友達の巨ホ˚ン (Tomodachi no Kyoupon/Friendship on Titan Ponies)
by Present Perfect
The sun blazed down onto the dusty, parched landscape of Ponyville. Ever since the Titan Ponies had appeared in Equestria five years ago, such harshness had become the norm, and the ponies had taken drastic measures to adapt. What set this morning apart from those of the last week, though, was a certain tranquility in the air. Sentries atop the Wall lazed in the morning sun's rays, for there was no immediate threat of pony-gobbling giants looming on the horizon. But within the high, girded walls that surrounded the town, all was not peaceful.
"Erenshy, you nearly got us all killed!"
In the guardhouse, Reinbow Dash of the Guard Corps was busy floating back and forth in the air while berating another pegasus in front of her.
"Come on, Captain," protested Arminlight Sparkle, getting between her friend and the incensed Captain of the Guard, "everypony made it through the last attack, and the Titan Ponies were driven back."
"Yeah." Reinbow rolled her eyes. "At the cost of how many homes?"
Arminlight huffed. "So you'd rather have a bunch of buildings left intact with nopony to live in them?"
"What? No, that's not what I--"
Stepping forward was a white unicorn in a green cape. The unicorn's thick purple-framed glasses lent an air of knowledge, as well as masking identity somewhat.
"All right," Zoeity said firmly, "I think you two have been at this long enough. We cannot blame what happened on Erenshy alone, and she remains an integral part of the Titan counteroffensive. Can we just let bygones be bygones and look ahead to the next looming attack?"
"Yeah!" piped up a pink pony with a poofy mane full of potatoes. "All this fighting and yelling isn't getting us anywhere. It's the Titan Ponies who are the real enemy, not you and me!"
She hopped over to where Erenshy lay huddled in a quivering mass behind a sofa.
"Come on, picklepuss," she said brightly, "let's get you out of here and throw you a party! It'll be a 'Thank the Kaiser We're Not All Dead Yet' party! Ooh, or maybe a potato party! I love those!"
Reinbow frowned. "Pinkasa Pie, you always throw potato parties."
"That's because potatoes are the bestest!" Pinkasa leapt into the air, flinging potatoes everywhere and sending the other ponies in the guardhouse ducking for cover. "Are you saying you don't think potatoes are the bestest?"
"Uh..." Reinbow didn't like the way Pinkasa was suddenly invading her personal space. "No?"
Pinkasa Pie moved up until her nose was fractions of an inch away from Reinbow's. She hissed, "That's just what a potato would say," before shoving one of the aforementioned vegetables into Reinbow's mouth. She then bounced away, laughing. "You're such a potato, Reinbow Dash!"
Reinbow spat the tuber out and grumbled.
"Well anyway," Arminlight said, clearing her throat after the hyperactive pony had left, "I'll grant you that last time was a close call. That's why Kaiser Celestia is sending my brother down from Canterlot."
"What?" Reinbow fell out of the air, plopping to the ground on her haunches. "As in, your Military Police Captain brother?"
"That's the one!"
"Arminlight, I don't need some stuffy desk jockey MP wonk stepping on my turf!" Reinbow growled. "You send the Kaiser a letter and tell her we don't need help!"
"No can do," Arminlight said, grinning smugly. "He should be here this afternoon!"
"Great," said Reinbow, covering her head, "just great." With a dramatic sigh, she lifted off the ground once again and fluttered over to Erenshy, who had since extricated herself from her neurotic conniption and had been simply staring off into space with something akin to timid nonchalance.
"You're off the hook this time, Erenshy," Reinbow said, nuzzling her gently, "but only because you're my waifu."
As Reinbow departed, Arminlight huffed and dashed after her, but not before giving Erenshy a nuzzle of her own. "Hey! You can't treat Erenshy that way! She's my waifu!"
As they left, Zoeity chuckled lightly and licked Erenshy gently along her cheek. "Don't worry, Erenshy. Everypony knows you're really my waifu." And with that, Erenshy was the only pony left in the guard house.
She sighed and dragged herself to the door.
"Why must I be afraid of everything?" she mumbled to herself. "It always makes things difficult for everypony. I wish I were braver. And I wish I wasn't everypony's waifu. It's so... taxing."
"Oh, there's my waifu!" Pinkasa Pie exclaimed as Erenshy left the guardhouse. She walked over and nuzzled said waifu, who sighed and went along with it.
