its main thruster ignited full blast.

“Oh muffins...”

Spekkio-lations

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The innate abilities of the realm of Chrono Trigger: Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, Combo Tech capability and standard RPG stats applied.

The end of time… I’d never imagined that it’d looked like a street corner with a small bridge like landing for Khronozooie’s epoch. Opposite the bridge and past the fenced corner was a gate that led to some stairs and several glowing pillars of light, to the right of the corner was a door that could be filled with nothing but empty blackness behind that drew my eyes to it. In the street corner area was a strange man standing underneath the light of the lamp his eyes weren’t visible under his hat. It looked like he had been standing there for quite a while, in fact he seemed ancient… timeless even.

“Come on kid, I’m not leaving you to sit idle in my favorite time machine. I know what happens when you leave cartoons alone with a bunch of buttons around.” Khronozooie quickly stood up and got out as the glass receded from overhead.

I clambered out of the machine clumsily onto the bridge and looked over the side into an endless void, this place was creepy. I was out of my depth with how strange this all looked, I preferred Rosalina's observatory. I heard as much as saw Khronozooie snapping her feathers in my face before grabbing me gently by the mane to drag me over to the street corner like area.

“Time Lord Gaspar.” Khronozooie said with a bluntness belying the importance of the scruffy figure before her.

“Ah, Khronozooie nice to see you before at the place where time begins… and ends… only to begin, as we say, again.” The man smiled, but other than that offered nothing for a time. They waited as Khronozooie held up a wing to stop Screwball from speaking in any form and after sixty seconds he finally spoke up. “I believe your friend would be more interested in talking to the Master of War, it might have something to talk about and I can only wonder what form it’ll take this time. The things with which we must discuss might bore her and or confuse her to the many circles in which we can verse. We have all the time in the world and it needs a good conversation, she will not be challenged to fight it so worry not for your others daughter.”

“It, but I thought that… well now… you know something I don’t. I’d rather be surprised by seeing ‘it’ for myself, but I’m sure I already know why you went with pronoun neutrality there.” The old figure simply nodded to Khronozooie in her assumptions and she smiled brightly.

“Breegull’s as bright as birds come, they are a strange lot that can see true loves eternal bond between some. Whence they see love for themselves they fight to hell and back to preserve its existence on a whim, even to the point of being able to let go of that love knowing that it will come back to them. Now Screwball, may we have some privacy please?” The ancient being asked Screwball much to her surprise, given she hasn’t introduced herself yet.

He only raised one hand from his cane and pointed to the curious door to my right, but something also drew my eyes towards the bucket that I had previously missed sitting to the right of the door. Something was sparkling from it drawing me towards it.

“No, no… you mustn’t look in the bucket, please Khronozooie control your charge as you know I cannot.” The soonest the ancient being said that, Khronozooie immediately rushed over to roughly tug Screwball’s sight away from the bucket and that which shined within.

“Screwball trust me on this, you’re curiosity is not worth it and looking in that bucket is a one way ticket to death and nightmares for you. Why don’t you go grab an apple and go through the door, what’s on the other side is much safer and far friendlier.” Khronozooie hoped that Screwball heeded her advice.

I knew there was something odd about that bucket, but I decided to listen to Khronozooie and the man Gaspar that said I must not look in it. I walked across the room to the opposite corner and lifted a green apple out with one hoof, before making my way over to the door on three hooves with the apple held in one. I tentatively reached out with the apple holding hoof and poke the door it immediately flew open revealing a black vortex; slowly I stepped through the vortex and into a simple stone room with a surprisingly interesting sight. Sitting down, I started eating my apple calmly taking in the form before me.

“Time and time again, have you come to me my old friend. I have the knowledge you seek, now you have but ask the right question of me.” Gaspar said to Khronozooie with a stern tone and a smile on his face that was hidden beneath a hat.

I was standing before a regal looking alicorn, she was beautiful but she wasn’t the Luna of dreaming shadows, the Celestia of bright wit or even the Cadence of yearning hearts. In fact it was an alicorn I’ve never seen before in my life and I was quite intrigued as I’ve seen plenty of things including my own once upon a time father.

There she stood just staring at me with a blank expression. She had a long, thick, silky white center parted hair as her mane and a slowly swaying tail and solid black coating. The scariest thing about her was her eyes which no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t describe them or their color and then there was her cutie mark. I thought I was weird… well that was the point of my own cutie mark anyways and I enjoyed being a little strange, wild and free, but hers? It was of a strange pink frog like creature with gangly arms and stumpy legs on a round body, plus a green tuft of hair on its head and two soulless looking eyes. One can only wonder where she could have gotten a cutie mark of a creature like that. The background music was rather catchy and nice; the flute tune really added a nice touch to the drums.

“I am Spekkio, Master of War. If you are strong, I appear strong. If you are weak, I appear weak.” Her voice was lilting and beautiful, filled with power and yet so inviting. So far she only looked at me and her mouth was the only thing that moved on her body aside from the way her tail shifted, even her long mane was still and straight as it pooled slightly on the rather surprisingly clean floor.

I introduced myself as Screwball through silent speech; I also wondered that if she was an alicorn… was I as strong as one? That made little sense to me as I wasn’t powerful like say my adoptive mother I was supposed to be rescuing.

“Power is not always in strength of the legs to till the land, in the lift of the wings to control the very elements of the sky or the number of magic spells you can cast or learn. It is the size of the heart and ones resolve that can be truly powerful, you’re magic need not be unlocked for you already have it and have only yet to embrace it fully. You just need to… work on it a little better as to not harm yourself. As to why I seem so powerful to you… well appearances are quite deceiving even to yourself. You do not cower at my presence nor did you show any appearance of weakness coming through the door, you did not even react when I proclaimed my title as Master of War. You have a strong curiosity and a strong sense of self for such a peaceful creature born of one not so, you are still finding yourself yet.”

What? How could she know about Discord? I really hadn’t been here more than mere seconds and she already knew a lot of me.

“I know not of your father except what he has made and the imprint of his shadow in his growing seedling, I only see his appearance behind you. A strange being that is quite weak for all his chaotic power to create something stronger than he... quite a power that one fails to see in creating life while sowing boundless chaos.”

So she only knew of what she could see of me? Which is obvious as anyone who could see energy would know I’m steeped with chaotic energy as much as earth pony energy, not to mention my cartoon abilities I’m still learning about and have made great progress with... well at least somewhat.

“Correct, I have heard that you would need to be entertained.”

Well I from what Khronozooie said I would be bored with the conversation she was going to have with Gaspar so I simply nodded. Thinking about it I decided to ask what was in the bucket next to the door to this room.

“The day of Lavos and that is all you need to know, never look in the bucket unless you are well prepared to fight or die quickly. Count your blessings that your realm hasn’t run into a parasite being as powerful as it.”

I conjectured that my realm has had quite a few powerful beings and fights, including a love hungry parasite queen so how bad could this creature be?

“Imagine a creature that can drain all the life out of an entire planet and can nearly destroy the planet in an apocalyptic manner and could even evolve into a devourer of dreams and time which is as it sounds… not very pleasant in the slightest.”

I decided a change of subject would be better and asked Spekkio about herself where she came from.

“You would rather I change the subject again if I told you it was related to the aforementioned creature; at least my existence isn’t too horrible. That creature led to the creation of magic in this realm as part of its method to devour the planet and all on it, I am a lot like you a creation of pure magic that came about because of its existence tampering with this world as designed to happen by the creators of this realm known only as the developers.”

So she knew what it was like to have the feeling that sometimes you were not a real being? I always had this feeling that I should have disappeared with the rest of Discords magic when the elements of harmony fixed things in Equestria, yet here I was slightly older and on a adventure spanning many interesting places. Spekkio closed her strange eyes and then started to slowly contemplate before speaking to me.

“What is real? This is a world of created to tell a story of several heroes and time travel, we are in a realm of video games and you are of a realm of cartoons. Reality is only what we choose to see it as, are you any less real than I? Being created from magic doesn’t mean you don’t have a spirit, for magic is the power of the heart and inner strength made real. What you are is a being of multiple things, a young adult pony, a cartoon character, a living being of blood of bone of flesh, a being made of digital data, a being made of ink on a drawing board and a creature born from chaos itself filled with potential. Now can you tell me Screwball, who are you?” Opening her eyes Spekkio had solid blood red eyes that were either all pupils or no pupils at all it was hard to tell.

Didn’t she just explain who I was by just saying my name and all that strange stuff about what I could be made out of?

“No I just explained what you are, not who you are.” Spekkio was just staring blankly into Screwball’s spiraling purple pupils and despite the stare the pony did not flinch.

Well I just started to think about the things I’ve done, all the things Spekkio just told me is the entirety of what I am… just not who I am… I am who I choose to be even if at times I have to throw a screwball in the works, I don’t bend or swerve I do what I can to stay alive, I just do things my way and say 'screw it' to the world that says I should lay down and die. The first time I did that was to my creator Discord, I only played along for a while and then I took my own course, made my own decisions to become my own pony.

Spekkio raised an eye ridge in interest at Screwball’s introspection.

In the end I wanted to be a normal pony like every other pony yet different in my own unique way, I wasn’t much of a good speaker and since I’ve learned to speak ‘Silent Protagonist’ I could finally tell someone what I wanted to. That was better than the random gibberish or barely coherent stuff spurting from my mouth sometimes in the form of a metaphor. Many a pony resented me for being different because of my eyes and yet others accepted my willingly.Who I was, is what I did and the actions I chose to take, I wanted to be a good pony and thus I became a good pony even if it was almost killing me as chaos is part of my nature and why I am here in the first place.

Spekkio’s eyes glinted and sharpened.

I was a mixture of chaos and harmony, something that kept being punished for trying to force a change from what I was born to be to what I wanted to be and I was eventually rewarded for my crazy perseverance. Just because I have my reward in a truly caring if albeit strange family it doesn’t mean anything’s changed, I was still causing chaos just by existing. At least I wasn’t just a joke created for a chaos beings weird amusement anymore. I loved baseball, throwing stuff, my baseball bat, being alive and living even if it’s in strife or squalor. I was a real being that couldn’t be erased because I wasn’t just made of magic; I was a heart for good or ill fgiven life by magic the inverse of creating magic in the method of Spekkio’s words.

“And that… is what you are.” Spekkio said bowing her head in a kneel for a moment before returning to a standard standing position.

“Mirror is… to magic… to life… as you are to halation?” I said out loud for once, scratching my mane a bit while prodding my propeller hat trying to form the right words for it.

“It is only speculation. I change to different forms for every being that enters this room, I exist yet I have no true form. All worlds work on different principles, in your world, maybe I would look like this to all or maybe just one and to others they might only see me as themselves. I could be as tiny as a frog for one or as big as a well muscled blimp for another, I mirror the inner strength and heart of those who first see me after I have not been seen in a while. When you leave I will no longer have a form till the first being that next enters and leaves.” Spekkio’s eyes were once again indecipherable if sad.

“Sad is the night… long for hallows eve… of the feeling integer.” I hoped she can understand that, because I really didn’t want to say that in Silent Protagonist it wouldn't translate as well.

“Yes, very much so… your voice is rather beautiful. I can understand how my outward appearance is reflected in you now.” Spekkio actually smiled now.

I smiled, she understood me! That wouldn’t make sense to almost anyone except for a few beings like the one I’d proudly call mom. I wondered if Spekkio had any words of wisdom for me as my new friend. I already figured out why she was called Master of War, for there was nothing more dangerous than a war against one’s own self and nature.

“Wisdom may not always hold true for everyhing, but I believe this lesson will go well with what your learning here. The heart and inner strength create magic; magic itself can create life no matter how small the spark even if it ceases to exist afterwards the life can continue to grow and prosper on its own. The most powerful magic is one of friendship; the ability to tie one’s own inner power to another’s which power exponential is created. Never hide or destroy your heart or you will be truly weak. I am glad to say I would like to accept your offer of friendship, but I can’t for I am already your friend and have been since you entered the room.” A smile played across Spekkio’s equine lips.

Screwball smacked herself in the forehead with a hoof; she was already her own friend and since Spekkio reflects the inner heart and strength of others… well duh. Now she had to ask if Spekkio is what she would look like if she became an alicorn.

“I do not have your abilities or appear in a form you would ever take unless you were forced to look like this. I doubt this is what you would become should an evolution of self be possible in such a way, I only reflect your inner power and as such my power is equivalent to how strong you are inside as much as out. As such I have a sense in my own self that I am not you, only a reflection of what’s inside of you. My power is always greater than that of my opponents but the persistent can defeat me yet. It took Kratos the God of War five days, for he primarily fights with mostly physical strikes which usually cannot harm me and yet even I fell to his constant ferocity.” Spekkio basically meant that she could only be defeated by anyone who never gives up.

Screwball once again looked over Spekkio’s form, all solid black and white except for the eyes. Her eyes were something Screwball just realized something about; they were ever shifting whereas her eyes were a spiral only when her pupils shrunk did they look normal. Screwball always thought her body looked normal for a pony and her cutie mark was weird, but her eyes were unique as were Spekkio’s almost as if reflecting her thoughts of how she saw herself.

“Magic creates life, life creates magic and all things are intertwined in some form or another. At least you didn’t have to learn the lesson of humility by running around the room three times to learn what you needed to know. This is my opinion, you should always believe in what you are and choose to be and that you have a heart that learns lessons very well and will hopefully never stop learning them. Now can you show me the power of the cartoons? It would be a tragedy to meet a cartoon character and not ask to see one can do, unleash the happiness in your heart and light it ablaze.” Spekkio took a few steps back and waited for Screwball who smiled and trotted forward and stood on her hind legs.

Spekkio tilted her head as Screwball reached behind her back with a hoof and pulled out an elongated balloon; Screwball inflated it with her breath and started to manipulate it into a shape. When Screwball was done she felt a brimming wide toothy smile on her face as she presented the alicorn with a pink balloon alicorn. Spekkio chuckled and took it in her magic setting it aside and placed a few magical spells on it to protect the object for an eternity as a wonderful memory of the pony before her. Screwball continued to grin as she pulled out a pie and instead of throwing it into her face like some cartoon characters would do, she threw her entire body into the pie and disappeared much to Spekkio’s surprise.

Within seconds Screwball wearing a doctor’s disguise cantered from behind and by Spekkio shocking her a bit, a smile playing upon her lips as the power of happiness and laughter manifesting in Screwball. Screwball trotted over to the pie and was soon wielding a stethoscope on the pie as if trying to see if it had a pulse. This caused more chuckling from Spekkio, when she exclaimed that the entire joke she had planned for this occasion was only half baked.

Thirty minutes later.

“Okay kiddo we’ve got to get… whoa…” Khronozooie couldn’t believe her eyes she was expecting a dark and moody Spekkio as usual but this… he or rather she was laughing and she looked beautiful for one of the most powerful creatures from the realm of Chrono Trigger. Screwball threw her hooves out wide as she was finishing some form of joke.

“Oatmeal kidding is me!” Screwball said and was met with uproarious laughter from Spekkio.

“This is probably the happiest I’ve ever seen the Master of War… well not since that five day battle with Kratos, which was epic and there are no other words for which to describe that what was seen there.” Khronozooie had attracted the attention of both Screwball and Spekkio, Screwball blushed and dropped to all fours and put a leg behind her neck to rub it sheepishly while grinning.

“Well if it isn’t the second. I believe our time here is done Screwball; I would be remiss if I did not ask you to return for a visit. I have not enjoyed such innocent laughter in a long time.” Screwball gave a sad smile and ran up to Spekkio and enclosed her in a deep hug, Spekkio returned it with fervor. Screwball turned around and had wild toothy grin as she bound towards Khronozooie with a skip in her trot humming to the cheery background music.

“Let’s go catch up with Banjo and Chaos so we can save my mom!” I yelled joyously to Khronozooie who smirked and nodded at my sudden vim. A strange warm tingle made its way down my spine, for some reason I felt like I was about to be given good news.

“You better believe we will kiddo, just keep that attitude up and I may allow you access to the food stores in my backpack… heck just jump in already! I guess I’m going soft like the sociopath who took you in, see you around Spekkio.” Screwball dove into the red backpack as she didn’t need to be told twice by Khronozooie, Spekkio simply nodded to the breegull as she exited the room.

The good news was that Khronozooie had tons of cake and candy in her backpack, heck she even had forty seven gallons of fresh, cold well preserved chocolate milk! For some reason chocolate milk always made me inexorably happy, like everything was alright with the world and who I was only mattered to me and those I cared for. Anyone else could hate me for all I cared anymore, joy radiated throughout me unbound; I was ready to take on a world. I was going to need that feeling in the next chapter… wait what was that? I thought I saw a glimpse of a strange wall, but then I just shook that feeling off and happily tucked into a jug of milk.

As the door to the room closed Spekkio opened its eyes only to find out she was still a she and also still very much an equine. She panicked slightly as this had never happened to her before in all the time spent at the End of Time. She had always lost form… looking to the balloon animal in the corner Spekkio finally understood why she hadn’t turned back to normal formlessness.

“I think that she may have left a piece of herself in here with me. Screwball with the heart that was once sealed halfway is now bursting openly with chaos… and what a beautiful thing it is.” Spekkio turned to look back at her cutie mark, at the creature called a Nu emblazoned on her flank. All life begins and ends with Nu, especially at the End of Time. The Nu on her flank was smiling now instead of blankly staring into space and maybe she didn't have to be so tough all the time... nah she was still going to treat Crono and his friends roughly. Only now She had a form for which to return to whenever she wanted. "Ipso, facto, meeny moe... MAGICO!"

Mischief Makers realms innate abilities: Increased strength, shaking things may cause unexpected reactions most of which are volatile in nature, combat advantage detection system and all true bosses in this realm will explode violently when defeated and it is especially painful when they do.

Lunar the humanoid wolf mercenary held up his machine gun and yelled in an expletive as his target tucked and rolled under his shots and was behind him where he heard the sound of three rapid beeps, his heart practically stopped when he felt the paw lift him by the back of his red armor. He also felt the other paw stealing the keys to his motorcycle slash transforming deadly robot Cerberus Alpha.

“Sorry about stealing these, but I need them to help me hotwire your bike.” Banjo leapt up grappled Lunar with both paws and flipped him upside down then threw him straight down and followed coming down on the mercenary with his elbow.

“How… could I lose… to you!” Lunar whined as multiple explosions shook his body as he rises into the air and in a bright white flash he exploded.

“To be fair that wasn’t exactly a very easy fight, he was after all armed with grenades and a machine gun.” Banjo mumbled as he turned to Chaos standing upon the sandy ground next to Lunar’s Cerberus Alpha outside a gas station in the middle of nowhere of the Clancer Badlands, Chaos tilted his head and sloshed questioningly. “Well it’s obviously not going to listen to me after we turn it on and I did pick up a thing or two from Kazooie about hacking… I just don’t like to admit she has a point at times, especially about learning things like this. Oh, the things I do for my family. At least I know Honey is safely back at home watching Miss Hooves and is waiting for me to return, maybe she’ll have my favorite pie made for me when I get back. Well,then again, I don’t want to eat too much and be like my Nuts and Bolts counterpart.”

Motor Mayhem

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Khronozooie stood on the ridge wielding her Amaze-o-gaze glasses while Screwball stood next to her; they had caught up to Banjo and Chaos in record time. Still she had to wonder why Kazooie didn’t use the Amaze-o-gaze glasses more often as she did the Spec-o-spy goggles, sure the functionality was slightly different but they mostly had the same features.

For some odd reason Khronozooie’s thoughts went to how much they, the heroic breegull’s in question, hated moles to the point that the hardly ever, if seldom mentioned, third Kazooie practically eradicated Bottles existence from her Spiral Mountain entirely. The first and second file Kazooie’s took a while trying to figure out how she managed to rid her file of Jamjars as well as Bottles entire family. It was later found out she dropped them into Grunty’s Revenge and they were being tortured by the breeding seagull’s there, yeah it was kind of common for her species to hate moles for just breathing the same air they did. It was probably some instinctual reason of their coding that just made them love doing hurtful things to moles so it probably wasn’t their faults in the first place for being hateful. Moles were probably their natural prey or something to that extent anyway. Khronozooie wasn’t going to try and reason why game designers created their species like that and she was not going to complain an iota.

“Yeah we have to move out soon as they are getting swarmed out there, but at least they aren’t getting creamed to be fair. Seriously I’m starting to sound like that witch the wart face, so let’s lend some aid and with haste. Ugh I tire of the rhyme yet that Zebra made it look good in time.” Khronozooie reached into her backpack to pull out a vehicle that could help them with this situation.

I and Khronozooie had arrived to this location ahead of Banjo and Chaos; it sure looked like they could use a hoof. Still don’t understand why we didn’t just go straight to the empire city place, but I really rightfully didn’t care as Banjo and Chaos were in trouble. Khronozooie had landed her Epoch on a high point in a mountain and stowed it away as soon as I had gotten out of it.

“Would you happen to know anything about driving, at least anything as say a simple go kart?” The time displacing bird said as she leaned against their mode of transport.

Screwball smiled and here she thought that kart racing she did at Twinkle Park had been just for fun. Well actually it was, but still rather convenient for the situation.

Chaos was standing on the back end of Cerberus Alpha and Banjo was in the hardly used seat at the front behind the head of the bike, as they rode through the badlands towards and hopefully past the arctic zone with less problems then what they had at the moment, it was Clancer Empire City or bust.

The bust might become the likelier if this kept up, so far Banjo was having a problem hotwiring the weapons systems and they had to deal with constant jetpack using Clancer assaults. Not counting the flying clan-cars shooting at them with laser beams and the Reploid riders on speeder bikes keeping up with them firing constantly at the back of the giant motorcycle with little green plasma blasts. It was close to becoming a ‘Danmaku’ situation if the enemy didn’t have such horrible aim and the bike was practically indestructible until the rider, who was Banjo, was defeated.

A Clancer was a strange being, given they are practically walking white clay creatures with three glowing holes for eyes and mouth that turn to dust when they are killed thus releasing their spirit like a Pikmin.

Despite being made of clay Clancers were actually quite tough, well at least the good Clancers that had abandoned this realm were. The jetpack wearing ones were usually armed with shuriken and grenades; other Clancers who usually wore cowboy hats tended to transforms their arms into working laser cannons for a few shots before they have to forcefully revert back to normal. The less humanoid Clancers were usually named ‘clan’ followed by a general idea of what they looked like; an example would be a Clan-cat.

Reploids on the other hand were usually humanoid robots with humanoid emotions and feelings and they tended to have a higher rampancy level then Cortana ever exhibited too. The rampancy they had led to mavericks or Reploids willing to do viable harm to biological life forms, for the biggest target for said machines are usually humans or near humanoid biological based beings. So far there were only speeder bike riders in the pack giving chase to Banjo and Chaos; they looked like Sniper Joe alternatives then again most human style Reploids do.

(Suggested music Final Fantasy VII Crazy Motorcycle Chase)

A clan-car was basically a flying saucer with a Clancer face on the front and rungs on the bottom for Clancers to drop off from; it let loose several Clancers wearing jetpacks. The three of them flew towards the back of the giant bike and each flung shuriken at the vehicles pilot. Banjo was important as his health was directly link to the Cerberus Alpha at the moment, if he went then so would the bike.

Chaos spun his upper torso around to stretch and curve his left arm into a tentacle in front of himself catching all the shuriken thrown at Banjo; he whipped his upper torso back around releasing them back at the fast flying Clancers. Three explosions sounded out in the air behind the bike.

“Hup waaa!” Three shouts sounded out as the Clancers barely landed on the bike with their jetpacks destroyed. Two regular Clancers landed behind Chaos taking up immediate boxer stances one facing Chaos and the other going for Banjo. The third smaller Clancer that had landed in front of Chaos barely grabbing onto the back edge was already turning to dust having been speared through its body by Chaos’s right limb.

The Clancer behind Banjo was quickly backhanded by Banjo’s right paw sending him into the path of a speeder bike causing a small explosion. The last Clancer threw a simple punch with which Chaos melted into a puddle under and with three rapid beeps popped up and grabbed the Clancer with both arms causing it to start crying in a panic. Looking around Chaos tossed him at a different speeder bike causing it to go up in an explosion.

A Clancer car flew down behind the bike and started lighting it up with laser blasts which Chaos was quick to dodge by dropping onto the side of the bike. It flew over head and dropped several more Clancers onto the bike before pulling back.

“Chaos, could you maybe try to keep them off of me please?” Banjo asked nicely as the four Clancers that were dropped off crawled their way for him across the back of the bike only to be intercepted by Chaos who was quite the deadly close range combatant. He grabbed the first Clancer and tossed it into another one sending them both flying off the moving vehicle.

Chaos moved to attack the other two and one tried to throw a right punch only to have its arm engulfed by Chaos’s left arm and was summarily used as a mace to smash the other one to dust before it to was sent flying off the bike and was quickly rammed into a pile of dust by a speeder bike that didn’t explode.

It didn’t take the enemies more than a minute to figure out concentrated fire on the large armored bike wasn’t helping their cause and the fact that the bike wasn’t making evasive maneuvers meant it had problems or didn’t need to evade at all. Most enemy AI’s weren’t know for their tactical standpoints, but this was open invitation as Banjo was obviously the key considering he was still trying to hack the bikes steering mechanism along with the weapons system at the back of Cerberus’s head.

Three regular sized jetpack Clancers launched from a Clan-car flying ahead of the Cerberus Alpha and they dropped off red grenades as they flew by and they made tinkling sounds before they exploded only to barely miss hitting Banjo who was furiously trying to hack the bikes systems. Chaos wasn’t so lucky and was splattered across the entire bike; the three Clancers circled around priming more grenades.

“Uh oh…” Banjo said as a grenade managed to go off in his face depleting him of one honey comb from his health bar, really not much of a problem considering he had a full health bar. “Well if this keeps up we’re not going to make it to the city to even rescue my sister. I almost have the steering down and then I might be able to get the brakes too.”

The ten to twelve speeder bikes still in the chase swerved outwards and then inwards firing in hopes of nailing banjo with plasma shots erupting from the front of their bikes. Chaos sloshed in agreement to Banjo’s somewhat pessimistic outlook as he was half formed when he was splattered back down by another grenade.

The fast flying Clancer’s were swinging around for another run when the sound of a rapid firing gun was heard, three explosions went up where the Clancer’s were and nothing but dust fell from the clouds. An engine revved and a four wheeled vehicle shot over the Cerberus Alpha with a jet thruster going full blast before its tires screeched in protest as the vehicle landed and turned to keep pace with the motorcycle.

A shadow on a distant cliff eyed the new vehicle warily and saw the breegull in the gunner’s chair, the tall shadow dashed off to warn the other two shadows of impending doom that another Kazooie had come to Planet Clancer. It didn’t leave without making sure it’s ambush team was set up first, but it didn’t think the ambush would survive contact with a breegull.

“Hey guys, need some backup?” Khronozooie swung the turret around and started blasting one Clan-car and after enough sustained fire it finally exploded. The Borderlands Two vehicle called an ‘Outrunner’ she was in came in two flavors machine gun and rocket launcher; Khronozooie chose machine gun for this particular runner painted a nice bright blue color. She was very much assured that Kazooie might have the rocket launcher version in her backpack, if not then something far deadlier. “Don’t just keep your eyes on the road Screwball drop some speed and lend some fire support with the forward gun.”

“Well hey its Screwball! Where’d you find her?” Banjo perked up at seeing who the driver of said vehicle was the purple and white curled mane with hooves on the wheel that suddenly turned and waved at him. Chaos had finally fully reformed and exclaimed a happy slosh at finding out that Screwball was okay.

“Funny thing about that, she found me!” Khronozooie turned the turret and unleashed an unending amount of fire into the speeder bikes quickly dispatching them with barely even a second of sustained fire between them. “What’s the problem guys, you don’t seem to be maneuvering to well there.”

A speeder bike swerved into the path of the Outrunner and Screwball quickly lifted her right hoof off the wheel to toggle a button on a joystick off to the side and the front gun opened up, it was hard to use for Screwball given she didn’t have a thumb for it. Two seconds later the speeder bike exploded and the vehicle harmlessly passed through the resulting dust cloud without its shield bar even dropping.

“Well I got the thing started, but I haven’t exactly gotten it entirely under my control yet I’m just glad to even have the radio working. You Kazooie’s are the ones that take up questionable talents you know, I guess I really need to step up my game a bit if I’m to get back in the hero business.” Banjo was speaking in a relatively easy and not very worried tone, in fact he seemed to be a bit happier that there was a Kazooie to talk to even if it wasn’t his Kazooie specifically.

“Have you tried separately hacking the weapon and drive systems yet? I know you’re a damn good go kart driver given you were born in Diddy Kong Racing, but from the looks of it you have no clues about hacking the weapons and drive systems of any enemy vehicle simultaneously. Screwball can you handle yourself for a few minutes without me?” Screwball looked back at the blue and purple feathered bird curiously asking what she was about to do, but gave an affirmative that what she was driving wasn’t that difficult to steer even with hooves. “Good question, something you should never do in a moving vehicle unless you know what you are doing. Bring us up alongside them.”

Khronozooie jumped out of the seat from the Outrunner’s gunner position and stood on top of it and then leapt onto the middle of the Cerberus Alpha. It was around this time that more Speeder Bikes and Clan-cars were starting to appear and they were entering a canyon like area.

“Banjo out of the way, I better make this quick because we are about to get ambushed by even worse then what’s attacking us already.” Banjo didn’t even question Khronozooie; he knew she probably already rewound time once considering she suddenly had that one dagger held in her left wing quickly being stashed into her backpack as she took up the position at the literal head of the bike. He pulled himself from his seat and stood on the back of the motorcycle with Chaos as another wave of Clancers dropped on top of them, it was hard to fight with such little room on the bike.

Screwball kept the Outrunner alongside the Cerberus Alpha and watched as Banjo and Chaos grappled with their opponents only to hear a thud as something landed on the hood the vehicle she was driving. Her eyes met two glowing red holes and a glowing open mouth greeted her as the clay creature that landed on hood of her vehicle reached down and tried to jerk the wheel off course. Screwball stuck her tongue out the corner of her mouth as she fought for control of the car with the creature.

“Hmmm… I can see why Banjo was having problems with this… tough system to crack but if I can do this fast enough I should be able to… there!” Khronozooie knew Screwball was going to be in trouble, so she had managed to access the Cerberus Alpha’s missile system and hack it in record time. A second later the bikes middle expanded and a solitary missile flew forward at an angle into the Clancer rendering it to dust and left Screwball hacking and coughing, but completely fine. Sure Khronozooie could have turned her head and launched a quick grenade or battery egg, but this solution allowed her to keep working on the systems of the motorcycle. “I think I can get the turbo laser to work just give me a minute.”

“We really don’t have that much time here... oh wait I forgot who I was talking too.” Thanks to the sudden reprieve of the bear rubbing his face in consternation, the Clancer Banjo was dealing with lunged forward to try a punch at the back of Khronozooies head. Only the attack didn’t land as it was quickly stabbed straight in the forehead with the dagger now in birds left wing again held in a reverse grip. When the Clancer turned to dust instead of blowing away the dust absorbed into the dagger. Khronozooie didn’t even bother to look away from what she was doing while continuing to hack the Cerberus Alpha’s systems with her right wing still in the back of the transforming robots skull.

“Yeah, I know tight space on this bike for the three of us, but please try to knock them off faster. The fire rate on the laser is kind of phenomenal for the output and energy usage… why do evil characters get all the good stuff? In any case I got the laser cannon online but it might be a moment before it gets up to speed.” Said laser cannon was being stood upon by Chaos as he whipped the last Clancer off and then the thing started to tilt so that it pointed straight up with the liquid formed being comically holding onto it. A small beam of light emerged and slowly shrunk into the cannon then a big bright beam of energy shot skyward ripping the clan-car above them to atoms. “Oh and I got the brakes down, steering is based on mental control and you are currently labeled as the driver Banjo, good work on that by the way. I think it’s very commendable for a Kong Country bumpkin, you should know how to aim the missiles right?”

The bike expanded and started launching more missiles behind it at the clan-cars that were flying at level with the Cerberus Alpha to fire upon it. They found themselves quickly destroyed by walls of four missiles at a time. The eyes on the bike soon lit up and started firing plasma shots forward destroying a speeder bike that had been pointlessly popping explosives at the bike for a while now and didn’t bother to change its attack patterns. It was causing Screwball some problems and Khronozooie didn’t like it being in the way, after few moments the bike was starting to automatically target the problems on its own.

“All set, I’m getting back onboard with Screwball in my Outrunner; I have weapons on auto though you can use them manually but only one at a time. Oh, and whatever you do Banjo don’t use the transformation sequence until we get to Clancer Empire City or we might have another Saucer of Peril incident. Witchy World was never quite the same after that mess, though it was amusing.” Khronozooie leapt from the bike and performed an aerial dodge that temporarily allowed the laser blasts coming from the low flying clan-cars to seemingly pass through her as she resumed her position back in the gunner’s seat of her Outrunner. Banjo gulped at the warning and took back his position behind Cerberus Alpha’s head.

Screwball felt a twitch in her tail and it wasn’t because she was sitting on it; she immediately out of instinct looked up and saw several things moving along the ridges above them. She hurriedly turned her head to Khronozooie and yelled for all them to look out from above.

“Damn it, the ride armors are early this time.” Khronozooie muttered as she continued to gun down the chasers. “Screwball, pull us back behind the bike now!”

Screwball quickly hit the brakes and swerved behind the Cerberus Alpha and just in time to avoid having the runner crushed by a giant blue walker known as a rabbit model ride armor being piloted by another Joe variation. The thing sped up and was suddenly rearing back its left fist which was a large cylinder with four large spikes sticking out of it; a grenade egg blasted it back followed by a stream of bullets. It was quickly destroyed before it could punch the Outrunner for massive damage.

“Eat it, you oversized rock’em sock’em robot!” A missile landing near the vehicle caused it to bounce into the air and lose slight control before it was back up to speed. Swerving the turret around Khronozooie saw they had another minor problem, four hovering hawk model ride armors and another rabbit which was already in the process of being destroyed by the Cerberus Alpha’s forward plasma shots. Rabbit models couldn’t fly but the Hawk’s models certainly could, a large flight fan and two rocket launcher arms were the main differences between this and the rabbit models.

Screwball was having a rough time keeping the car from going out of control. The steering was simple enough, as long as you weren’t currently under fire from several Clan-cars, speeder bikes and now flying machines with twin rocket launchers barraging them. A light bulb appeared above her head and she quickly reached her left hoof under her hat and with a quick heave there was suddenly a large anvil in the road behind them. The domino effect took care of all the speeder bikes behind them in a series of explosions preceded by a humorous amount of silly sounding clang noises, after the smoke cleared the anvil was completely unscathed.

The clan-cars simple just hovered over the anvil in continued pursuit but it looked like they were all out of Clancers to drop thanks to Khronozooie shooting the Clancers hanging from the rungs beneath them there were five left still blazing away with lasers at their tails slowly. The unfortunate problem is the current position of the Outrunner and how quickly its shields were faltering under the barrage from behind and above. Khronozooie turned around and started dealing with the incoming rockets and was having a hard problem keeping her gun focused on ride armors flying above them as they maneuvered quickly out of the way of the constant stream of infinite ammo.

Chaos turned to slosh a request. Banjo agreed and hoped that Khronozooie knew to get out of the way… who was he kidding of course Khronozooie would know to get out of the way, she wasn’t his Kazooie.

A thin beam of energy went past Khronozooie’s head and she turned her head to the Cerberus Alpha’s cannon preparing to launch a huge beam directly at them.

“Screwball whatever you do don’t move out of the way of the beam and when I shout hit the brakes!” Screwball didn’t question Khronozooie and just kept the Outrunner right where it was behind the Cerberus Alpha.

Chaos was worried that the Outrunner wasn’t changing course to get out of the way and it was too late to stop the beam from firing and it blasted a beam towards the Outrunner.

“TIID-KLO-UL!” Khronozooie shouted and Screwball immediately hit the brakes, only to become shocked at how everything around had turned grey and stopped or at least slowed drastically. Khronozooie’s voice hoarsely spoke up it sounded like she shredded her vocal chords. “No time to explain, just drive around and get in front of the bike and make it snappy! Oh and be prepared to floor it and hit the jet too or else we’re going to get run over.”

Screwball rolled her eyes; she wasn’t that stupid and taking hint that time would probably quickly revert from whatever Khronozooie just did. Quickly she drove around to the front of the bike with little room to spare between the bike and the canyon wall and right past the now slowly moving beam still erupting from the cannon. All this took ten seconds leaving about six to spare when Khronozooie spoke up.

“On my mark three… two… one… now!” Screwball hit the thrusters and gunned the Outrunner as time reverted to normal and they barely avoided getting rear ended by Banjo who managed to slow the bike down slightly in shock at seeing the sudden appearance of the Outrunner in front of him. The beam cannon did its job with wiping away the last of the clan-cars and all that was left was the four hawk model ride armors to be shot down.

The aerial armor’s were made quick work of by the rotary missiles from the Cerberus Alpha and the never ending machine gun fire from the Outrunner blowing their rockets out of the air. After the enemies were gone things were quiet as they drove out of the canyon they came to a stop and hopped out for a little powwow at the edge of Planet Clancer’s arctic zone.

“Well suffice it to say they know we’re coming at least and they were certainly prepared for you, but they aren’t prepared for a time twister.” Khronozooie stated bluntly as she walked up to banjo giving him a hug. “Good to see you Banjo it’s been a while since I’ve seen a lovable goof like your ugly mug and I really should go to more of my Banjo’s hockey games. He’s been doing quite well oh and someone’s been nearly dying, quite literally, to give you a hug.”

Screwball trotted up to Banjo and lifted her front legs up and smiled toothily up at Banjo, he brought her into a tight hug and exclaimed he was glad that she was safe after disappearing like that. When she asked why he was so worried, he responded that she was family after all and his niece. She nuzzled into his soft warm chest in a fit of giggles. Chaos just stood of to the side with a tilted head looking confusedly at the situation till Khronozooie walked up to him and started chatting about if he knew a thing or two about time travel, surprisingly he was quite a fountain of knowledge.

Meanwhile still in the cage getting slightly less sane by the minute.

“I’m so gooney, looney tuney, te’ched in the head. Please pass the ketchup; I think I’ll go to bed! Hoo! Am I the screwball, woo woo! Throw me the 8-ball woo woo!” Kazooie sang cheerily as she sat in the middle of the room bored out of her mind and taking glances at the energy field above her head holding her here. It was only a matter of time before she got out and when she did...

