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                     Running On Empty                      
                     -by Atlas_Nebula-                     
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                 This Story Does Not Exist                 
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This Story Does Not Exist
Everything you are about to read is shamelessly false, including this sentence.
Listen.
It isn’t easy being a puppet master. It especially isn’t easy being a puppet master when all your puppets are constantly moving and acting within their own little stories and just so happen to have minds of their own, and when the strings you use to control said puppets are made out of elastic rubber.
Not to mention that you have billions of these living machines to look after, and if one thing goes wrong then the entire system can collapse in on itself. I know it sounds impossible, and by all rights it should be, but I’ve proved that it can be done.
My tactic? Getting rid of the strings. Simple as that. You don’t even have to look through an instruction booklet to organize the largest puppet show ever devised, and it’s so simple in fact that almost anybody can pull it off. Most Creators overthink matters and try to be involved in the lives of their pleasant little toys, even going as so far as to create a fully free-thinking, entirely independant being just so the Creator doesn’t feel so alone anymore.
Sometimes when you want to strengthen the illusion that you have living things surrounding you, you have to train yourself to believe your own magic tricks.
This is nonsense, of course. A creature so complex and life-like would become self aware of the fact that they’re living inside a pocket universe, and soon they will preach to the puppets, your puppets, about how they live inside lines of text. The first machines to hear such things won’t believe the free one, but they think about it a little and the words get stuck in the back of their heads, and soon they start talking to their machine friends about what the crazy person had told them.
Word spreads, people start actually believing in what they’re hearing, and before long there’s a massive uproar about the world being nothing more than a plaything for some immature and surely irresponsible dimwit who spends too much time typing words onto a screen and too little time searching for the world that lies just outside his bedroom window.
Like I said, a fully independant machine is no good. It’s bad mojo. It’s the one thing that will most certainly knock down everything you’ve built up. Do yourself a favor and let go of the strings, and your biggest problem will have resolved itself. However, this doesn’t always work out. I’ve... admittedly sensed a glitch in my own pocket universe.
We’re on a train right now. It’s a colorful locomotive, almost as if it were made out of candy. For all I know it probably is. We’re heading back from the big city, Canterlot. It’s right behind us now. We’re not going back there anytime soon. You see that mare sitting across from me? The one with the light pink mane and the butterfly cutie mark? Don’t worry, she’s not the glitch. In fact she’s just as much of a machine as the other machines. Her name is Fluttershy, and she’s a kindness machine. She specializes in being kind and gentle to other people, or ponies in this case. She was designed to be kind. Good for her, I say. You should go hide now; I can see she’s about to ask me a question.
“M-Mister?” she says, looking at me from under her mane.
“Yes? You wondering about something? We’ll arrive in Ponyville in less than an hour, don’t you worry.” I know what her question’s going to be, but I like to play a part in this big play I’ve written for myself.
Besides, it doesn’t hurt to be nice to your puppets, because most of the time they’ll be nice in return. You’re happy, your machines are happy, everybody’s happy. Just a word of advice if you ever wanna become a Creator someday.
“No, I just... you keep looking out the window. Is there something catching your eye out there?” Oh. Fuck. She’s referring to you. From her perspective I’m staring out the cart window into something she can’t see herself. To her it would be nothing, but if only I could say the same for myself.
“Oh, uh... the grass. I hardly get to see how green the grass can be.”
“Y-You live in the city?”
“Most of the time, yes,” I say to her. The truth is that I live everywhere and yet nowhere at the same time. Although when stretched sideways and in circles and stared at with a drunken vision, then beaten to near-death with a stick, then yes, I live in the city most of the time I spend in this lovely little land of machines I’ve built. “They have a lot of colors in the city, you know. Especially the bright ones. Cities never sleep.” Every color in this world is bright and vibrant, almost painful for the eyes to comprehend at first.
I notice that the pegasus sitting across from me is starting to warm up to me a little, the muscles in her shoulders and thighs relaxing. Good for her, I say. She gets up and slowly comes to my seat before jumping up on it, her wings fluttering a bit as she lands next to me. She’s a pretty machine. Very pretty. A lot of creepy old men try to pet her beaver. Can’t blame them too much, but that doesn’t necessarily make it right.