SIE SIND DAS ESSEN UND WIR SIND DIE JÄGER
"Arminlight!"
A white unicorn stallion with two-toned blue hair swarmed in through the gate as soon as it was opened to him. With him was a small retinue of guards and a giant crate. The moment he entered Ponyville, he swept up his sister in an enormous hug, and she returned it in kind.
"It's so great to see you, big brother!"
He grinned ear to ear. "How've you been, little sis?"
"Pretty good, aside from the giant, marauding monsters," she said with a little laugh.
"Yeah, word from Ponyville travels fast." He shook his head and gave her a weak smile. "I'm sorry we can't do more to help."
"It's all right." Arminlight smiled warmly and pressed her hoof against his side. "You being here will be just what we need, I'm sure of it. Come on, I'll introduce you to everypony."
Arminlight's friends had lined up outside the gate to meet the new arrival. Zoeity had just drawn some water from the well and was still holding the bucket in a magical field. As soon as Arminlight's brother saw it, his eyes glaze over, his tongue lolled out, and he shouted "POOOOOL!" His robe suddenly vanished, leaving behind nothing but a tight blue speedo that matched his mane. He dove head-first into the bucket, knocking it out of Zoeity's magical grip. His head sank into it up to his shoulders and he landed on the ground, doing something of a butterfly stroke in midair.
Arminlight groaned. "Girls, meet my older brother, Haruka Armor. He... does that sometimes."
Erenshy listened, ears folded, as Haruka Armor laid out his plans for improving the defenses of Ponyville. Reinbow Dash was, of course, having none of it. She hovered back and forth over the table where the map of Ponyville and its surroundings had been laid out.
"Taking defenders off the South Wall is going to leave it vulnerable."
"You've been attacked from the south only once," Haruka Armor insisted. "I've run the numbers myself, Captain Dash."
Reinbow rolled her eyes and blew a raspberry. "Oh yeah. Like numbers are gonna save Ponyville. Just how many Titan Pony kills do you have again?"
"Five," Haruka Armor said without looking up.
"Yeah, see, I knew you couldn't--five?" Reinbow sputtered, her jaw dropping. "I only have four!"
"Which is very impressive." Haruka smirked. "And I thought you said you didn't care about numbers."
Reinbow sputtered and backwinged gently off the table without another word.
Haruka Armor stood and began to pace back and forth in front of an easel holding a large flipchart, using his magic to hold a pointer against the various diagrams as he spoke.
"The problem as we in Canterlot see it is that fighting the Titan Ponies is treating the symptoms, and not the source of the problem." He flipped the page to a diagram of Titan Pony anatomy as they understood it. "The Kaiser has decided that we try a new tactic."
"Whatever tactic it is, I'm sure it will work!" Arminlight leaned forward onto the table. Her eyes sparkled as she thought about the Kaiser.
"If she loves the Kaiser so much," Zoeity whispered to Pinkasa, "she should just marry her already." Pinkasa nodded and silently planned a marriage party, then began thinking about marrying a potato.
Haruka Armor flipped the page again. It was a picture of a large wooden crate, exactly like the one that had been brought into town with him earlier that day.
"The plan, my dear ponies--" he paused for dramatic effect-- "is friendship."
The gathered mares spoke as one: "Friendship?"
"Yes!" It was Haruka's turn for sparkling eyes. "If we bring friendship to the Titan Ponies, maybe they'll stop trying to eat us! All we have to do is try to reason with them."
"Wait, whoa, hold on, time out!" Reinbow Dash waved her hooves. "You can't reason with Titan Ponies! They're just big, dumb monsters!"
Haruka raised an eyebrow at her. "Have you tried?"
Reinbow scratched at the back of her neck. "Uh, well, no, not really... But I seriously don't think it'll work. I mean, how would you even get close enough to talk to them?"
"That's where our secret weapon comes in!" Haruka flipped pages one after another, and the rest were treated to a little show of the crate exploding open with a shower of question marks.
"Oooh, that was fun, do it again!" Pinkasa cheered, and ate a potato.
"Once we deploy our secret weapon," Haruka continued, "it will bring the Titan Ponies to their knees, at which point we can attempt to reason with them. The extra defenders on the North Wall will be there in case the plan goes wrong."
"If the Kaiser came up with it," Arminlight Sparkle said, her voice wistful, "I don't see how it could be anything but a success."