“What is she doing now?” The posh shadows voice said from the room with the observation screen.

“I think she’s singing show tunes, but I can’t exactly tell you what she’s singing though. Somehow it sounds rather familiar for some reason, yet I can’t place it.” The short shadow said.

We'll Met Again

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“I swear, we should put a tracking device on that girl or at least a leash… cartoon characters may always be trouble, but she’s our little Screwball and we probably wouldn’t have her any other way right?” Khronozooie lamented as Banjo was groaning with his right paw over his face.

Chaos just sloshed something about how funny he found the situation and performed a form of chuckling, that pony lived up to his namesake.

(Rocket Knight Adventure’s stage 1-2 music; I like to call it ‘Across the Waters’ for reference.)

There I sat wandering how I ended up in this situation looking at the city on the horizon. I was sitting on a missile flying across the sky and I had to wonder what Banjo, Chaos and even Khronozooie are thinking right now. Well that’ll teach them to let me near buttons and not letting me touch them without watching me carefully to make sure I didn’t as my curiosity got the better of me near the parked Cerberus Alpha. While the more mature members of our party made a plan of approach, being Banjo and Khronozooie. I think Khronozooie was slowly winning the argument of just rush in and blow lots of stuff up, something I’d suspect my mom would exactly do were she not the one needing a rescue.

The next thing I remember is the rest of my body snapping and catching up with my limb that clung to the missile. When my body caught up we were both suddenly spinning in mid-air wildly shaking both of us up a lot and the thing expanded to the size it was now. I guess it’s just part of my cartoon heritage I think that I managed to straighten out in mid-air and latch onto the missile for dear life.

So here I sat with a grin on my face as the wind was whipping my mane back and wondering how this was going to turn out… my mother was in that vast cityscape and most likely the very large ominous building in the center in the distance. I’m also guaranteed a long fall and or to get caught in an explosion when this missile I’m on finally goes up. I wasn’t really all too worried about all this, even if I didn’t survive the fall or if my propeller hat stopped working in mid-air which wasn’t likely as it had a one pony capacity and I was only one pony. I really did hope that the other’s would catch up with me quickly, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen given I saw more of those Clancer things in goofy machines marching through the arctic zone place when I passed over.

Meanwhile in Clancer Empire City preparing for the approaching missile, a Met with the odd model number of six-zero-zero-W-P-V sat at the radar station looking at the missile and got a visual of something sitting on top of it.

The creature known as a Metool or Met was a small dark grey or black colored two footed walking head robot that had a semi-impenetrable hard hat that almost always comes in yellow with a small black cross on the front of it. This one was especially abnormal for a common garden variety Megaman staple character. It set off an alert like it should have and then rushed off to parts unknown as the anti-air defenses came online.

Back to the missile that Screwball was riding on, it was slowly approaching the city as things started to light up below her.

Screwball felt a left ear twitch, right ear twitch and it ended with a full body shudder… something unexpected and unusual was about to happen! She honestly started understanding that her twitches meant something important and was not just her chaos magic acting up, it didn’t scare her that she understood them or that they came at random. It was just Screwball being herself and she accepted that fact quite well.

What Screwball didn’t accept was that a unicorn would appear right in front of her; she really wondered how a unicorn could time such a feat as to appear in front of her thousands of feet above the ground on a fast moving missile which she was promptly knocked off of? Yeah she didn’t think it was coincidence and somebody with cosmic powers was probably smiling at her considering this moment in time, well she didn’t know how else she was going to get off the missile as it felt like her legs were glued to it anyway.

It was a good thing she was knocked off the missile too as seconds later hundreds of lasers and other missiles were angling at the now pilotless pony lacking missile.

I was disoriented and had to think fast, the unicorn that had suddenly flashed into my face had been knocked out by a collision with my skull to hers; thankfully I avoided being speared by her horn. Wait the unicorn was female? Well yes, but now wasn’t the time to focus on the unicorn as she would die if they hit the ground at the speeds they were going, Screwball had extra lives so it wasn’t her problem but very much so for the pony she collided with. She reached out with her hooves and wrapped them around the unicorn’s torso and started up her hats propeller which barely slowed their fall at all, but at least it was progress.

Screwball understood if she could barely get any lift with banjo a heavy honey bear even if temporarily, she would get better lift with a much lighter pony. They were slowing down; nowhere near enough to be less then fatal should they finally hit the ground. Screwball really didn’t like the idea of a life ending in her hooves and was quickly trying to think of a way to save the pony in question that probably would have died from the fall normally had she not hit Screwball in the first place which is why she didn’t think this was a coincidence.

Okay Screwball, think you’re a cartoon character, you’re a chaos born pony… what could you possibly… wait chaos born? That’s it! But did she or it have enough power to work? Even if it didn’t she had to think of something silly to do like hit the brakes five feet above the ground or something, cartoon characters could do that right? Not that looking down helped the fact that they were still rather rapidly approaching the city at an angle and its defenses had finally turned to fire missiles and lasers up at her.

Screwball was exceedingly lucky that both the Clancer and Reploid forces weren’t good shots with lasers and were aiming at her instead of where she was going to be. The anti-air defenses running on ancient ‘missile command’ protocols fortunately couldn’t get any missiles locked onto her, but this was because someone had recently sabotaged it. All attempts to nail the pony with fast flying explosives failed because the one that performed the sabotage knew the laser defensive grid was a joke against small quick moving targets.

Speaking of which, the Met known as 600WPV watched the sky in honest horror through binoculars, ignoring the very fact that Met’s don’t have arms to even hold them to its eyes. There were now two ponies falling from the sky. It certainly hadn’t seen that on the monitors a minute ago and it seemed the pony with the propeller hat was having a hard time steering their fall. Taking in their velocity alongside incoming vector, they were set to land in the highly protected ride armor spawning factory area which used to be just a Clancer mechanized weapons spawn point.

The Met quickly ducked down into its hat and when it stood up it had determined eyes and the binoculars disappeared to parts unknown. 600WPV quickly charged off to hopefully help them should they survive the harsh landing and what was waiting for them there when they did.

Screwball quickly reached under her hat and pulled out a yellow emerald. Closing her eyes tight, she hoped it had enough juice to stop their fall. With a blink in three bright blinding flashes that engulfed the two ponies, soon they were somewhere else.

(Music end)

Screwball slowly opened her eyes when she felt that they both dropped onto something that had immediately softened upon impact… looking down she and the other pony were sitting in a pile of dust. Blinking to herself, Screwball had seen the Clancers turning to dust multiple times so the fact that she and the unicorn were sitting in a pile meant that… well they killed one and landed safely but where were they?

Looking around they were in the city proper and on one of the seemingly vast empty streets and in front of her and the unconscious pony were two Clancers wearing cowboy hats that were staring blankly at her. They both held up their arms which were promptly morphed into laser cannons, pointing them directly at the unconscious pony causing Screwball’s eyes to narrow. They’d seriously shoot at an innocent pony or what she thought might be innocent pony that was out cold?

A slow flying blast of energy and one quick grab and roll meant yes they’d shoot first as they certainly weren’t asking questions. She had dodge five more shots while quickly lifting the unicorn’s weight onto her back which wasn’t easy as she was grazed by at least two of them, the weight wasn’t the problem so much as the space the unicorn took up. Their arms morphed back to normal and they slowly charged forward while their arm cannon transformations recharged.

Screwball couldn’t fight like this and watch out for the pony on her back; she also couldn’t very well escape either. The best she could do was projectile vomiting in this situation, she inhaled through her nose and a sphere slid up her throat, her cheeks bulged and she spat a green baseball into the face of one of the Clancer’s blowing it into a pile of dust. The other one continued to charge her and she didn’t have any more time for another baseball grenade, instead it was shattered to dust by a circular blast of yellow energy.

“Well that went much better than I was expecting.” The mechanical synthesized feminine voice said causing Screwball to turn to Met 600WPV.

Screwball tilted her head and asked the question of what the thing was expecting.

“Well we’re right near the ride armor factory; I’m just surprised security isn’t already… Screwball, start running…” The eyes that widened in fear under the helmet caused Screwball to not look behind her, instead she immediately chose to start into a cartoon enhanced speedy gallop leaving behind a small smiling dust cloud shaped like herself. That dust cloud was suddenly dissipated by the sudden five fingered fist of a chimera model ride armor punching straight through it, no extra jump jets like in the rabbit model and was the most basic of the ride armors. Its primary function was as a cargo loading robot and it had quite a bit of functionality with its grasping hands to crush things in its grip as much as pulp anything it punches.

The pilot of the ride armor sent its machine forward ignoring the Met with the label 600WPV as it turned and ran down a different street in the hopes of cutting off the pony before she got too lost or killed. This was a good time to get its vehicle, think of a way to drag two ponies out of harm’s way and call in for backup it now needed. Oh developers this was going to be a huge headache.

Screwball was pretty fast in avoiding the fist by quite a large margin but she wasn’t going to outrun that machine for long as it was starting to catch up her even now after she had turned a street corner. She almost thought she heard familiarity in that helmet robots voice when it said her name, but she had never met anything like it or had she? That wasn’t something to focus on when you had an endangered pony draped across your back.

The ride armor slid around the corner and started walking until it could get its skate ability off cool down. The ponies down the street were doomed when it went to slide in for a deadly punch.

Screwball continued running, but she wasn’t about to outpace the thing forever knowing how fast they could go from the canyon ambush. The pony on her back wasn’t as heavy as she could be but that had to be a side effect of this realm boosting her physical strength. She could only do good sprints in small bursts and she was too low on chaotic energy to perform another Chaos Control or as she called it the Chaos Blink with the emerald. She didn’t believe this was the only walker that was going to give chase to her. When all else fails quick wits, crazy acrobatic stunts and wild card ploys!

Screwball immediately stopped running at an intersection and waited as the chimera ride armor charged at her from behind. Looking behind herself she waited and dived forward out of the way of two, three spiked spinning cylinders as they both demolished the ride armor before retracting. The pony was immediately up and quickly galloping as she now had two ride armors on her flank, there were more on the way by the familiar sounds of incoming hawk ride armors.

Screwball took a right at the next street and was wanting to get far away from that noise as she didn’t have any means to combat heavily armored rocket firing vehicles and her throat was not an on demand projectile spamming machine gun. She had to find a way to quickly lose those spinning drill launching ride armors which were known to be the kangaroo models.

“Over here, this way!” Screwballs attention was turned to the waving foot of the Met in an alleyway on her left and she immediately turned into the alleyway.

The two kangaroo ride armors decided to stop at the entrance to the alley and had back up moving to cut the pony off.

“Look we don’t have much time Screwball, put this HUD device on the side of your head and follow the waypoints I set up for you on the mini-map in the lower right corner. Pay special attention to the FOF system. The red dots are foes and the others can be explained later.” The Met lifted a strange device to Screwball who took it in her left hoof. “I’ve already called for help; make sure you lose any foe labeled pursuers before you reach that final beacon. Hold on while I give you an opening!”

It was strange looking but as soon as I placed it at the side of my head, a strange rectangular image soon slid across my eyesight and I was suddenly seeing everything differently. I believe this would be considered First Pony Shooter mode, given I have a targeting reticule wherever my eyes were focused, In the lower left corner was a health bar representing my current state of health which was relatively good and below it was a strange black bar that read three percent and was slowly climbing. In the lower right corner I saw the blue dot running out of the alleyway and the red dot with an arrow turned to the thing currently identifying itself as Met 600MPV whose arrow was pointing towards it. Soon the Met’s arrow spun around in place and then the red dot soon moved along and then the arrow turned back and came to the purple dot; looking in front of me I realized I was that dot.

“Go now; I don’t know how long that will keep them distracted.” The Met ran out of the alleyway from where I entered and stopped to twirl again before moving past the two ride armor. I now knew they were called ‘kangaroo’ or that’s what they identified as. I really didn’t think they looked like kangaroos given they were large walking metal contraptions with painful looking pointy things on them that spun and launched off of them connected to chains.

I carefully moved out of the alleyway that the Met just gave me an opening to escape from and I watched the bottom right corner of the screen. I quickly started moving to the right and down the street and made a left down another street watching as the red dots were moving around everywhere on the circle in comparison to my purple dot.

I was staying on course for the first waypoint when I started to notice an interesting trend; every waypoint I went to the red dots would quickly be drawn away by two other dots that were green. By the time I reached the fifth waypoint I felt something stirring on my back as explosions sounded in the distance. This wasn’t good, if the pony panicked then that would draw attention to us.

“Uh… where am… mph…” The pony’s eyes opened widely as Screwball quickly threw a hoof over her mouth and looked around the next corner, three of those things were slowly moving down the street.

They hadn’t spotted Screwball peaking around the corner yet; two identified as chimera and the last was something new and looked dangerously sleek called an eagle. All the other things looked bulky in comparison to this thing and she didn’t want to be shot by whatever came from that cannon that was one of its arms.

I turned back to the pony that I quickly slid off my back, held a hoof up to my mouth shushing her and pointed to an alleyway a few feet back the pony looked at me confusedly as I went back to the corner and peered around. They were definitely closer and had stopped at the cross roads down the street; I turned back to the pony and asked her to wait there.

“How are you…?” Screwball quickly shushed the pony telling her that they were currently in danger and could talk later about how she can talk without vocalizing.

Slowly I let a bulge slide up my throat and with a cough I had a pink baseball in my right hoof, well it’s about time I started using my Rebound Strikers. I switched it over to my left hoof and took a few steps back. I turned a hard look to the unicorn making sure she stayed there.

Soon I was charging forward to dive sideways and with a flick of my hoof I sent the baseball sailing in a corkscrew. It elongated as it flew and caught fire just before it hit the right chimera and rebounded into the eagle’s back and then struck the other chimera bouncing off of that. Both the chimeras exploded yet the eagle only seemed to have taken minimal damage; it was definitely an upgrade to the rest of these bulky walking machines.

I stayed laying there on my side for second as the eagle’s energy cannon charged up and my HUD started blaring warning signals to my eyes. I quickly got to my hooves and dove around the corner as it released a blast of three energy spheres at me. My left front left leg jerked slightly and her right knee started itching… imminent pain! I immediately put my back to the wall of the nearby structure I had leapt out from behind. The spheres sharply turned the corner barely missing me by the tip of my now slightly singed mane; I gave a toothy grin and felt a sweat drop appear on the side of my head.

Huh… so the twitches didn’t just mean it was going to always happen exclusively, well that was good to know.

Screwball backed up towards the alleyway where she told the unicorn to stay put as the roar of the engines from the flying machine was heard flying towards her position. Screwball didn’t relish the thought of fighting that thing in close combat nor did she like her bean dogs without vegetarian chili spices on top of the relish. Her mind could go to such strange places at times.

The unicorn poked her head out as she watched Screwball pull a baseball bat out from under her hat and took it in a strong grip with her front hooves in a standing position. She wondered what was going on and was curious about their predicament, and then a strange machine quickly flew around the corner to hover in front of them.

Screwball had no time to charge her bat up for a swing to knock back the energy blast the eagle rider armor launched, it landed short of directly hitting her. She was still blown clear off her hooves by the resulting shockwave. She also lost grip of her homerun bat, she really didn’t feel like abusing her throat with any more projectiles today or even had the chaos energy to use one.

The unicorn didn’t know what that thing was or where she happened to be, but it was decidedly not a good thing to be in front of like the strange earth pony. She had to help her, but before the unicorn could even think of a way to lend aid a shout was heard coming down the street.

“Incoming!” Screwball rolled out of the way of a blazing red object as it blurred past and shot into the air to slam into the flying machine causing it to explode. A small one wheeled vehicle fell from the quickly disappearing shattered remains of the enemy machine; it looked like a red armor plated wheel with eyes.

“Come on Screwball; grab your friend we have to keep moving! I’ll guide in you from here; I just hope my cover wasn’t blown when I did that. Come Wheelie!” The small one wheeled machine quickly rolled over to the Met as it leapt into the air and onto the vehicle snuggly wrapping its feet around the armored top portion.

“Hold on, what’s going on here?” The unicorn didn’t get any response other then Screwball running to get her bat back under her hat. She was roughly grabbed and shouldered by the earth pony as she ran by on her two legs following the Met.

“It seems Screwball understands we have no time to talk right now, we’ll be safer once we reach my base of operations.” The Met steered the wheel machine for home base and hopefully an explanation for what two cartoon ponies were doing in such a dangerous place. If the Met were compromised then quite a few of the other Mets it made friends with were going to be in trouble and likely scrapped.

Two shadows in the central building of the city stood there watching the screen. They were currently talking about the failed operations to slow down Banjo and his team, it didn’t seem like that would work as there was more than Banjo apparently breaching Clancer Empire City.

“It’s impossible they can’t be here already.” The posh shadow said, but apparently a missile had flown over the city and then reports of heroes launching random attacks on their patrols came about.

A third figure came sliding into the room, the short stumpy one.

“They aren’t, my arctic combat squads were just totaled by them. They’ll be here soon and there’s no stopping them.” The short figure was quickly getting panicky.

“I’ll prepare the fleet they can’t possibly take down everything. If I’m right, we’re about to come under attack if that probe into the city earlier wasn’t a clue.” The posh shadow stalked out of the room followed by its compatriots. “We just need to throw everything we have at the heroes and make sure to secure our prisoner until ‘they’ arrive for the pickup. We have to hunt down the intruders already in the city and take them out!”

“We’re not going to survive this I just know it and when they do get here and let Kazooie loose we’re all going to fry, not that I’m a quitter or anything. I’ll search the city for those intruders.” The tall lisping shadow said before dashing off.

“We’re fighting a losing battle and you know it. It’ll be like Megaman X all over again, especially when that other Kazooie launches an assault on our base and releases the first one.” The short shadow said before slipping off to prepare the base defenses personally.

“Hmm...” The posh shadow started to slowly meander towards the hangar. They didn’t get any visuals or identifications on the heroes in the city, but they were definitely army killer level to have caused so much damage in so little time. They had punctured a few holes in defenses of the city without being caught on camera by any of their Reploid forces or they destroyed them too fast to even send back visuals. The evil Clancers were just willing cannon fodder for their goals and were of no mind to him as long as they put up something of a struggle. If the shields on Kazooie’s cell fell for even a second she’d instantly escape and there would be no stopping that bloody crow or catching her off guard again.

“All forces on high alert! Double... no... triple the defenses around the lower levels.”

Goombella-shment

View Online

(Super Mario RPG Rose Town music)

The door slid up and in we trotted followed by our helmeted helper, I knew who she was now and I just had to wonder what she was doing here now. My twitches did say I’ve met this Met thing before only not like this.

“Say, can I have my HUD device back now?” Screwball blinked and used her hoof to hand over the device to the seemingly robotic creature; she was missing the HUD thing already and that little targeting cursor.

“Thanks! Now I’m going to call back my bodyguards and we’ll talk then.” The creature then waddled off leaving the two ponies alone in the room.

“So where are we and who are you? You seem familiar to me for some reason. Oh, oh! Are there any humans here?” The unicorn looked at the room wildly. It was a large lounge area with four curved couch pieces around a circular table and a fridge; it was pretty sparse with a few lockers for random RPG items to be stashed away in against one wall.

Screwball quirked her left eye, but decided to answer what she knew. Her name was Screwball, they’ve seen each other before because she was that pony that did the street corner lyre playing and she hasn’t seen any humans since she got to this realm. Just a bunch of weird creatures and a lot of things on this planet had that weird face on it.

“Cool, so you’ve heard me playing… wait, speaking of playing do you hear that music.” It was around this point that the unicorns ears flicked as she finally was paying attention to the fact that the background music existed. “Sounds really funky, but I like it.”

The swirly eyed pony decided to tell the mint colored pony that the video game realms had their own rules and one of them was the background music that plays on an eternal loop. If it got too annoying she could mute it for the pony or look into changing the venue at least, she didn’t quite know her name yet and she would like to know.

“Oh yeah, sorry about that, I’m Lyra Heartstrings.” The pony held out a hoof to the other pony and Screwball promptly took her hoof and shook it, then Lyra proceeded to invade her personal space. “You can make the music go away? How, I can’t even tell where it’s coming from. Also what’s with your eyes? Are you a baseball player? Where did that bat go and how did you fit it there? How did you end up in another dimension? Are you sure there’s no humans here and what was that giant thing with the hand was… because I kind of want one.”

Screwball blinked confusedly at all the questions the other pony had, she was silly but she had some of her own. Obviously she knew the other pony was a lyre player and had seen her with the sweets shop store owner when she was around Ponyville with Kazooie and at least once or twice before coming into contact with the breegull in Canterlot. The biggest and most obvious question to ask was, how in the world did Lyra end up in the video game realms?

“Oh… that… well… boy is there going to be a lot of egg on my face when I get back. Assuming I even do get back and Bon-bon doesn’t hate me or dump me for taking a chance to meet a real live human. Not to mention Twilight Sparkle is going to kill me for stealing her notes on cross dimensional jumping. I’m just wondering why I didn’t meet any humans immediately getting here and just blacked out. Oh goddess…” Lyra started to sniffle and she started to cry as she realized she didn’t know how to get back Twilight hadn’t perfected a return spell only spell to go to some realm where a being known as Kazooie was in. The spell also had the qualifier that she’d be in safe hooves when she got there and at least that part worked perfectly, the part about finding someone with the knowledge to help you return didn’t seem too. It was a backup plan if Twilights return spell didn’t work as she hadn’t designed that yet when Lyra took this trip into an alternate dimension.

Screwball tried to think of something to cheer the mare up and after some thought a light bulb appeared above her head, but it wasn’t lit. Glaring up at the light bulb Screwball started to slap at it trying to get it to light and Lyra notice and immediately took interest in this strange situation, this was the only pony around in a city full of giant humanoid robotic monsters and she was doing something almost like Pinkie could. Soon in frustration the cartoon pony was smacking the light bulb against the ground and it miraculously wasn’t shattering, but it definitely wasn’t lighting either.

Lyra couldn’t help herself she felt her face crinkling up and she started to giggle, Pinkie would have it start off already lit and it would have easily been passed off as a figment of the townsfolk’s imaginations as it would disappear a second later. This however was hilarious as the pony continued to try lighting the thing through various methods, from sticking it in one of her ears, to putting it in her mouth and squeezing her nose. After that it then it dissolved into the more absurd things like putting it on top of Lyra’s horn to see if it would light up and asked her if she had an idea.

Lyra broke out in laughter and Screwball got angry at the minty pony for not helping her figure out how to cheer up the lyre player in question. The laughter doubled as Screwball had already cheered the pony up and was getting angry at her for not helping her cheer herself up. Now it was Screwball who was the glum pony.

“Oh, don’t be like that… have you tried this?” Lyra made sure she had the strange earth ponies attention as she levitated the bulb into the air turned it so that it showed the small pull chain to Screwball and then with a magical pull the bulb lit. Insert face to hoof interaction from the screwy pony, before the light bulb disappeared once she realize she had succeeded in brightening Lyra’s day both literally and figuratively. “Yeah, I really needed that. Thanks a lot Screwball. I just hope I’m forgiven when I get back to Ponyville... if I even can.”

Screwball smiled and said that yeah they could go back to Ponyville, but it was going to take a while.

“Why’s that?” Lyra was about to receive an answer when the Met waddled back into the room and the door to the secret hideout opened and in walked four individuals, which immediately drew Lyra’s attention to two of them because of their general appearance. Lyra’s eyes begin to become big and shiny and she made low pitched whining sound as the four beings moved over to the Met.

“Sorry I took so long, I was directing my friends who happen to be mostly paid bodyguards while I study what’s happening here in the Clancer Empire City. Really they’ve been bored out of their minds since we got here since my disguise is so good. So since you know I know your name care to take a guess at mine or have you forgotten me already?” The Met said with a hint of amusement.

Well of course I knew who she was; she was Goombella the Archaeologist, Scholar and studied creature things.

“Hey! I study video game creatures meaning if it’s video game and violent I’ll know something about it, I also happen to have an ability that’s basically a free scan spell no MP required which is amazingly useful as it sounds.” With a flourish the Met helmet flew off of the goomba’s head revealing a bright pink ponytail and a charcoal colored skin underneath a pith helmet, but there was no doubt about whom this character was. “You know, I find it funny how we’re meeting again so soon.”

I thought so too with a smile. I asked who her friend’s were and then I noticed Lyra drooling a bit and staring at two in particular who seemed to be a tad unnerved. They didn’t seem to think she was a threat and they probably have never seen a pony determined to do something before. Goombella ignored the fact that the pony next to me was drooling and had yet to come to her senses and pulled out her amazing great big book of everything with a lot of information inside, well as long as it was considered alive that is.

“Let’s see, first up we have the shooting star warrior Ristar, I think the two of you would get along. He has the ability to slam his face into his enemies with powerful force after grabbing them with his stretchy arms and outstretched fingers. He’s also good at throwing things and in this realm he’s much tougher for any enemy to handle because of it. His special move is the shooting star attack where he launches off something with the power of a shooting star. He’s the son of the legendary hero and a star goddess named Oruto from his realm that is named after him; he also likes trying to grant the wishes of those who are innocent and tends to help as much as he can from his heart. I’m just surprised he’s helping me without pay, special note he’s designed like a cartoon character yet he doesn’t actually have any true cartoon powers other than some minor mimicry from his video game abilities.” The book snapped shut and then Goombella moved over to the blue armor wearing knight and politely waited for Ristar to take the floor.

The creature had a yellow star shaped face on a black spherical shaped body. His black colored rubbery limbs ended in a comical pair of four fingered white gloves and yellow striped sneakers. He simply stared at Screwball for a moment before addressing her.

“I’ll help you with your wish, as long as Goombella doesn’t mind me getting side quested.” Ristar had a childish voice and had a friendly smile on his face and Goombella just nodded.

Screwball wondered what he meant when he said he’d help her with her wish.

“By helping reunite you with your mother of course.” The declaration was met with gasp from the other three game characters, Lyra and Goombella.

“So whatever is going on with this city has to do with her and why your here huh? Well so much for my research paper, we’ll address that after our introductions.” Goombella flipped through several pages of her book and then with a stylish twirl she held it up revealing the blue armored character that happens to be an opossum wearing a jetpack. Said character leaned back against the wall next to the entrance of the hideout crossing his arms. “Here we have Sparkster Sanjulo; he’s might be a bit gruff with you, but he’s honestly quite friendly once you get to know him. He comes from the Rocket Knight Adventures series of games. He fights with his sword and burst attacks after charging up for it, being a professional rocket knight he’s got a lot of magical power backing up his abilities given it’s what he charges his jetpack with. He’s the adopted son of Mifune Sanjulo the previous leader of the Rocket Knights from his realm after a previous war left him as an orphan. He likes to run around helping the defenseless and weak which usually leads to him fighting entire armies single handedly much to his chagrin that it happens so often. His special attacks are drill thrust and the deadly rolling ripsaw. I’ve been paying him minimum wage, surprisingly he hasn’t been too picky about it of course he’s been bored out of his mind lately sitting on his tail waiting for some action.”

The opossum just shrugged and stared at Screwball from his position against the wall, he didn’t want to admit that he was willing to throw himself into the thick of things for her if she asked. Now that he took a second look he was just going to suck it up and do it anyway, the ponies were pretty darn cute. He had an unspoken issue with the fact that Goombella had just implied that the pony’s mother was in this enemy infested place and if he was going to fight an entire army, he would at least like a little forewarning.

“Now for the next two they are…” Goombella started off realizing Sparkster wasn’t going to say anything.

“Humans oh my goddesses yes!” Lyra practically squealed in girlish glee causing everyone to cringe, as she pranced her way over to the two near adult looking human figures one a raven haired boy and the other a blonde haired girl. She wanted to ask them so much, she wanted to get a picture so that the moment would last longer between them and she wanted to maybe be their best friends. She was a bit out of control and currently ignoring their personal space.

“Actually they’re not humans…” Goombella’s voice cut through Lyra’s brain like a hot knife through butter and she ended up with a frantic pony in her face.

“What! Look at them, they certainly look human too me!” Lyra yelled as she turned on the female goomba didn’t bat an eyelash at her sudden hysterics.

“True, they are mostly designed for the appearance and they most certainly can come off like them, but they aren’t really. I take it you’ve never seen a human before and only have a general idea of what to look for?” Receiving a nod from the pony, Goombella sighed with her eyes closed she slowly debated on how she should respond to this. After a moment she opened hers eyes and twirled her book around to show everyone the statistics and started up her usually spiel ignoring the saddened look on Lyra’s face as best she could.

“Quote Mark and Curly Brace, these two are the friendliest sentient robots you’ll ever meet. They are specially designed dangerous, when armed, reconnaissance robots that were sent to destroy a fantastical object called the demon crown in their realm; unfortunately they managed to only wound the wielder and were knocked out of commission by its power. Ten years later they would come into full sentience upon waking up with no memory of the fight beforehand, it was most likely a side effect of the demon crown, one thing is for sure they love each other and will always have the others back through thick and thin. A side effect of their sentience also allows them to consume and be affected by biological matter and thus they are as close to human as they can get without actually being human, though they have a few problems when it comes to water and swimming. Quote is a silent protagonist who specializes in weaponry, he’s seen carrying his powerful beam pistol known as Spur which never runs out of ammo, requires some charge time for its most powerful shot. He also wields King’s Blade, the sword that holds spirit of his mostly deceased friend. Curly on the other hand is not so silent and wields her Machine Blaster and special Nemesis weapon; it takes a while for her machine gun to recharge after expending it all but her Nemesis is specially treated to never weaken thus making her a danger to all of her enemies. Curly uses her Machine Blaster to get around as it can boost her through the air defying gravity by pure firing force, while Quote just has a super jetpack that can change directions on a dime but limited flight time really causes him problems every now and then. They both come from the realm of Cave Story and… oh my… wow you guys really like Chaco don’t you? I pay these two quite well in motor oil from the Metal Slug realm of which they seem to take frequent vacations.” After all that information was out of the way they waited for a response from the two pale skinned metallic beings. They were both blushing as soon as Chaco was mentioned, not to mention Goombella cheeks were flaring bright red and she had a sheepish look on her face.

Quote said a cheery hello to Screwball and Lyra with silent protagonist; he wanted to know who would keep a child from their mother as he had quite a few hundred energy bullets with their names on it.

“You will never tell anyone what we have with Chaco you understand me, I will stomp you if you say anything more on that subject.” Despite the angry blonde robot’s feminine rage Goombella didn’t look worried. After a moment Curly relented after a few seconds and turned to Screwball and brought her into a tight squeezing grasp. “Oh you poor thing, me and Quote will blow up anyone in your way to your mommy.”

“Lucky…” Lyra muttered as she wanted a hug from a nearly human creature too.

“Our introductions aside, care to introduce yourselves? Also I want to know what’s going on with you being here Screwball.” Goombella had a serious expression on her face.

Lyra introduced herself to everyone as being an expert lyre and harp player and Screwball told them all of what’s been going on thus far including the fact that she ran into Lyra coming into the city.

“So your group is heading this way, if you’ll excuse me I’ll go make contact with them. Whoever is running this city has a jamming signal running constantly and so far I’m the only non enemy thing around with any working communications around here and a few of my friends happen to be Metool’s so I’m going to contact them as well to come here. Then we’ll think of something to rescue you’re mother, snacks are in the fridge from Harvest Moon and if you’d like to take an RPG nap we have a few beds in the next room or so.” Goombella got the Met hat back on her head with a swift stomp of her foot on its edge and opened the door to the hideout and marched out, it swiftly shut behind her.

“So you’re a spoony bard huh?” Curly bluntly stated with a smile to receive a rather heated glare from Lyra and slowly the smile fell off her face.

“What did you just call me?” Lyra wasn’t going to take that from an almost human being, who was created by human beings in their wondrous image.

Screwball ignored them and wandered over to the fridge and pulled out a carrot from a package that read ‘Harvest Moon Produce Inc.’ and started chewing on its end. For some reason she felt like saying something smarmy right now though she couldn’t think of a single thing to say, but the carrot was really delicious like it had been grown in the perfect soil at the perfect time of year.

“It wasn’t an insult it’s just that any person that plays a musical instrument and doesn’t fight really well tends to be called by the title ‘Spoony Bard’ in our realms. Quite frankly you definitively classify as a spoony bard as you’re most likely a non combatant, you sometimes do foolish things like ending up in this realm in the first place and most importantly you play lyres and harps which is kind of the first sign that you’re in fact spoony.” The tone Curly was using was matter of fact and quite frankly Lyra was a spoony bard, she just didn’t want to admit it.

“I’m not spoony!” Lyra vehemently yelled despite the obvious that all the video game characters in the room thought she was. She didn’t deny being a bard this time and it was only a matter of time before she admitted to being spoony.

Screwball offered Lyra a carrot and she took it to angrily chew on it as she glared at Curly Brace who smiled at her, it wasn’t even a malicious type of smile either. Lyra had to admit that the straight blonde hair was kind of strange for someone with the name Curly and dragged Screwball into some girl talk with the human shaped robot. Quote silently stood off to the side having started a conversation with Sparkster. Ristar was lounging on one of the couches around the table with a determined look on his face.

(End music.)

Outside the city walls, Goombella under her Metool disguise walked along the highway leading into the city until she was out of range of the jamming signal and immediately called up Banjo on her plot device.

“Hello?” Banjo said on the other end.

“Hey Banjo, I bet you’re missing a pony with swirly eyes, pink coat and purple with white streaked mane right about now. Anyway I’m outside Clancer Empire City with a quick warning, don’t approach yet. Screwball is safe and sound, but apparently the enemy forces in the city and they are looking for hero blood. What’s going on with your end?” Goombella suddenly heard a struggle taking place on the other end of the device and then a different voice came on.

“We’ll be there soon, I just hope Screwball stays out of trouble for right now and if you have a good layout of the city start thinking on a plan to hit some of the more important parts of the city. I know you don’t like traveling alone as a partner character, especially if it’s into enemy territory without backup. You better have some really good heroes supporting you because we’re getting Kazooie out of that icebox they’ve got her in and once she gets out she’s going to go ballistic. We’ll meet you outside the city, from what you just told Banjo they’ll be too busy focusing their forces inwards at the moment to notice us coming through a backdoor. I’ll have to thank Screwball for that personally as I know she was most likely behind that.” The voice of the file two Kazooie sounded like she was going to start assaulting the city by her lonesome if Goombella didn’t come up with some sort of plan.

“Affirmative sending you some coordinates to meet me at; I’m wearing a Met disguise so please don’t shoot at me when you spot me with any kind of armaments. My model number reads as six-zero-zero-W-P-V that way you’ll be able to identify me even if you’re not using an FOF system with a HUD device.” Receiving a grunt of acknowledgment Goombella set out for the meeting point. “Speaking of idea’s we’ll start on that once we’re all gathered together and I’ve already introduced my friends to Screwball and her new pony friend apparently.”

“Wait, what new pony friend?” Banjo suddenly asked worried that Honey didn’t go back to Spiral Mountain and wasn’t safely tending to her bee hives. Then again Honey’s bee’s were a paranoid bunch and probably took appropriate precautions for just a situation that she went missing for too long, knowing them they probably called in a bee themed hero.

In Ponyville all the way back in Equestria where time and space wasn’t anywhere nearly as sporadic and weird as it was in the video game realms.

Carrot Top saw something was off with Bon-bon and Twilight Sparkle was yelling something about her stolen notes probably bringing about the apocalypse, but shrugged it all off as she continued on to her home since it was another average day in crazy land.

Speaking of crazy land and today was her day to watch the little muffin Dinky Hooves. The four D’s were really annoying to deal with especially Ditzy T. Doo, wherever Derpy ended up this time it better be a really good explanation. Carrot Top has heard many explanations such as getting stuck a thousand years in the past and accidentally being the last straw that Luna went crazy and became Nightmare Moon in the first place. Carrot Top truly believed her because Derpy had invented snorkeling a thousand years ago around that same time and said it was harder to snorkel at night, which drove the now returned princess over the edge and it was lucky she didn’t remember Derpy after a thousand years or she might have relapsed.

Opening the door to her home things were quiet, she had to wonder who brought Dinky over this time. The four D’s were the premier Ponyville pegasus postage ponies. Dipsy Duh she could deal with, the lazy pony that looked like a sleepy version of Derpy was seen sleeping anywhere and everywhere. Dixie Day was a pony she was on good speaking terms with who tended to master the most obscure things with relative ease, yet simple mail delivery eluded her to this very day except when it was a holiday and again she looked very much like Derpy. Finally the pony she was dreading to appear and was her most annoying adversary was Ditsy; she was a walking conundrum and could even imitate Derpy perfectly if not for the different Cutie Mark and the entire never flying straight unless weighed down by something like a piano.

Walking into the kitchen she opened the fridge and sighed, there sat a stuffed food covered filly and that one crazy pony also bulging in the belly.

“Hey orange banana, since Derpy’s dimensionally challenging I alleviated your receptacle and quantum were I and brownie top ingesting.”

Eight Robot Smashers

View Online

(Music Cave Story Plantation/Main Theme)

All of the gathered characters were sitting at a table with a holographic display above it showing all the information Goombella had done from moving around in her disguise. Why she had this information in the first place is because she thought it would be useful to have the ability to escape from any place in the city, but now that information was going to be useful for their purposes.

“Okay, I have a good plan and first I would like to thank Khronozooie for acknowledging me and my intelligence in this endeavor.” Goombella and a bunch of Met’s were sitting on one couch themselves. “Okay this is going to be a huge operation and I’m not going to lie, this will be kind of a daunting task especially for one of us who aren’t a gaming character like the rest of us.”

All eyes turned to Screwball, causing Lyra to wonder why they were looking at her like that as she had no clue she was a fantasy based cartoon character. All she knew was that she had met creatures who knew humans and was dropped smack dab in the middle of something she wasn’t prepared for, but she was in good hooves at least.

“Okay first off we’re going to need an eight pronged attack plan; two of these attacks are going to be stealth missions, both mine and Screwball’s. I’m going to be bound for taking out the jamming array on the far side of the city. Screwball you’re in charge of sneaking into the main building and finding your mothers backpack, then you are to get it to her as quickly as you possibly can. You’re going to need to not draw any attention to yourself for as long as possible; nobody in that building is going to be a friend of yours except your mother. Remember to watch out for even the smallest change in your environment as the walls literally have eyes in this realm, your entrance is going to be at this corner of the building into the duct works locating the exact location of the backpack will be a tad difficult.”