A beaver is a small mammalian animal that builds dams out of wooden logs and has a distinctly flat and wide tail that’s designed to construct said dams. It kind of looks like a big squirrel, except maybe not nearly as friendly as a squirrel. It comes to most people as a surprise then that Fluttershy has an mildly well-behaved beaver. I have no interest in petting Fluttershy’s beaver, nor do I wish to see it, but I do want something else of hers. Her knowledge.
“What colors do you like, mister?” Fluttershy asks me unexpectedly.
“Um.”
“Pink? Sky blue? Maroon? Ruby...?”
“Sapphire, I-I think.” Truth is that I’m color blind. I couldn’t tell sapphire apart from other shade of blue. I decide to amuse my kindness machine for a second more. “I also like puke green, to be honest.”
“Oh... that’s... um... nice?” I can’t believe she’s actually blushing at that.
“If you say so. I kinda wonder, though. What colors do you like most?” Obviously pink, yellow, and oceanic blue. The kind of blue that can drown hundreds with its dark depths.
“I like pink, I g-guess...” Damn it, girl, say the rest of it! “Yellow’s a nice color too. so is blue, especially the kind you see in the ocean.” I notice her eyes go a bit starry for a second when she said ‘ocean’. Time to soften her up before I start asking the question I’ve been meaning to ask.
“I know this is going to sound a bit weird, but...”
“Everypony’s a bit weird.”
“Hm?”
“I’m not scared, if that’s what you’re w-wondering,” Fluttershy stammered, trying to hide the fact that she’s not used to talking to strangers. She’s so shy I feel sorry for her. I do have something loosely resembling a heart, you know. “Weird questions are like secrets. Everypony has at least a few in mind.”
“Um.”
“Can I help you, though?”
“Uh, yes. I was thinking... have you seen anypony on this train acting suspicious?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, M-Mister.”
“Look around you for a moment. Think of it as a game. Heck, it can be a game we can play together to pass the time. Look for somepony and try to make out what they’re thinking.”
“I don’t think I’m qualified for that...”
“Oh please, everypony’s their own psychologist,” I say before leaning into her and lifting my hoof in the direction of the couple diagonal of us. We see an earth pony mare and a unicorn stallion. The mare is clearly taking a nap, her curly mane pushed against the stallion’s shoulder, and she has that sweet little smile fortunate ponies have as they dream. The stallion looks to be almost unconscious himself, but willingly supports his friend by sitting upright. “What do you of make those two, Fluttershy?”
“I think... they’re in love.” Fluttershy herself presents a cute little smile.
“Newly married, still dating, been together for a long time maybe?” Knowing the answer beforehand, I want to see my kindness machine’s reaction.
“They’ve been through so much together. They’re heading back home to see their daughter again.”
“You think they have a daughter?”
“Well, um, statistically speaking they probably do if they have a foal. They would have such an adorable foal.” She’s not wrong about that. .
I try to hold back a kind-hearted chuckle, but considering I fail at many things I also fail at this one simple task. Not that the impossibly nice mare next to me seems to mind it. When you think about it, it really is amazing how genuine emotions can be in such a fabricated environment.
The two ponies in question are Written Script and Golden Harvest. I swear I didn’t give them those names. Most people tend to rename Golden Harvest after an overrated comedian, but that’s not what my job is. Being a Creator in a pocket universe like this one feels like... when you were a child and you had this bucket of LEGO blocks to mess around with. The pieces are already there, but it’s up to you on what you wanna do with them.
Pointing my hoof to the right slightly, Fluttershy’s eyes dart to the filly sitting behind the couple. She recognizes her.
So do I.
“Now what do you think of that little filly?”
“Babs Seed? I don’t know her personally, per se, but I’ve seen her before. She’s with Apple Bloom and her friends.”
“Hm. She’s alone, for some reason. Shouldn’t she be with her parents?”
“They don’t come along with her on travels, last time I checked...”
“Doesn’t sound like a fun home life, does it.”
“No, I guess not.”
Listen.