Everypony stared at Arminlight for a bit before Zoeity asked, "Well, when do we begin?"
"Just as soon as there's a Titan Pony attack."
The words had just left Haruka Armor's mouth when there was a scream outside.
"Titan Pony! Titan Pony approaching!"
"You just had to say it, didn't you?" Reinbow huffed, before zooming out of the room and leaving a rainbow contrail behind her. "C'mon, waifu!" she shouted, grabbing Erenshy along the way. The yellow pegasus eeped and covered her eyes with her hooves.
The Titan Pony was like many that had come before it, towering above the Wall which loomed over Ponyville. It had neither mane nor skin, just a collection of muscle tissue and tendons. Its eyes rolled wildly in its head and its teeth were sharp, perfect for eating ponies. Thankfully, no unicorn or pegasus Titans had ever been seen before, but the earth pony versions had strength rivaling that of any regular pony and could crush stones into rubble with ease, to say nothing of those who tried to stop them.
It would be less than a minute before the lumbering behemoth was within striking distance of the Wall. It was up to Reinbow Dash and the Guard Corps to make sure it didn't get that far, though so far they hadn't been able to stop more than one Titan Pony before it reached the Wall. That had been one of her many personal kills.
"It's a Flesh Titan, class two!" she cried, directing ponies left and right. "Erenshy, you take point. Carrot Jean and Annie Punch, crossbows and trebuchets as usual."
"What about me, Reinbow Dash?" asked a grey pegasus with yellow mane.
"Uhh... Derptholdt, you're, um, too valuable to put on the front line." Reinbow patted her on the shoulder. "You stay back in case it breaks through our lines."
"Okay..."
"Belay those orders!" shouted Haruka Armor. He stood atop the large wooden crate, brandishing his Military Police badge. "In the name of the Kaiser, none of you are to attack that Titan Pony! Leave it..."
He stomped on one edge of the crate twice, and the front panel fell off. There was, in fact, a large display of fireworks accompanying the thud of the panel hitting the ground.
"Oh boy, this is my favorite part!" Pinkasa shouted, hopping up and down. Potatoes were spilling out of her pockets.
Haruka Armor made a sweeping gesture and bowed. "...To our secret weapon!"
"Well howdy, y'all!" said a cheerful voice from the container. The dust cleared, revealing an orange earth pony mare with blonde mane, wearing a plaid school girl outfit. There was a stubby pink plastic rod tucked behind her ear.
"Citizens of Ponyville," Haruka Armor announced, "meet Appledoka!"
"That Titan Pony is getting closer!" Reinbow shouted, nibbling on her hooves. "Hurry up and do something already, or get out of the way and let us do it!"
Appledoka's eyes narrowed at the mention of the Titan Pony. She drew the rod from behind her ear and donned a leather Stetson hat. "Appledoka," she hissed between clenched teeth.
Raising the rod above her head, she shouted, "Apple prism power! Make up, y'all!"
The rod suddenly extended and the world washed away. Appledoka stood alone in a dark field of stars, a single red-tinted spotlight shining upon her. She twirled, and a shower of stars and apples emerged from the tip of the rod. Her clothing glowed bright white and vanished, drawing some scandalized gasps from those present. Then new clothing formed out of the light: a frilly pink skirt, a set of sleek white knee-high hoof boots, a set of really sweet pointy orange sunglasses, and finally a giant poofy bow with an apple on it.
Appledoka posed for a second, and then leapt the Wall with a single bound. Even Reinbow Dash was impressed, if the stiffness in her wings was any indicator.
Appledoka stood at the hooves of the Titan Pony, staring up at it in challenge. "In the name of apples, I shall punish you!"
The Titan Pony stepped on her.
There was another set of gasps from the ponies present, and no one moved until the Titan Pony approached the Wall and ate Carrot Jean. Then the ponies of Ponyville started screaming and running around in a panic, while Haruka Armor remained atop the crate, stock still and mouth agape.
"Don't worry, brother," Arminlight said. "I'm sure it was just a fluke. The Kaiser will save us in the end!"
Meanwhile, Erenshy was busy hiding behind some rubble atop the Wall. Erenshy had her hooves over her ears and her eyes shut tight. The Titan Pony was just in front of her, bashing at the Wall with its enormous head.
Why oh why did Reinbow have to put her on point? She was no good to anypony. Was it just because she thought Erenshy was her waifu?