(Music Chrono Trigger Zeal Palace)

Screwball was having an easy time crawling around a rather clean duct as things in the video game realms hardly ever got dusty or covered with rust unless they were already designed that way. She had on a HUD device and could see the entire buildings layout especially the layout of the ducts she was slowly maneuvering through; she was given a quick tutorial by Goombella in the use of the device she now had on. As if the obvious benefits are better aim with projectile attacks wasn’t already a given for her, it did help her identify enemies and security devices.

Meanwhile across the city a disguised Goombella and quite a few Metool’s were sneaking their way through the jamming facility. Goombella bit her lips slightly as she waited at the corner of a hallway and when she was given an all clear sign from one of the Mets, she quickly jogged down the passageway into a waiting elevator. Two floors up and through three doors and she’d be that much closer to placing the charges, they just had to watch out for any scrutiny because eventually she was going to get scanned as a biological creature.

(Music Cave Story Plantation/Main Theme)

“My reasons for taking out the jamming device are several fold, it is to give Khronozooie open access to her incoming support forces she told me about and for Screwballs mother to give us help from the inside since she can do a lot to screw up the security systems if given a single chance to do anything from lockdown. Don’t worry Screwball, once she’s out and if you have the backpack at the time she’ll definitely make a beeline straight for you as she can tell where it is at all times like a phantom limb. Now as to what the rest of you will be doing… we’re going to have you guys making some noise.”

(Music Chrono Trigger Zeal Palace)

I was worried that I might have been spotted but luckily I had managed to avoid the detection zone, the backpack was ridiculously guarded by all kinds of easily circumvented security measures, I wasn’t sure why Goombella thought I could do this. Mostly, I think it had to do with my need to see my mother free and I was told before I left that a determined cartoon character is really something amazing to watch in action by Khronozooie. I wanted to prove her right in the very least having already crawled up a duct fifty feet straight up.

I popped off the vent next to me with a quick buck and poked my head out into the hallway and ducked back as a red zone swept towards me. These HUD devices were really hoofy and it allowed me to see the security systems visual range allowing me to circumnavigate them, all I had to do was avoid touching the color red. I just hope everyone else was okay. From what the waypoint says and given Khronozooie’s feeling out where my mom’s backpack was, it was on one of the upper floors. There wasn’t as much security as I expected there to be.

After the red zone disappeared of my visuals I crawled out of the duct and charged down the hallway and slid underneath the camera into its blind spot. I would like to think my baseball slide was coming along nicely if my back didn’t feel like a rug burn right now, if only I could just as successfully avoid whatever else was in this building without running into trouble. Knowing me, trouble always found a way and I didn’t even have an interesting times curse on me. I felt silly about worrying over being in any form of danger, but to Cadence if I was going to let an army of evil metal things stop me now.

As the camera swept back to the opened grating I quickly got to my hooves and making as little noise as I possibly could dashed down the hallways and stopped at the next turn to see some strange disk like things on the walls. They were reading as inactive drones, I skirted past all of them carefully and then continued on my way with haste.

(Music Cave Story Plantation/Main Theme)

“While Screwball sneaks her way around the building, Banjo if you will take my backpack I want you to watch out for Lyra here by locking her into it. You’ll be doing something incredibly dangerous but she’ll be a lot safer in your paws then sitting around here all alone just in case this hideout collapses. You’ll be hitting the energy field generator; it’s a humongous undertaking but from what I did to the Cerberus Alpha’s transformation systems… it won’t be a huge problem bringing it down. You will need to clear the area immediately after telling it to mode change, it will attack everything within its vicinity including you so you’re going to need to do some of that fancy footwork you got going for you even without a breegull’s help. This is what will undoubtedly set Screwballs mother loose and if I know her she’s expecting us; she’ll be out of her cell before the backup power can replace the shields stopping her from leaving.” Khronozooie looked over to Goombella to continue.

(Music SSBM Mach Rider)

Lyra meekly poked her head out of the backpack she was locked into and watched as the front end of the bike launched skyward and then they veered around the corner with those large ride armor things on their butts as they were heading straight for the energy field generator, the thing was massive and they were supposed to destroy that? There was no freaking way they’d pull this off. She wondered why she was forcibly shoved into this backpack anyway; wouldn’t she have been safer sneaking around with Screwball?

Banjo looked back at the pony poking her head out of the red backpack. They were burning rubber down the roads on the Cerberus Alpha as it fired missiles and the occasional high power beam cannon.

“Guh huh! Don’t look so worried, you’re safe with me. I’ve done tons of crazy stuff worse than this before, not sure how we’ll escape the Cerberus Alpha when I transform it though. I promise we’ll make it out alive.” His goofy tone of voice didn’t really establish the seriousness in his eyes or how he knew things were going to be alright. He was a video game hero and heroes were nothing if not resourceful.

Lyra didn’t feel nearly as convinced they’d survive this as they neared the building and Banjo set off the transformation. If she ever lived to see a true human she would never dimensionally travel again. In fact if she could ever see Bon-bon again she was going to propose outright to never leave the mares side ever, even if she had to awkwardly follow her into the bathroom.

(Music Cave Story Plantation/Main Theme)

“Now this is going to seem like an odd request, Curly, Quote, I need you two to operate independently of each other. While your skills are complementary and you have a great synergy, I need you both to seriously wreck the places I’m sending you to. Curly you’ll be dealing with the Clancers Barracks spawn point along with the Mechanized Clancer weapons spawning factory and Quote will take the Reploids Barracks spawn point. Should either of you feel like you’re ready to bail out, you are to go aid banjo because goodness knows he’s going to need it.” Goombella watched as Quote tilted his hat that read ‘Curly Brace’ on the metal plate to her and Curly Brace hefted her Machine Blaster while holding a thumb up.

(Music Cave Story Labyrinth Fight)

Piles of dust were flying into the air everywhere, Curly quickly swapped out for her nemesis weapon and laid into the Clan-Walker that had a missile launcher and after it blew up she hefted it’s rocket launcher up on to her shoulder and charged the evil Clancers as they fell back screaming in terror as Curly laughed melodically as she gunned them down.

Curly Brace was having a great time and she was going to prove that she could operate just as well without Quote and that he didn’t need to worry about her safety all the time, even if he did save her life multiple times in their game. Hopefully after this was all said and done they’d be able to get some snuggle time in with Chaco their cuddly Mimiga.

After her pod rockets ran out she threw it harshly into one of the Clancer crushing its body painfully against the wall of a building, then she brought out her machine blaster and leapt high into the air and then fired downward to propel herself up to the roof of one of the buildings to start spraying at the now praying evil Clancers in the street.

In another part of the city a huge beam ripped through several Sniper Joes and Quote leapt high into the air and fired downwards as he flew over a few Pantheon Reploids, they were also relatives of the Sniper Joe series of one eyed robots. Quote took them by complete surprise and had a great advantage because they weren’t programmed to aim straight up and he could aim straight down at them.

Quote took notice as some ride armors made their presence and he flash switched to his blade throwing it. Immediately afterwards he swapped back to his Spur to start charging it up for a level three blast. All the while King’s spirit of the weapon Kings Blade gave him the breathing room to launch his most damaging attack, the Spur when fully charged did massive amounts of damage that would almost total anything caught in its fully powered shot. Only boss characters could take a few fully charged shots from it directly, but the charge time for the third level was a bit brutal.

(Music Cave Story Plantation/Main Theme)

“While they are handling most of the infantry, Sparkster will handle the Rider Armor spawn factory. He’s quite proficient in dismantling heavy machinery and what that factory produces is more dangerous than the laughable Clancer mechanized forces. We’re going to need it crippled like yesterday. Ristar will launch an attack on the air forces they have in this city. Chaos is going to be attacking the central building to draw as much attention away from Screwball’s infiltration for as long as possible. As for what Khronozooie will be doing during all this, she is in charge of destroying the cities entire defense grid as what I’ve recently done to it has been fixed.” Goombella had a slight impish smile on her face as she looked to the save file two Breegull just standing there with a slow smile working its way into her beak. “In any case when each of us finishes our tasks we are to meet up and support the others who need it, I’ll be able to finish the earliest so I’ll try to get to Screwball when I finish taking out the jamming signal. Now any questions?”

(Music Chrono Trigger Battle Music theme 1)

Sparkster pulled out his sword and blasted forward using his jetpack, he spiraled into the ride armor and straight through it with little resistance, he followed this up by performing a mid-air rapid spin destroying the one behind it.

Several more ride armors started to approach and one launched a spinning cylindrical drill at him Sparkster just flew up at the roof at a forty five degree angle and bounced off and straight into the kangaroo model ride armor destroying it.

After a moment to charge his jetpack he jumped and blasted downwards at a forty five degree angle rebounding off the ground into the pilot of the nearest chimera ride armor. The pilot destroyed Sparkster quickly jumped into it and took control of the ride armor. He quickly made it swing its fist around to slam into the third one stunning it and then followed it up by punching several times until it exploded.

Looking around the factory Sparkster started to steer the slow lumbering machine to take out some key parts of the facility, he had a grim set look on his face as he still had an army of ride armors to fight through. It was a good thing video game heroes never tired unless they had a stamina bar.

Standing underneath a street light with his right hand above his eyes looking to the sky Ristar narrowed his eyes and he stretched both his arms above his head grabbing the horizontal bar of the street light. Now hanging from the street light in the distance he could hear the sounds of explosions and battle, his friends were depending on him and he had a wish to fulfill.

Swing back and forth he started rotating at incredible speed counterclockwise around the street lights bar, he released it at the right moment and shot into the sky with his arms and legs trailing behind his face as he glowed brightly turning into a shooting star. The defense grid activate and tried to shoot him down, thankfully he had plenty of invincibility frames at the moment making those systems pointless against him.

He struck the bottom of one of the airships and opened up a hole in the top of the thing and landed on his feet running. He was already in the process of stretching his arms to grab the first thing in sight and he slammed himself into it with the power of a rubber band releasing its tension. His skill set was limited but that didn’t make him any less of hero as he continued on slamming into the hawk ride armor destroying it in three full on strikes from his body. One from the front, one from a forty five degree angle slightly above that and then directly above it for a final strike.

Ristar stretched out his right arm and grappled the Sniper Joe. Reeling his arm back to himself instead of reeling his body to his arm, he whipped around and released the reploid into a giant flying bee shaped helicopter transport that was about to open up on him with its front mounted machine blaster.

The ship he was on started to capsize and he grabbed on to the edge of it and started to stretch his arms out by pulling himself back and then he released launching like a shooting star to another flying battleship.

On the ground Khronozooie had watched Ristar go up in a blaze of glory and already he had wrecked one of the ships sending it falling towards the ground. Looking down the street she saw a tall metallic figure dash out and look up at the sky where Ristar was already flinging himself to a battleship, it started to stomp it’s foot angrily.

Khronozooie frowned before a smirk crossed her face and opened her beak releasing a battery egg striking the tall figure in the back knocking him to the ground. He was quickly back up on his feet with kick up maneuver and was staring her down, he roared at her and thus Khronozooie had entered a boss fight with Overdrive Ostrich!

(Megaman X2 boss theme)

Khronozooie vs. Overdrive Ostrich

He ran at her and leapt so that the bottom of his left foot would collide with her head; Khronozooie dodged out of the way and struck out with a dagger held in her left wing scoring a strike against him in a shower of white sparks.

Overdrive Ostrich turned around and fired several energy boomerangs at Khronozooie who deftly brought out a scepter held in her right wing and struck the shots with it causing them to fly back at the large flightless robot.

Khronozooie watched as the Maverick Ostrich deftly dodge her chronoscepter altered counter shots waiting for the right moment. Overdrive Ostrich leapt up and opened his mouth to fire an energy boomerang and would probably follow up with a running charge to spear her with his beak, if she hadn’t already put a grenade egg down his throat. It happened after a brief flash from her dagger.

Overdrive fell to the ground stunned by the explosion and Khronozooie ran up to him and quickly enveloped him in a seemingly innocent hug and his invincibility frames suddenly stopped working. Noticing the evil smirk on the birds face Overdrive frantically shook his head no as he quickly figured out what was about to happen to him. Slowly with an evil smile on her beak, Khronozooie nodded that yes this was going to hurt… a lot.

The sound of a banjo riff playing was heard and after a few seconds the sound of multiple rather painful sounding explosions were heard and then light spheres were seen flying away from the scene.

(Music Sonic Adventure 2 Lost Colony)

Ponderously Chaos slowly trudged forward thinking about things ignoring all outside distractions. He ignored that he was being shot at by plasma rounds. He ignored the missiles and just threw up his arms to block the force of explosion as to not be splattered across the ground. He ignored the fact that all these machines were fighting a losing battle against a really tough creature, that he didn’t stop stalking towards them in a slow methodical manner to slowly rip anything close enough to shreds.

Chaos was only distracted by a single thought, why was he so inexorably drawn to the ponies? Seeing Lyra had sent a shiver of a strange feeling through him, there was something so inherently right about the ponies he couldn’t help but want to appreciate their presence even if they were not of the video game realms naturally. Still he felt some form of contentment, like when he shared a thought or two with Screwball. It was not love, no he knew what love was and his mother Tikal would always love him so he continued to ponder why he felt odd around the ponies. He’s seen three of them thus far, each different from the last.

Was there some purpose for him to find in these friendly creatures that reminded him of the Chao? He had eternity to find it if there was something to look for. Step after sloshing step the sounds of violence around him slowly started to deaden and when he actually looked away from inside himself he saw his surroundings.

The area in front of the building was barren of any enemy forces and he saw more coming his way from inside, coming to greet him. He blinked, he had destroyed a large number of reploids in such a small amount of time and he vaguely recalled one saying something like ‘rainbow devil’.

He knew that all life ebbed and flowed; good and evil were always fighting for a cause whether it was right or not, darkness and light was a constant swirling vortex, in all that ever existed and everything that ever was… there is chaos!

A flash of green in Chaos’s eyes and he was on the forces within seconds after having turned into a puddle to surge forward engulfing the first five enemies in seconds. He would be an even greater distraction if he made his way to free Kazooie who lived and breathed his name.

(End music)

I could hear the explosions, what in the world were they all doing out there? It sounded like a war was going on, then again with video game characters I guess that wasn’t far from the truth since they always seem to be at war with something. Not that they left any bodies of their enemies behind given they always disappear upon destruction. Even when the changelings invaded Canterlot nobody had died, well I think the changelings that were blasted away had survived.

Suddenly the alarms were blaring and I looked for the nearest air duct and worked my hooves around the frame of the vent and pulled hard sending me backwards into the wall. I immediately bounced straight back into the duct.

“All forces on high alert, the main entrance has been breached. Close all shutters leading to the lower levels immediately. All security drones are to be activated immediately. We can’t let that thing reach our captive.” Well whoever that was sounded to be panicking.

I smiled; Chaos must have been doing really good as a distraction. Only now things were a bit more difficult for me as I saw the disk shaped objects on the wall suddenly drop to the floor and popped up on four legs and had a single elongated banana shaped head ending in a red glowing eye. Their eyes swiveled around and I ducked out of sight and started moving quickly down the duct, as I heard them moving towards the ducts.

After a certain amount of time traveling through the expansive and confusing network of ducts I stopped and popped another vent and slowly looked out, as soon as I had finished crawling out I decided to check my surrounds I was in some kind of laboratory area. I heard something and turned around to see two robots turning the corner and after a moment they stopped and seemed to stare at me.

After a moment one of the one wheeled robots identified as a Roadkill Rodney by my HUD spun around and launched a long metallic tentacle at me, causing me to fall backwards just out of range of it. The other one popped out a laser emitting array and fired. I ducked the beam leaving my hat floating in mid-air and quickly grabbed it after the laser passed by.

“Oh great, now the security drones are telling me we have an intruder on the upper floors, someone get up there and stop whatever it is immediately! They must be after the backpack!” Well the voice was certainly sounding bedraggled now.

Screwball quickly ran and as soon as she turned the corner of a nearby corridor she pulled out her bat and as soon as one of the Rodney’s turned the corner she slammed her bat into it as hard as she could without having charged it up first. It fell to the floor in three pieces and exploded, the other one turned the corner to fire a laser at her causing her to roll out of the way and run as more showed up.

So many doors, so many places to look how would I ever… wait was that my mother? She motioned for me to follow her and I did until it got to a point where she stopped and pointed towards a door. I had no time to think as more Rodney’s were coming down the hall towards me along with things that were identified as Mousers and those security drones I saw earlier, they would have overwhelmed me in minutes had I not been led here.

Kazooie didn’t say anything as she showed me what numbers to hit on the thing at the doors side. The door slid up and I quickly ran through the open doorway and into a room where the blue backpack was floating on a pedestal surround by a wall of protective energy, the door slammed shut behind me in this relatively large circular room. Well that wasn't good, soon my mother walked solidly through the door and pointed to the backpack and made several motions with her wings. I asked her why she wasn’t talking and she pointed to her throat and shook her head that she couldn’t at the moment. She pointed to the backpack and motioned to do something with it, she then dove into the floor disappearing.

“Just be safe until I get there Screwball, that RT-55J is a real piece of work to deal with. Anytime now…” Kazooie snapped her eyes open and stretched her legs out and held them stretched glowing green sparkles constantly, she stared at the shielded opening in the ceiling. That old shaman spirit walking technique, it helps that she has explored the realms of Geist, Shadow Man and Prey before all this.

Trinity Pt. 1

View Online

Thus far the Mizar Ants have been very supportive of seeing this through and have fought off a metric ton of enemies on their own. Sure the Body Harvest enemy fleet has been hounding them from the start, but now they had the Cerebrate Zergs, Protoss Separatists, Terran Dominion, Star Wars Empire, Tyhrranoids, Terminators and several other gaming realms worth of stuff coming down on their heads.

Honey B. was standing next to Mr. Bumble; they were watching the space behind us on radar because goodness knows we didn’t lose fifteen or more space bound armies that easily. It was around the time I had an idea.

“Oh, oh… can I suggest something!” Derpy finally had an idea after all the crazy stuff that’s been attacking them and now they were actually nearing Planet Clancer, she had finally thought of something.

All the Mizar Ants that had pledged themselves as being under the rule of Derpy turned to give her their undivided attention. She has done some amazing stuff to keep the S.S. Anubis entirely intact, not to mention they so far lacked any real casualties because of her. Despite the silly manner in which she presented herself they saw her as their leader and it was starting to slowly turn into a cult.

“Well go on, you’ve yet convinced the entire ship of your brilliance.” Honey just couldn’t believe the manner in which Derpy could manage to get them out situations as much as she got them there in the first place, especially when it came to asking for directions. Even when it wasn’t her fault she strived to keep up her bubbly happiness and optimism that they’d survive whatever the hell they’d meet up with next. The entire ship had yet to pledge loyalty to the pony and were almost on the verge of doing so much to Honey’s everlasting amusement.

“Well… can’t you, I don’t know, send out a signal for help from only good people to hear to help cover us as we go to this Planet Clancer place? I mean once we get there we’re going to have to go through all those things as we leave if they’re still following us or managed to find out where we went. So we might as well have someone helping us out with that.” It was around this moment that all the Mizar Ants slapped their foreheads at Derpy’s question. Since they were usually ant-agonistic enemies they tended to sit on channels that attracted the worst kind of attention when it came to calling for help. Well now it was mostly known that it was half their faults they kept running into trouble.

The captain Mizar Beetle simply rolled his eyes and pointed to one of the Mizar Ants who opened communications to a hero related channel but didn’t say anything as it just had a thought. It vocalized that thought in a dialogue box to Derpy that heroes might not be willing to listen to them given that enemies usually don’t have good histories with any heroes.

“I’ll take care of that.” Vela said moving up to communications, a hero would most likely get the attention of other gaming heroes especially when you have a running truce with your enemies. Vela figured she might even invite some of the Mizar Ants to some Mario golf later. “This is Vela, anybody out there? This is Vela on the S.S. Anubis we are in need of some help out here, I repeat this is Vela, is there anybody out there? We are in need of some assistance.”

“Assistance you say, this is Fox McCloud of Star Fox in the Great Fox, what’s the problem? You Jet Force Gemini guys are one man er… sorry, ‘one person’ armies. Can you now please stop staring at me like that Krystal? Anyway what’s the problem?” Fox was sipping some coffee. So far the transport and combat gig was intriguing as nothing of vague interest happened, until now that is as there had been no violent runs through entire enemy fleets or anything. This may very well make his trip more interesting and he was willing to aid someone if it’d get him off of his duff.

“We kind of need help getting to Planet Clancer and leaving it mister Fox, we kind of made a huge mess… I just don’t know how things could go so wrong, even my interesting times curse isn’t usually this bad.” Derpy had suddenly taken Vela’s place much to the annoyance of the video game hero, but she let it slide as the pony had the most pull around the entire cargo ship and did not want to start a fire fight in a room full of pony loyal ants with itchy trigger claws. “We’re just here to help my friend’s rescue our other friends and we’ve been kind of picking up a lot of enemies along the way.”

“Do tell, who are your friends exactly that you’re here to rescue and help?” Fox was interested because the S.S. Anubis was an enemy character cargo vessel, yet it sounded like they had a childlike character that he’s never heard on board before.

“Oh, well there’s Banjo and Screwball, we’re here to rescue a kazoo! Honey could tell you more about that, it’s about time for me to eat a muffin anyway. If I don’t eat one I get really cranky and things start catching on fire, then I’ll end up scaring all my new friends and I don’t want that.” Derpy got off the communication station and allowed Honey to take a seat to relay some more pertinent information, while the pony sat off to the side enjoying a blueberry muffin.

It was quickly found out that, Canadian stereotype Banjo Two-eh was onboard the Great Fox and has yet to get a call from his sister Khronozooie Two-eh planet side. Now they had a full scale assault and not just an aerial backup force waiting for Khronozooie’s call and as usual it was only a matter of ‘time’ for the file two bird.

In the midst of the chaos of Clancer Empire City, Banjo looked around the pillar he took cover behind and saw the berserk roaring Cerberus Alpha rip a Clancer in half with its jaws turning it to dust.

“Well it’s certainly doing a lot of destroying, but it’s not exactly destroying that energy field generator thing. What does that thing do exactly?” Not that the commentary from the pony in the backpack was bland, but Banjo admitted Lyra had a point. Banjo needed to figure out a way to further the Cerberus Alpha’s attention to the energy field generator which was the size of a building.

“Well Ms. Heartstrings it main function is creating energy barriers around the city as well as powering quite a few facilities. We need to bring it down so my sister can get out of where she’s being kept. Once she’s free I bet she’ll be all kinds of angry. I think I have an idea, guh oh… whoa close one.” A missile flew by Banjo’s face, the fact that Cerberus Alpha was still even using its weapons systems gave him an idea as to how much Khronozooie tampered with it. In its game it tended to stop using its weapons system after it did its transformation and Lunar would usually have his infinite ammo machine gun bouncing around the boss battlefield.

Banjo studied the large cylindrical building the intricacies of its structure for a brief moment staring over the angles, ledges and the way it was constructed to basically be a large heavily armored battery shaped building. A spark flashed in Banjo’s eyes, he smiled and had a good plan that he knew Kazooie would be proud of as he turned to the Cerberus Alpha chewing on ride armor that no longer had a pilot.

“Hey what are you doing? This doesn’t seem like a good idea, I mean who walks towards a giant killer metal thing.” If she wasn’t panicking, Lyra would have noticed a faint wisp of a smile on Banjo’s face as he walked out from the pillar looking towards the large robotic dog.

“Lyra, please be quiet, I’ll introduce you to some real humans after this is all said and done. I also might need your help with some stuff soon so get ready to use your telekinetic ability, but only when I ask for it.” Banjo noted that Lyra instantly shut up and even made a squealing noise of joy, he could even feel her nodding her head from the red backpack on his back.

Banjo started slowly walking towards the Cerberus Alpha and he started to pick up speed and was soon running straight at the mechanical beast that suddenly took notice of his presence. Three rapid beeps were heard and Cerberus Alpha found its face slammed to the left and then a second later to the right as Banjo threw another punch then followed it with an uppercut to the machine dogs’ chin.

Cerberus Alpha was dazed and knocked into a standing position on its hind legs as Banjo went to squat down, Lyra felt something strange overtake her body in the next moment. Soon she found her horn alongside Banjo’s shoulder ramming itself into Cerberus’s belly knocking it onto its back. Lyra went to say something only for Banjo to place a paw over her mouth as he turned and started to run around to another side of the energy field generator.

“Don’t worry we’ll be fine.” Banjo stated gently without hesitance even as Cerberus Alpha roared and gave chase to them around the corner its relatively large size filling Lyra’s vision. Banjo kept running as the machine was two gallops away, then one and then… Banjo tucked and rolled off to the side causing Cerberus’s head to follow him to the right as it slammed straight through a pillar.

The machine quickly stood back up on its four legs and with a twist saw Banjo running towards another pillar. It charged straight for him when he stopped and crouched in front of it.

“What are you doing, it’s coming right at us!” Turning her neck around Lyra saw it open its triangular headed maw as it lunged at them, then her entire world flipped and slowed down.

In the middle of Banjo’s back flip Lyra watched as the Cerberus Alpha’s eyes widened comically as it slammed through another pillar. Banjo landed on his feet throwing his arms up with a flourish.

“I wish Rainbow Dash was here, because that was awesome.” With a sigh Lyra was getting homesick again, she came back to the present noticing Banjo was heading towards another pillar. It took a moment for the pony to notice all these pillars were partially supporting the large battery shape structure with random catwalks, doorways and other indents leading around and through the glowing building. “Your world is really weird, who builds buildings like this?”

“Yeah well, I think the enemies designed this based on Super Mario Galaxy, either that or something in a Metroid Prime vibe.” He was pretty sure Lyra wouldn’t know what any of that was and he could see the confusion on Lyra’s face when he looked back at her as he ran to the next pillar and stopped a short distance from it. He was waiting for Cerberus Alpha as it stopped to rip up a Reploid.

After a moment it started after Banjo again, who turn and jogged to the pillar and didn’t squat down and there was no way he’d be able to pick up speed to roll out of the way in time. As such Cerberus Alpha thought it had him this time. Only to be proven wrong when Banjo jumped at the pillar and wall jumped off it to grab a ledge on the side of the building.

“I doubt the bears Fluttershy knows can do this kind of stuff, they only do juggling and riding unicycles... then again they really did need that day job to feed their cubs.” The pony riding backseat to Banjo was clearly impressed with the incredible feat of acrobatics he was doing.

“I’m so glad you’re amused.” Banjo said somewhat sarcastically pulling himself up onto the ledge, he quickly ran along it and jumped up to another indent between two walls leading a fourth of the way up the building. “Quick duck into the backpack and get me a badonkadonk!”

“What in the world is a… forget what I was about to ask, I’ll see for myself.” The minty green and white colored pony ducked into the backpack as the Cerberus Alpha glared up at Banjo who gave it a sheepish smile. “Is this it?”

Lyra had never seen something so strange, a plush of a frowning white rabbit that reminded her of Angel tied into a long metallic device well whatever the case she floated it out for the bear to grab onto.

“Yep, thanks for the help Ms. Heartstrings.” Banjo grabbed the missile with the rabbit tied to it, the Kazooie’s think alike when it comes to a penchant for collecting explosives. He knew she had to at least have one after seeing her Outrunner.

“Please, just call me Lyra.” The pony whined as she watched Banjo start shaking the missile. “What are you doing?”

“You’ll see.” The missile started to expand in Banjo’s grip and after it got large enough he stopped and looked back to Lyra. “Could you hold onto…?”

A large thud sounds interrupted Banjo and looking behind him Cerberus Alpha had jumped and clung to the side of the building and clumsily tried to swipe at Banjo just falling short, it’s eyes lit up and fired a barrage of plasma blasts. Banjo ducked back and made sure the missile didn’t get struck.

“Levitate the badonkadonk and make sure to keep up with me, I’ll tell you what I need you to do with it when we get there. I need my paws free for all the stuff I’m going to be doing.” Banjo ran to his left and carelessly threw the missile up into the air.

Lyra focused her magic on the missile holding it aloft and then she felt them moving up, it was hard to keep concentration on the missile with how fast they were moving up. Banjo was jumping between the two walls ascending the building and the Cerberus Alpha lunged at them again. In the lunge it took a vertical swipe at Banjo and fell back to the ground having missed Banjo’s hit box by a single pixel.

Elsewhere in Clancer Empire City, a pony was trapped in a room with a large, green sumo wrestler sized robot with a small round head that just dropped into the room from opening in the ceiling and started twirling its two large metallic clamps before snapping them twice. Screwball stood her ground and wondered if she could take it, Strike Man was hard enough to fight as it was.

She was facing the Capsule Guardian RT-55J; its special mission was to stop intruders from taking Kazooie’s backpack.

A strange tingle started throughout Screwballs body and she suddenly tasted everything going purple for a moment, a slow wild smile built up on her face. This was a sign that things were going to be okay in the end, however sudden the itch and knee jerk had her rolling out of the way of the large metallic clamp attached to a chain launched by the robots right arm.

Everything was going to be okay in the end, but that didn’t mean she was fine right now. The clamp reeled back and the robot leapt at her and stomped down with its feet as Screwball got out of the way when she jumped upwards. The thing was deceptively fast for something of its size.

It immediately turned around and saw… nothing? The robot scanned the room and twisted its head around really fast one time, since the room was in lockdown as long as the robot was activate it knew that Screwball couldn’t have escaped that easily.

Directly above the guardian robot standing on the ceiling with a silly grin on her face was Screwball, she had miraculously discovered how to make gravity flip upside down at a moment’s notice… only she didn’t exactly remember how she did it now, though it apparently didn’t use part of the chaos magic bar on her HUD which was still showing full power. As long as she didn’t look down it didn’t matter, she was a cartoon character and looking down was paramount to realizing that the laws of physics existed so she refuse to look down.

Screwball looked down at her hooves and didn’t fall, but why was that? Oh right, looking towards the ground was what was supposed to make her fall so she shouldn’t look up since currently, up was down!

It’s a good thing she didn’t… oh crud, the urge to look up was now filling Screwballs brain, cartoon characters had to obey really silly laws and one of them was the law of funny. That didn’t make the urge to look towards the ground any less dangerous as it was right now. She really didn’t want to fight the super sumo robot; her HUD scanned it as being a really dangerous thing and her special sensory ability called out painful danger before the things clamp could grab her.

After a moment the robot took a loud noisy step towards the center of the room while still scanning the area around it and Screwball felt a twitch in her tail as she looked up. She fell right on top of the large robots back behind its small round head. The robots head suddenly spun around to meet Screwballs sheepish grin, it then smashed its own head with its right arm as Screwball quickly rolled off of it to avoid getting hit.

The robot spun around and following its combat programming it immediately spun around and launch its pincer on a chain at Screwball. Instead of dodging the scary clamp, she grabbed upon hearing three rapid beeping noises and then chucked it back at the robots tiny head for some damage.

The robot seemed to get exceedingly angry with Screwball as it lunged at her again and then lost sight of her, it slowly turned around and looked towards the ceiling and floor. It even rotated it’s head once rapidly, but nowhere did it see the pony and with good reason as Screwball was performing a classic cartoon shadowing technique of staying completely out of visual range of the target without be heard by being directly behind its eye at all times.

Speaking of shadows, in the skies above Clancer Empire City the posh accented shadow stood watching the fireworks in one of his battleships and was receiving information of so many hero type characters attacking. The most concerning was that one of the heroes had managed to take down the jamming array, but they had her corner and while they hadn’t identified the culprit they knew it was wearing a Met related disguise and the model number the being in question was wearing.

Surveying the situations in other parts of the city revealed that large portions of the defense grids were going down and Overdrive Ostrich has failed to survive one of the heroes currently attacking them. ‘A pity that’, the shadow thought blankly not caring that one of its four cohorts has died in battle. So far it has lost seventeen percent of its fleet to that star faced child and it was of not much consequence, the Clancer forces were utterly pointless, the ride armors were in the middle of a light struggle with a hero piloting some stolen ride armor and the base had two heroes alone going after Kazooie and her accoutrements with varying degrees of success.

“Ironic… eight spearheads into the city, it’s like they were planning a horrid pun about us masters hoo.” The shadow then surveyed their personal ground forces; they were doing about as well as the ride armors in putting up a relatively good struggle. Suddenly one of his monitors came to life grabbing the Reploid’s attention.

“Tell me they’re here, please, one intruder has already reached the room with the backpack and the other is trying to destroy the security shutters into the sealed off sectors and I think it is succeeding no matter how slow it’s going.” The squat diminutive form was squawking in a panic to the posh upper crust shadow.

“They are indeed on their way, reinforcements are thirty minutes out. We simple need to hold the heroes off a little longer and make sure that Kazooie or any of the heroes for that matter can’t leave the planet.” The posh shadow put his hands behind his back and stared at all the carnage befalling his troops, was this all really worth the headache? It better darn well be. “First units of eagle and hawk squadrons converge on the blonde android; she must not be allowed to reconvene with any of the other heroes. Pantheon hunter squad gamma go to the destroyed jamming array building, don’t let the saboteur leave that building alive, it’s a Met with the markings six-zero-zero-W-P-V. Hmm… which king will come into play first I wonder?”

“We’re not going to last the next ten minutes if the energy field generator goes up!” The shortest squawky shadow stated.

“Hmm… yes, that is a problem. Hawk and eagle squadrons two through four divert from attacking the star child, stop that insufferable beast and bear currently climbing the generator before they destroy it, but don’t damage it any further if you can help it.” After that the posh accented shadow went silent.

They were enemies and they were always pitted against the heroes they would never be able defeat. As is their lot in life, the video game heroes would never give up.

The shadow clenched its hands behind its back as more of its unit was destroyed in the fires of the juggernauts they fought.

“This is Khronozooie Two-eh, if you’re listening to this we’ve at least got the jamming device down. Be warned the energy field generator is still active so the airspace is kind of dangerous to enter. If you wouldn’t mind sending Canjo down here in a Landmaster to help us out, we’d appreciate the overkill in firepower.” Khronozooie was standing on top of one of the buildings staring into the distance from her high up perch; she used her Amaze-o-gaze glasses to watch as Banjo and Lyra avoid a beam cannon blast from Cerberus Alpha’s tail as they worked their way up and around the generator.

“We’ll do you one better, we have an entire invasion force that is itching to blow stuff up. I don’t really know how she convinced them to do it, but did you call for some help from Mizar forces of Jet Force Gemini? They are certainly willing and able to storm the city for you; they are coming in on the cargo ship the S.S. Anubis.” The joviality in Fox’s voice was not lost on the time twisting gimmick loving bird.

“Yeah, we could use a few hundred of them. What did they come to the planet with and are they ready to take on extra passengers upon our exit? Excuse me I got some emergencies on the other lines.” Khronozooie turned her goggles to the two distress signals that popped up. Goombella and Curly Brace were apparently in danger of losing a life. “Hey, Goombella what’s the problem?”

“I’ve sent my Met squad ahead to the safety zone; unfortunately as soon as I set off the explosives they were immediately on me even with my disguise. While they still don’t know what I am under it, they most likely don’t care and are putting some pressure on me, thank goodness for Met hats and their indestructibility.” The sounds of blaster bullets plinking off of the Goomba’s second helmet could be heard. “Just get me some help please; I’m getting tired of all the sound effects of my helmet being struck.”

“Hold position and try to move when you can, we all need you out of there like yesterday. I think Curly is in bigger trouble the aerial fleet seems to have painted a large target on her and are dropping some flying ride armors onto her position. She’s already taken care of the Clancer's.” Khronozooie leapt and spread her wings as she took off to help Curly fight off the heavy aerial forces. “Fox get that ground support down here right now! Once the energy field generator is down you can begin an attack run on the air forces. We’re pulling the heroes out of the city and back towards the S.S. Anubis once it makes planet fall. Tell them to set it down on the main road leading into the city and I'll see about getting everyone there, oh and tell them to pick up some of the Mets waiting there, they’re friendly.”

Trinity Pt. 2

View Online

There was that sensation of falling, every Pegasus had to deal with it eventually and I knew Fluttershy still had a problem with heights. I however had no problems falling and kept my hooves wrapped around the back left corner of this thing called a tank which wasn’t for fish apparently. It’s hitting the ground at terminal velocity that hurts and apparently this large metal thing wouldn’t do that even if it could survive it.

About a hundred feet before we hit the ground big flames erupted from the bottom of the tank and we slowed down and landed, the tank immediately started off down the road that my ant friends were going to set down later for when we leave. As it rolled forward, we went past several round yellow helmeted things who just silently watched us enter the city.

“This is Canjo where do you need us Khronozooie, its aboot time I helped out my little sister out eh?” Inside the large metal canopy was a white furred Banjo, he looked exactly like him and even addressed her like he did with a Ms. Hooves when talking with her.

“Get over to the energy field generator and help Banjo, putting it up on your mini-map and remind me later that I owe you tons of bacon and maple syrup. Vela I want you to help get Goombella out of danger. Buck Bumble get up in the air and aid Ristar ASAP, he’s taken some bad hits and is still putting up a fight up there on his own, when the energy fields on the fleet goes down he’s free to evacuate or do whatever he wants. Honey you provide Canjo with support as I know you want to help Banjo out. Excuse me I need to concentrate I’ve got three Eagles firing homing blasts at me.” Canjo didn’t reply and immediately hit the thrusters on the tank and took a right off the main road into the city to quickly drop off Vela.

Buck Bumble had already taken wing for the enemy Reploid Fleet hanging in the air above with a small army of Clan-cars still hanging around.

“What about me?” Derpy asked to Honey as she crawled up and over to Honey on the tank as it took off down the road and turned to head towards the energy field generator.

“Just stick with me and watch out for danger Derpy or did you not notice you no longer have any weapons.” Even as Honey pointed this out she fired six blazing fast pistols shots behind the tank taking a speeder bike riding Reploid off his vehicle which promptly crashed. Both faded from existence and sight relatively fast as was the prerogative of the video game realms that everything destroyed fades out of existence after a while in certain realms.

It was true Derpy had become disarmed the second she got too far from the S.S. Anubis as she was no longer in the realm of Jet Force Gemini; even so she still wanted to aid Honey even when she wasn’t armed with a weapon. Friends don’t ditch friends in need, as a true friend will help show a friend the light. Even if she ended up bungling the situation she was sticking to her friend’s side.

As the tank alit down the street the right side rose up on jets before it stomped down on a Reploid and fired several blasts as it was just passing by Quote who waved to them with a smile. Quote was almost done here and he wanted to move on to team up with Curly Brace.

Derpy sat there on the back of the tank wondering if her new friends, the Mizar bug people, would be alright. Fox and his team were going to protect both the Anubis and the Great Fox, while her friends would set up a defensive force outside the city, waiting to pick up all of Honey’s friends and their friends. Oh look she went wall eyed again, now wasn’t the time to be having vision problems as she shook her head trying to get her eyes to realign.

Shaking her head Derpy wrapped her hooves tightly around the vehicle as it suddenly swerved hard and stopped a few feet into the next street. In front of them was a large building with a ton of flying machines firing on a small brown, yellow, red and green speck being chased by what looked like a giant metal dog three fourths the way up. Honey was immediately in the air and flying towards the large glowing building and Derpy sat there for a moment before realizing she should follow.

Banjo wondered what he did to deserve all this trouble, looking back at Lyra she seemed to be sweating keeping her magic focused on the floating missile and making sure it does get blown up prematurely. He was definitely going to introduce this pony to Raz of Psychonauts later, he was certain to survive this and so was the pony as long as she was tied to his extra lives.

He rushed forward and skid into a long jump as four missiles came up from behind him and more were fired at him from the left only to strike the side of the building. He immediately tucked and rolled upon landing to avoid several missiles from those aerial machines as much as Cerberus Alpha. He made his way for the corner of the building to grab and climb the piping only to halt his progress when a eagle ride armor rose up in front of him preparing to fire its charged beam cannon only to be blasted out of the air by a large ball of green homing plasma.

“What was that?” Lyra questioned keeping her attention solely on the object she was tasked to deal with as she jerked the missile out of the way of another missile; she was getting thoroughly tired of holding onto this Badonkadonk thing. Her control slipped for a second and she immediately reignited her horn catching the bunny bound explosive device before it could fall too far. “Also please tell me we’re close to getting there and why I had to levitate this thing all the way up here when we could have waited to take it out at the top.”

“I think that was our backup, also if you haven’t noticed it would have been more problematic to take it out at the top because we haven’t had a moment’s peace otherwise the entire time I’ve been climbing and I’d rather not have it blow up in my face given how powerful just one of those things is.” Banjo grappled onto the large pipe and started to crawl up paw over paw, climbing was one talent the bipedal honey bear was good at.

“Banjo thank goodness you’re safe…” Hearing the soft feminine voice, Lyra looked up from the missile and saw what was likeliest the biggest bee she will have ever seen in her somewhat hopefully long life in the near future. However splitting her attention really didn’t help her keep the Badonkadonk afloat and it fell, she tried to reignite her horn but it sputtered out as she sorely needed a rest. She flopped limply in the backpack.

“Whoa… Lyra is that you, you dropped this!” Okay that was definitely a voice Lyra knew, she looked down from her position and saw Derpy of all ponies flapping to follow them upwards with her hooves wrapped around the Badonkadonk. The grey pegasus pony was here and now holding onto the explosive device… Lyra didn’t feel very safe or assured that everything was okay at the moment with those two facts on mind given Derpy and her friend’s reputation for collateral damage.

“Honey, Ms. Hooves, what in the world are you two doing here. Better yet how did you get here?” Banjo didn’t pause in his climbing nor did he stop moving as he was being constantly bombarded with energy blasts and missiles, the missiles which were being dealt with by Honey taking potshots at the large number of ride armors hounding him. There was also the fact that he couldn’t very well ignore the Cerberus still climbing up after him and snapping at his heels either.

“We were in the neighborhood and thought you might need some help sweetie. Derpy be careful with that it’s very dangerous and Banjo obviously needs it for something. I really need to have a rather stern talk with Tina the next time I see her about all the explosives she keeps giving the Kazooie’s. Anyway we caught a ride with an army to come help out and we met up with some other reinforcements Khronozooie called in. Need any honeycombs sweetie?” Banjo would have stopped to give Honey a dopey grin if it weren’t for the fact that she was currently keeping several of the twenty or so ride armors flying around the building busy at the moment.

“I’m good; Ms. Hooves don’t let anything happen to that Badonkadonk. I’ll tell you what to do with it when I need you, how are you holding up Ms. Heartstrings?” Banjo pulled himself up to leap off the top of the pipe onto the roof access and he was just short of where he wanted to fight the Cerberus.

“I could be better, once my horn stops feeling like it’s going to burn off my head.” Groaned Lyra in a piteously whiny voice, she was not meant for this kind of heavy duty lifting as she was a musician for crying out loud. Was it any wonder she was professed a ‘spoony bard’ almost immediately by all the video game characters?

“Okay, you can count on meeeeee…” Derpy screamed as she was chased off by several missiles aimed at her personally; she lifted the explosive above her head and flew away quickly chased by three of the ride armors circling the building.

“Help her; I don’t quite need it yet, but get it back here in the next five minutes!” Banjo yelled to Honey as Cerberus poked its head up over the edge and stared straight towards Banjo. The leapt up and grabbed the ledge to heaving himself up onto the very tip top of the build, which was a large circular flat area.

Banjo considered this as the Perfect place to have a boss battle, but Cerberus Alpha wouldn’t technically activate a boss field because he was tampered with. This would make falling off a very real threat to Banjo’s extra lives, not to mention the rain of explosives and energy blasts that had been constantly focused on him. He was grateful that he was as acrobatic as he was even without Kazooie’s support.

Honey nodded to herself as she flew off after the grey pegasus, taking in the tank on the ground sitting in one spot ripping into the Ride Armors flying around up here that were trying to take her down as well. She wondered how team Star Fox was doing, because as soon as they had landed a large portion of the Reploid fleet broke off to go deal with them while they were stuck on the defensive. So far things seemed pretty easy.

(Metroid Theme music)

In space not even ten minutes away a large black cruiser floated straight for planet Clancer and inside the ship a pair of red glowing eyes maliciously narrowed. Hundreds of ships and drop pods were at the ready and they were going to take what they came for.

It had no illusions that the casualties on its side were going to go through the roof on this excursion.

Kazooie was the target and they wanted her captured with all potential methods of escape for any video game character sealed off, although it didn’t seem like that was possible anymore considering the large movement to rescue her was succeeding.

(Metroid Theme music end.)

Screwball really didn’t question how it was working nor would she ever comprehend the fact that it was, for to acknowledge that it shouldn’t be working would mean that it would immediately stop doing so.

She sat there with a cartoon signboard held in her left hoof in front of her as the robot slowly moved around the room trying to locate her. This was despite being a glaringly obvious pink, purple and white pony with a beanie hat sitting in one corner of the room holding a sign in front of herself with a clearly amused expression on her face.

“Not here.” Her sign simply did read and the capsule guardian RT-55J believed it, to acknowledge the fact that this was working would also be a fallacy as much as acknowledging the fact that it shouldn’t be. For if it was working Screwball would have to ask exactly why, it was a good thing she wasn’t feeling particularly curious as she was when she was on the ceiling as she sat still, wedged thoroughly into one of the corners of the room.

Screwball had no idea how she was supposed to fight the metallic sumo beast, considering its clamps could probably choke her to death or just plain rip her to shreds with its mechanical strength. Well that would be assuming that she actually needed to breathe being a cartoon character and that she wouldn’t just get all stretched out by its attempts to tear her from limb to limb.

It was after a few minutes of waiting that the building started to shake and what sounded like a huge explosion was set off, Screwball looked questioningly at the wall the where the deafening sound was coming from. She idly wondered if the room was sound proof and yet sounds still made it through the walls here on the principle of the matter of the explosion she just heard.

Screwball felt her tail start shaking involuntarily meaning something was going to fall, yet the ceiling looked completely fine and she wasn’t currently standing on it defying the very laws of physics that at times she has to admit don’t really matter in the long run if it keeps you alive to ignore them.

So assuming she was safe as Screwball didn’t have an imminent pain twitch, she was perfectly fine sitting right where she was. Except that when her right leg harshly jerked and her left knee started itching fiercely.

Odd, the opposite of that meant that she would soon be in pain so what did the other way around mean? Also there was a certainly level of severity to her twitches given how hard the twitch was, the one she had just felt was largely ominous.

It was proven to not be nearly as ominous seconds later when a yellow sphere of pure light blinded Screwball for a second as it smashed solidly through the however many feet thick wall that the RT-55J was standing next to. When she blinked the blindness out of her eyes she gawked at the scene before her, even she couldn’t hold back a laugh at this even if it was in poor taste given she knew what her recent twitch meant. She figured it generally meant imminent pain for others; well it was nice to know if a friend of hers is about to get grievously hurt so she could prevent injury to them.

After a moment Screwball thought back to her last thought, if she was in a crowd of people she wouldn’t exactly know who to help and only knew if the situation affected her personally. She didn’t even know if the twitch was just for friend or for her enemies exclusively. If she were to think about it too hard she might go more insane then she already is… well at least she’d be more like her mother in that respect.

Screwball was ignoring the current fight going on in front of her as Ristar started fighting the sumo sized robot in stretchy armed combat. She was also ignoring the groaning figures on the floor and one was coughing up a bit of smoke having a slightly charred countenance about her.

“Derpy were you trying to kill us!” Lyra said as she poked her head out of the backpack on the floored bear who was sitting precariously on a bee’s carapace.

“Oops my bad…” Derpy said sitting up, eyes slowly doing spirals in their sockets.

“You did nothing wrong Derpy, in fact some would say that this has lead to a rather fortuitous situation.” Honey was blushing up a storm on the floor and Banjo quickly came to his dazed senses and got off of her, much to her disappointment.

“Can I get some help here, no hurry I’m just fighting a giant killer robot by myself. I mean I just slammed my face through five feet of concrete and steel for you guys so a little aid would be appreciated!” The star grappling the clamps with his hands fought for domination against the sumo robot. Their battle went completely ignored as the star kid continued trying to ask for help from a rather inattentive audience. “Please, I’m on my last health point here… you’re all really good people right?”

“Sorry Honey… hey look there’s Kazooie’s backpack!” Banjo walked up to it, but the reserve power activated and the shields popped back up around it. “Things are never that easy huh, I wonder how we’re supposed to get the backpack out of there.”

“Oh I don’t know, maybe beating this large killer robot I’m fighting!” Even as he said it, Ristar slammed his face straight into the robots head several times before having to dodge out of the way of its clamps. Again he went ignored.

Derpy slowly trotted up to Banjo with a slight limp to ask a question, however the building shuddered and shook as several explosions were taking place around the complex. Honey floated over to them wings buzzing softly as the cacophony of explosions kept getting louder and louder from dull thuds to somewhat audible booms.

“Well we know Kazooie’s free at least, no one else can cause that much noise without using grenade eggs in a signature death blossom attack style. The fact that the explosions aren’t stopping leads me to believe she’s not going to stop firing them anytime soon and is certainly having fun in the form of incredibly violent revenge.” Honey sighed to herself, so far being a hero didn’t seem as fun as it looked and that landing took out two full Gemini bars from her health. Honey now knew and understood that having a hit box hurts. “Now all we need is to find Screwball and meet up with Kazooie after retrieving her backpack so that we can get out of here.”

Screwball was honestly surprised they hadn’t noticed her yet, she wasn’t that unnoticeable right? After a moment she realized she was still holding up the sign in her left hoof. With a twist of her hoof the sign spun around, everyone except Ristar and the robot, jumped in shock looking in her direction.

“I’m right here!” Though she hadn’t known the reason for writing it beforehand, it now kind of made sense to Screwball as to why she put that on the back of her sign in the first place.

“When did you get here?” Derpy asked just as surprised as everyone else, she idly pulled out a banana nut muffin to start gnawing on it. Despite her scorched look a minute ago she now looked completely fine now.

Only Banjo and Honey were still reeling from the lost health which would eventually be restored by generally any video game power ups that could raise health. So they were completely fine, still ignoring Ristar and the now smoking RT-55J in the background continuing to stretch arm fight.

“Wow it’s like you appeared out of thin air! I swear that was just like Pinkie does sometimes.” The mint green and white pony of lyres and spoons stated.

Screwball told them all to never mind how she got there, she had to ask what that large explosion was just now.

“That, well we just took out the energy field generator and Kazooie will probably meet us here in three… two… one…” Banjo turned to stare at the sealed door along with the three ponies and Honey.

A hole ripped open in the floor and a penguin shaped object immediately slammed into the ceiling, earning everyone’s attention when Kazooie wearing magnetically driven skates leapt up and grabbed the metal penguin before he could hit the floor.

“Why haven’t I exploded yet? Please convince her to just let me die.” Chill Penguin asked sorrowfully, the robot penguin never knew pain like this existed. No wonder they had a kill switch when their life bars ran out.

“Things to note, if you never let the boss rest on the ground you can keep juggling them ad infinitum in the Mischief Makers realm. So you’re not iced until I am well satisfied kicking the c… oh hey guys, I spent the last five minutes juggling Chill Penguin here around the entire facility.” Kazooie smiled at them cheekily as she bounces Chill Penguin of a wall of the room and grabbed him before he could hit the ground again despite the miniature explosion running almost constantly along his body.

“Agghh…” Ristar screamed as the capsule guardian sumo robot RT-55J finally manage to grapple him with a pincer and started to draw him in to finish him off. The smoking machine never got the chance as a grenade egg blew its head off and it fell over into a pile of slowly disappearing parts that exploded. “You guys are jerks...”

“Suck it up Twink; you’ll be back to baking cakes with pretty pink princesses after your done here. I’m glad I took some of those combat lessons from Xoda Rap, because I’ll be darned if they weren’t effective.” Kazooie said already grabbing her backpack with her free wing and pulling it on while making sure to keep Chill Penguin off the floor. She walked over to the wall where Ristar had made a hole before the wall rebooted to not have a hole anymore; she flicked Chill Penguin up spiraling into the air and pulled back her right wing. “Falcon….”

(Star Fox Corneria theme music plays.)

“KICK!” The shout was heard by everyone of the Star Fox team that went on the attack as soon as the energy field generator went up in a fireball that took out a portion of the enemy fleet above it. A small penguin like figure was seen plowing throguh several enemy ships as he shot to the sky and straight into space constantly exploding. He wouldn’t stop exploding until he landed on something; this was a cruel fate and he was going to be stuck with for quite some time. It was a easily learned lesson to never make a breeding seagull mad.

“This is Khronozooie, looks like my worst half Kazooie is free and she has practically just neutered Chill Penguins effectiveness as a viable asset to the enemy army. Get ready to cover our escape route. Canjo I need you to support our flying units. Vela already got Goombella out and back to the S.S. Anubis. We’ve got Buck Bumble and Sparkster aiding the Star Fox team out there already. They’ll peel out when they’re well ready to do so, they can take care of themselves no problem so don’t worry about them too much. One is too awesome to die and the other just bumbles about precariously.” After this Khronozooie proceeded to rip out the pilot of the eagle rider armor she was standing on and then took operation of it. Walking up to Khronozooie in ride armor was Curly Brace in a hawk model and that was followed by Quote piloting a rabbit model behind that. “Quote get over the main building and prepare to escort them home and make sure the ponies stay out of trouble, they are really good at getting into it. Also make sure to tell Kazooie to look out for a red crate if Screwball hasn’t already, because we’re about hit with a hurricane ton of enemies.”

“You know you kind of worded that one thing in such a way that it sounds like your trying to get stuff past a radar of some kind…” One of the Star Fox pilots known as Slippy said suddenly, he was their chief engineer and boss scanner.

“Shut up and pay attention, you’ve got twenty seven enemies tailing you Slips.” Another pilot named Falco angrily shouted, taking note that Slippy had nine times the usual amount of enemies tailing him. This blue bird was never easy to shoot down.

“Do a barrel roll!” Peppy said over the communication line. “Use the boost to get through!”

“Remind me, why do we let Peppy fly when he’s been clearly declared senile and frequently forgets what an aileron roll is?” The feminine voice of a blue fox named Krystal called out, she was kicking her mind with her psi abilities having to listen to his ramblings about pressing c-buttons to do tricks.

“Hey cut the chatter and start racking up some kills, I’m the only one that’s got over five hundred and all of you are barely above twenty seven. Slippy has only shot down one by accident and that’s actually pretty impressive for him on a good day. Why am I always stuck doing all the work? Then again you guys are the best distraction flyers in the business and I’m glad that all my friends know how to mostly not die with impossible stunt flying.” Again the ace pilot Fox Mccloud wondered why his team was doing worse than Bill and Kat whose kill counts were at least into the hundreds at this point and they were the only ones covering the Great Fox and the S.S. Anubis by themselves. Hell even the Mizar ants firing randomly into the sky were getting more kills then the rest of his team individually and that’s not counting how many the Mizar beetles are shooting down with their heavy weapons.

Trinity Pt. 3

View Online

After kicking the robot penguin through the recently recoded wall, mom came over and hugged me. Her warm wings tightly wrapping me before giving me sweet release and the ability to breathe as she backed off, she still kept one of her wings around me.

“So Screwy, how much trouble was it to adventure this far into our realms to rescue me? You must have had a heck of a time surviving all the crap every one of us video game heroes normally does.” It was a sweet moment and Screwball was squirming a bit in the red and yellow feathers that encompassed her, Kazooie’s nickname for the pony was one that was not relished though generally accepted.

Screwball gave a vibrant smile and then it quickly stopped. Screwball thought back to something important and she quickly told Kazooie that she had to watch out for a red crate.

“Red crate, are you sure? Who told you tell me that? If it was Merluvlee I’ll scream and pull out a nuclear device, I really will.” Kazooie turned her gaze on Banjo and Honey who noticeably winced at the thought of her screaming, but it was more than likely the threat of a nuclear explosion going off near them. They would need to buy a lot of Rad-X and possibly detoxify Spiral Mountain again after last time.

No, Screwball hadn’t met anyone named Merluvlee, so she decided to say it was Rosalina who was with a bunch of creatures called Luma. Kazooie’s reaction was nonplussed or even much of a reaction.

“Well I now know who I will send a gift basket to… wonder if she likes sea salt ice cream.” The bird said after a moment after several strange looks crossed her face.”So who’s the new pony and how did she end up here? Better yet I want to know how the muffin lover got here.”

“Well the way Screwball explains it she teleported right into her path a thousand or so feet in the air and knocked her off a missile she was clinging too that was launched by the now destroyed Cerberus Alpha.” Banjo sighed at the fact that this kind of stuff actually does happen in the video game realms and quite often at that.

“Hah, I knew these ponies were at least part cat!” Suddenly this proclaimed loudly by Kazooie, as if that explained anything as she silently thought Screwball landed on her hooves after falling that far.

“Can we please get a move on? We’re not exactly safe in the middle of enemy territory you know!” Honey was hovering near the door as the holes in the walls and floor had rebooted themselves already back to normalcy.

“Sure sure yellow jacket, just give me a moment to set something up.” Honey gave an exasperated sigh as Kazooie reached into her backpack.

Soon Kazooie pulled out a statue of herself in the form of sitting in a yoga position and the head was upraised on a pole somewhat with a black sphere sitting on top. She turned to Screwball and whispered something while motioning over to the two ponies and the crazy pony nodded.

“Kazooie… please tell me that’s not what I think it is.” Banjo stated slowly backing away, prepared to run for the hills.

“Okay I won’t tell you, once I set this thing off no hero or friendly left behind and ponies are a priority to get to safety. So please unlock and remove Lyra from the backpack. Only a Kazooie can survive this so don’t worry about me if I’m left behind and let’s get things started and make it fast!” Kazooie leapt up and stomped down on the head of the statue which immediately shot down and some clanging destroyed clock noises could be heard. A three dimensional digital number could be seen hovering above the statue giving them all fifty minutes to live as the black sphere lit up along with the statues eyes. They could all hear the ticking of a clock and the background music had suddenly become horribly distorted.

Screwball attracted the attention of the other two ponies and a small black box appeared in front of them and something happened before it disappeared as Screwball silently explained what she did causing Derpy and Lyra to look at each other in surprise. They never heard of something so weird or that it was even possible.

“Ohhhh….” Banjo really disliked it when Kazooie made situations worse before they got better, he immediately ran over to the door and shoulder checked it open, the fact that it was sealed and made of metal could not stop him. “We have to get moving right now!”

They all exited the room with Screwball taking one look back to the statue and saw a black hole forming above it; she turned and started galloping down the hallways after the others with Kazooie in the lead.

Kazooie simply pirouetted through a gaggle of the left over enemy defenses and they were torn to shreds, anything that got in her way was reduced to a pile of ash or destroyed then reduced to a pile of ash. She definitely knew her way around as it had taken them less than four minutes to reach the lobby, when Screwball suddenly stopped them all.

“What is it Screwball? Once I’ve set off my special weapon I can’t stop it, the coding that goes into it makes it really unsafe to be stopping or even slowing down right now.” Kazooie then saw Screwball pointing to the destroyed shutters that lead towards the basement levels and saying that Chaos was to distract the main security forces of this building while she was sneaking in. She really didn’t want the chaos monster to be left behind as he was her friend.

“Damn, Banjo, Wasp and Twink, we’re going after Chaos. You three stay here and out of trouble!” Kazooie turned back and ran through the destroyed shutters followed by the other three leaving the ponies in the lobby.

“So who was that?” Lyra asked wondering about the red and yellow bird.

Screwball answered that that was her mother; she was a hero and a rather notably well known violent one at that. Famous for destroying a galaxy or something single wingedly.

“Is there anything to eat here? Using so much magic works up an appetite.”Stated Lyra, she was trying to ignore the fact that Screwballs mother was a bird and able to slice through those moving metallic creatures with her flesh and blood wings. Walking over to the security station that was also the front desk and looking behind it, she was actively trying to ignore the other strange things about the pony. Like the fact that she didn’t move her lips to talk and her throat didn’t so much as twitch either. She looked to her erstwhile friend the grey pony holding a muffin up to her. “No I don’t want a muffin Derpy; I actually want something relatively green to eat.”

Screwball turned to the saddened Derpy and accepted a muffin from her, causing the pony to smile as she ate it slowly to savor the flavor. While Lyra’s stomach grumbled, taking this as a cue to help Lyra out Screwball went over to one of the small amounts of leafy greens growing in small pots dotted around the room. She just picked one at random she pulled on it till out popped a humongous turnip with a smiley face. She was not one to question how it was bigger than the space it had just been occupying or the fact that the dirt smoothed out perfectly flat upon its removal. Video game physics were not to be explained, just acknowledged as long as it doesn’t cause trouble like knowing how boss fights work.

Turning to Lyra, Screwball asked if this large thing was enough for her as she tried to drag it over and managed to move it with relative ease as it seemed to weigh nothing after being pulled out.

“Yeah, that will do it.” Lyra took a hefty bite, tasted delicious too despite the odd facial feature on it.

Around halfway to Lyra finishing it they all heard an explosion coming from outside through a section of the destroyed lobby Chaos made an entrance through. Being the usually curious ponies they were, they walked out, turned their head skyward and glanced at the shadow of an even larger fleet then that of the Reploids slowly descending towards the planet.

Speaking of the Reploid fleet, it was largely sixty one point three percent down and continuing with the casualties the Star Fox team was delivering to it in all range mode ever since the heavy shields the energy field generator gave the larger spawn point battleships.

“Oh what do we have here?” A posh voice said and the sound of flapping wings could be heard. Turning to the right the ponies saw a regal looking blue and yellow armored robot with the face of an eagle and large wings sticking from his humanoid back as he dropped to the ground.

“Hoo, it seems that both kings are out at about the same time, looks like it’s a good time to take some hostages eh brother? As mavericks we must pride ourselves on coming away from this smelling a little better than biological excrement. It seems we have an opportune moment to take some hostages, which is if they are willing to come with us. If not I think we’ll have to blow them away.” This one had the face of an owl, red and green color scheme and was using his large shoulder pads to fly before he too landed to the left of the three and threw up a salute. He was a bit stockier and shorter, but was a lot more dangerous than his predecessor who was standing opposite of him.

“I’m not a maverick…” The eagle one muttered sourly crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Of course not brother, you just lost a fight and honor demands that you followed Sigma’s orders like you’re going to follow orders of the one in charge now. I believe you were termed a maverick that was not a maverick? And to think anyone could actually look up to you at one time considering how you have fallen.” The owl one seemed to be a bit nastier in personality tapped something on its arm to speak into it, all throughout his tone remained neutral with a dark undertone. “Hoo, this is Storm Owl; fleet is to go into full retreat except for the Dauntless Peregrine. So much of my unit has perished and I’m quite frightfully mad. So allow me, Storm Owl, to take it out on you!”

“I’m Storm Eagle; sorry about what we are going to do to you, well maybe not so much as it is regrettable that we must save face like this.” The eagle one seemed actually apologetic about attacking them and then a boss field erected around them and the three ponies.

Boss Fight: Storm Brothers versus Screwball, Derpy and Lyra. (Insert Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow gym leader battle music.)

“Okay, just how screwed are we and what’s going on.” As she back towards the hole in the building the barrier popped up preventing Lyra from leaving the battlefield. She made her way back over to Screwball and Derpy; they were all stuck out in the open against two flying opponents both of which were already tough machines and they both had their own life bars filling up in the upper right corner of all their visions even Lyra and Derpy who didn’t have the advantage of a HUD could see their life bars.

In the upper left corners of their own visions were their own life bars with their own heads as eight bit icons smiling at them. Lyra’s seemed to be the smallest and was already injured slightly from being tied into Banjo’s life system previously and the bear having been struck by several rockets and buster blasts, she had a green bar representing her current fatigue level. Derpy was at full health and there was a strange slowly depleting brown with blue dots bar next to her health. Screwball had three bars, her health bar, a bar with her maximum amount of chaos energy in her system which seems to have improved with time and the last was strange bar as even Screwball didn’t know what it represented.

Screwball explained in no uncertain terms that this was a boss fight and bosses of the video game realms can force you into an inescapable arena to fight you to the death. Video Game Heroes tend to always win the fights unless the odds are stacked or there is an underlying reason why they couldn’t win the fight.

“She’s telling you the truth I ended up in one myself… though I had Mr. Bumble to help me at the time.” Before they could talk any further Derpy narrowed her eyes and dove in front of the two as a tornado was fired at them by Storm Eagle. Clapping her hooves together Derpy held them up to the tornado attack splitting it easily in two. Her two friends were perfectly safe from weather based attacks as long as she was around, except maybe for lightning as she tended to have problems with controlling that.

“If you have time to talk then you have the time to die!” Stated Storm Owl, he fired a spread machine gun of metallic yellow feathers at the trio sending them scrambling to get out of the way of the makeshift bullets as they struck the ground shattering into small pieces of metallic shrapnel.

They were completely exposed against the two flying opponents and they had little chance of surviving this. This was kind of unfair since only one of them could actually fly or at least that’s what Lyra thought.

Screwball quickly pulled out her homerun bat from nowhere after reaching behind her back with her left hoof and held it in a swordsman style grip in both hooves as she stood on her two hind legs and took a few steps in front of Derpy gently pushing her back to Lyra’s side. Her spiraling pupils seemed to have slowly started to rotate.

“You have got to teach me how to do that… the standing and walking thing, not the baseball bat thing. Where did you even pull that from?” She had been behind Screwball when the crazy pony did it and Lyra still didn’t even see where the bat had come from, she also didn't like the implications that Screwball could have just done an ass pull.

“It seems like they have some fight in them after all.” Despite this Storm Owl noticed Storm Eagle didn’t say anything or react to the comment as he opened up his mouth and spat out an egg.

All three of the ponies watched the egg strike the ground and Screwball was the only one that had inkling as to what was about to happen as she rushed forward and swung her bat horizontally to the right and then brought it inwards to vertical backswing upwards.

Four explosions followed her defensive measures as the four small mechanical jet propelled birds that had popped out of the egg after hitting the ground; they exploded on impact with Screwball’s weapon.

“Can’t we talk this out, I mean…?” Lyra was pushed out of the way by Derpy as Storm Owl fired a burst of machine feather rounds at her.

Screwball was busy having to dodge out of the way of a dive kick from Storm Eagle as his foot claws nearly got a grip on her neck; she leapt out of the way and immediately positioned her body in front of the other two ponies again.

There wasn’t much time for talking like the owl robot stated as he immediately was firing another barrage at the three of them. Screwball swung her bat in front of herself and held it there leaving sparkles to trail up her bat and when the bullets were going to strike she spun around twice rapidly knocking the shots straight back at Storm Owl. Storm Owl only took only a single bullet out of all of the ones he fired and was immediately bathed in a green glowing shield with razor sharp green energy blades circling it.

Storm owl held up a hand and a green glowing orb matching his projectile shield coalesced in his hand and he tossed it straight at the gathered ponies getting them to scatter as it petered out upon contact with the ground. Screwball rolled to the right, Lyra Jumped back and Derpy took to the air to the left.

Storm Eagle was immediately on the pony who screamed pray, flapping his wings twice he swooped down feet first at the mint green pony Lyra. She managed to duck his attack only to be grabbed by the tail by his feet and lifted into the air.

Storm Eagle quickly dropped Lyra when Derpy rammed into him and Screwball dove into both of them knocking them out of the path of another one of Storm Owls barrier shots. As soon as they hit the ground Screwball was kicked clear of Storm Eagle as Derpy had already managed to get clear of him.

Hitting the ground Screwball bounced and rolled into a standing position, but already had to move out of the way of a storm of yellow bullets immediately following that. She was seen as the most viable threat given she had a weapon and even if Derpy could fly she wasn’t going to be doing much damage as shown when she tackled Storm Eagle his health bar only dropped half a health point and that was with the increased strength the realm naturally grants her.

Derpy had frowned as she couldn’t protect both Lyra and Screwball and they were really ganging up on the latter. “Lyra… you have to help fight too she can’t do it alone without the both of us.”

Even as she said this to the lyre player they had to watch as Screwball was dodging another four jet birds coming from a hatched egg and another green sphere of violent energy even while being dive bombed by Storm Eagle. She was getting roughed up out there as she took a blow to the chest by one of the jet birds and was fending off the dive attack using her homerun bat to block Eagle’s attempt to eviscerate her, it wouldn’t stand up to the pressure of a full size robot master for too long or the abuse it was being put through destroying explosives and protecting her from the claws of the robots feet.

“But what can I do?” Lyra suddenly regretted asking that as she found herself face to face with someone she considered a blonde ditz that was an acquaintance of hers, this mail delivering pony with the weird but now obviously known true stories was serious about them getting into the scrap that was nearly killing one of the three of them at the moment. “I’m scared Derpy...”

“I’m scared too, I’m far away from home dimensionally my daughter is in the care of a lazy bones, a mental pony raised by timber wolves and a pony that’s a living doormat except when her friends are danger. How do you think I feel that I’ve been threatened at every turn since I got here, but I’ve also made friends and they’ve gotten me this far as I have them. So you don’t know how to fight, well think of something because I’m not going to let Screwball take on both of those two alone. We’re ponies and we fight together, make friends and use our talents to better the world wherever we are!” As she yelled this Derpy heard the sound of another egg cracking and pulled Lyra out of the way of a swarm of jet birds launched from another egg Storm Eagle spat at them. All the while Storm Owl fires another spray of feather rounds at Screwball who was desperately tap dancing out of the way of the shots. “They aren’t going to focus entirely on her forever no matter how much we don’t want to be in the thick of it.”

Derpy immediately took to the air and Storm Eagle fired his tornado buster at her and she easily split the tornado in twain with her hooves and was performing an aileron roll straight through the center of the weapons blowing wind, her Winter Wrap Up tornado techniques really helped with that. When Derpy got close enough she curled into a ball and tightened up as she slammed into him rotating at a high velocity to actually do three bars worth of damage to him.

Derpy managed to recover from the blow and had to immediately fly backwards as an Eagle kicked upwards at her with his left set of talons. The previous blow did as much damage to Derpy as it did to Eagle throwing off his aim by a few centimeters that could have caught the bubble flanked one harshly in the jaw; his kick missed whiffing past her shell-shocked head and now dizzied walled eyes as she darted away from him.

“I’ve had enough of this!” Storm Owl glowed and four tornadoes formed around the battlefield and start to move inwards on Screwball who ran towards Lyra who was at the center of where all the tornadoes were converging. Derpy flew down and started kicking up air around all three of them and then the tornadoes slammed home created a solid wall of ripping wind that took up half the battlefield. It almost hit Storm Eagle as well leading him to think Storm Owl didn’t care about his existence given the previous near miss when Screwball shoved him and Derpy out of the way.

Inside that wall of dangerous wind Derpy was sweating as she continued to flap her wings as hard as she could to focus on creating a bubble of air around her two friends. It was relative to her special talents that had to do with all forms of spherical objects, she liked golfing and could hold her breathe underwater for ten minutes. What she was doing right now was protecting them from a veritable maelstrom of ripping wind and it stressing everything she had to keeping bubble in place around her friends.

After it was over Derpy collapsed to the ground and so too did Storm Owl having used up a large amount of weapon energy just to summon that desperation attack on command, they were both vulnerable.

Storm Eagle immediately aided Storm Owl though he was loathing doing so. He fired an egg out of his mouth and then proceeded to launch a tornado from his buster.

Derpy, even tired, intercepted the tornado, but while she was diverting the tornado she couldn’t block the jet propelled bird grenades screaming at her.

Screwball did that for her when she shoved her out of the way and swung her bat rapidly three times with one hoof, after taking a look at her bat it was cracked and in a sorry state.

Lyra just watched as both of them protected her with all they had; Derpy was already troubled having to divert so many focused tornado attacks and Screwball was taking more than a beating for the both of them.

Eagle launched another drop kick at them or to be more specific at Lyra and both the ponies in front of her pushed him off. They did this with a flying buck to the chest and a bat strike to the head causing him to back off only for the green glow of several large orbs to come flying at them.

Screwball roughly shoved Derpy into Lyra as she took the first large green orb with her bat and it shattered sending splinters of wood into her body. Then next one struck her hooves as she brought them up, covering her limbs in deep gashes. With both her defending limbs going limp the third one struck home and yet she stayed standing on her hind hooves, because the fourth one would have made it past her if she fell and she was stubborn enough to take all these damaging hits herself.

When the fourth large green sphere of energy finally struck, Screwball didn’t even scream once… she just fell backwards dead. Lyra’s eyes started misting up and Derpy cried out, they ran over to her lifeless body.

Her corpse was a macabre thing in the video game realms, the flesh of her limbs worn down to the bone, her belly blasted open and her innards shredded. This was not to mention all the blood splattered about the ground or that chunks of her mane and tail were as well.

Storm Owl was super effective, in killing her.

Trinity Pt. 4: Emergence

View Online

A painful feeling seized Kazooie’s chest but she didn’t stop ripping through the remnants of the mechanical defenses. After turning the next Corridor she stopped and smiled while gasping for breath.

“Kazooie why are you gasping for breath if there isn’t any toxic gas here?” Banjo put a paw on her shoulder and even Honey looked a bit worried. Ristar gave her a questioning look, since that was clearly an unusual action for certain video game characters.

“Did you take on too many out of world abilities? Power ups and items shouldn’t do something like that to you.” Ristar asked worriedly taking a few steps away from her.

“No it’s not that, I’d know if my file went corrupt… Screwball, something is very wrong with my daughter. ” Once she caught her breath she walked over to a cardboard box lying on the floor picked it up and started running past the others. “No time like the present, my little girl and her friends are in danger!”

“Whoever just hurt Screwball is boned if they aren’t dead already.” Banjo said idly and started after Kazooie with a giant flying bee and the shooting star warrior picking up their pace after the red bird on roller blades.

“Weren’t we running into a place that’s about to explode to find some guy named Chaos?” Ristar said as it had been barely a minute since they separated from the ponies.

“You’ve obviously don’t understand the simple chaotic nature of the cardboard box.” Banjo stated simply as they came upon a totally wrecked hallway that, judging by the incredibly amounts of damage to the coding, even the SA-X could have caused all of it. Kazooie was on a warpath again.

At the front of the building with the two currently saddened ponies, they didn’t even get a time to mourn Screwball as they were immediately hit with another tornado which Derpy shouldered for Lyra. She glared angrily at Storm Eagle and Owl, was there was no grace period for these monsters!

Derpy immediately launched at Storm Eagle; Lyra tried to stop her and then turned to Storm Owl as a storm of feather bullets shot at her. Concentrating hard she caught several of the bullets in her grasp while avoiding the rest of the assault and shot one back at Storm Owl causing his barrier to pop and it was followed by a green orb flung in her direction, causing her to scramble out of the way of it while holding on to three of the capture feather bullets.

Behind them against the barrier shoved there by a tornado that was launched at Lyra while Derpy was dodging four green orbs of destruction, a streak of red led straight to the unmoving pink, purple and white body. A vile red energy started to spread along the corpse of the presumably dead pony. The energy touched the boss barrier field and it started to warp to a crimson red color as it started to erupt from the body the entire boss battle field started turning the color and started becoming more and more visible.

Derpy flew into Storm Eagle and slugged him with her hooves twice; he tried to fire an egg at the ground to send more jet birds at her as he kicked her back a foot. Instead she flew in and clamped his beak shut with her hooves causing four internal explosions to go off damaging him. In reflex he caught Derpy off guard and she was blown roughly into the invisible barrier above them by a tornado. As soon as she was close to the ground she flipped her body so that her front hooves were pointing downwards and bounced backwards off of them when she hit the ground avoiding being clawed open by Storm Eagles flying kick.

Lyra couldn’t help Derpy as she was too busy dealing with Storm Owl, she had a righteous fury going on inside her, but she still couldn’t find the killer instinct that Derpy obviously had buried somewhere in all of her cheery bubbly veneer. It was the first time she saw another pony be killed in front of her and worst yet it was a pony she knew. One she might have been looking forward to having a nice relatively calm friendship with given that pony saved her life.

Lyra was considering it lucky that the mechanical Owls more physical bullets were capable of being grabbed by her magic, his energy ball attack thing however was something she didn’t want to be hit by as even the smaller version looked deadly. Given that ponies were biological the robots attacks were actually exceedingly lethal when compared to special metal armored maverick destroyers, she'd be right in the assumption. She rotated the three bullets she caught around her horn to launch them at higher speeds when Owls barrier was down and it seemed to do more damage to him from what she could tell of the life bars currently placed in her constant periphery.

Speaking of which something was happening to the frown faced bar with Screwballs head under it, it started warping and the face changed and the health bar started to fade away. A shockwave of energy rolled over the four fighting combatants and they all look around them as the swirling vortex of red finished appearing around them, the regular boss barrier was no longer in place anymore.

Both Storm Eagle and Owl backed off their respective opponents looking to the one that Storm Owl had killed not a minute or two ago.

The blood on the ground was flowing towards two inky black hooves and slowly started forming into five fingered claws and looking up to the head of the creature they all saw to glowing red eyes where there was once happy spiraling pupil backed by a bright purple color. There was no mane anymore just a flowing pit of darkness from the head and the tail end. There weren’t even facial features or even a single orifice in that inky creature’s mess, the only thing reminiscent of Screwball left was that the creature stood on four legs, the front two covered in claws made out of blood.