Desperately trying to stick to the plan, she thought about all the ponies below. She thought about Appledoka, who had been really amazing for about thirty seconds before being turned into an orange smear beneath the Titan Pony's hoof. She thought about Arminlight, her best friend and also waifu. She thought about Pinkasa and how there would never be another potato party if this Titan Pony breached the Wall.
Erenshy knew she had to do something.
She stood as arrows and rocks flew over her head, impacting or bouncing off the Titan Pony's mammoth face. She flared her wings and stood straight, glaring at the Titan Pony. Somehow, it noticed her.
"Listen, you big meanie! I know you're big and tough and really hungry for ponies, but I will not, I repeat, will not let you hurt my friends!" She advanced on the Titan Pony and it actually shrank back from her steady gaze.
"All right, Erenshy, do it!" shouted Arminlight.
"Whoo-hoo, go Erenshy!" Pinkasa cried and there were potatoes everywhere.
"Good show!" Zoeity agreed.
Reinbow Dash hovered in midair, hooves clutched together against her chest as she gazed at her waifu. "Kawaii," she whispered.
The Titan Pony quailed as Erenshy flew up to perch on its nose. She glared into one of its eyes, which was bigger than her.
"What do you have to say for yourself, mister?"
The Titan Pony whimpered. Its whippy tail bent between its legs.
"There." Erenshy smiled. "You're not a bad Titan Pony. You just made a bad decision. But I forgive you and I even want to be your friend now."
The Titan Pony's ponderous mouth opened and for a moment, those present feared it might eat Erenshy. But instead, a sound like a mountain crumbling emerged from it.
"Frrrreeeeiiiiind?"
Haruka Armor grinned. "They can communicate! I knew it! Years of research have just been validated!"
"The Kaiser's plan is working!" Arminlight crowed. "I knew she wouldn't fail us!"
Reinbow Dash looked at Haruka Armor and puffed the mane out of her face. "I knew you were a desk jockey."
"FREEEEIIIIIND!"
The Titan Pony seemed to smile and began bucking in delight. The blood of the collective ponies ran cold.
"Friend! Friend! Friend! Friend!"
Suddenly, the ponies realized it wasn't the only one saying that. The trees rustled and parted as Titan Pony after Titan Pony emerged from the treeline. Each one was unique, and some were unlike anything the ponies of Ponyville had ever before seen. All of them chanted "Friend! Friend! Friend!" and shook the ground with their cavorting as they converged on the city.
"Um," said Erenshy, "n-now hold on, mister Titan Pony, m-maybe you and your friends should go for a picnic off in the Everfree Forest, a-away from Ponyville..."
Titan Ponies began to smash through the Wall, burying Ponyville in rubble and death. Haruka Armor's mouth dropped open again.
"Th-that's a class five! It's... It's..."
"It's a Fluffy Titan!" Reinbow screamed.
The ponies tried unsuccessfully to flee as the giant, pink fluffy pony smiled and smashed their homes.
"Hold me, Pinkasa!" Zoeity cried, hugging the pink pony. "I've always loved you!"
"Oh wow!" Pinkasa chirped. "I had no idea! I always thought you were more into--"
Her words were drowned out by the thunderous chant of "Friend! Friend! Friend!" The ponies huddled together and awaited the end.
There were no survivors.
Author's Note
DISCLAIMER: I have never watched Attack on Titan. I need to. But Alexstrazsa convinced me to write a crossover based on my knowledge of the show first, and that knowledge is, uh...
-There's a guy named Eren who's afraid of everything and also he's everyone's waifu.
-There's a chick obsessed with potatoes.
-There's someone named Zoe who is a transman, or who at least is never referred to with gendered language. (Tumblr told me this.)
-Titans, obvs, and they have classes and stuff.
-Yeah, I know they use Gravity Gear or whatever, but I kind of didn't include that.
-Walls.
-Post-apocalyptic wasteland setting.
-Seems like the kind of place that would have a Kaiser.
-Oh and I looked up a bunch of character names on Wikipedia, so I got some organization names too, but I didn't read about what any of them were like. :B Also I know nothing about Free or Magical Girl Madoka either except what Tumblr tells me.
So I hope you aren't too disappointed and had fun reading this story. It was supposed to be fun, not good. I had fun writing it, mostly on the road to and from Bronycon. If there's ever a better Attack on Titan crossover, I'll let you know.
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