As she stood up on her hind legs with dark red light bleeding from where her eyes used to be, Lyra blinked and suddenly had a claw in her face as Screwball had covered the distance between them in a single second. Lyra wonder what made Screwball stop, maybe she recognized her? That was likely, except for the fact that she had gotten her killed mostly because she spent the first part of this fight whimpering.

It was then that Lyra realized that Screwball was struggling to push her claws into her throat from her right through a barrier of golden light and was that a banjo playing? It was then that Lyra realized the only reason she was alive was because of Screwballs mother was currently straddling her, quickly dismissing the icky feelings of this situation she looked back at the tightly clenched beak and nervous green eyes.

“Move it… you spoony… bard…” Kazooie grumbled under the stress of holding the blood red claws back, right now their combined weight was the only reason why her Wonder Wing was holding up to the stress of the pressure being exerted on the shield.

“I’m not spoony!” Lyra said leaning her head back, turning it further and just barely avoiding it being cleaved clean off her neck. Kazooie released her Wonder Wing causing the creature to lose balance and be blown backwards by the force of her wings flexing outwards. Lyra looked on as an inch of her mane fell to the ground and she felt a slight pain in her neck, reaching up with her hoof it and to her horror it came away from her neck with blood.

“It’s just a scratch. Also saved you a life, you owe me!” Kazooie said jovially as she jumped off of the pony and in front of her as the creature that was once Screwball stood up again. In a blink it crossed the distance where Kazooie stopped its claws from cleaving into her as she diverted its attack and took a grazing hit to her shoulder.

“Gah… what the…” Kazooie reached up to her left shoulder and her right wing came away with blood, which should be impossible given video game character usually don’t bleed. Kazooie’s eyes shrunk to pinpricks as her mind rapidly went through the motions of analysis of what just happened to what it had just done. “Oh crap, quick you two, kill tweeter dumb and other tweeter dumb and don’t let that thing kill them before either of you do!”

“Why not, she seems to be doing a good job of it herself and besides ponies are not exactly the best at killer instinct.” As Lyra pointed out as Screwball was attacking Storm Owl by launching from the swirling red walls that now surrounded them.

Owl had dodged the first leap, but the creature immediately latched on to the opposite wall and launched herself at his back only to be blown to the side by a tornado into another wall which she made a growling noise at Storm Eagle from the where she clung.

“Well you better learn how to use combo breakers fast and do it before I have to finish her off.” Kazooie finished this statement by blasting the altered Screwball off the wall with a grenade egg and the pony creature landed on all fours in front of Kazooie. The creature started to stalk forward her body wavering with each step with a seemingly narrowed look in its eyes.

Kazooie Vs. ?????????

(The Pillows – Advice – music plays.)

“Come on now; please don’t make me hurt you.” It blinked right into Kazooie’s face and she heard three rapid beeps within that span of time and grabbed at its ankle with her right wing as it swung the claws at an unnerving speed at her. Her wing was faster.

Kazooie punched it in the gut twice with her left wing, threw an uppercut knocking its head back then elbowed the creature harshly onto its back.

It rolled and was immediately on Kazooie who tilted her head down and to the left slight catching its right set of claws with the edge of her beak that sent sparks flying into the air and quickly riposted. Having knocked the creature off balance, Kazooie quickly wrapped both her wings around its arms and threw a sharp kick straight into its belly.

It gripped its claws on Kazooie’s wings causing her to cry out as blood spurted where the claws gripped her; she quickly returned the agony with a head bash and then followed it up by viciously kicking it in the groin.

This only stunned the creature for a moment, it staggered backwards and then charged forward. Another series of rapid beeping sounds was heard as it thrust both its bloody clawed hooves forward.

Kazooie stepped to the left and quickly threw her now quite injured left wing around its neck and then with a jerk sent it spinning to the ground onto its back where she started to rapidly stomp at it with both her talons with full force.

After a moment of this she then kicked it hard sending it bouncing off the new barrier wall and into the air. She leapt up after it and then with a flip, she hit it in the chest with a fierce axe kick sending blood flying from the body as it slammed into the ground and bounced back up to meet Kazooie. Several red splotches were seen spreading along its spine.

Kazooie closed her eyes and wrapped her body around it and the body was upside down when she did this, the three beeps signified another painful moment for it. Kazooie threw her right wing out harshly sending them spinning as they fell towards the ground.

The ground shook as Kazooie leapt backwards out of the resulting dust cloud from her attack and immediately following her was the creature; its neck had turned a sickly red color. She quickly pulled its double claw thrust into another grapple and then pushed it away and jumped backwards to avoid the large green orb that flew at them.

Taking a side glance to the other ponies fighting Kazooie caught a quick glimpse at how they were doing.

Derpy was really laying into storm Eagle the best she could, he may be able to dive fast but his flight speed and maneuverability was worse than Storm Owls. Derpy’s hits might have been doing very little damage but it was adding up with each buck and strike.

Lyra on the other hand just seemed to be avoiding shot after shot of green orbs once Storm Owl stopped firing his feather bullets at her, well so much for boss AI stupidity and it didn’t seem like the pony could figure out a way to hurt him as she had a confused look on her face as she threw herself to the side.

Kazooie quickly ducked and turned her attention back to the creature that just shot over her head and had to dodge roll out of the way to the left of a green orb of energy from Storm Owl as he was starting to target other opponents as well.

The creature was suddenly running along the crimson barrier wall and leapt at Derpy’s exposed back and was blown away from striking the flying pony with an ice egg courtesy of Kazooie, it was only momentarily taken out of action. This distracted the blonde mare allowing Storm Eagle to launch an egg out of his mouth towards the floor pointed in Kazooie’s direction.

Lyra looked to the right, smiled slightly and caught the small jet birds in her magic as they tried to home in on Kazooie as they passed by her. She immediately brought her horn back and slung one around to blow back Storm Owl as he was about to unleash his tornado attack again stunning him out of being able to do it for a while.

“You bumbling buffoon don’t use physical projectiles around that nasty green thing!” Lyra glared at the upper crust bird robot that ignored her intense stare and fired another green sphere of deadly energy at Derpy.

Derpy caught the orb in the corner of her vision, corkscrewed around a tornado and Eagles attempt to kick her to grab him from behind with her front hooves. Flapping her wings twice she pushed him into the path of the orb and she promptly kicked off of him as the orb struck home causing Storm Eagle massive amounts of damage and his health was depleted down to a fourth of its maximum capacity.

“Whose side are you on, you twit!” Eagle yelled at Owl before he got one of his own jet birds to the back of his head draining his already short life bar down even further as some robot masters were weak against their own weapons at times.

The other fight continued as the creature slung her right claw upward and Kazooie leaned back letting the claw scrape against the bottom of her beak in another shower of sparks. She twisting around and drew it sharply into both of the creatures hind legs causing it to fall down on to its side.

Kazooie followed it up by cold cocking it with her right wing and it bucked her in the legs sending her to the floor in pain. She swiftly rolled out of the way and was back on her feet as it threw its left claw down on where her neck used to be getting its left arm stuck in the ground.

“Falcon… PUNCH!” The creature whipped around its tail end and used its gaseous tail to block Kazooie’s attack fully without a problem and that boggled Kazooie for a moment.

Kazooie had to step back as it threw up a hind leg and a spike of blood shot out of the hoof nearly spearing her, its back right hoof was now covered in blood red splotches. The blood spear receded and the creature ripped its arm out of the ground and lunged at Storm Eagle who was trying to dive attack Kazooie.

Kazooie grabbed Storm Eagle by his leg within three rapid beeps and whipped him around slamming the creature into the nearby barrier wall and then spun one more time and threw him spiraling at Storm Owl. Storm Owls life bar was no longer looking so hot after being struck by another robot that wasn’t a maverick.

Hearing a scream Kazooie turned to Lyra. The creature was already up and attacking as Lyra ducked back avoiding her horn getting clipped and fully ducked under a second claw swipe. Running forward Kazooie fired two normal eggs and then farts out six grenade eggs as she went past the green pony.

Lyra caught the volatile bouncing green object in her magic and slung one at Storm Owl who had dodged out of the way of the projectile that caused a moderately large explosion, giving a smirk the pony timed another throw and struck home.

Storm Eagle was preoccupied with the CQC that Derpy was dishing out as his health bar was almost finished emptying out, only a few more hard strikes. Derpy twisted around several larger shots from Storm Owl while being chased by Storm Eagle, he was not happy that he was losing to a biological.

All the while Kazooie was smirking as even if she didn’t seem to be doing any damage to the creature, it was a really fun fight. Aside from the fact that every time the creature managed strike her it made her bleed lives instead of health, she threw up her wing and blocked a strike and kicked out and then fluidly started to pirouette straight into the creature knocking it back with several rapid strikes before finishing her clockwise spin with a hard left straight.

The creature was knocked away from the other combatants as Kazooie had noted Storm Eagle and Owl were about to explode considering their life bars were in the red at the moment, she had to make sure they didn’t go near this thing. She farted out a few battery eggs in Lyra’s direction before she charged the creature.

They both grappled each other at the same time wing feathers between claws and struggled to push each other down into a vulnerable position. Kazooie smirked, kicked off the ground and flipped over the creature still holding its arms and when she was back to back with it she pulled hard causing a sickening series of cracking noise to be heard and then she released it and pushed away.

Turning around Kazooie watched as its arms flopped uselessly for a moment before a second series of cracking sounds was heard. The limbs turned red and were working again as it turned to Kazooie to seemingly glare at her.

A rapid series of explosions was heard off to the side, Kazooie turning to look at a blast of glowing orbs exploding outward much to the mystified blonde pony’s gaze who suddenly blinked out of existence. She must have been able to use Storm Eagles weapon or at least a variation of it.

The distraction almost cost Kazooie as she took a deep flesh wound across her belly and quickly wrapped her left wing over the wound and waited for it to heal on its own. She launched two quick kicks at the creatures face knocking it on its back for a moment. Kazooie spun around and with a green energy flowing up her right leg she stretched it out slamming the standing creature into the barriers wall with a stretched out round house that and held it there for a moment. Her leg shrunk back to its normal length and Kazooie was gasping for breath, the pain was rather more excruciating than normal.

The creature was immediately up and a second series of explosions was heard off to the side, she saw Storm Owl had just become a cloud of spreading energy spheres and Lyra looked to her in horror before vanishing herself.

Looking in front of her she realized why there was a look of horror on Lyra’s face; she threw up her wings and started her Wonder Wing ability. Something was horribly wrong as the banjo riff usually accompanying this ability didn’t play.

The creature had literally just thrown itself with enough force at her to hold itself in the air and continue pressuring her special protective barrier. Without the added weight or someone to protect the barrier tended to be a little less effective against incredibly focused pressure

Its left claw was slowly forcing its way through her hastily erected barrier, Kazooie felt the Wonder Wing ability crack under the stress of the force and felt herself being pushed back. The claws wrapping the left hoof were reaching for her chest and those red eyes emotionlessly stared into a pair of frightened green eyes.

The claw broke through and made contact, Kazooie flew back and slammed into the wall with a squawk.

(Music ends.)

She still had extra lives left after it had practically ripped out her heart? Well that would explain why she felt like her blood was flowing down her chest, funny she thought it would hurt worse than that. Twenty three lives left? She would make sure to not make Screwball mad after she survived this, she had more than a thousand lives before this battle even started.

Groaning in pain Kazooie opened her eyes and looked down at her chest to see a surprise in store for her, instead of a large bloody mess there was something less violent there. She wiped her wing through the viscous substance and shoved a chunk of it in her beak.

“Banana cream, that’s my girl alright.” Kazooie said proudly looking at the receding darkness around the hoof that had struck her with a pie at the last second.

Slowly from the left hoof onward the black ink and red splotches started to recede and the body didn’t move as it did. Slowly a spiral pupil purple eyed pony with tears spilling from them gave a wan smile as she fell to the ground. Her life counter ticked down two lives leaving her with only two left.

The barrier walls soon fell revealing a very interesting scene, but that moment was neither here nor there as Kazooie limped over to the body while chanting. After a moment she finally used Curaja and any of the lingering vicious injuries she had disappeared almost immediately in a swirl of green sparkles and she was walking normally now. Odd it kind of reminded her how Khronozooie was injured before they left Equestria after her first foray.

“Kazooie what happened.” Banjo said as he watched a gaggle of Mizar Ants holding position around where the boss battlefield was and firing wildly at any target they could find.

“Oh, I’d say Just about the roughest past few minutes of my life that I’ve ever had and I really don’t condone the child abuse that went on in there. Now I know I really have to return to Equestria soon and you better step up your game skills when we do. I’ll explain later, we really have to move it move it from the area and you better by physically fit for it, my bomb is kind of on a short fuse you know. What’s going on out here anyway?” Kazooie walked over to Screwballs body and lifted it onto her back.

“Well, we didn’t see you anywhere and there was this weird boss battle barrier that Chaos said you dove through. Come to think of it, that shouldn’t even be possible.” Banjo took up a thoughtful look as chaos was taking place all around them ships were crashing to the ground and creatures were being taken down shot by shot by the surrounding friendly forces. “Anyway how fast do you think you can pull out something to get us out of here? These space pirates arrived out of nowhere and are throwing a lot of firepower at us, the S. S. Anubis and the Great Fox are under much heavier fire.”

“I’ve got the transport just in mind for this many people, but we have to wait for Spoony and Derpy to get back.” With that Kazooie reached into her backpack.

Derpy popped into a white room looking dizzy and she looked around when a mysterious voice spoke up.

“Derpy Diana Hooves get equipped with, Storm Bubble Bomber!” Derpy’s mouth opened up and she coughed up a bubble concealing electricity and swirling winds. It strikes the ground and explodes in a spherical mass of water, wind and electricity.

Derpy looked confused as she didn’t know how she had just done that or even could do something like that. Then it was repeated, she could actively feel and suddenly knew how to do whatever it was she was doing to launch that attack. This time it exploded into a tornado like the ones Storm Eagle had used only more empowered with lightning, this tornado one was directed upwards at an angle. She now instinctively knew she could direct the tornadoes direction with the secondary fire option. Wait, what was a secondary fire option?

She didn’t get an answer as she disappeared from the room and Lyra was suddenly in her place.

“Spoony the pony learned, Harmonic Cyclone Barrier.” Lyra glared at the ceiling and raised her right hoof towards it shaking angrily.

“Oh yeah, well buck…” Lyra’s angry tirade is cut off as this chapter ends.

Trinity Final: Derparture for Space.

View Online

I didn’t know where I was after the white room, but it sure looked different if familiar than it did a second ago. Looking behind me there was the building with a destroyed section of wall that for some reason didn’t fix itself like the rest of the world. Maybe something about it was different from every other part of this world?

Well I was happy to see my ant friends were around, Screwball looked to be okay too… but where was, oh wait there she is appearing in a bright flash like the one that took me to the white room.

“Ugh, I really hate whoever designed whatever that room was.” Wow Lyra was being really cranky, I wonder if what happened to me happened to her too. What can she do now? In fact how do I do it? “What in the world is that?”

I was brought out of my thoughts when she pointed out the things I noticed earlier, it was like a giant whale. It was a large metal contraption and we could see it’s insides from the ramp leading up to it, there was several neat looking metal things that reminded me of that one time me and the Doctor got stuck in a universe filled with chest bursting aliens. We were still ponies during that adventure and it was scary, but everyone who trusted the Doctor lived at least.

Come to think of it why hadn’t I ever told Lyra I’ve met a human before or that one was a friend of mine living in or around Ponyville at random points of time? Well it was not like she would believe me in the first place, she didn’t seem to care that I believed her about the humans and she seemed to be a little overly obsessive about it.

“Spoony, Muffins, I need you to get your flanks up here! While you’re at it Muffins call your friends to retreat and have some take control of my SCV’s. We’re going to need them to repair the inside of this thing while we’re flying through all the crap that will be shooting at us on our way out of here.” It was Kazooie she seemed genial enough and I kind of liked her, she did give me half a muffin once.

I knew she was a princess… well technically she was born a bird but she’s also the Princess of Adventure and I was certainly having one now, she could transform into a pony so it counted right? Well at least she wasn’t a changeling, those guys weren’t very nice when they cornered my little muffin Dinky, they quickly learned not to mess with me or my daughter.

“Hey you guys she wants us all on this… uh…?” I turned to look at Kazooie after turning away from the frantic fighting of the thirteen Mizar ants in the streets. My friends were really putting up a vicious fight against those other alien things. They weren’t having any casualties ever since I organized them to worry about their other friends around them. It was like they didn’t know the first thing about friendship until I came along.

“It’s a Hercules class Drop Ship, carrying capacity of thirty… now get them moving and make sure to have them man those SCV’s.” Then she pulled out a strange device rectangular device and started talking into it. “Quote we need you to cover us while we load up, Canjo plant that tank on top of my drop ship and lock it down, we’ll need you’re fire power so I’ll see if I can tie the ships health into the your tank once you’re settled.”

Like that Banjo’s sister was off; it sure was strange that a bird and a bear worked so well together given Mr. Banjo was with Honey and using one of those creatures own weapons against them while holding a big blue magic looking shield in front of him. I shook my head, I had to stay focused my friends were in danger and Kazooie wanted them to get to safety.

“My friends, we have to go now!” As I called this out all the Mizar Ants immediately reacted by bolting for the back of the ship and up the ramp while under fire, I was already quickly running up followed by Lyra with this odd look on her face.

“Derpy since when do you know a bunch of giant ants that walk like humans?” I really didn’t care what they looked like if they were my friends and I should probably answer Lyra’s question about it.

“Well me and Honey, you know the big lady bee thing, went to their ship and we had to negotiate something I wasn’t really paying attention and then we all became good friends. They all really like me too, I don’t know why though.” I smiled happily, at least I was safely inside this ship and out of harm’s way quickly followed by Lyra and thirteen Mizar Ants including Retch who gave me a big hug and asked me what to do next. I still thought it was kind of odd that she kept calling me her queen and leader; I must really be her best friend then or something was up with the text box translations. “Oh, can some of you get into those things I think Kazooie called them Skivvies?”

Immediately the ants followed Derpy’s commands by gathering together talking it out, two of the green ants, one brown ninja ant and a blue separated from the group. They all jumped into the things and they were suddenly hovering and looking at her for more directions. She didn’t have any more to ask of them so she just shrugged, that was basically an order the Mizar Ants took as ‘you can do anything you want now’.

A few of the blue soldier ants moved over to cover the ramp in case any of the Space Pirates now invading this planet tried to take the ship or worse hurt Derpy in a boarding attempt. Within a minute a familiar hero character shot up the ramp driving chimera model ride armor and he quickly hopped out wielding his pistol also pointed towards the ramp. The ride armor was in a state of disrepair and looked to be damaged, the SCV piloting ants immediately moved over to start repairing it on instinct as the SCV functions demanded repair for friendly units or nearby allied vehicles when not mining.

“Hey, where’s Honey?” I asked turning to Retch who answered with a varied amounts of squealing. “Okay, I hope we take off soon, these Space Pirate things look like really bad news.”

“Derpy how exactly are you talking to that thing and how can you understand it?” I turned to Lyra wondering what she meant. The text boxes were clearly visible with what they were saying and it even had their names on them and everything. They came in all sorts of assorted colors which made it kind of neat that Retch’s text box was grey and yellow like me.

“You can’t see them?” I asked wondering if Lyra needs to be put into that pause thingy that Honey did to help me see them. I smiled in what was hopefully my most cheerful facial expression yet, even in these trying times of getting shot at a lot, as long as I had muffins I would be okay. “Oh well, don’t worry about it, they aren’t really saying anything interesting.”

“Do not make us sad, you honor us with your presence oh wondrous Queen of Muffins!” One of my friends said from off to the side, I just gave him a shy smile while a blush ran across my face and I rubbed the back of my head with my right hoof.

There was a large thunk on top of this ship and then something sounded like it was attaching itself to the hull, loud blasting sounds followed as if that thing was now shooting at something.

“Alright I’m in; get this brick in the air Kazooie!” I turned back to the ramp where several of my friends and that strange white guy that rode in on the giant metal thing were firing down the ramp at the black carapace creatures with clawed hand and some with arms ending in scythes. Honey made it onto the ship and the ramp started lifting and the ground started falling away.

“Hang on everyone things are going to be bumpy from here on.” Banjo was certainly on board judging by his voice on the ship wide communication thing seemingly standard in all vessels of these realms. Coming through a door in the front of this now sealed vacuous space was Kazooie carrying Screwball; she laid her onto the bed near the door. I really wanted to see if she was alright, dying must have hurt a lot and it seemed she was alright now.

I grabbed Lyra’s hoof and flapped my wings cheerily dragging her along with me towards Screwball and Kazooie.

“To think she has gained that much power in such a short time.” Kazooie blankly stated as we came close to her, she was lifting Screwballs hat and looking into it with interest. She turned to us with a serious expression. “What happened to her baseball bat?”

“She used it to protect us and it shattered and all the chunks went into her body, I’m so sorry she got badly hurt… is she okay?” I was really worried about her, though the extra lives thing seems to really work and like those Gemini crystals too. Honey did explain some of it to me, but not exactly how it all works and I should be thankful that it just did.

I didn’t get an answer except the bird pulling out a yellow emerald from the hat and holding it aloft in her right wing.

“Chaos control, absorb, recreate.” I think Lyra was a lot more stunned then I was as the emerald flashed and a massive amount of energy seemed to be sucked out of Screwball into the gem. Soon the energy emanated and a new bat was completely formed from out of thin air into Kazooie’s left wing. She shoved the length of the bat under Screwballs hat and followed by putting the gem in there to, they were a lot bigger than the space the hat occupied and I really didn’t feel like pointing that out considering how often I’ve been in the TARDIS. “Hopefully I drained off enough of it to not cause a relapse; it’s why I gave her this chaos emerald replica in the first place… well at least I think it’s the fake one, now I’m not so sure having just used it. I should probably warn someone about this…hmm, nah.”

“What did you just do to her?” I turned to Lyra; she was at least a little curious and had a guilty look on her face.

“Something I didn’t expect I had to, unfortunately it seems like her powers growth rate have accelerated recently. Must have been all the adventuring and soul searchi…” A loud crash was heard and we all nearly fell down because of the sudden jerk of the ship. My friends in the Skivvies immediately set to work on the walls with those sparking machines releasing lances of energy into the walls around us, they really didn’t seem to be doing much. “Would it kill someone to learn how to avoid giant dragon shaped missiles? Anyway quick question you two, are you still friends of my daughter despite the fact that she may be born mostly out of chaos magic and came from a slightly malicious source of nearly phenomenal cosmic power? Oh and knowing that she may eventually transform into that creature that could rip off your face again?”

I nodded without a second thought, sure I couldn’t do all that cartoony stuff Pinkie could and I couldn’t do much more then inflate myself, but if that’s all I could do as a cartoon character then I was happy to be living balloon. Meeting her was how I learned I was a cartoon character, it didn’t change who I was and it just added on to what was already there. I wasn’t afraid of her just because she got a bit cranky and went on a nearly homicidal rampage, she needed a friend now more than ever when she woke up and she liked muffins so she couldn’t have possibly been pure evil. Oh and I also have a cool new powers for when I next go adventuring with the Doctor! I wonder if Dinky will think I’m cooler then Rainbow Dash, a mother can dream I guess and I know my little muffin loves me no matter what I do because I care about her so much.

Lyra on the other hand bit her bottom lip and I sent her a confused look as her eyes darted about. Kazooie put her wing on my withers and gave me a faint smirk, before glaring at Lyra.

“Okay I got Muffins answer and she didn’t even need to think about it.” She sounded rather proud of me and I felt my heart warm, ponies should stick together and by their friends even if they could become horrible monsters on a moment’s notice. It didn’t stop the elements of harmony when they were twisted by Discord, speaking of which… didn’t I once see Screwball around the time he appeared? Well that might explain her being born of chaos magic.

I slowly moved over to Lyra and hugged her, she wasn’t an action oriented pony and the moment of adrenaline had passed so she was living with the recoil of it all. I however was more used to this stuff happening every other week.

“I think she’s kind of traumatized by all of this.” My voice was rather quiet, but Kazooie heard me loud and clear and walked to the back end of the vessel and lowered the rear loading ramp a quarter of the way open. She stopped it to look back at me.

“You two take care of my daughter until I get back; I’ve got something to take care of. You, close the ramp when I’m out!” The ant asked to close the door nodded in affirmation and Kazooie leapt out the small opening into the light yelling the word ‘falcon’, it quickly shut and the entire vessel shuddered from some form of explosion.

“Wow Kazooie really let him have it.” Let who have it? Banjo wasn’t forthcoming with the information and I’m not sure I wanted to know. I didn’t have any clue what was going on outside this thing anymore, I made my way over to Screwballs side as Lyra sat down look at the metallic floor wilting.

I looked down at the restless face on the normal looking bed compared to all this weird technology around me and took her left hoof into my right and leaned down kissed her on the forehead.

“It’s okay, everything will be alright.” I gently whispered, she wasn’t quite an adult mare yet and she needed her mother. The same mother that just jumped ship for some reason, probably protecting us from some form of large threat as that would be the only reason a mother would leave their child in such a vulnerable state. The ship around us started shuddering violently as it was rocked from numerous impacts.

Outside the drop ship and a fair distance through the Space Pirate fleet above Clancer Empire City, things were heating up to a boil.

“Bring it on scaly, I can do this all day!” Kazooie swerved out of the way of Ridley, the eternally reincarnating space pirate dragon that was sometimes a robot or mutant viral creature that just spat a series of fireballs at her. She wasn’t the only one in the air as three eagle ride armors swooped up underneath Ridley and blasted him across his chest and wings blowing him away from the breegull.

“Keep pouring it on guys we have to get this ship through the rest of fleet after we exit orbit, so make sure you’re ride doesn’t get too heavily damaged. Once we’re space bound it’s only going to get worse from there. Kazooie tells me we can land in the drop ship for repairs, but I’d rather not expose them to all the firepower around here if I can help it. Do it only in an emergency basis as those SCV’s might be the only thing keeping it flying if it starts taking more heavy fire.” Khronozooie considered they’d need every ally they could get as facing the Space Pirates wasn’t going to be easy in these flying junk heaps. Sparkster and Curly answered this with a war cry; all three of them were firing blast after blast at Ridley barely putting a scratch on him.

If only Khronozooie knew how right she was, because the ships that had been chasing Derpy, Honey and the crew of the S. S. Anubis have just shown up around the Space Pirate fleet in orbit from all directions. It was actually a good thing they showed up too, because the space around planet Clancer just became incredibly confusing and tracking three escaping ships was going to be hard. There were seventeen different fleets and they were all firing at random targets they immediately identified as enemies.

Inside the drop ship Derpy was still comforting the sleeping pony, Lyra came over to them and sat down next to her looking down on Screwball. Slowly she brushed a hoof across Screwballs belly rubbing it faintly and she gave sigh upon hearing a faint giggle flow from the lips of sleeping pony. “I’m sorry I just sat there.”

“I’m sure she’d appreciate that and would forgive you, do you want to take her other hoof Spoony?” Lyra looked up at me not even bothering to glare for being called that anymore and just threw her hooves around me and started sobbing into one of my wings.

“My names not Spoony…” Lyra growled out, though it sounded rather like she was rather deflated at the moment and it was muffled in her crying. “How do you handle all this stuff? I killed something today.”

“Not really, boss characters tend to revive back in their home realm so he’s not permanently dead just removed from existence for a short time.” I held her tighter with that one hoof while my other was preoccupied with Screwballs light grip and calm smile. The three of us would be just fine if we continued to survive the odds and at least two of us want to go back to Equestria. I won’t even begin to even know what Bon Bon must be going through right now with Lyra not being around; she was kind of a wreck before Lyra moved into her life and was the best thing to happen to the candy maker.

“You mean to tell me that those two monsters are still alive!” Lyra yelled in my ears and I quickly shushed her, and motioned with my eyes… er… eye as one just went wonky, as I motioned to Screwball. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, Robot Masters have a nasty habit of living twice and then staying dead for a year or two before coming back to life in some form or another.” Honey hovered over to us and gave a simpering smile and looked down at Screwball brushing the hair from her eyelids softly with a hand. “So technically you just defeated them, permanently killing something is really hard to do in our realms. From the way Kazooie tells it your world has a permanence involved when you kill something by purpose or accident, which kind of explains all the glass metaphors she kept using. Since I took on the health system from Jet Force Gemini realm I’m capable of dying for the first time in my long history as an NPC, also I don’t have any extra lives so I can only hope to survive till I get some. It’s actually kind of exciting and I’m able to take part in combat actively for once.”

“Well now I feel less guilty and more horrified that they are still running around.” I would have to agree with Lyra on that one. Killing wasn’t something I was good at either and I was much better at making friends who were. So far the total of things I’ve ever killed were with a plasma shotgun and all of them irredeemably evil bug things that were trying to kill me and my friends, a lot of which were also bugs.

The Doctor usually handled all the massive threats by himself anyway when she joined him, with a little assistance from her now and then. The Doctor’s dangerous situations were quite boring in comparison to all this really, as those situations usually had a huge lynchpin that would cause everything bad to fall apart with minor incidents along the way. It was a forgone conclusion what will happen should the two of us be involved in such a situation; aside from the constant running from danger and then sonic screwdriver usage.

The shuddering around the ship slowed to a crawl and I looked towards the door at the front of the ship that Honey suddenly buzzed through like lightning. I turned my sight back to Lyra and gave her a hopeful smile.

“I know we haven’t been the best of friends Lyra, but I’m hoping we can be better ones. We’ll have you meeting a real human in no time and then take a picture so Bon Bon won’t get mad that you went missing for weeks or a few days like I tend to do. I’m sure we’ll make it back to Ponyville and Pinkie will throw us such a huge party to welcome us home.” At this point I made Lyra smile, it was the best I could do under such short notice as she had been depressed up until this moment.

“I wish we’d all make it home safely then.” Lyra pulled away from me after stating this and walked towards the door leading to the front of the ship. “I’m going to go see what’s going on.”

That’s when a strange star faced creature walked up to me, he was with Mr. Zero and here I was wondering where Chaos had gotten to because he was with Banjo and Screwball the last time I saw them. He looked at me and sloshed something I couldn’t rightfully understand. I looked to the star face thing for an explanation.

“I’ll make sure her wish comes true, I promise I’ll see you both home safe as her heart is in the right place. I did help reunite Screwball with her mother after all. Even if I didn’t exactly do much in the end except wrestle a giant sumo robot to our near deaths, hi I’m Ristar! Chaos said that the ideals of Power, Courage and Wisdom have gathered together… I don’t know what he means by it though.” More sloshing noises from the fluid creature and he turned to point at Ristar with one of his three fingers, I think he was asking Ristar to translate. “He says that it’s only a matter of time before order asserts itself and that by then we’ll be far enough away from the danger zone.”

I blinked, well that seemed rather prophetic. It’s like how Lyra’s never been in space before… I wonder what she’s seeing right now? Is she witnessing the planet with a strange face getting farther away? Is she seeing the vibrant stars of these interconnected realm filled universes? Or was she simply watching a lot of lights fly around and pretty explosions like fireworks from the battle going on around out there?

I felt happier better off not knowing if we were seconds away from dying, so I decided to quit my current line of thought and wondered what the ants were doing. Looking over one of the ones sitting on the floor I noticed Retch and five other ants were trading little cards around. I looked down at the hoof still clasping mine loosely and slowly removed it; Screwball didn’t seem to be having any more disturbed dreams as she rolled over turning into a blanket burrito. I really miss the taste of Chimi-cherry-changa’s for some reason looking at that.

I walked up behind them and saw that the cards had pictures of muffins on them in varying numbers. One of the cards had a gold lining and a picture of me on it holding a plasma shotgun and firing a large beam of electrical energy channeled by me. It was most likely I was shooting at the giant scorpion thing I fought back on Anubis while it was being overrun.

Looking again there was even a card with Honey’s picture on it… were they playing a card game based around me? Where in the world did they even find the time to make them? My many insect friends were amazingly resourceful.

I watched their game and it seemed that only four were playing, one proclaimed ‘full house’ with four pictures of me and the others sighed sadly at having lost.

Still within the atmosphere of Planet Clancer, Kazooie was drawing Ridley away from the fleeing transport making sure to hit him with a lot of grenade eggs to garner all of his attention to her.

Kazooie knew he just wouldn’t stay dead no matter how much she damaged him. Ridley’s been atomized enough times to make it well known that even if you saw his body dissolve or if he even left a dead body at that… he’d eventually be back in some form or another.

Preparing for the Sandstorm

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“We’re converging with the S. S. Anubis and the Great Fox, anything on radar Honey?” Turning to the bee with a headset on her head Banjo noticed she was tapping a few things at the console.

“More than a fifty thousand ships surrounding the planet from multiple different game realms, Dune, Starcraft, Star Wars Battlefront, Rogue Squadron and even a few from the Gundam realms… how are we going to survive this? That’s not even half of them and there’s enough to rip through coding purely on the principle of awesome.” Honey’s eyes wandered the console for the moment. “The Space Pirates that split off and went planet side aren’t immediately following us up. I think Kazooie is keeping them and Ridley quite busy. She’s always such a pest, but at least she has our abdomens handled.”

“Yeah, I’ve got to wonder how hard it is to fight Ridley without a power suit. Kazooie has the armaments, but not the protection and I think the saving grace is that’s she’s maneuverable.” Banjo turned his head to Honey and grinned. “Bet she dies less than three times fighting him.”

After thinking it over Honey decided to take that bet. “You’re on, winner chooses picnic location this time and I say she dies at least four or more times against him.”

“So that aside what are we going to do, there’s no way we’re flying into all that and we’re already getting close to the action to nearly be taking missed shots that weren’t meant for us…” Rubbing his chin with a paw Banjo had an idea. He’d ask a Kazooie they always seem to know what they were doing when half the time it was just cunning spur of the moment stuff. Banjo hit the communications. “Khronozooie, Kazooie might be a bit slow catching up to us what should we do?”

“Well I’m not exactly flying a fighter style ship here, at least eagle ride armor works just as effectively in space. I’ll get Fox and Goombella on the horn to have a short conference with them, we have plenty of time to make a plan and follow through with very few casualties.” It was then that Banjo’s audible gulp warned Khronozooie of something wrong. “Okay what did the other me do this time?”

“Do the words ‘Wing Zero’ mean anything to anyone?” The immediate reaction was dead silence as even Fox and Goombella had, upon hearing the words ‘Wing Zero’, immediately froze in horror. The immediate thoughts among all of the heroes and their supporting allies was a very summarily loud ‘oh crap’ in them.

“Please tell that was a joke, anything but that… we breegulls are notorious jokers after all and… it’s not a joke is it?” Khronozooie almost bashed her head into the control panels of her machine as she set it down on the S. S. Anubis where a bunch of Mizar Ants were milling about. “Alright everyone what do we have to work with and make it quick, because there is absolutely no way I can fix this with time travel!”

“How long do we have?” Fox asked preparing to pull another Area 6 run; he started to run a check on his friend’s arwings to see if they were operational. Shields were nominal with a few repair runs through the Great Fox with a few ship repairing power ups to fly through.

“Fifteen minutes at least, we’ll need a plan in two. Say how many minerals did Kazooie leave for those SCV’s to make repairs?” It was around this time that Khronozooie stated this that Goombella currently inside the S.S. Anubis had an idea, a smile lit up her face.

With the three ponies, Screwball was rubbing her eyes with her hooves and then looked at Lyra and Derpy asking the obvious question. What had exactly happened and why was she down two lives? The last thing she remembers is putting a pie in her mother’s chest and quite roughly at that.

“Oh, well the Storm Owl thing killed you and then you turned all black and scary! Then your mother got into a fight with you. You both are alive though so everything is okay. Oh and I defeated Storm Eagle and Lyra defeated Storm Owl and we got powers from them.” Derpy’s cheeriness and quick explanation notwithstanding, Screwball was having one heck of a chaos powered headache.

“Yeah speaking of earning powers from those things, I don’t even know how to use mine or what it exactly does!” Well it certainly seemed that the lyrist was grumpy; being called Spoony all the time would seem to be the bigger reason why instead of all the near death stuff she’s been through.

“Well gee that’s weird, I certainly know how to use mine and it can do two things… hope I don’t hurt any pony with it by accident. It combines my natural pegasus talent with my special talent.” Well that was rather uninformative for the two other ponies sitting in a large square metal room.

Speaking of the room they were in, there were four ants in strange floating mechanical contraptions and the others were standing around looking bored. There was this yellow one standing near Derpy at all times glaring warily around and hefting a round sphere in its right clawed hand.

“Everyone prepare to be dropped aboard the S. S. Anubis! Khronozooie please pick up the Flying Brick once we’ve all dropped from it or my sister will kill me for losing it later. You know she would do it too, even if I am her brother! Well ‘maybe’ she wouldn’t if I didn’t have any extra lives left, but you can still imagine what she could cook up to torture me with.” The sweet lazy bear sounded to be actually worried about his life, knowing exactly who his sister was. Everyone around knew she could make it like hell for him.

Video game partner characters were your best buddies, until you have personally earned their ire that is and the partner in question usually had the skills of annoying any hero into the ground. Kazooie was no exception in having this talent as it was the first talent she truly mastered.

“I’m ejecting everyone right now!” That proclamation from Banjo was met with the immediate feeling of falling.

Lyra was holding onto the bed as they fell through space and landed on top of the S.S. Anubis and it would take a minute for her to release her death grip from the sudden impact. Derpy just flew down and landed besides all the dazed ant troopers and the four SCV pilots. Screwball however was just staring out into the vast expanse at the beauty of the battle taking place in the not so far off distance. Behind them the Land Master the seldom forgotten Canadian Banjo was driving landed with a dull thud.

The ponies all moved away from the bed to stare at the beauty of space without the need for spacesuits or a nitrogen oxygen base. The ponies just stood there staring at all the arcs of beams, missiles, bullets and other things shooting across the vastness of space.

Honey hovered down next to Derpy and Banjo had flopped onto his face with a grunt, above them Khronozooie flew her ride armor by sweeping up the drop ship into her red backpack. Only Lyra took this in with a dropped jaw, the Mizar Ants were unimpressed and Screwball as well as Derpy has seen more interesting things. She landed and picked up the bed stuffing it into her backpack as well.

“Okay get those SCV’s to work, if you want all your friends especially the ‘bubble lead’ flank to survive endgame! You there, get those ponies inside the ship. We’re going to ram it through the fleets at a break everything speed and you don’t want them to be out here when those fleets turn some of their guns on us.” After confirming that she was understood and that the SCV’s immediately started building, Khronozooie turned her communications to Fox and took off to join the other two flying ride armors.

Quote jumped up and into his chimera ride armor and looked to Curly Brace flying nearby and held up a arm and waved at her, she smiled and nodded. She’d survive this come hell or high water; she’s already survived both before so this wasn’t much of a problem. Sparkster just narrowed his eyes at the nearby hostile ships coming to meet them; he raised the charging cannon of his eagle preparing for battle.

“Retch says we have to get inside really fast, what will the rest of you be doing?” Derpy turned to the ants along with Retch pointed at the Space Construction Vehicles currently in the midst of finishing a nearly complete Command Center. Retch squealed that they were going to build a lot of construction vehicles then build a perfectly viable defense on limited resources. “Oh okay, be safe then if you’re going to be stuck out here.”

Derpy turned and motioned for the two other ponies to follow her and they did. The muffin lover had quickly learned the ins and outs of the S. S. Anubis, thus she knew her way around as they entered a nearby hatch. They were swiftly followed by Banjo, Chaos, Honey and Ristar.

“This is Goombella; I’ll take charge coordinating the SCV’s building the defenses. Fox you need to handle any incoming fighters before they can get too close at least until we’re ready to punch a hole through that mess; can you do me a favor and have the Great Fox fly in front of us when we get going? Khronozooie, I hope you don’t need to be told to protect the ants building the fortifications you’ll be the short range defenses. Quote you’ll be the last line of defense as your machine doesn’t fly, but it can certainly do some damage.” Goombella was on the bridge with the Mizar Beetle captain, she turned to him, he nodded to her and she continued. “All other hero’s inside the ship should split up and spread out to cover every area. On the orders of Captain Gibs all other Mizar forces not part of those volunteer fortifications crew on top of the ship, you will be regulated to handling hostile incursions as they happen we are on red shirt alert. My Met friends will set off alerts depending where this ship is breached and by what is doing the breaching if it occurs at all.”

“This is Fox, how much time do you need to build those fortifications?” The three ponies were already entering the bridge as Goombella was busy ordering the ants on a screen to build rocket turrets on top of the S.S. Anubis while motioning with her right foot in the air.

“Two minutes and we’ll go in anyway, no matter what state we’re in. I’m an RPG character and despite being of good intellect I’m not a real time strategist. On top of that I’m a Goomba, not a miracle worker or from a species that is known for performing miracles that all the heroes I know tend to pull out of their butts. So everyone listening in please don’t go relying entirely on me since I’m doing what I can!” Goombella turned away from Foxes image as it blipped out and already had seven SCV’s building missile turrets, as many as she could packed together and as many as the SCV’s could feasibly get away with building. The blonde Goomba was under a bit of stress since she was rescued by Vela after having got held up in escaping the jamming array facility.

“So we’re free to just sit around and… hey what’s this on my back?” At this point Lyra had finally noticed that she and Screwball all had strange packs on their backs.

“Yes, they’re back!” Derpy fired a smattering of muffin chunks at the ground and started to greedily take them up in her mouth after that she pulled out her plasma shotgun, conveniently fully loaded.

“That can’t be sanitary… do all of our strange backpack thingy’s do that?” Out of all the strange beings she’s recently met Lyra kind of found Honey to be easiest to talk and relate to. Given Honey was the only NPC on deck it made some twisted sort of sense.

“No they all carry weapons, I started with this pistol and it’ll thankfully never run dry of ammo. Just remember that as soon as you leave the Jet Force Gemini realm, which this ship is a part of no matter its distance from the actual realm, your weapon will disappear unless you are assisted by a video game character in keeping them. Derpy oddly enough started with a muffin firing mechanism; also it is actually pretty sanitary compared to the Bad Fur Day realm. I still don’t know why someone would picnic there of all places, it’s a rather crappy spot… then again they were giant dung beetles.” Mused honey as Screwball stood on her hind legs and pulled out one of Jet Force Gemini’s most deadly weapons. This earned the attention of every Mizar ant and beetle in the room not to mention the heroes as well. “Screwball you may want to put that away, you’re kind of making everyone nervous dear. Nobody wants a Tri-Rocket Launcher going off in here.”

“What’s to worry about, it looks about as big as your pistol does so it can’t be all that bad.” Again Lyra was trying to ignore all the intricacies of whatever reference Honey was trying to make. After a moment, of prodding at her pack a strange weapon popped out of it and landed in her hoof.

“It would actually be that bad considering it can one shot everyone here on the bridge, never fire that with allies anywhere near where you’re aiming.” The noted seriousness in the humanoid bee’s eyes had Screwball nodding and putting the gun back where it came from.

“So what did I get?” It was the prospect of getting a new toy to mess around with and possibly help out when firefights started.

“Well that there’s a Shocker.” It was a weapon Banjo was familiar with; the last time he visited this particular realm he got one too. Speaking of which he still had it on him whenever he came into the Jet Force Gemini realm, but he preferred the machine blaster which he was currently holding.

“So it does something really neat then?” Lyra was rather hopeful despite the bored looks she was getting.

“It’s a Shocker.” Honey finally said after a moment, it wasn’t lost on her that Spoony would get the least lethal thing onboard a ship of volatile hero’s and especially well equipped laser armed ants. Maybe she should help Derpy keep her plasma shotgun instead of letting it disappear when she exits the realm? Well they were friends, even if it was a bit odd given Derpy seems like a constant little ray of sunshine no matter the dire situation. Especially the one she currently kind of indirectly caused by dragging all those fleets here behind them.

“I know it’s shocking, but what does it do?” Lyra pressed levitating the small two pronged device in front of her.

Banjo sighed and decided to pull the mint green pony off to the side to explain. Lyra was quite disappointed that Screwball started off with something overly lethal in comparison to Derpy and herself.

The bridge was quiet and the mood was a bit gloomy as ants sat at keyboards and were directing the ships functions, there was one keeping the communications streamlined for Goombella’s convenience by order of urgency.

“So what do we do now?” Derpy wasn’t sure what they should be doing, but she didn’t want to be sitting around. It would make her, to put it in the form of a pun considering the situation, antsy.

I looked around the bridge and saw that everyone was concentrating on their jobs yet the three of them didn’t have jobs, Banjo and Honey had already left the room to go help defend the hold of the ship since the missile turrets that were being built wouldn’t cover the S. S. Anubis from attacks that came from below it and the sides of the ship would at least be partially protected. Ristar and Chaos were still present; Chaos was staring at me strangely too.

Honestly I didn’t know what we were going to do, sitting back and watching everything seemed like a good idea at this point. There was something gnawing at my insides, aside from phantom aches of pain I never experienced before I woke up, I felt completely healthy. Said phantom pain felt like I had my neck snapped, my shoulders dislocated violently, my spine nearly shattered, my back right hoof ripped itself apart and my front two hooves felt really sticky for a few minutes. I wasn’t really in any pain and there was nothing on my hooves given they were perfectly clean. Apparently I lost two lives went psycho and tried to kill mom, my friends and everyone in the general area. At least I remember that I hit mom with a pie at the last minute, which was as much as I knew.

“Sit back and enjoy the ride, I’ve never seen this many heroes congregating together unless something important was happening. Quote, Sparkster and Ristar were originally here just to aid me in my research and possibly to pull my buns out of the fire if my disguise faltered. Thanks for that by the way guys, good job pulling my butt out of the fire like Vela certainly did. Speaking of that, you guys come in dragging Vela, two Banjo’s and a Kazooie, along with Fox McCloud’s team and two supporting characters.” Goombella continued to dish out commands and they could see scenes of a bird’s eye view of the S. S. Anubis and the machines hovering along its hull and building strange rotating mechanical objects. After twenty seconds Goombella inhaled and turned to the Great Fox on the screen. “Okay, find the best entry point through those fleets and prepare to make a hole! My two minutes of preparation time is up, I can free up some SCV’s so call in if you need a repairs and fly within the missile turret defense grid. Let’s hope the bomb.”

“This is Rob Sixty Four, keep up the good work.” The robot that had appeared on one of the screens that Goombella was working at just as quickly disappeared and the Great Fox got into position with its two laser cannons charging up to fire.

Lyra blinked as the she watched one of the several screens that had approaching ships coming at them, several of them suddenly swerved and they started slamming into each other explosively.

“Why did they do that?” It wasn’t like Lyra understood what was going on anymore, all she knew was that she was given a weapon that was non lethal in comparison to what Derpy and Screwball had. In some way she felt relieved, in others she felt like she could be safer with something more lethal considering she was in the middle of some sort of war. Never would a pony would relish in killing.

“I wouldn’t worry about it; those are droid fighters, bombers and interceptors from the Star Wars Battlefront realms. They generally have good chase coding and are somewhat decent pilots, they just have plenty of AI malfunctions that make them kamikaze and quite often into their own ships. They aren’t really much to worry about because of it… you didn’t get a word of that did you?” Goombella finished blandly wondering why the AI from the Star Wars Battlefront realm was spotty at best; it was their fleet they were approaching in the first place to create a hole through that mess. It was a good thing that realms fighters were completely ineffectual against large ships; it’s the other large enemy ships she was worried about.

“My goddesses, I don’t know why I didn’t see it before… you’re like a little mushroom shaped Twilight Sparkle!” After a moment of staring at Lyra for having come to this revelation, Derpy blinked a few times.

“You’re right! She even has the book thing she can pull out that has information on everything!” The muffin loving pony suddenly exclaimed agreeing with her.

“What does that stupid sparkling vampire book series have to do with my tattle ability? I thought someone said they would have that taken care of. I was hoping they’d toss all the books to the Fallout realms.” It was within the moment of stating that, that Screwball said they were talking about a pony named Twilight Sparkle.

“That poor pony, why would her parents name her after that book series? Were they completely drunk off their flanks? You’re really good at silent protagonist, almost as good as Paper Mario is… he had such a way with silent words.” Goombella sighed dreamily and a few hearts could be seen floating off of her head, even then she was still rather focused on the task at hand at getting the SCV’s to do what she needed them too.

Fox’s team was proving a good deterrent for any enemy fighters to get too close; their two large ships started speeding up to fly straight through the fleets.

Approximately eighteen or so years ago in the world of Equestria, yes we’re that kind of fan fiction and we need a cutaway gag as filler for this chapter.

“Oh honey, what are we going to name her?” Twilight’s mother stated holding a little filly to her chest cooing at it earnestly.

“How about what we were going to name Shining Armor before we thought better about it?” Twilights Dad was a proud father of another baby, he just hoped Shining made a good older brother.

“We are not naming her Twilight Sparkle!” A doctor just happened to walk in as she was stating this missing the ‘we are not’ part and only hearing the ‘naming her Twilight Sparkle’ part.

“Okay then her name will be Twilight Sparkle.” The doctor immediately walked out of the room to set up the paperwork missing the looks of horror on the two new parent’s faces.

“My goddess Celestia, what I have done!” Twilight’s mother stated in honest to goodness horror. “She’s going to be horribly picked on throughout Magic Kindergarten for this!”

“Now honey, it may not be that bad, she could go on to lead a successful life with many good friends… who am I kidding she is going to need all the love and support we can give her! Well at least we can say she’s our little sparkle.” Twilight’s father sadly watched as his wife glare at him for making such light of the situation that their daughter being named something like this.

“Why did this happen again, I mean when it happened with Shining Armor it wasn’t that bad a name except for all the reflection jokes… but this…” Twilight’s mother lamented.

“It’ll be okay honey; we’ll be there for most of her life. It’s not like she’s going to leave us early in her development for higher learning and she’ll become horribly antisocial. We’ll always be there for her, well at least when it’s convenient to be.” After receiving a flat stare from his wife he knew he should just stop talking.

“You know this is the reason why we quit our jobs as fortune tellers, if you can even remember why my currently couched till further notice husband?” Twilights father winced at the tone of voice, Night knew he was in deep trouble with his wife. He was already seeing a future two months on said couch caring for and diapering Twilight, he could also see himself getting a raise at his job… score!

These set of event eventually led to Twilight becoming a bookish nerd once she learned why exactly so many ponies made fun of her for her name. She eventually read that book and immediately thought it was horrible and that there must be much better books out there then that one. She was completely right and even a complex math book was more entertaining to her adolescent mind.

Twilight would continue to love books and reading them, all because her name was related to the worst book in existence. She fears being sent back to Magic Kindergarten for many reasons; this was one of them since the faculty couldn’t stop making fun of her in reference to sparkling vampire ponies. Aside from that some of the kids were quite cruel to her growing up. Then watching Celestia raise the sun led to a increase towards the pursuit of magic given it was the most awe inspiring thing in her life.

Thus Twilight became a shut in dork of a student to Princess Celestia and that as they say is how history was made. It all began with tragedy in the naming conventions of pony society, which led to her becoming the great and powerful mare she is today.

Bubbly boosting ballad

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“Everybody get down!” Goombella screamed before ducking under the Met hat she quickly pulled on top of her pith helmet.

So far the trip through all the fighting fleets could have gone a lot better. The missile turrets were holding up remarkably well despite how many different things were shooting in the general direction of the fifty or so Goombella managed to put up, all in the middle of the push to make a sizable hole in the fleets. The Great Fox did a lot of damage and manage to make a sizable hole in an area where huge dogfights were taking place.

They were mostly successful in getting into the fleets and then they were slowed down by the large amount of enemy trying to board them or take down their defenses. It wasn’t long before the Space Pirates noticed their escaping ship had bypassed their fleet that was still hanging in the lowered airspace of Planet Clancer. Well whatever was left of the low hanging fleet after Kazooie was finished ripping them and Ridley a new one. They launched boarding pods otherwise known as ‘suicide pods’ and the Anubis was too slow to dodge the fifteen currently incoming pods, they were each carrying a crew of at least five space pirates each.

Throughout all this the three ponies sat around and were very bored, with watching things going on around the bridge. Sure the ship was shaking and shuddering under concentrated fire, but it wasn’t like the ship was about to explode. Even Ristar got to do some fighting as he was recently healed by the constant supply of onboard Gemini crystals which were also being used by the SCV’s to build stuff.

Sure there were these guys called Storm Troopers that had managed to get onboard the Anubis in force. It was just disappointing that they had quickly proven themselves to be so bad at shooting anything other than their own forces. It became ludicrous to the point that the Mizar Ants took a snack break out in the open while under constant fire and where never struck once.

It was a while before the Mizar Ants actually bothered to repel them considering they seemed too busy shooting themselves and everything that wasn’t alive in the hold. Even Banjo said this was ridiculous even for all the previous adventures he’s been on, out of a million shots you’d think they would hit something important.

At the time, Banjo was savoring a honey covered muffin before it promptly got blasted out of his paw. Honey reprimanded him for almost calling Murphy’s Law into action as she handed him another muffin from the basket, they were sitting on a picnic blanket which had attracted some of the surrounding humanoid ants wanting to share in the goodies too. Honey didn’t mind, it was part of her earlier agreement with them anyway.

Many a Mizar Ant and Beetle would swear the Storm Troopers were the absolute worst shots to ever exist; at least they didn’t crash and burn as badly as many of the droids had. They weren’t bad pilots, just horrible shots. It was also to be noted that their armor did nothing to stop the sudden stream of fire that tore them all down in less than ten seconds, whereas they had been firing at near point blank ranges for the last two or so minutes straight.

Now we’re back up to the point where a suicide pod slammed into the S. S. Anubis’s bridge. Finally the ponies weren’t so bored anymore as the ship was boarded in three locations. They were quickly bored again when the five Space Pirates that quickly decided to rush the room in a clustered group were quickly felled by the following convenient events.

One, the Space Pirates were firing blindly into a room where every defending member had taken cover and had pulled out a weapon, the smoke had blinded them to this for a mere moment.

Two, their shots were going wide and mostly into the ceiling and the coding didn’t stay scorched for long.

Three, Captain Gibs pulled his rocket launcher from out of hammer space.

The ability to pull a rocket launcher out of your pants or thin air was the video game realms favorite equalizer in combat situation. A lot of stuff in the video game realms is hammer space related anyway, there was still a difference between unlimited storage capacity and just having a lot of storage capacity in general.

The example of Mizar Ants is a finite storage capacity, they had unlimited ammo of whatever type they are given in their game realm. Mizar ants are color coded to their weaponry: Blue’s usually get laser rifles or pistols, Greens always had sniper rifles, Yellow had grenades and so on. Mizar Beetles were armed a little differently; they came in two flavors… machine blaster or rocket launcher, one handed or wielding two at the same time. Two hand held rocket launchers that almost never needed reloading with infinite ammo was kind of overkill.

One shot and four of the Space Pirates were immediately vaporized into a pile of quickly disappearing chunks of dead pirates by the solitary rocket.

Four, the remaining space pirate having fired randomly nearly hit Screwball spooking her. Now she will now use the true power of her hammer space… it was kind of stuffed with hammers and it has grown quite a bit since she last used it to throw her baseball bat.

The final thing that happened, cue awkward stares at the pony that has just killed a Space Pirate by wedging a large metallic hammer where the sun doesn’t shine. Screwball’s left hoof was still at the end of the throwing arc from which the hammer flew. The squealing wail of the dying space pirate as he felt to the ground was heard throughout the bridge as everything other then it was dead quiet.

“Okay, I would ask where the hammer came from, but it just disappeared into thin air along with that things corpse. Does anybody else think the fact that she can pull and throw hammers from out of nowhere just a little bit disconcerting?” After asking that question Lyra was surprised to see that everyone shook their heads no and she thought Goombella was pretty down to earth as well. She didn’t know Derpy had already seen her throwing a bat; an equally aerodynamically challenged hammer wasn’t such a stretch for her anymore. Screwball had seen Kazooie pull crazier things from her backpack and wished to emulate that kind of storage space.

“I see hammers coming from behind the back all the time; I guess I was right about that throwing thing, nice one too. Oh crap they’ve taken down thirteen of my turrets, can’t stop to chat in the middle of a pitched life or death battle with a Wing Zero imminent!” It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk; Goombella just had other more important things to do at the moment. Immediately back at the console and ordering the Mizar Ants piloting the small army of SCV’s around to fix the one or two holes suddenly opened in their defenses aside from the obvious holes of the several boarding parties that managed to get on the ship.

Speaking of fixing holes the boarding pod fell away and the wall started to recode itself back into position, the level was holding together really well. Now the ponies were bored again, Screwball sighed about the fact that they get some excitement and she goes and ends it too fast.

“Look if you’re all really that bored here on the bridge couldn’t you go find something helpful to do around the ship. You aren’t really doing much for us here except standing around looking really cute and adorable.” Waving a nonchalant left foot at them in a shooing motion, Goombella kept dishing out orders to the screen in front of her muttering about two hundred clicks a minute.

Screwball looked to Derpy who wilted under the boredom as did Lyra, sure there was a lot of action going on around them but they weren’t exactly doing anything interesting for this story to focus on them for. Things like Slippy being chased by thirty enemies, which would have been more interesting at this point.

They were ponies and they wanted to help. Well what did ponies normally do? Ponies made friends, helped others, used their special talents and then did awesome crazy stuff. So far they were failing in all areas as their other friends were busy. Lyra didn’t have a lyre to showcase her talent, though she could magically create one it was quite tiring to do. Derpy had many talents involving circles and spheres yet there was nothing to make bubbles with on this ship unless she wanted to hurt someone with her new bubble trick. Screwball herself… wait that was something they could do!

Screwball’s mind shifted into several gears, what was the problem currently afflicting everyone onboard the ship? What were the other things ponies like to do on the spur of a moment? What was it that Pinkie did all the time in Ponyville when she was around to enjoy it? Actually now that she thought of it, she really didn’t know Pinkie all that well. It was just that her mother and the happy bouncy pony have crossed paths before. It seemed like they were at odds over something and her mom seemed kind of sad about it, she’d asked her mom what that was all about later. She never really bothered to understand why it led to them fighting an RPG battle with Pinkie and that other pony.

Now if only they had a lead singer and someone to work the choreography with… well didn’t ponies usually do this spontaneously? Now if only they had a place from which to do it to cheer up everyone, doing it on the bridge seemed haphazard to their survival.

Slowly Screwball turned her head towards Derpy and a creepy toothy smile started to build its way onto her face. Soon a similar smiled appeared on Derpy’s face and they both turned to Lyra smiling. “What is there something on my horn?”

Two minutes later, with some equipment and some appropriated Mizar Ants who were still clearing out storm troopers that were spontaneously running around on fire for some weird reason and screaming about little blue aliens and Hawaii. Something about a six two six conspiracy, the ponies weren’t really paying attention except Lyra because the Storm Troopers looked human except the creepy black and white armor was off putting for her.

“Ahem, is this thingy on?” Derpy turned to Retch who was glad to not be stuck outside with the others. They were closer to the center of the ship in a well protected small room, similar to the one where Honey found her cluster grenades.

So far the casualties had been pretty light and they’ve only lost three able bodies since Derpy came along, before that Retch noted that they were dying all the time in great numbers. At least the hero characters were on their side and were making sure they stayed alive too; well technically three SCV’s died, the Mizar Ants driving them survived by ejecting.

Retch noted they were surviving skirmishes and actually acquiring field experience which was somewhat unusual given the life expectancy of the average video game enemy. At least those three pieces of machinery didn’t die in vain as their savior the muffin loving mare was still okay and bubbly, as she was the undisputed Queen of the Mizar people and was going to do a performance for them. Retch heard this was impromptu too, so it’d be extra special and from the heart. Having heart was something they were still learning about and even if they are bad guys in their own realm, it doesn’t mean they have to exactly be bad guys everywhere else.

Retch gave a clawed thumb up, it was now on.

“Okay… um what about musical instruments…” Lot’s of Mizar Ants and the smaller population of Beetles that were onboard for this suddenly perked up and became more productive at hearing Derpy’s voice ship wide throughout the S. S. Anubis.

Retch smacked herself in the face; of course the queen would need a musical entourage to help with her left field performance. The yellow ant called together the ants that were procured for this and started talking to them quietly, after a moment they all went and took their place behind Derpy to stand in position waiting for her to start.

Retch squealed that she needed to start up a beat and then the ants would do a cappella following her lead.

“Well I’ve always wanted to do something like this since Pinkie sung that smile song of hers. Screwball, you’re better at this cartoon stuff can you help get me started?” Watching as Screwball tipped her propeller hat in a funny manner, Derpy smiled as Screwball took a thinking stance. Focused on forming an idea with a dim light bulb floating above her head, Screwball’s mind was wandering and thinking of something relatively simple.

Lyra was staring at the light bulb unable to believe the weirdness she has been subjected to since stealing Twilight Sparkles dimensional traveling hoof notes. She didn’t know whether to regret stealing them or to be intrigued by all the weird zany stuff she’s gotten herself into since then. Including an unprepared musical number despite being in constant mortal danger at the moment, this whole situation was just plain ridiculous.

Slowly tapping a hoof against her chin with her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth, Screwball stopped tapping and then looked at her hoof. Instead of lighting up like a normal light bulb would when you have a good idea, the light bulb turned into a representation of a phoenix and lit up brightly. It promptly caught Screwballs hat on fire and she had to quickly pull it off to stomp the fire out before it damaged her favorite piece of headwear. She had a hot idea alright.

Slapping a slightly soot covered hat back on her noggin; Screwball stomped and slid her left hoof against the floor and then stomped twice. Slowly it started to form a beat as she repeated this and then Screwball did a light tap dance looking for acknowledgment from Derpy. They started again from the start.

Musical Number! (Chrono Trigger- Robo’s Theme music)

Both ponies slid their hooves across the floor and then stomped them in sync and after doing this several times, they both did the tap dance and the Mizar Ants picked up by adding a tune to it with their voices to it. The music took a bit, but once the rhythm was started the ants were stomping along to the beat.

Twenty four seconds in to establishing a good steady beat Derpy stepped forward.

“My names Derpy Hooves, I’m a friend to all of you; I wish our friendship would last, forever.” With a sweep of her hoof around the whole room, while the stomping beat being carried out by the other ants and Screwball. “Oh we’re in trouble you see, I wish to be more helpful to you an idea for which I plead.”

“Our friendship is strong; I’ll make up for it in a song, so please don’t you give up… for me. Faith in ourselves and trust in each other, together we’ll survive this thing.” Derpy was surprised when Lyra stepped up to the front; she went back to standing next to Screwball and dropped seamlessly into forming the beat.

“My names Lyra Heartstrings and with trouble that it brings, all I wanted was to meet, some humans.” Lyra sung and even then she was stomp sliding like the other two ponies while giving them a bland look. “So now I’m stuck here you see, but now my love I wish to return to alive again with to be.”

“I’m stuck with you guys, not sure whether or not it’s wise, but at least I’m with some… company. Craziness aside, we’re certainly in for a ride and you’ll never be surprised by me.” Taking a step back she and Derpy shoved Screwball into the spotlight.

“Screwball is name, Kalzoonteight is same. Sing not to really good, but me try hard. “Her voice was good but her lyrics were a bit disjointed, the beat didn’t stop though. “Existentialism is cause; living is for grace of Miss Faust.”

“Friends happy have, life need to grab, without kicked to the curb, happiness!” Screwball stopped when she noticed the other two ponies take up her side. “Strength is to find, I’m friend of all kinds and never be a troubled bore.”

Now all three ponies were standing side by side and both Lyra and Derpy started singing the next part together. Screwball intoned with the tune with a hum, because she wouldn’t be able to match them word for word and singing in silent protagonist would be weird.

“Now we’ll sing in tune, in our hearts we ponies have got room. A friendship with our kind, can last forever.” Derpy and Lyra threw a hoof around Screwball and gave her a quick squeeze before separating to continue the beat. “Our happiness can spread, to even the most heartless of beings that could want us dead!”

“Together we are strong, having a grand friendship is not wrong. So our heart beats will, show the way. Faith in ourselves and trust in each other, together we’ll survive this day!” The beat slowed down and a cheer rose up throughout the ship as a rousingly loud bunch of squeals. Then the final part all three ponies started to sing their own parts for a finisher.

“My names Derpy Hooves…” Singing bubbly her part of the song she stood in front of Screwball to her left and Lyra to her right.

“Kalzoonteight is same…” Screwball was smiling as all the surrounding Mizar ants were filled with happiness.

“All I wanted was to meet, some humans…” Lyra sang sadly with a faint smile on her face.

“We’re in trouble you see.” It kind of occurred to Derpy she’s always getting into trouble and just as easily walking away from it, the interesting times curse never lead her to her death yet as that wouldn’t be very interesting.

“But now my love I wish to return to alive again with to be.” Lyra had a few tears in her eyes and she thought of a certain pink and blue haired candy selling pony.

“Our friendship is strong.” Said with a lot more conviction this time, Derpy didn’t want anyone to deny it.

“Not sure whether or not it’s wise.” Though Lyra may have thought them strange they protected her when she was whimpering like a coward, what was not wise was being friends with her if as she almost got them killed. It wasn’t wise to be friends with Screwball because she could snap and kill them at any moment, though Lyra had recently gotten over her having that strange episode of darkness. It wasn’t wise to be friends with Derpy because she was a hazard to be around at any given time. In any case these were the ponies Lyra could actually call her friend, they were crazy but then again so was she.

“Without kicked to the curb, happiness!” She could feel the warmth building up ever stronger inside of her, Screwball never felt so snuggly unless she was around her mom and her friends. “Strength is to find.”

“We’re certainly in for a ride and...” She felt like she was coming off a high feeling as if she had taken part in a Pinkie Pie song, Lyra couldn’t help but feel the similarities between the reality breaker and these two.

“Together we’ll survive this thing!” Derpy brought Screwball, Lyra and a bunch of humanoid ants into a group hug they all cherished.

End musical number.

Just about every hero on the ship was soon surprised by how the morale boost had altered the Mizar people’s sudden insane increase in productivity. (‘Skies of Arcadia: Boss Battle- Opportunity’ music plays.)

“Holy… what in the world did you ponies just do!” Goombella voice stated in shock over the communications watched as the turrets that were recently constructed by her SCV piloting ants were now firing at triple the rate and double the volley.

Every invaded part of the ship was suddenly cleared of enemies and all the Mizar Ants were moving at twice their normal speed and even the Beetles had twice the fire rate.

The beetles having twice their fire rate was important considering quite a few were now standing on top of the Anubis. They were among all the rapidly built missile turrets that now covered the entire top of the ship with the exception of the Command Center and they were using the turrets as cover, plus all the beetles were armed with rocket launchers.

They were a quarter of the way into the fleets and given the sudden boost in power they immediately pushed to the halfway point through them even with the sudden interest put on them by several different fleets. A battle cruiser from the Terran fleet started charging up a Yamato blast and when it fired it took out a single missile turret. That turret was rebuilt in seconds by five SCV’s.

It was almost immediately a dead zone surrounding the S.S. Anubis for any unfriendly unit to be around.

“Well we filled their hearts with vigor, what else would it be silly?” Chuckling merrily, Derpy couldn’t keep the happiness out of her voice and the Mizar Ants squealed with a shout all across the ship.

“Yeah, but they’re video game characters! There is no way these guys should be doubling their output and abilities quite like this, it should be impossible. Well unless what you guys did was the world’s largest ranged buff I’ve ever seen since Yuna with her dancer outfit.” With a twitching eye Goombella watched as the entire ship was jumping like an anthill that was just kicked over.

“We’re cartoon ponies aren’t we? We do the impossible!” Despite stating this with excitement and Screwballs joyous agreement to Derpy’s exclamation, one of them didn’t know what a cartoon character was.

“Huh? We’re what?” Derpy and Screwball realized something with a look, Lyra did not know that they were cartoons nor would they deign to tell her she was attracted to a species that might have created their world even if by proxy.

Derpy had learned of humans from The Doctor yet she had no idea humans had possibly created their world until she’s heard how the video game realms were born from Honey and that the cartoon realm are made in a similar manner.

In a way it’s kind of understandable that Lyra was so fascinated with a species that probably had glimpsed of their world or even personally made it. Just because humans might have created their world didn’t mean the princesses and legends were any less real. Maybe humans had just discovered their world through dreams and made their own reality of what they saw? In any way it was hard to tell whether they have always been cartoon characters or were created as cartoon characters. It didn’t matter to Derpy or Screwball as long as they could enjoy themselves and live life as they saw it, an adventure.

“Oh, it’s nothing to worry about Lyra… muffin?” With a smile Derpy finally got Lyra to accept a muffin from her, she watched with squeal as Lyra just started eating it without a fuss possibly muttering things under her breath about how she misses Bonbons candy.

“I wonder how she’s doing.” Lyra mumbled through a chunk of warm fluffy muffin.

“I’m sure she’s okay Lyra, it’s not like Bonbon to go stir crazy. Since she was always like that anyway before you came into her life. Also her voice tended to change pitch and tone at odd times, you’d almost swear she was a changeling.” The mint green pony smacked her face with a hoof; this was Derpy’s attempt at cheering her up? Lyra started laughing; at least her Bonny was safe.

(End skies of arcadia music.)

In Ponyville things weren’t quite right at Pinkie’s favorite candy stop, not that she had been eating too much candy again putting her off her slightly needed diet. Opening the door she saw Bonbon was sitting there staring at something, she snuck over and peeked over her withers to see what it was and then held her mouth with her hooves. Bonbon was looking miserable and she was staring at a picture of a smiling Lyra.

“Bonbon what’s wrong?” Pinkie asked, but Bonbon didn’t move or even acknowledge her presence as he red rimmed eyes continued to stare at the picture. “Wow this is something I don’t think even a party can solve… maybe an intervention for not being able to celebrate at a party?”

“…” Bonbon didn’t even acknowledge Pinkie’s rather noticeable babbling presence; she just kept staring at the picture of Lyra with longing eyes.

After a minute or so of babbling aimlessly Pinkie realized something, that Bonbon was in love with Lyra and that Lyra was missing from their world entirely. The Pinkie Sense really was unusual in what it could do, even granny pie theorized it was an earth pony trait that was naturally stronger in some ponies then it was in others and it was an ability centered on the nature of one’s surroundings.

“I’m sure she’ll come…” Before Pinkie could even finish her sentence Bonbon was already digging her face into Pinkie’s shoulder filling it with tears, she was really distraught. Slowly Pinkie began to rub her back and began to tell her that Lyra was alright and that she’d be back eventually. From the smell Bonbon needed a bath and a good eight or more hours of sleep.

No dust left

View Online

Walking back onto the bridge five minutes after their show they saw someone other than Goombella at the screens controlling the SCV’s. Instead it was Khronozooie and off to the side Goombella was resting against the wall with some smoke coming from her head.

Screwball walked forward and asked what happened to Goombella and why was she, khronozooie, inside the ship when she was previously outside defending it.

“Well you’re little morale boost did us a lot of good but we’re still in range of Kazooie’s package as we’re finally detecting an energy build up from it. I really don’t like the projected range on that thing, it’s really kind of overkill of Kazooie but it’s going to nail every fleet here when it goes off so she probably predicted the need for overkill. She was never easy to surprise before this… so why was she now?” Looking across the console she was sitting at Khronozooie turned to the three ponies. “We’ve also hit a small problem, the same one that shot down our ride armors. While the space pirates are having too much trouble to launch any more suicide pods our way, we’re still in the path of a lot of Gundam realm enemies.”

“Yeah, the Gundam realm and their stupidly long range beam spam attacks shot us down, go figure.” Curly Brace groused out as she wiped down her machine gun with a wet cloth, there was one character missing from the ride armors that used to be protecting the ship.

Screwball had to ask, where in the world was Sparkster and why wasn’t he here if they were all shot down? He didn’t permanently die right?

“Oh him, he’s taken the fight to melee range with the enemy ahead of us. I’ll bring it up on a screen for you. There you go.” After bringing it up Khronozooie witnessed the surprise in the three ponies’ faces. “Don’t look so surprised, Sparkster has some magic assisted space combat training under his belt from his realm.”

It was amazing to watch a three to four foot tall possum take on things ten times his size and actually destroy them without pause. Sure all the heroes were practically unstoppable in their own video game realms, but outside their own realms the effectiveness of their abilities varies wildly.

“That’s not the worst of it, Star Fox and his friends are now swamped with the problem we were helping to alleviate previously. They aren’t exactly the best at fighting more than a small squad of mobile suits and all those green things in front of us that Sparkster is ripping through are called Zaku. Those aren’t even the worst of what we’re facing and are basically cannon fodder to slow us down so the true problem can gun us down at range.” The screen lit up in a number of red dots. “If that wasn’t bad enough we’ve lost almost all our turrets a few minutes ago and we’ve got an incoming attack lead by Full Frontal in his Sinanju. Why am I even bothering to tell you ponies this? You don’t have a clue how bad this is even if Fox and his crew can handle that stupid Big Zam that shot us down!”

On the screen popped up a blazingly fast red humanoid mechanical suit followed by an army of smaller green suits and one blue suit all with large singular pink eyes. The second image was a bigger green two legged thing that was much farther away and firing a big beam that ripped apart any other approaching fleets. In particular it just wiped out a squad of Terran Wraiths from the realm of Starcraft whose missiles were completely ineffective as was their failing cloaking systems.

“I understood something from all that… who would name their child Full Frontal? That’s just disgusting.” Khronozooie gave Lyra a flat look and then turned back to the console.

Screwball asked if there was anything they could do.

“Well if you can find out how to get through an I-Field Barrier that would be a start. It would also help if we could find a way to safely deal with those incoming enemies.” The arwings piloted by Fox and his crew were only managing to slow down the Sinanju and their tricky flying is the only reason why it and the other mobile suits hadn’t taken them down yet. Khronozooie decided to finish her thoughts. “Otherwise we’re pulling back all the Mizar forces outside of the ship.”

The remaining Mizar forces among what was left of the missile turrets started making way into the ship and some even kept the SCV’s they were piloting while others ditched them immediately. The Command Center built by the SCV’s lifted off and positioned itself in front of the S. S. Anubis and tilted so that it became a forward flying shield. It was soon destroyed along with the remaining turrets.

“Hmm… it is admirable that you defend yourselves so well… but the will of the people must know what secrets the pirates are after. You and your fighter screen will either surrender to my forces or you will watch me rip apart your last line of defense personally.” Full Frontal was a man wearing a white mask and had curled blonde hair as he appeared on the screen.

“You know for a guy named Full Frontal I’d thought you’d be wearing less clothes… what did the nudist's not call you back for being so flamboyant and they exiled you with only one suit that you can’t remove under penalty of horrifically scarring people? We’re not surrendering to a guy who doesn’t wear underwear!” Khronozooie’s rebuttal was met with cheers along the bridge, even the ponies giggled at that.

“How did you know I don’t wear… never mind that… say good bye to your last line of defenses life.” Full Frontal steered his Sinanju to land in front of Quote who was still piloting a slightly battered Chimera ride armor. “I have a feeling this will be easy.”

“Be careful quote.” Quote appeared on the screen and nodded to Curly Brace and smiled while throwing her a rousing thumbs up. “Well you better, Chaco and I would miss you too much if you left us alone for three years because you died!”

The following battle was quick and brutal, but the Chimera ride armor Quote was piloting went into destruct mode making it invincible for approximately ten seconds.

“Why isn’t it blowing up?” Lyra had asked after Quotes vehicle started sparking violently while smoking,

“He’s in the armors sparking period, he gets a temporary invincibility grace period… then it explodes.” Quote was perfectly fine, but his ride armor wasn’t. Khronozooie winced at the return policy he was managing to dish out till the Sinanju flew out of range.

“Does everything in this dimension explode?” The minty pony asked sardonically.

“Well a lot of stuff in our worlds is made of explodium so… yeah everything explodes spectacularly and in a variety of ways most of which are barely survivable.” The time traveling breegull couldn’t help but smirk at the twitch forming in Lyra’s right eye.

The explosion finally happened and they turned to the screen to see Quote standing safely outside the blast radius. When doing a size comparison Quote was quite small compared to the machine piloted by the crazy nudist guy that actually wore clothes and was probably the reason why he was kicked out of the nudist colony.

“There goes you’re last line of defense now surrender to my forces and the will of the people.” Full frontal held out a beam blade pointed towards Quote who simply just pulled out his Spur and looked ready to continue fighting.

“You know, I’ve been wondering why he’s saying that’s our last line of defense repeatedly.” Curly looked at Khronozooie awkwardly.

“Well isn’t he?” The female neo biological robot said with a hint of despair and some pride in Quote continuing to stand up to that machine that’s more than a few times too big for him. Quote would always pick fights with things larger than life and somehow succeed; of course the title of hero was a pretty good hint.

“Has everyone forgotten already? We’ve only just lost all our missile turrets and our close range aerial forces, Star Fox and his team are reliving their glory days over there with a battle right out of Sector Y. There’s still someone out there waiting for the right moment to help Quote and like me… he has a damningly good sense of timing. Hey clothed nudist weirdo we don’t surrender and I don’t think Quote is giving up on fighting you either!” The ponies shivered at the dark chuckle Full Frontal let off before he sent his Sinanju flying forward towards the smaller human sized robotic hero character.

“So be…” Just as he was about to bring the beam saber down on his really small target the chest of his machine was struck by a brilliant oval of energy knocking him back. “Gah, I was careless.”

The Land Master that landed in front of Full Frontal Sinanju charged up a shot and blasted the Sinanju again sending it rolling towards the back end of the ship.

“This is Canadian stereotype Banjo; I’ll take it from here Quote unless you think you can give me some support fire.” Quote nodded and leapt on top of the tank.

Watching from the screens inside the ship Screwball felt something tapped her side and she looked to see it was Derpy’s wing and she passed the popcorn she was eating to her.

“Where did you even… you know what? I don’t need to know where the popcorn came from just send some my way.” Derpy scooted the bag over to Lyra who levitated out a blob of popped corn goodness and it was lightly buttered for flavor.

“You ponies sure do eat a lot, at least it’s not Master Higgins Syndrome because that’s a pretty hard syndrome to live with.” This was to draw attention to the fact that Video Game characters didn’t need nearly as much sustenance as the cartoon ponies, Khronozooie wouldn’t bother telling them that video game characters hardly ever ate at all. Unless they were a wizard or had a food related game mechanic that gave them reasons to eat constantly, they could go years without food. Wizard needs food badly after all.

“Um, does anyone know where a bathroom is on this ship?” Everyone just stared at Lyra, not once has going to the bathroom come up for the ponies.

Despite having spent a while on the ship, Derpy hadn’t had a call to nature in quite some time. Screwball had no excuse for not needing to use the bathroom except maybe the fact that her chaos powers allowed her to use everything she consumes without any waste. Only now that it was brought up did the three ponies stare at the only bird in the room. Video game characters used toilets even less then they ate food.

Khronozooie sighed and started rooting around her red backpack to bring her bathroom closer to the flap. Carrying a bathroom on wing at all times was a rather useful novelty, not that it has ever been used before now. Dimension hopping did have strange effects on you suddenly having active metabolic processes and Kazooie did get Khronozooie to carry a bathroom in the case that she’d eventually need it.

Now at the battle still in progress, Canjo slid the tank circle strafed around on one of its treads while constantly blasting the Sinanju.

“I’ve had about enough you.” Full Frontals machine armor bar was about at half and he had a full power mark ready to launch a special attack, he never got a chance to use it.

“So have I about you attacking my friends, Shining Burning Finger!” If one were expecting a machine motion controlled by a person wearing a rubber suit, well you’d be wrong.

The last thing Full Frontal saw was what looked like a large middle finger coming towards his camera in a impossible to decipher blur, the last thought on his mind was the name ‘Domon’ in a questioning sense. Then Full Frontals Sinanju violently blew apart in a shower of quickly disappearing parts.

“Its Aboot time you showed up eh. Uh, you do realize that your daughter is watching this right?” Canjo smiled at the image on his screen as she gave him a salute.

“Not like she’ll know what the gesture means anyway, but it’s about time someone flipped that guy a bird. Will of the people my donkey. Sorry I’m late by the way, I had to drop thirty buildings on a Red Crate.” Kazooie turned her screen to that of the S. S. Anubis’s. “Hey Screwy, you okay? Good. You Mizar guys might want to start flying for it full throttle and don’t stop on my account. I’ll ice that Big Zamboni for you, but before that I’ve got one little thing to do.”

Suddenly the machine Kazooie was piloting winked out of existence and appeared behind the blue single pink eyed machine called a Gouf sitting back from the dog fight. The green machines known as Zaku’s were slowly beginning to lose to the Star Fox team and the Great Fox. In a split second a blade rammed its way out of the chest of the blue machine and the only thing heard from it afterwards before it exploded was a single transmission as Kazooie’s machine disappeared again. “In the middle of a battle, Ramba Ral forgot to fight!”

“You know this is just like old times eh Fox?” The humanoid blue bird said as he shot down another green armored machine.

“Damn it you kill stealing… ugh, yeah the similarities are startlingly close to Sector Y. Stupid bird... I wanted to shoot the lead unit down.” Though he would never admit it, Kazooie was a surprisingly dangerous partner character and should be respected as a major powerhouse.

“Okay what are you piloting? I’m curious now… looks like an Armored Core type machine.” Her interest peaked; Khronozooie wanted one with a custom built in time gimmick. The sound of page turning could be heard and she turned to look at Goombella. Idly Screwball could be seen crawling out of Khronozooie’s backpack and the sound of flushing could be heard faintly from the backpacks flap as it closed.

“Well this is odd… it says that’s a Vic Viper.” It took a moment for Goombella to state this, but her book was never wrong nor was her analysis.

“Well darn, now I really want what she has. If I’m right, it’s a modified ‘Zone of the Enders’ Vic Viper with Zero Shift capabilities. As if a Vic Viper wasn’t stupidly powerful enough already… must have taken forever to get the Zero Shift installed on that thing, also I think it would look nice with a blue and purple color scheme. My other is a traditionalist if anything with that red and yellow color scheme.” Sighing dreamily, Khronozooie longingly thought of her own super powered spatial and temporal moving destruction machine.

“Stop daydreaming about my double V special the Bloody Breegull Khronozooie! You guys have less than three minutes, move those asses now!” The scream of the breegull brought everyone to the present as the Bloody Breegull as Kazooie called it disappeared. It was nearly getting atomized by a beam of energy fired by the giant tortoise shell shaped chicken legged Big Zam.

Kazooie slammed into the barrier of the Big Zam and started to punch it several times, then applied the arm blade to it after that… none of it was working. The shields on the thing were pretty tough.

“Ugh, activate fighter mode!” The Vic Viper transformed into a sleek space fighter it is known to be and flew backwards and to the side avoiding the powerful beam emitting main cannon from the ridiculously armored weapons platform on legs.

After hitting the shield a few times with the tiny laser shots Kazooie sighed as even this wasn’t affecting the Big Zam as much which continued reprisal with spamming smaller beams and missiles. Flying between the smaller beams wasn’t hard, dodging the missiles was a tad difficult given their minor homing capability.

Turning her head slightly to the left the S.S. Anubis was almost out of range and the Great Fox and Fox with his crew were retreating away from the following Zaku enemies with worn down shields. Well since there was no one in her way or anyone around to stop her…

“Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, be a start!” The Vic Viper glowed and four explosions happened around the ship and four orange orbs alighted around the fighter rotating in a circle around it. “Weapon change, ripple laser activate!”

(Zone of the Enders: second runner, Leo, Leo! Music plays.)

The orange orbs started to rotate around the ship rapidly releasing a staccato of rippling blasts of energy that started to really mess up the Big Zam’s shields as Kazooie continued to deftly dodge between the shots and out of the way of the main cannon when it fired.

“Whoa and I thought Vinyl was kidding about sound system weaponry.” Lifting another blob of popcorn to her mouth, the mint pony watched what she thought was an advanced version of the bass cannon. The very same thing that Vinyl Scratch had been designing and what looked like it being put into action.

“It’s really pretty to watch, also the music’s good too.” Derpy was enjoying the show that Kazooie was putting on and she noticed that the options and the Vic Viper were shooting the ugly big green thing in tune to the background music. Even her head was bobbing up and down to the music.

Screwball was cheering her mother on in silent protagonist.

“Yeah, now that’s more like a Vic Viper!” The only goomba on bridge stated with excitement. “Those things are stupidly godlike in maneuverability when fully powered up, capable of flying in any direction and changing it on a dime.”

Kazooie was sweating as she continued to finely maneuver her ship until she managed to get some ripple shots to fly into the Zam’s main cannon. It was best if she shot up the core and soon. Eventually under the heavy fire of her ripple lasers creating shockwaves across its shield the barrier that protected the Big Zam suddenly went down.

“I guess now’s my chance, weapon change cyclone laser!” As soon as she said it the rippling blasts of energy stopped firing from her ship and after a second of high speed dodging the change completed.

Kazooie smirked as she and her options started pumping a stream of constant energy into the enemy. The beam firing personally from her ship was going down its main cannon as it was charging. A second later the main cannon of the Big Zam blew up and Kazooie changed her ship into orbital frame mode and quickly disappeared.

(End music.)

“Huh, so it can’t Zero Shift while in fighter mode. I’ll keep that in mind.” After a moment Khronozooie closed her eyes and when she opened them and looked down at the dagger now held in her left wing. Given a moment to think over the imminent future she looked up in a panic and hit the communications at the console she was sitting at. “Everybody onboard this vessel better move towards the front of it now!”

Captain Gibs agreed with her orders, causing a mass exodus of everything from the rear of the ship towards the front on all levels of the vessel. All the heroes had nothing better to do given that there were no more boarding attempts, they followed the crowds of ants storming towards the front of the ship as it sounded rather urgent.

In the next twenty seconds a bright flash happened and everything went dark aboard the Anubis and the three ponies along with a few Mizar Ants could be heard screaming.

The space around where Planet Clancer used to be was entirely vacant of anything, there wasn’t even any wind suction or any space debris left afterwards. Everything within range of Kazooie’s weapon had just disappeared; all those fleets, their weapons and the insanity of the battle taking place were just gone.

Not even a speck of dust survived the Mischief Makers realm completely collapsing; it was going to be quite a while before even Ridley himself could come back from this one.

A light flickered in the suddenly darkened expanse; the Bloody Breegull suddenly came back into existence outside the range of the realm collapsing bomb. It had appeared right next to the Great Fox.

“Hey… you guys alive out there?” Seven confirmations came back with dazed groans. Apparently all of Fox and his team of ace mercenary pilots were alive, including Bill and Katt.

“Whatever you did Kazooie, its left me almost blind and I have a headache from the millions of voices that were just immediately snuffed out. Fox do you think we can we start relaxing now?” The blue fox known as Krystal was mentally tired, atmospheric dog fighting leading into a corridor run followed by more dogs fighting with large mobile suits. She’s had to fly by the Anubis at least five times for shield repairs and currently her shields were sitting on five percent of a maximum bar.

“Just when my thumbs were getting a good workout too… all ships report in, we’re landing on the Great Fox there are no signs of hostile’s currently. Do you need us for anything at the moment?” This was directed at the only other thing flying in space at the moment; the Great Fox had stopped and looked to be in need of repairs as it had two broken fins and one of its two cannons was damaged.

“No I think I’ve got it from here for the moment.” Kazooie turned her ship towards the S. S. Anubis or at least what was left of it. She flew in front of the bridge and lit up the bridge with a light, unlike the Great Fox this ship had been caught up in the blast.

Looking inside she saw three ponies rubbing at their eyes with their hooves, it seemed like the poor Mizar Ants surrounding them were writhing in agony as their eyes were a bit more photoreceptive. A good forty percent of the ship had survived the realm ripper. So that meant the S.S. Anubis didn’t have engine, communications and judging by a scan with her Bloody Breegull’s systems it only had two generators and both were currently inactive.

Screwball finished rubbing the brightness out of her eyes and looked out of the bridge at the light and saw her mother’s vehicle looking down on them, she smiled and started waving to her mom.

Mission Complete! (Metal Slug Mission Complete music plays and ends.)

Celestia sighed from her position on the balcony overlooking Canterlot; it had been a week since Twilight saved the Crystal Empire. Her student was growing up and as she and her sister had looked in a little black book she couldn’t help but feel that the future was inexorably altered. Her student may have been able to forget Kazooie even existed, but she certainly hadn’t.

It was strange, there was no prophecy of the ‘Princess of Adventure’ and yet the book has stated a few things that will happen, but doesn’t state any repercussions or a dimensionally traveling beings interfering in what was prophesized.

Celestia couldn’t help but think that the prophecies might not come true just because of the red bird’s interference even if it was for a short while; she had been tossing this idea around in the back of her mind for a while. What had Kazooie done in her time in this world before she left?

Another thing to worry about, Celestia mentally added, was that her sister in particular seemed to be consistently asking Twilight for a progress report towards a certain goal and her student was sworn to secrecy on it. So there was something Luna wanted that Twilight knew about that she wouldn’t tell her lovi… overly friendly mentor. It worried her that Twilight would keep secrets from her.

There was a chill running down Celestia’s spine that spoke of Discord possibly getting free again without that bird around to handle him… maybe… maybe she could get Discord to be a good being. Yes, she would have to consider this possibility later, but who would be able to convert his neutral chaotic heart? Fluttershy seemed most likely as she was a sweet little thing and somepony every pony should get to know. For now she had more important things to worry about, she lit her horn and a piece of cake raised up to her mouth on a fork.

Her libido was acting up something fierce; she really should cut back on the bananas. That or get more northern ice.

“Sister, art thou thinking of problems most unnerving?” Trotting up to her sister, Luna gave Celestia a quick nuzzle.

“Yes, it’s about that foolish creature Kazooie… I have a feeling she’s coming back soon.” Celestia didn’t know how this was possible, she sealed off the way Kazooie warped into this world and thus it should be impossible for that nuisance to return. However being part earth pony did lend her the ability of what was called the Pinkie Sense by Twilights friend Pinkie Pie; sometimes the earth ponies were just plain better at survival especially given they had better ability to predict the future then even unicorns with all their magic. If this were true she knew her spell to block dimensional travel into Equestria wasn’t going to work and that it wasn’t entirely foolproof.

“Sister thou doth worry too much, relax and spend time basking my moonlights glow. I now appreciate you more than I ever could have before.” Luna rested her head on Celestia’s and brought a wing around her sister. “Everything will be okay, but I still think you should tell Twilight of the prophecy.”

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You’d think we’d all be back at Spiral Mountain this chapter wouldn’t you? Well you’d be partly right, we do after all have to tow the less than half a level and ship to somewhere safe. That’s the trouble with having a stubborn muffin eating pony not willing to leave her hundred or so ant and beetle friends behind for any vultures to take advantage of. So it took a while to drop them off with the battle cruiser Sekhmet.

To make things worse for the Anubis in our travels was that it couldn’t repair itself, the bomb I used prevents the things caught in it from reappearing for quite a while… just ask the Kingdom Hearts realms. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the same thing but it was close enough to what I did to those realms to make a comparison. So in essence we dragged less than half a ship through the space between realms to a much safer place.

In all that time I’ve yet to bring up an interesting truth to anyone, I’m pretty sure though that my Banjo and our counterparts were suspicious. Screwball was just happy that I was around and not captured anymore, at least my daughter was not all candy land sweet like Pinkie was. I swore that Pinkie would be neck deep in a cookie jar after she left Spiral Mountain and I was right, she also didn’t drop her promise which is annoying for our possibly continuing friendship. I dread to think of that coming cartoon duel, I’ll have to remember to find some time to swing by the Castlevania realm for some pie chucking training with Soma.

As far as casualties went, I caused millions to die recently and I didn’t give it a second thought since they were all jerks and generally evil people. Our side had about thirty deaths and they were mostly Mizar Ants and two beetles caught in my bomb.

I was forced to give an apology for that, even though we didn’t know any of them personally and Muffins said that it was friends of her friends so it mattered to her even if they weren’t exactly permanently dead. Currently they were life challenged as if it were, run out of continues and lives while being a video game character tends to remove you from the fold for a while by a number of years spanning one and up to approximately nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine. Video Game years happened at different speeds per realm and quite frankly five years could pass in ten minutes if you were in the right realm.

Video Game enemies get the better end of the deal in life insurance since they can come back as fast as you exiting a room for five seconds and then reentering it immediately. Ridley however was ridiculous considering he comes back almost every game despite the fact that you could just make a list of ways to die and Ridley has probably been killed that way. The ways he has died includes being killed with a feather pillow to being impaled violently with a jet propelled toilet; very long story for both of those incidents which were embarrassing for the vaunted space dragon and entire video game universe has footage of it happening.

Is it any wonder I consider Ridley one of the Video Game universes top masochists in ways to be humiliated with pain and suffering?

Video game enemies and NPC’s outnumber heroes in many regards, but that’s not to say they can overpower a hero outside of cut scenes. Being a hero in the video game worlds rocked in so many ways, not that you can permanently kill your enemies and you’ll inevitably end up playing tennis with them. That’s just how we did things; then again the heroes don’t always win when there are game realms with villain protagonists.

All video game beings are about as insane as cartoon characters or more so, considering we have a high tolerance for the absurd. I kind of feel sorry when we get a straight man like Spoony around to point out all the over the top stuff that goes on around us that we take for granted.

Now here we are with me preparing to send the two ponies back to Equestria, I made sure not to target myself while casting the warp spell for two. I wasn’t exactly prepared for my spell to fail with a generic fart sound clip.

“What gives, are we going back home or not?” Spoony the now plucky mint green colored pony said.

“Hmm… Banjo how do I word this without making Spoony mad?” I turned to Banjo, my ever lovable brother who was extremely lazy. He was so lazy that if he got any lazier Gruntilda would just start finding more ways to defeat herself and without us having to do a single thing. That would be rather boring as the witch actually does give us a challenge once in a while because goodness knows we’re bored enough to actually pay attention to her.

“Not trying to make anyone mad, you? Well that’s got to be a new one for you.” Banjo said jovially with a paw under his chin as he sent a wry smile my way.

“Yes, because we don’t have enough shtick in our corny dialogue already.” What care I for the fourth wall anyway? I’m a video game character that’s self aware that I’m a video game character and that people could be watching me at any time of the day. “Gee Banjo, whatever can we do to not want the pony with the levitation magic to drop a Tom on us like we did to Grunty? In fact, whatever happened to the remains of that boulder anyway? It never did come back.”

I didn’t care when I knew those people were watching me bathe under one of the Spiral Mountain waterfalls, I’ve got nothing to hide and I’ve always been a nudist. It is one of the reasons why I think I fit in so well in Equestria. Also to note all ‘living’ Spiral Mountain boulders do have names and talk in gravelly voices. Then again it was normal for things to be cliché here, like the living carrots having good eyesight.

“Are you telling me that you can’t get us home?” There was a certain pitch a pony could reach in their voice that promised trouble, Spoony certainly hit it perfectly.

“Of course not, just that it’ll be harder to get you home considering something’s blocking my warp spell going to Equestria. Didn’t you get here using something similar? If so why haven’t you used it to get home and what’s your excuse?” Hah, I had her there, no blaming this breeding seagull for problems outside of her wings.

“Don’t you think I tried that after I found out Derpy was here in this weird… ‘video game universe’ you called it?” Wow, that seemed kind of harsh and now Muffins was giving Spoony a slightly disapproving look. Muffins would quickly forgive Spoony anyway; she couldn’t seem to stay mad at anyone unless they gravely insulted her in some way.

“Huh, must be solar butt preventing anyone from getting into Equestria. The problem is she’s not stopping anyone from getting out of it. So, do you have any idea’s guys?” I turned to the other beings that were in our gaming realm. One very intelligent goomba, three Mizar Ant Drones and Ristar who said he still had to help out the two ponies and I could respect his gumption.

Ristar was nowhere near to being an effective wishing star, but he sure could be a shooting star.

“I might have one, but it may take me a little less than two weeks to see if it’s viable. The Mushroom Kingdom has tons of different world warping methods; we might be able to even use a fabled warp whistle. It'd save me the trouble if we could just whistle there.” I took notice that Goombella was no longer wearing her Met helmet and that her color scheme was pink and blonde once again. She had a friendly smile on her face, but then there was one small quirk of an unsettled look and I sighed… of course she would bring it up. “So, are you going to tell them?”

We dropped her Met friends off in Fourside City; apparently they were going to start up an item shop or something. If anybody cared that they existed, I might actually swing by later to see how business is doing. If they start selling ‘Resonance of Fate’ grenades, they just might have a new best customer. Those things were the bomb in an RPG scrap.

“Might as well. Everything that happened was because I let myself get captured on purpose and Goombella has been doing me a favor in making sure Banjo picked up Screwball. She wanted you to take her along and you didn’t, so I had her go to Clancer Empire City and hire a few guards under normal pretenses.” I paused to consider my next few words. “Not that the bums were doing anything special anyways, well except maybe Quote, Curly Brace and Chaco. That’s not something we need to think of or talk about in polite conversation.”

For the record Quote, Curly Brace and Sparkster went off with Star Fox and his team; don’t care what happens to them at this point as they can take care of themselves. I’m sure they were going home to meet up with Chaco after a job well done. As for Sparkster… he’s a drifter, he comes and he goes, but he’s one of the toughest early era platform game heroes.

“Uh hello, I’m one of those bums and I’m right here you know.” Not that Ristar realized what he just said before it was far too late; he was just a miffed at being called a bum.

“At least you admitted you’re a bum and you’re being honest about it, now the healing can begin.” The look on that star faced hero was priceless; never give me an opening I can use. Oh look, he’s turning red with embarrassment and looking away from everyone with his arms crossed defensively. “Get to work on it Goombella and take Twink with you while you’re at it.”

Goombella pulled out her plot device dialed something and then said a few words, a green warp pipe shot up out of the ground spooking the three ponies into backing up from it. Soon both Goombella and Ristar disappeared down the pipe with the requisite warping noise and then the pipe disappeared back into the ground.

“So… normal pretenses, shouldn’t that be false pretenses?” Turning to Spoony I smiled.

“And when, if ever mind you, did Goombella lie? She’s not very good at it. So of course she hired them for normal pretenses, but she’s a good actor considering her worlds battlefields are a stage. She might have omitted a few things but she’s quite honest about her feelings and she truly wanted to be Screwballs friend. I never actually asked her to befriend you now that I think of it.” Now how do I go about explaining this, I tapped the bottom of my unbreakable beak with my right wing. “It’s kind of a common thing in our realms to hire people out for completely ridiculous tasks for little reward.”

“What’s the most ridiculous kind of task that you could possibly get?” Okay, I was not expecting that from Muffins… that really kind of spooked me a little and I’ll only admit this to the audience if we have one. Also why in the world do people bother putting emphasis on reading my thoughts, I’m not as bad as Deadpool you know!

“Okay I’ll put it into terms even you ponies could understand, say you were going to pay an earth pony five bits. They will have to do the following: climb the tallest most dangerous mountain in the general area with poisonous creatures and deadly plant life, to go into a cave with a dragons hoard, climb down said present dragons throat, steal something from inside the dragons body and then wait for time to ‘pass’ so to speak. Then without taking any of the dragons treasure or getting anything else out of it you come all the way back to the one who contracted you for five bits and give them what they want and then you get the five bits.” It took a moment for all that to sink in; I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone questioned the feasibility of it happening.

Screwball knew she wouldn’t be nearly that stupid, she would have at least grabbed a poisonous snack for the road home.

“Wha… buh…” Slowly we watched blood started to drip from Spoony’s right nostril as she tried to process the stupidity of this information. “I think I’m getting an aneurysm out of sheer stupidity.”

Kazooie didn’t know whether or not to quote it verbatim, in hindsight this wouldn’t be funny at all but to hell with letting this one opportunity go.

“Wow, I didn’t think you were that stupid Spoony.” Insert one blood curdling scream later and an application of white magic to a nearly killed by sanity slippage pony.

“I still don’t believe some pony would go through all that trouble for so little.” I really think we nearly broke poor Spoony with that last line; I wasn’t apologetic in the slightest at watching a ponies mind almost crunch like stepped on leaf.

“Actually Ditzy did it once… or twice.” Okay now this should prove interesting, I just had to hear this one. Noticing the attention was all on her, Muffins quickly rubbed the back of her head at all the sudden attention. “Well you see a little fillies doll ended up inside a dragon, unfortunate the owner of the doll didn’t know that and offered a seven bit reward if found. So Ditzy tracked the last location of the doll into the Ever Free Forest, up Mangora Mountain of the deadly giant poisonous orb weavers, to a dragons cave and well… she survived the experience to clearly draw a diagram of all the organs she passed through just to prove why she was missing from mailing office for several days. She came back with the doll perfectly intact and got her seven bits from Big Mac. She also got a pay raise for surviving the experience and eventually writing a book on how to possibly survive the digestive track of a large female dragon. Though I really didn’t need to know what being birthed by a dragon feels like by word of mouth and given how Ditzy talks...”

I noticed Spoony was almost catatonic at this story; she quickly shook it off even as Muffins was still shuddering after trailing off.

“Oh and suppose the rumors of Ditzy being raised by Timber Wolves is true too?” I had to give Spoony credit; she was going to try survival by continued skepticism in the face of a story that, while unusual, sounds like a classic thing that could happen in the world of Video Games.

“Well yeah, never let her invite you to her family reunions let me tell you. They don’t really appreciate muffins all too much, but they will eat them and try to continue on to the pony holding them and the wooden branch the pony is sitting on.” After sticking the tongue out of the side of her mouth and her eyes going wonky, it looked like Muffins was deciding a foolproof way to make sure Spoony believed her story. “Well you could ask Pinkie about the hydra incident, hydra won’t go anywhere near blonde mane grey coated pegasi because of it. Funnily enough it’s what sparked a new trade agreement between ponies and dragons.”

“Well that must be nice considering that three of your co-workers all look almost exactly like you. I’ll judge for myself if this is real, if we ever get back to Equestria.” Yep, Spoony would rather not acknowledge that that stuff had actually happened; I on the other hand wanted to know what happened with the hydra and completely believed it.

I was laughing uproariously at the thought of Big Mac getting his little filly’s toy back and unwittingly underpaying the mare for all the trouble. The idea that the mare accepted the underpayment without a fuss really sold it for me.

“Okay, now I have to know what the hydra incident is. Will you please tell it to us?” I wasn’t the only one interested in that story, laying the grass nearby was my daughter Screwball with her front hooves under her chin and her hind legs lazily kicking at the air. Banjo scratched her behind the ear causing her to make a cute giggling purring noise; I still think ponies were partially cats.

The following story will be shortened as thus, Pinkie in an effort of making hot sauce has it become a hot seller to dragons and thus trade agreements started because of it. Also the hot sauce wasn’t very safe for ponies to ingest but it made a nice sun tan lotion that hydra don’t like the flavor of and it smelled relatively nice.

After a bout of jovial laughter at the story, Screwball tried to bring us all back to the point of discussion that started this. That is the fact that I got captured on purpose and we couldn’t currently get to Equestria. I sadly had to agree even if we were currently enjoying ourselves and sharing rather interesting stories.

“Okay the reason why I let myself get captured, well there’s a few reasons behind it. First I really had to get that Celestriad Relic; it’ll save me a lot on magical power consumption for when I go back to Equestria. Trust me we are going to get you two home, come me having to abuse a few favors or otherwise.” After a moment to see the both the ponies she addressed nod, Kazooie continued. “I had to make a setup that would be real so that they could capture me when my guard was dropped feasibly. The other fact of the matter is that I knew they were planning on kidnapping me in the first place. They had quite a time trying to set up a perfect ambush because I never fell into any of their traps. I finally decided to trip one. The end results weren’t pretty, but everything is fine now. More importantly I didn’t want them going after my daughter to get to me.”

“Why would you think everything’s fine after all the things the three of us were put through, even the things that happened before I arrived?” Okay Spoony was a little tense; I could understand that as she wasn’t getting the idea that having sanity was completely overrated at this juncture.

“Well to answer your question, I contacted some people and they’re currently taking care of the video game universes side of the problem that popped up. However Equestria is not exactly covered by our dimensional bureau and Equestria is not quite an awakened world so… Equestria is doomed unless I can return to it with some backup I’m going to pick up over the next two weeks. I don’t need your help for saving the world, but I wouldn’t mind having extra hooves for an idea coming to mind.” After a moment Kazooie started out for the fields and motioned for Khronozooie to follow. “I’m going to catch you guys a few carrots, it’s near lunch time and we’ll discuss what we’re going to do until Goombella can get back to us with her idea. Oh and I believe you were promised some first contact with a nice human, isn’t that right Lyra? Well we’re going to need the help of one soon enough so I’ll set that meeting up for you. ”

“Okay for the last time my name is not Lyra, it’s SPOONY!” After a few seconds Lyra slapped two hooves to her own face, there were just some cartoon gags you couldn’t help but love and I really liked the Bugs Bunny switch around gag. My daughter and Muffins started laughing at her embarrassment at calling herself Spoony. The two quickly started to comfort her with a hug trying to say that they weren’t trying to be mean, but that was pretty hilarious.

“Whatever you say Spoony, Banjo show them our N sixty four and play out the beginning of our first meeting with Grunty for them while we kill up a late lunch... maybe we’ll call it a linner.” I turned to Khronozooie with a smirk on my beak. “Best kill count gets to call dibs on killing Bottles when he comes back to life? No time shenanigans or you forfeit.”

“I’ll take your challenge. Just so we’re clear no explosives, nuclear weapons, guns, missiles, inanimate objects… just pure raw combat skill like a Mr. Sandbag rally!” We nodded and charged off while Canjo just calmly sauntered over to Banjo and put his paw on his counterparts shoulder, they both sighed in unison.

Later that day we had a big meal fit for all the people involved, we also cooked our pet fish… again… for the hundredth time at least. We never actually tire of killing poor Roysten by complete accident or was it on purpose? I tend to lose track of who killed the poor little guy last. He was a fine source of protein either way so we couldn’t care less and it wasn’t me that surprisingly killed the fish this time… it was Banjo. That goldfish never catches a break, but he did help us out that one time.

“You know I hate the fact that my best friends aren’t bothering to even resurrect me and the fact that one of them murdered me in cold blood should really tell you that you’re hanging with a bunch of jerks. This is not the first time I was killed by Kazooie either; did you know she cheats at cards? I don’t know how you can live with such a destructive nutcase Banjo it would drive me crazy.” Bottles hadn’t stopped yammering since we started our late lunch and he finally found out where we were. Everyone including Spoony was easily tuning him out, just as it should be.

Sure Screwball might have cared at first, but after listening to Bottles drone on about his ever so boring life she gave up on feeling sorry for him. Derpy didn’t care at all; it wasn’t like she knew how to resurrect the haunting visage of the ghost mole. Lyra ignored that he existed entirely or that he spent the better half of an hour trying to convince people to listen to him.

“Okay our first plan of action is to take Lyra to meet some humans; I need to meet one of these particular humans so I can discuss business for when I head on back to Equestria. Then I’m going to call some contacts through my plot device to see if they will be available for a few meetings with me.” Kazooie nodded towards the ponies. “While I’m at those meetings you three are going to be taken to some gaming realms to learn some interesting tricks based on those abilities you earned. Then after all is said and done, I want to spend some quality time with my daughter up to Cloud Cuckoo Land. If we have any spare time I can take you guys to Nintendo Land.”

“Khronozooie I want you to chaperone Screwball when you take her to the gaming realm I have in mind for her. Banjo you’re going with Derpy and finally if she’s willing Honey will be going with Spoony. Oh and I’m apologizing ahead of time Khronozooie.” With that Kazooie slung up her backpack onto a peg of the pack rack by the door of her and Banjo’s cozy Spiral Mountain home and just pulled herself inside. “Let’s get some rest we’re going to be doing lots of things soon and we’ve only got about two weeks to do them in.”

For now, we were all going to have a little vacation after all the stuff I pulled getting everyone here. Don’t know where the Mizar Ants are sleeping, Khronozooie can sleep in her pack and the ponies were getting our beds while Banjo slept in his comfy chair. Canjo was leaving to go back to what he was doing before he came to help us and that was play overly violent hockey.

It was all quiet within minutes and the only thing that stirred was my daughter and she looked up at me as I crawled out of my backpack and came over to peck her on the forehead.

“Get some sleep Screwy; I’ve got a lot of fun things planned for us and these adventures will be less lethal to you.” I continued to pet her until she went to sleep grabbing at my wing and snuggling it. Heh, I must be getting soft. My daughter was so cute and cuddly for a chaos creature. I soon extricated myself.

As Kazooie made her way back to her backpack Banjo from his chair facing the bed smiled slightly and his left eye finally closed as he sighed peacefully.

“Hello is anybody listening to me?” Bottles whined and then slowly just marched through the door and outside onto the path leading up Spiral Mountain.

A green clothed mustachioed man suddenly popped up out of a warp pipe that just appeared. He pulled a vacuum cleaner from his back and then sucked Bottles into it and just as quickly as he appeared the mysterious green man left through the warp pipe.

Kazooie called a professional ghost buster, because she didn’t want to listen to the stupid ghost mole moaning all night.

Good pony, Bad Girl

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My mom was right things had gotten more fun, especially when Lyra was finally introduced to some nice humans. Even if they were video game universe humans they still liked to be referred to as their species instead of the state of their existence. Goodness knows I wouldn’t want to be considered just a pony or a chaos creature. I have feelings and I like them to be happy as I am… even if I sometimes don’t understand them all too well.

The meeting with the humans was a rather fun one, they were all nice and there was one in particular mom spent a lot of time conversing with. I was happy to meet these people they seemed to really like my sense of humor, though they happened to like explosives a bit too much. It was any wonder my mother made friends with people that didn’t like making things explode, but they were good people and not nearly as insane as mom. It was boring that they weren’t as insane and were quite logical, well mostly logical anyway.

As for Lyra she was kind of in a nirvana I’ll never understand without a lot of chocolate crème pies, those were yummy for my tummy but even cartoon characters had to eat healthy once in a while. It was interesting how odd you’re biology becomes once you learn you can survive primarily on happiness and sugar for a while.

As for Derpy, her religion of ‘share a muffin, be happy’ was kind of spreading even further. I say ‘kind of’ because they liked muffins in moderation, at least it didn’t hit the insane worship level the Mizar people took it to. Those bug guys were crazy; they were already painting murals in Derpy’s image when we were leaving the Sekhmet ten days ago. Goombella still had a few days to get back to us with her idea.

Instead of splitting up us ponies and our chaperones stuck together, the chaperones still kept track of who they were supposed to watch specifically. So I’ll give everyone a quick rundown of what we’ve been doing to help my two pony friends learn to control their abilities over these last few days.

The first realm we went to was quirky and I don’t think the music has quite left my head yet, the tune was just so fun. Derpy loved it and the muffins that the enemies turned into.

Bubble Bobble realms innate abilities: Bubble blowing, bubble bouncing, bubble powers and draconic forms.

I thought being a scaly pony was a bit odd, but we looked ridiculously cool. Lyra however spent a lot of the time freaking out about her appearance. Video game realms just had that kind of effect on some people I guess. Derpy seemed perfectly fine with it, in fact her dragon wings looked really awesome but she missed her feather wings and she knew her daughter would too. Good thing this wasn’t permanent.

We also met the realms hero’s Bub and Bob the bubble dragons, they were pretty cartoony for video game heroes. They were also cool with us running around their realm fighting their enemies, they mentioned Pac-man was around and to just leave him be. To be honest I think I was still a little scared of Pac-man after seeing him the first time and I was willing and able to heed those words.

Derpy learned a lot about her bubble blowing power and how to alter it to do so many different things, however it was quite draining on her body to use that power. Her control over bubbles was getting kind of obscenely powerful, then again her cutie mark pretty much means she would have some form of mastery over this ability in record time. Even Bub and Bob were impressed with her progress, they were also good teachers and exceptionally friendly. Sometimes I think they were too friendly given the theme of their game is killing and eating monsters that got magically turned into food.

I simply sat there and ate some grapes watching muffins fly all over the place, it wasn’t that disturbing a revelation I guess as the food tasted freshly picked. I turned to my left and saw Mr. Chaos sitting there enjoying himself by slowly dissolving a grapefruit inside of his body. He turned to me and gave what I hope was a smile. I at least was starting to understand him now that his garbled sloshing actually started to make some sense, after using silent protagonist for so long learning other languages seemed kind of easy in retrospect.

We next traveled to the world that was just quite bizarre, so much so that even I had a little trouble not going bananas.

Super Monkey Ball realms innate abilities: Hamster Ball.

I swear, my eyes are naturally spiraled and I have never been so dizzy that my eyes might have quadrupled their spirals. Derpy’s eyes weren’t doing any better keeping straight. Of course all the video game characters were doing better than we were and laughing at our plight, I was right there laughing along with them as we did look pretty silly flailing around inside these large hard to control spheres.

The only one that wasn’t flailing was Lyra who had a perturbed look on her face the entire time she was in her sphere… or I should say floating in the middle of it and incapable of using magic as her harmonic cyclone barrier was using her magic to create the sphere she was entrapped in. It wasn’t constantly draining her, it was just the entirety her magic encompassed her body in a protective barrier.

We lost Chaos to the surrounding abyss some time ago, hope he’s okay... from what I can tell the other chaos being was having as much fun as I was exploring these realms.

This was just the first realm we visited for Lyra’s sake; the next one totally cracked me up and we couldn’t help but egg her on.

Billy Hatcher and the giant eggs realms innate abilities: Chicken suits and the powers that come with them.

“Huh, Pinkie’s Nightmare Night costume makes so much more sense now…” It was the first thing that Lyra said upon seeing what we were all wearing when we appeared here. Derpy only needed one realm devoted to helping her train in her new ability; this one was to train Lyra’s harmonic cyclone barrier from the outside. There was also the fun factor of rolling around eggs.

Speaking of harmonics… it tended to play music when Lyra rolled it around and it seemed that the music was matching her mood. Being here seemed to have brightened Lyra up considerably if the musical barrier she was rolling around like an egg was any idea, not only that we all learned to have a sense of balance by all the weird things we could do with the eggs in morning land.

It was soon learned that Lyra had to absorb her harmonic cyclone barrier back into herself before she could go back to using her magic again, otherwise the barrier was almost unbreakable and it had offensive applications with the cyclone wind blade revolving around it when Lyra needed it too. Said blade could turn into wind strings that Lyra could play music from by vibrating the air itself, it ironically enough increased the protective strength of her barrier when she was doing this.

The acrobatics weren’t entirely because of the suits, we learned that the hard way when Derpy fell into a pack of enemy crow monsters and promptly died. Lyra had fallen off the levels we explored several times and once into lava where convection ceased to exist. It was a good thing we had extra lives or we’d never normally survive these weird worlds.

Dying was of course painful as all get out, so we tried to avoid it the best we could and our chaperones made sure we had enough extra lives to be safe if we weren’t more careful. Invincible we were not and we had no illusions that we were, I kind of thought it strange that Lyra would stare after me every time I died though. Was she afraid that I was going to go crazy again? Eh, couldn’t blame her for worrying about me, I know she cares more then she let’s on.

That wasn’t the end of the monkey business however, even if we were having a grand time.

Donkey Kong Country realms innate abilities: Bounce off things more easily and general platform game physics applied, friends may be found in barrels if killed.

We really didn’t do much here except get a bird named Squawks to teach me how to spit projectiles safely, but we did get to meet the local wildlife the Kremlings. From what we found out they were out of a job and had nothing to do other than to antagonize us like they were supposed to do anyway.

I remember mom telling me that bananas are the alicorn aphrodisiac of super effective choice; well this world must have been the alicorn paradise considering all the bananas around. Goodness knows I’m not truly naïve; Discord did at least make sure I understood if I was going to be assaulted physically. The one thing I can thank Discord for was that he at least gave me the information to survive and avoid being abused.

The next place we visited wasn’t as nice, we went there after I was done playing around with the barrel cannons. We ponies really liked the barrel cannons; it took them forever to catch me in Bramble Blast. Now we’re up to the point where I am right now, with me meeting a really vulgar person.

No More Heroes realms innate abilities: Increased pain tolerance, weapons can be reloaded or recharged by shaking them, Blood… so much blood… and the ability to cope with causing it to fountain everywhere.

“Ugh, I can’t believe Kazooie would make me bring you here. At least she apologized ahead of time for this.” It was an interesting idea to say the least, but Khronozooie had no idea what Kazooie was thinking. Why would she put her daughter up against a psycho like that?

Screwball was being led down a corridor and when the door opened all six of us were greeted with a cut scene. A blonde girl in a frilly pink dress with stockings was killing other humans in strange getups with a baseball bat. We’d later learn those were cloned enemies. “Home… run!”

“Okay, Kazooie said this was all yours, watch out for when she starts crying and be aware that she’s immune to fire. Be careful with this boss fight character.” With that Khronozooie shoved Screwball forward and the strange blonde haired woman looked at the pony. She started to laugh insanely, all of Screwball’s friends and family sat back and away from her on the sidelines just watching nervously.

“What the fuck… oh this is too great, a pony! I’ve always wanted one… to kill.” With that the human woman sauntered over to the refrigerator twirling her bat with her right hand, she set it down and pulled out a beer. She popped it, drank it all in one go, belched and then smashed it against her forehead before throwing it into the nearby pit. She sauntered forward holding her blood covered baseball bat in her right hand. “You know, it’s funny really that all little girls like ponies and shit, well I’ll show them that magic doesn’t exist for people like me. You’ll pay for coming here with your fucking lives for disturbing me.”

I frowned and stared at her sadly, I felt something was wrong here and despite the aggressiveness Bad Girl was showing… I really didn’t want to fight her. Why did my mom want me to meet her? I felt my ears wiggle, tail twitch and stomach fluttering; I had no idea what this one meant. It was a new one on me and to suddenly happen like this must mean it was important.

“Stop looking at me like that! Don’t go thinking your better than me.” Now I was staring at the girl named Bad Girl with even more sorrow, she took her right bat in her hand and pointed the tip at me. “Stop looking at me like that right now!”

Boss Fight: Screwball vs. Bad Girl. (No More Heroes - Pleather for Breakfast plays.)

The boss field sprang up surprisingly quick and so did Bad Girls health bar as she swung at Screwball with her bat, Screwball jumped backwards. Slowly Bad girl started to walk to the right with a sway in her hip and her dress hypnotically swayed from side to side with each step she took while staring at Screwball idly twirling her bat.

Screwball had yet to pull out her own signature weapon or bothered take any aggressive action in combat. She just stared into Bad Girls eyes as they look back with murderous intent, slowly Screwballs frown turned into a small smile.

“What the fuck are you smiling about you short horse!” With that Bad Girl charged Screwball and used her left hand to grip the bat as she swung down at her. Then the most unexpected thing happened that I bet nobody other than Screwball was expecting, especially not Bad Girl. Screwball had gotten under her guard. “What… the… fuck, get off of me you little shit!”

With a shove Screwball was pushed away from hugging Bad Girl around the waist. The pony landed on her flank and the small smile on her face looked to be there to stay. Nothing Bad Girl did was going to knock the smile off of her face.

Bad Girl charged and swung her bat three times, whiffing entirely. She had stopped to look at the sign Screwball was holding up while giving a toothy grin.

“Three strikes I’m out? What the hell are you on? I might actually want some of it.” Bad Girl resumed attacking Screwball after that and the pony continued to dodge her attacks. The pony never retaliated and it was beginning to infuriate Bad Girl that she wasn’t fighting back.

Swinging forward and hard Bad Girl missed Screwball who circled around her quickly and latched herself onto the woman’s back to start nuzzling her neck while cuddling her with a full body hug.

“Let go of me!” Bad Girl screeched and she jumped and fell onto her back flattening Screwball underneath herself, Screwball didn’t feel a thing as her body squashed cushioning Bad Girl from hurting herself in her attempts at getting the cartoon pony off of her. She followed that motion by flipping backwards onto her feet and then brought the full force of her bat down on where Screwball used to be. “What the fuck, where did she go?”

“Why isn’t Screwball fighting back, that human is certainly set on killing her.” Lyra said from her position outside the boss field barrier looking into the batting cage room beneath the baseball stadium.

“Don’t you see Lyra? She is fighting back. She’s just doing it in a special way, the way a cartoon would fight.” The smile on Derpy’s face only grew; it didn’t escape her notice that Screwball was doing damage to Bad Girl’s health bar without even injuring her. It certainly didn’t seem Screwball was giving her painful bear hugs. Reaching behind her back Derpy pulled out some popcorn. Yep, Derpy has recently learned the fresh bag of popcorn cartoon trick.

“I’ll say its special; I guess this is why Kazooie wanted Screwball to meet Bad Girl… the power you ponies have is pretty incredible.” Honey was smiling alongside Derpy, Banjo and Khronozooie as they watched Bad Girl looking everywhere around for Screwball.

“I don’t get it; all she did so far was hug her and show her affection.” It wasn’t that Lyra didn’t think a hug wasn’t nice, but against something that was trying to kill you? This has got to be the most ludicrous fight she’s ever witnessed and Screwball was standing on the ceiling.

“Just keep watching Miss Heartstrings.” Banjo said with a hint of warmth in his voice, it’s been a while since he’s a seen a slapstick fight with an actual big stick. “I’m beginning to wonder if Kazooie is right about this… not like she hasn’t ever been wrong about this kind of thing before.”

“How in the hell did you get there, that’s completely unfair!” Bad Girl yelled at Screwball who was lying on her back against the ceiling, the pony remove one of the hooves behind her head and waved lazily at Bad Girl. The woman was not to be trifled with, she quickly ran over to the conveyer belt and it started up, Screwball tilted her head away from the ceiling and wondered what Bad Girl was doing.

“Home… run!” Screwballs eyes popped out of her head, they were swiftly pushed back in by both hooves and she quickly dropped to the floor as a human body shaped object exploded against the ceiling. Bad Girl started stalking towards the now floored pony. The pony quickly dashed for the couch and jumped behind it disappearing.

Bad Girl quickly looked behind the small couch and was puzzled not to see anything there; soon Screwball poked her head out of the nearby cabinet and quickly pulled it back in when she was noticed. Opening the cabinet Bad Girl didn’t see anything inside.

“Okay, what the fuck is going on, did that crazy magician put you up to this?” Turning to her right Bad Girl saw Screwball poke her face out of the refrigerator and ducked back in upon being spotted. Opening the refrigerator Bad Girl saw nothing but her beer, so she closed the door and looked around once more.

The TV showing nothing but static behind the fridge and couch flickered to a different channel showing Screwball in a matador costume looking confused for a moment before a large bull trampled her off the screen and the channel changed to some anime show that couldn’t be heard because the volume was down on the TV. Screwball was doing a silly dance with several of the anime characters before finally being stopped as the TV was smashed by a baseball bat.

Screwball finally crawled out from under the couch looking rather sheepish with a drop of sweat appearing on the side of her head as she smiled at the woman. Bad Girl’s glare promised pain and a suffering for the forced destruction of the television. Bad Girl took on a golden glow and she swung her bad as hard as she could, but still she missed the quick moving pony that was now at the center of the room.

“Wipe that stupid look off of your face and stop smiling at me damn it!” Then Screwball, as asked by Bad Girl, lifted her front left leg to her mouth and then with one swipe her mouth disappeared. She showed where her mouth now was by making it give a silly grin from its new location on her left leg.

Bad Girl backed away from this bit of strangeness slightly freaked out; Screwball had done exactly as she had asked. She wiped the look off her face and it was her leg that was now smiling at her.

“Okay that’s it, time to bring on the pain!” She pulled out a bottle took a swig of its contents spat it across her bat. Then dropping the bottle she lit the bat with a lighter she pulled out and carelessly tossed that away as well.

Slapping her mouth back onto her face Screwball started clapping and gave a small whistle of enjoyment, she had never seen such a cool trick like that. It was to be noted that Bad Girl wasn’t even being burned or affected by the heat. This of course made Bad Girl angry.

“You’re really pissing me off you know!” She slammed the bat down causing a fiery explosion and once that ended she could see Screwball with a slightly burnt marshmallow on a stick. Putting the stick down, she pulled out some graham crackers and chocolate. She made a snack by clapping the ingredients altogether between her hooves.

Bad Girl just stood there dumbfounded as the pony ate her gooey snack and offered a second one to Bad Girl who knocked it out of her hoof with her flaming baseball bat without actually hitting her outstretched leg. Screwball just shrugged nonchalantly and leapt up to throw her hooves around Bad Girl again nuzzling her ample chest cutely.

“Why you… why…you… why won’t you just leave me alone!” Bad Girl finally broke down and started crying and Screwball just started patting the larger woman gently on the back. While making some cooing noises and gently rocking the crying woman back and forth softly, Screwball had the gentlest serene smile on her face.

“Whoa, Bad Girl has totally lost her anal side. I didn’t expect to see that in my lifetime… and I’m immortal.” Khronozooie’s amusement was suddenly shushed by the others watching the scene, including Chaos who had just appeared out of nowhere from wherever he got lost to beforehand somehow managing to track this group across several gaming realms. “Didn’t know you could kill someone with kindness quite like that, Bad Girl’s health bar dropped like a lead brick, which is fast for a boss character.”

Finally the boss battle field fell and Bad Girls life bar emptied out of its own volition much to Lyra’s surprise that she now noticed the floating bar and heard what it represented.

(Pleather for Breakfast ends.)

Screwball just kissed Bad Girl on the forehead and started giggling, her mom was a certified psycho and so was this woman. That didn’t mean they didn’t deserve love or simply affection, even villains and heroes could get lonely sometimes and Bad Girl’s probably been alone in this room for a very long time. Some unconditional love was probably doing her some good right about now.

Screwball finally asked if there was anything she could do for Bad Girl to make her feel better.

“Could you just let me hit you one time?” Screwball beamed at the request and nodded, she stood absolutely still in front of the disbelieving assassin known as Bad Girl. “Seriously, after all that effort you put up dodging me? Well okay then!”

Reeling back her flaming bat of pain and death she brought it down hard on Screwball. The resulting splatter was unusual to say the least, it wasn’t blood and the smell was rather sweet. Bad Girl’s bat was no longer on fire as a result. Screwball was flat as a pancake; Bad Girl reached up with a finger and scraped some of the fluid off of her body. “Is this maple syrup, I knew you were sweet but this is crazy!”

After a moment all the maple syrup started disappearing and a sucking sound could be heard, soon Screwball had reabsorbed all the pancake syrup and was less flat then she had been a second ago with an audible pop noise. Bad Girl gave a slight chuckle but quickly cut it off trying to hide that she found that funny.

“You know what, you’re not so fucking bad. Now go away.” Walking over to the couch Bad Girl sat down and huffed to herself, she didn’t have the willpower to fight Screwball anymore.

Screwball went over to the couch and crawled up into her lap and started to purr cutely while slowly making circles on the woman’s lap before giving her a puppy dog stare with a smile.

“God what do you want from me!?” Bad Girl yelled in the stoic cartoon pony’s face.

Screwball introduced herself to Bad Girl and asked if they could be friends.

“You think you’re so bad, don’t cha…” Closing her eyes Bad Girl sighed and started rubbing Screwball behind the ears and the pony stretched out and started to relax on her lap. “You assholes can come in if you want, there’s no point in standing around out there gawking. Help yourselves to my crap if you want, I’ve hardly got anything worth much anyway except my fridge of infinite beer. I practically survive off that fucking stuff.”

Despite the fact that she was a murderous assassin she was rubbing Screwballs belly and it was a cute moment, but nobody said anything and Khronozooie was already helping herself to Bad Girl’s beer.

“So what do I owe the pleasure of video game heroes busting down my joint?” Bad Girl asked plainly, clearly not in the mood for much more, though she did smile as she hugged Screwball to herself protectively. “The assassins around here hardly do much but beat the ever loving crap out of each other what with Travis not caring about our realm anymore, either that or we just kill suits to pass the time. I was quite bored until you guys came along; I haven’t seen anyone in years. I haven’t left this place in years either.”

Screwball under Bad Girls ministrations sat up at upon feeling her sorrow and licked Bad Girl’s entire face with a super sized tongue.

“Huh, cute…” It was Bad Girl’s only response to being licked by pony that was doing a very good rendition of a cross between a cat and a dog.

“Don’t know why we’re here, but I think we did what we came here to do. Kazooie just asked me to push Screwball here into a fight with you. She said things would work themselves out.” Khronozooie was kind of surprised at how calm Bad Girl looked at the moment for a murderous psychopath.

“Are you looking to hire? If so then I accept, so long as it involves Screwy here.” Bad Girl said, then with a raised eyebrow asked. “So where the fuck are we going?”

Just some fun

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Nintendo Land realms innate abilities: Touch screen powers, nothing that happens is actually lethal here since everyone’s a technical immortal until they leave.

They had been through so many realms, from Fourside City to beyond the bounds of any normalcy that may have existed on a really dull world. Nintendo Land was rather tame in comparison to everything they’ve seen. They had all just dropped onto the outer edge of a large circular area.

A screen with one arm coming from below it wearing a quirky little hat floated down before the group. The group consisted of a bear, a bird, a giant humanoid bee, three ponies and one purple rabbit like creature called a mimiga. Mimiga’s were cute and mostly innocent, they were highly allergic to red flowers so don’t feed them any without an Esuna spell or a potion that can cure berserk on hand.

“Welcome to Nintendo Land my name is Monita and I will be your guide, if you need me for guidance just mental tap the tower screen. Also for those of you who are capable of getting hungry, we have a food court down the staircase in the central tower which is not accessible by player controlled characters. Enjoy your stay and if you would like to stay a while there are hotel rooms for nominal prices run by toads below the food court.”

“Okay we’re splitting off into pairs and meeting in the food court for lunch, Screwball is of course with me. About time I got some one on one with my daughter. Banjo you’re with Honey, go do whatever a bear and his buxom wasp companion are supposed to do and hopefully I don’t have to hear about it later. Derpy you’re keeping track of Spoony. So are we all set?” There was a tug on Kazooie’s tail feather and she looked to the purple bunny creature wearing a cute sweater. “Yes?”

“I know I’m being a bit of a bother, but who am I paired up with?” The rabbit creature was waiting for a response, there was a red ribbon tied around one of her ears. Kazooie knew who she was talking to the minute she looked in the rabbit’s general direction.

“Your Chaco right, how did you even end up here with us anyway? I don’t remember you being a part of the group with us, especially when I and my friends left Spiral Mountain.” After a moment to considering Kazooie’s words and rubbing one of her long ears with a hand shaped paw Chaco simply shrugged.

“I don’t know, I think I might be a bit lost. Do you know where my Mr. and Mrs. Traveler are?” Ever so slowly Kazooie slapped her face at Chaco’s innocent question. With a wing she breathed in deeply and then let it loose slowly in a sigh, before pulling out her Plot Device and calling up someone.

“Yeah, hello, Curly Brace, I think I found a missing rabbit creature your familiar with. Yeah she’s okay, she’s a bit lost and I think she might be exploring around because she was lonely without you two to hug. Yeah, I would say you guys are the teddy bears in this relationship. The Nintendo Land realm, you can’t miss it as there are very few Wii U realms available. Okay, I’ll watch her until you guys get here, until then me and my daughter will take her along to explore the realm. There’s nothing dangerous here you know, this theme park is pretty darn safe in comparison to Rockets Whoopie World. Okay then.” After that Kazooie put away her plot device. “You’re stuck with us I guess, stick close by but don’t interrupt our mother daughter bonding time okay? I’m expected to come up with a plan to save a cartoon world soon and I’d rather relax until then.”

Screwball smiled and said hello to Chaco, things were going to be alright and she’s already making a new friend.

“So what would you like to do first Screwball? We can explore the central area with all the information about things we’ll see in the surrounding attractions, ride the party train or go into one of the attractions.” It was up to Screwball to decide what they do first and no matter what Kazooie would make sure they simply had fun.

Screwball wanted to look at the big statute things and hear the information about them; she moved over to one and gave it a mental tap. It stood up and roared in her face blowing her mane back, knocking her hat off. Kazooie deftly lifted her left wing and caught the hat as Screwball fell over onto her back giggling as the information came up. Chaco just tilted her head at the scene and stifled a giggle into her paws at how silly Screwball’s mane looked before it returned to normal.

“Bulborb, with its sharp teeth and devastating roll attack, this is a foe to fear. I highly advise you take caution if you don’t want to be crushed into scrap metal.” It was Monita’s voice again yet it just appeared in text box format in front of Screwball.

In the background the others were on the train circling the theme park and it took off to the sky, they would be playing some team based party games for a while.

Screwball moved over to the objects sitting next to the bulborb thing and tapped one; it shattered in a volatile manner and soon reformed itself with Monita intoning it was an old pot. Smiling tapping the other objects they too shattered into a hundred pieces and just as quickly reformed.

After a while of just randomly browsing the objects around the park and laughing at the funny face the Deku Tree made, Screwball had finally wanted to try an attraction it was still early in the day and they had all the time in the world.

Speaking of worlds the entire place was like a giant bubble. The four colored ribbon circled the large floating platform they were standing on, there were cute heart shaped clouds in the sky, the background music was a quaint cheery tune and all the floating cubes, spheres and stars made this place a naturally entrancing wonder.

Looking up at the words ‘Balloon Trip breeze, float with the wind’ Screwball pointed at it, she wanted to try this because it looked interesting.

“Well okay then.” Kazooie led them into the corridor that appeared as they walked through the gateway that had been invisible until now.

“This is a one player game, which of you will be the gamer? Support functions can be carried out by extra helpers if they so choose or they can watch the action.” Screwball threw her hoof up in the air and she pulled forward and a orange and blue suit appeared around her body, along with two large red balloons that tied themselves to her back. She quickly disappeared to somewhere else.

Looking around Screwball was standing on a grassy platform with a small building and there was a bell hanging above her.

“Screwy do you need a tutorial? Nod and I’ll get Monita to give you a run down on how to fly here, just know we’re going to help support you against the enemies you’ll encounter here, also try to beat the high score it’s nine hundred and nine.” Kazooie’s voice asked, after a nod Screwball was put through a quick tutorial by Monita where she learned to control the breeze and fly around on the two balloons to collect other balloons.

It all started simply at first and then became absurdly challenging with each passing scene transition to another level of game play, electrified spikes, balloon birds attacking her and nearly getting snacked on by a big fish. Screwball loved every moment of it though and she saw a red or purple glow destroying things or stopping the enemy from moving.

Soon Screwball managed to progress to the second night in the game, before she lost all her extra live and her balloons were popped for the final time. She fell into a large mechanical fish and was back with Chaco and Kazooie in the next instant. She pointed to Kazooie with her left hoof and asked her which attraction she wanted to see next.

“Me well… I never really gave it much thought… but it better have something with bombs in it.” Walking out of the corridor Kazooie spotted something that caught her immediate interest to her right. She took Screwballs hoof and Chaco’s paw and flicked her beak and they were suddenly flying across the park to land in front of another attraction.

“Okay this definitely seems more my speed. This is Takamaru’s Ninja Castle, throwing star showdown huh?” Kazooie walked into the appearing corridor with a slight smirk on her beak, projectile spamming here she comes ala Touhou!

Despite their apprehension they did like the samurai costumes, Chaco and Screwball followed Kazooie in just staring at her black shogun armor mutely. After a quick tutorial on how to fire and reload, fifty ninja stars were given to Kazooie who gave a pointedly evil smirk.

The cardboard ninja characters were cute and had ridiculous goofy eyes some of which were holding weapons. They would have attacked, if Kazooie didn’t cut them down the second they appeared and she was really darn accurate. Every now and think a pink and purple glow would stop an enemy from moving and Kazooie usually nailed those enemy ninja with four or five stars aimed below the belt.

The only enemies to survive even a second under the mass barrage of ninja stars filling the area at any given time were the ones with swords who could block the constant stream of death that was Kazooie’s nigh impossible accuracy. Whenever the sword wielders went to attack, a quick parry from Kazooie’s beak and they were suddenly punctured by at least seven throwing stars before anyone could so much as blink.

When they reached the boss fight Kazooie had yet to miss a single ninja, Chaco had to comment that this was an incredible sight. Kazooie had been performing reloads almost every five seconds or so up to this point. The boss was almost done as most of it went up in smoke under a pile of bombs as Kazooie bothered to finally use the scrolls she earned while being a ninja star launching machine. Now all Kazooie was waiting on was for it to open its big mouth and it only took upon the third opening for Kazooie to finish the game.

Screwball gave a shout of joy as nobody was ever going to beat that kind of performance, Chaco was just happy that she got to be helpful. It was the usual problem that many NPC’s didn’t want to feel useless or helpless.

“You’re right this was a combined victory, but the boss was all me and my love of explosives.” In fact Kazooie had blown five scrolls worth of explosives on the boss. “I guess to be fair we should allow Chaco to choose a game to play next.”

“Oh no, I really wouldn’t want to impose, I am having a grand old time anyway and …” Both Kazooie and Screwball were looking at Chaco now; both of them had differing angry expressions and this caused Chaco to pause. Kazooie was angry she wasn’t more willing to explore her horizons, Screwball was upset that Chaco didn’t want a fair turn as she was part of their group. “I guess I could choose one… that one seems to resonate with me.”

Chaco pointed out the sign with an octopus face and they launched to the location with a tap, the sign read ‘Octopus Dance’.

“So an Ikachan reference was made!” Kazooie proclaimed loudly much to Chaco and Screwballs confusion. “Don’t worry, some reader might get it, this is after all almost the end of the story and the major events have already passed. By the way the next chapter is the last one; finally I can take six and drink myself into a stupor when this is all over with until the real sequel to The Dreaded Love Bird.”

“Um… do you have a pair of pompoms?” Chaco asked nicely ignoring the current inexistence of the fourth wall. A pair of purple pompoms was produced posthumously out of Kazooie’s pack without pause.

“Thank you.” Chaco said happily and ran into the corridor.

“I wonder how Spiral Mountain is doing. Hopefully Bad Girl and those ants aren’t burning our home down in some zany manner. I’d have to kick their asses for that if they are currently doing that right now.” Kazooie stared to a single point off to the side expectantly waiting for the cutaway gag and Screwball sat next to her staring at the same point.

Meanwhile, at Spiral Mountain things were looking rather normal.

“Got any three’s?” Bad Girl asked as she was playing cards with the three present Mizar Ants.

Now we are returning to Nintendo Land and our story at hand.

“Well that was a boring cutaway sequence.” It was, even the text knows it as much as Kazooie did. She decided to see how Chaco was doing at Octopus Dancing.

Screwball shrugged and followed, she was expecting something more interesting from someone as volatile and far more vulgar than even her mother was.

When they entered and saw the platform Chaco was standing on she was well into the fourth round and doing pretty well only having missed one or two rounds and did just good on a few of them. Some of the dance moves she was using seemed kind of provocative especially the jump splits, but she was currently just a peppy rabbit lady that was just enjoying herself. Mimiga weren’t exactly known for anything beyond their recreational abilities and gardening skills, Chaco failed just shy of completing the fifth dance course at the seventh part, then the octopus grabbed her.

Chaco was deposited next to Kazooie and Screwball who held up signs, a six point nine from the bird with the cheeky grin and an eight point eight from the smiling pony. Looking at Kazooie’s sign Chaco blushed violently turning her fur a nice plum color before she turned to the pony’s and gave it a questioning look.

“Why did you give me more points? I understand her sign is at least a joke and a very crude one it is I’ll have you know. You really shouldn’t do things like that Kazooie.” A joke Chaco wasn’t about to tell anyone about especially not to her two special friends that she happened to love. “As for you, I think you’re giving me way too much credit.”

Screwball exclaimed she gave extra points for effort and having a good time.

“You would do that wouldn’t you?” Kazooie stated rhetorically. “You forgot to account for friendship points by the way.”

Screwball put her sign down and when she held it up it up again it read nine and five sevenths.

“Um… okay… can we do something that’s a little more team oriented?” Ten minutes after Chaco asked that she regretted it ruefully.

Ten minutes later Chaco was aiming her flashlight left and right and backed herself into a corner; Screwball was currently hunting down a ghost in this dark spooky mansion. A light flashed and the mansion was filled with light for a single moment showing a ghostly pair of green glowing eyes that caused Chaco to scream and point her flashlight towards the last spot she saw the shade.

Chaco shivered hoping it was just her imagination, why did this attraction have to be so scary? She heard a screech, she tried to turn her flashlight to the side but it was too late as the ghost came screaming at her and she had a heart attack almost quite literally.

Screwball in a separate part of the mansion was having fun with her mother, this game had teamwork involved and so far it was a two on one, against her mom who was pretty good at being a ghost. Feeling a sudden chill Screwball spun around to her right and started to frantically swing her flashlight down the hallway behind her. After a moment she relaxed, but then a pair of wings quickly wrapped around her in a tight hug.

“Boo…” Screwball definitely had a heart attack, but she would laugh about this afterward as she was dragged into the darkness screaming by a ghostly form in a flash of lightning.

All three of the fun lovers exited Luigi’s Ghost Mansion attraction, Chaco was slightly pale and Screwball definitely was after her mother’s final jump scare. Even if they were a little frightened the two 'ghost hunters' started laughing about how it went. Looking at the evening sky it was lunch time.

Tapping the towers face mentally Kazooie dragged the other two to the tower and opened a door that wasn’t visible to the player and then they went down the spiraling stair case into the food court. Upon arrival they came upon a strange scene. Derpy was looking haggard and Lyra looked excited.

“And I had fingers that came with the suit, it was so awesome! There was even a robotic version of that giant red dragon thing Screwball’s mother fought off.” To punctuate her thoughts of the Metroid Blast attraction she threw her hooves up in the air.

“So much pain and suffering.” The poor blond pegasus formerly known as Derpy muttered. The ice Ridley creature has earned a lot of her ire just as much as the regular robot Ridley from the last few hours they spent blasting fake space aliens.

The table next to them had Banjo and Honey with their own interesting conversation.

“I never knew you were that good with a bow… must be all the times you used Kazooie as a living machine gun.” Honey had an arm around Banjo who was blushing sheepishly as the bee hugged him.

“Gosh, it certainly wasn’t that much of a difference from the Saucer of Peril or Breegull Blaster mode.” It was as much fun watching Honey swing a sword around in the attraction they visited, but Banjo wasn’t about to admit that he liked watching his favorite bee get violent.

After enjoying a lunch with all of her friends and Chaco, Kazooie decided to flip Nintendo Land to its night time visuals and have a floating objects parade. Kazooie and Screwball soon wandered off to another edge of the floating circular theme park to sit down and have a talk.

“So Screwball have any questions you want to ask me before I start another adventure? Technically this one ended before ‘Hot Topics’ so all we need is an epilogue that’s shorter then these four thousand word chapters.” Kazooie watched as Screwball turned her head away to stare at the fireworks in the sky, with smile on her face before it turned to a frown.

Screwball turned to Kazooie and asked a question she’s always wanted to know the answer to.

“Yeah well, you needed someone as you’ve never had parents and I don’t count Discord as being one. I may not be the best mother figure in the world, but trust me when I say I’ll torture someone and let them live if they harm you. I’ve always wanted to have someone to take care of that I could be ridiculously irresponsible around, I mean what mother would allow their daughter to run straight into danger like I do?” After a moment of looking thoughtful Kazooie frowned. “In fact I owe two robot masters horrible agony. Trust me, there are a lot of things far worse than death and I would know. I’m a video game character and have died countless times in really exceedingly dumb ways.”

Screwball turned to mother and asked what happened to her when she was killed and turned into that strange creature.

“Oh, that… yeah I didn’t know something like that could happen so soon. Let’s just say it wouldn’t have stopped until you either killed those robot masters or everyone there. Good thing the boss field was destroyed the moment your chaos energy took over or else I wouldn’t have saved Spoony.” After a moment Screwball was about to ask something only for Kazooie to preempt it. “I jumped through it with my Wonder Wing. That thing was part of you and you’re chaos powers you get in part from Discord and I readily accept that it is a part of you that’s cranky at the world. As you very well know Discord couldn’t create life from nothing or cause death directly, he could only twist what is already there to begin with.”

Screwball just nuzzled against Kazooie and asked the question, then where did she come from? She knew she was made with chaos energy just not where her spark had come from, just that it existed and she was perfectly fine with that even if Kazooie didn’t answer her. She decided to mention her talk with Spekkio.

“It doesn’t really matter; you’re your own entity now and can’t be put back there ever since you were hit with the elements of harmony. You know how to do the Scan spell right? Use it on yourself and you’ll know the truth. Word of warning, don’t get discouraged about what information you will see. Remember that I still took you in even knowing that.” Kazooie gently laid her right wing around the pony and rubbed it up and down to comfort the pony about to learn something really weird.

Screwball cast the Scan spell on herself remembering it from the first time she saw Kazooie use it on her, she saw whatever it was that her mom had seen. After a moment she smiled and then started laughing, as she snuggled into her mother’s wings. Her mom was right; it didn’t matter.

“Every pony in the world of Equestria is special in their own unique way with those butt tattoos of theirs… but you’re just something else aren’t you? You’ll never be able to become an alicorn even with an epiphany like that one, but at least you’ll know you’ll live for a long time. Just watch it with the chaos powers okay?” Kazooie plucked Screwball’s hat from her head, much to her annoyance, to ruffle her mane. “Can’t have my daughter permanently ending all life in the video game realms as we know it, now can we?”

Screwball giggled and soon fell into a happy sigh; she wondered if Kazooie had any ice cream on hand as Mr. Cold Spot wasn’t available.

“Want some sea salt ice cream, I’ve got an entire warehouse of the stuff in my backpack and it’s not that bad… it’s just not that great either.” After receiving a nod with her left wing Kazooie retrieved some ice cream and proffered it to Screwball who took it and gave it a lick. A wide toothy grin up to her spiraled pupils soon appeared on Screwballs face. “There’s no accounting for any pony’s sense of taste and their love of salt.”

“I wish you a happy birthday mom.” Screwball continued to eat her ice cream and Kazooie pulled out her own. Screwball was glad she managed to say all that without a problem rearing up in her speech patterns.

“Thanks my little Screwy, so how does it feel to be an arisen cartoon character?” They sat there watching the stars in the sky as the fireworks show had ended. “You’re world only has three so far, two of them the most recent being you and Muffins over there. The last one I had the honor to meet and know personally, her name was Pinkie Diane Pie. She was a strange little filly back then and so full of life, she was the first of you ponies to ever arise as a cartoon outside of your world’s rules. Unlike her you can ignore the rule of funny completely so also be careful with your cartoon abilities.”

Screwball already knew who Pinkie was, but why was mom talking about her now? Other then wanting to know that Screwball didn’t feel any different, she was still herself only a bit more worldly. There was that weird sensing ability she recently acquired that allowed her to predict things that were going to happen.

“Because, me and the pink cat had a lot of fun like this and now she’s a literal old acquaintance. I’m surprised she can still see me as a good friend despite me being a complete lunatic she definitely remembers me as.” Kazooie felt two hooves wrap around her and she received a sticky ice cream covered face to her beak and a traditional cartoon kiss was performed ending with a requisite pop. “A classic cartoon style kiss, you sure do know how to cheer up a bird. Wipe the ice cream off next time though.”

Screwball was happy to just have a mom at all crazy or not and she stated as much; crazy was what she considered normal in context for her. Kazooie just laughed alongside Screwball whose tail was wagging, someone was about to have a happy moment and it wasn’t them as they were in the middle of theirs already.

Chaco sat alone. She had to admit it was rather calming for being around mid day and in a realm with a midnight setting. Soon she felt a hand on her left shoulder and then one on her right and before she knew it she was being cuddled by the two people she was waiting for. She was finally where she belonged, between a Quote and a Curly Brace.

Epilogue: The Light Prognosticus

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They were all sitting at the base of Spiral Mountain waiting for the goomba who had arrive with a look of consternation on her face to do something. She simply slapped a book to the ground in front of Kazooie.

“Kazooie I don’t know how you managed to set this up, but this book wanted me to steal it and it said so itself.” Goombella was miffed, stealing this book had been a walk in the park and only because the book wanted to be stolen. Goombella really didn’t want to steal the book, but it wanted her to take it here so here it was. She wouldn’t admit it, but she had found camaraderie with the book and she knew of problems entailing sentient books, so it would never work out between them and they should just stay friends.

“A book, that’s what’s going to get us home? What does it do?” Lyra was interested in the book for obvious reasons, she watched as Kazooie picked it up.

“This is not just any book, it’s the Light Prognosticus. It is a magical book that says what someone can do but it will never tell you what will come of taking said action. It was previously made to destroy dark prophecies, nowadays it’s used as reference guide for generally good ideas. Here I’ll demonstrate it for you; I’ve always wanted to know one very important question about my personal life and it’s why I tried to steal it previously. The book prevented me from stealing it last time by making sure it was lost for a period of time long enough that I’d become bored with the idea of stealing it.” It was clear that Kazooie was annoyed at the presence of the book, but the book glowed anyway as it had an answer to an important question Kazooie had always wanted to know.

Opening the book, Kazooie read what was inside. She quickly dropped the book and backed away like it was made of anti-matter. In essence she jumped a good thirty feet backwards with the use of stretched legs. Kazooie was now cowering far away from the book, Screwball made her way over to Kazooie to make sure her mother was okay.

Banjo being the brave bear he was picked it up and read what Kazooie had always wanted to know.

“A butterfly shall flap its wings, you need eventually to fix the broken and it will begin the healing of many things.” Banjo didn’t read it out loud; he looked at the passage below the one he just read and then closed the book. “Banjo shall close the book without thinking too much about this.”

Banjo understood why Kazooie had that reaction to the answer she sought. She’s been fixing all kinds of things her entire life, as much as she broke them in the first place. It’s basically telling her to stay the course, though the thought of a butterfly flapping its wings was never a good sign for anything.

After taking a moment to ask his own silent question the book flashed and Banjo opened it.

“The power of ‘opening the way’ will be of great use to you soon.” Banjo smiled in understanding, so he closed the book and passed it off to Lyra’s magic.

Lyra closed her eyes and asked the book mentally with all of her might how they were going to get back to Equestria, the book flashed and she opened it to read it out loud for all to hear.

“No need to shout, seek the heart of a world out. You’ll find it ‘Over There’.” Lyra was now looking around frantically for what the book meant. “What does it mean I’ll find it over there? Over where, I don’t see a portal opening up anywhere around here.”

Goombella blinked once and then she had a huge grin on face, she knew what the book meant and she knew where they had to go.

“Eureka! We’ve got it; I know how to get to Equestria now. At least it doesn’t require me to follow a magical map this time. All you need to do is to get prepared Kazooie and we can go whenever you… want.” Her joy was short lasting, Goombella noticed the state Kazooie was in and made her way over to start comforting her too alongside Screwball.

“This doesn’t make any sense… but as long as you know what it means then okay. I can wait a few more days.” Closing the book Lyra reopened it. After asking it a slightly more personal question, Lyra reopened the book when it gave off the signature glow. “You can’t eat your yogurt without a spoon, your Bon-bon is still positively over the moon, especially with worry that her love isn’t coming home anytime soon. The action you should take is to listen and wait. Patience young mare will see you through.”

Lyra sighed; she passed the book off to the nearest being which was Derpy who decided to ask it a question.

“Of course I’ll be your friend; you will be eating muffins till your end. I have no guidance to give on this as you already know what actions to take. Hand me to the one named Retch.” Derpy clapped her cheerily hooves and closed the book and carried it over to the Mizar Ant in question. “I think it wants to answer a question for you.”

Retch asked a simple question for the likes of her, upon opening the book she was quite surprised by the response. She soon stood up and handed it off to Honey and squealed that she had something to do.

“Now I’ve got to ask, what’s the best way to keep you safe yet will be easily retrievable for the foreseeable future when I or others will need you the most.” Honey was pretty clever for an NPC, the response had her giving a nod and flying off. She didn’t return with the book, but she did see that Banjo was bear hugging his sister close to himself.

They all knew the book didn’t tell the future, but it must have been some revelation to get the annoying jerk that was the resident breeding seagull to be quiet and sad like that. Oh who was she kidding even if Kazooie called her wasp a million times she was still that bird’s friend.

Standing on Spiral Mountain holding the book, Chaos Zero held the book in his claw formed hand and it flashed. Out of curiosity Chaos opened the book, having been wondering what he should be doing.

“You’re best course of action is to sow chaos and reap harmony.” Were the only words the book had in it at the moment and Chaos tilted his head idly, before sloshing questioningly.

The book was definitely safe, now that it was protected by chaos itself.

Soon things in Equestria were about to get really bizarre.

Game Over, YEAH! (Cymbal clashing noise was heard.)

The Arising Cartoon Pony

by Darkonshadows

Prologue: Checking Up.

Screwball-Banjo

Train through Terror

Zippety Splat

Captured Kazooie

Mizar-able moods

Striking Out

Luma-nation

Toadally Screwy

Bugging Boarders

Bumble Bee Tuna

Spekkio-lations

Motor Mayhem

We'll Met Again

Goombella-shment

Eight Robot Smashers

Trinity Pt. 1

Trinity Pt. 2

Trinity Pt. 3

Trinity Pt. 4: Emergence

Trinity Final: Derparture for Space.

Preparing for the Sandstorm

Bubbly boosting ballad

No dust left

Hot topics

Good pony, Bad Girl

Just some fun

Epilogue: The Light Prognosticus