I’m not sure how, but the big-boned earth pony filly detected my presence. She was just looking down at nothing in particular a second ago, perhaps in deep thought about something. Now she’s looking up, glancing over in my direction, directly at my being, and I see her lips move as if she’s meaning to say something.
Her lips are moving, but I can’t tell what she means by this.
Ah, that’s the kicker!
She knows that I’m here. She knows that she’s the one I’ve been looking for. I have to get to her before the metaphorical plane crashes into the goddamn mountain!
“Mister?” Fluttershy asks me worriedly, as if I had gone into a coma and only now just woke up. She has the right to be worried. Her world can end at any minute if Babs chooses to let the truth out.
“Y-Yeah?” Damn, now I’m the one who's nervous.
“I think Babs might’ve seen you before.”
“No fucking shit.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry, I just... gimme a moment,” I say as I start scurrying from one side of the cart to the other in a hurry, like an insect trying to dodge lightning bolts in a thunderstorm. Skittishly I take a seat next to Babs, and now I can tell her glare has only intensified. I glance back at Fluttershy and wave my hoof. “Don’t worry, I’ll just have a little chat with her, then come right back here, okay?”
“O-Okay...” Fluttershy says, almost whispering, before she twiddles her hooves.
Now that I’ve reached my target, I’m not sure what to say to Babs. Not that I need to worry, since she fills in the awkward void that was our silence.
“You’re never gonna tell ‘em, are ya?” she asks imploringly, keeping a bit of a distance from my person as if it were coated with acid.
“If you don’t want your universe to devour its own asshole and die, then no, I’m never going to tell them. And neither should you.”
“Why not? Mah friends are fake, mah home is fake... What’s the danger of tellin’ the rest? Maybe they won’t take it so badly.”
“As badly as you seem to be taking it?” I say, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Trust me, this is me when I’m not pissed off,” Babs spits out with venom, and to further prove her point she jabs me in the ribs with her hoof. “Ah could kill ya right here and it wouldn’t matta’. Ya know why? ‘Cuz it’s all a lie anyways. Killin’ ya will be the only real thing Ah’ve ever done.”
Scorn, thy name is woman!
“You’re a violent little mare, aren’t you. I didn’t design you to be that way.”
“Ya didn’t design me to be like anything! Ah oughta-”
“Shhh!” Written Script behind us says as quietly as he can, obviously frustrated. “She’s trying to sleep here!”
“Sorry!” Babs whispers to him. “We’re tryin’ to keep our little talk civil here. Right?” She looks over to me with hatred in her eyes, as if I’m the worst pony she could be with right now. Well, I guess she wouldn’t be far off about that.
“Yeah. Right.” I nod innocently. “We’ll try to keep it down, Sir.”
“Don’t call me that. I work for a living,” the stallion says before going back to acting as his girlfriend’s pillow. Written Script is an obsessive compulsion machine. He spends much of his time writing screenplays for various film studios in Canterlot, although he also finds the time to be with Golden Harvest and their daughter, Dinky. Written Script does, in fact, work for a living.
“Anyways...” I say as I turn back to the all-too-aggressive filly next to me. “Think we can hold off this battle to the death till after we land at Ponyville?”
“How about Ah snap your dick off?”
“Wait, what?” Okay, that most certainly isn’t what little girls should be saying.
“Ya heard me. Now keep quiet ‘fore Ah lose mah cool here.” Babs grumbles and curls up beside me, her hind legs nearly touching her muzzle, either out of fatigue or an attempt to control herself. Probably the latter.
Having witnessed the ordeal from the other side of the cart, Fluttershy trots over to us, bearing a slight frown as she does so.
“Are you two...?”
“We’re doing fine, except for Babs being a little bi-” I try finishing my sentence, but seem to find that difficult with a hoof in my mouth. The chubby filly smiles at Fluttershy and makes sure I’m deepthroating her foreleg.
“We were just sharin’ some jokes with each otha’, Shy,” Babs says, then chuckles. “He was just about to say Ah’m a little too childish with my sense of humor, but Ah think it could clash with his well enough. Right?”
“Mmmph,” I murmur with what feels like a big brown cock of death in my mouth.
“Darn right. No need to worry ‘bout us, Shy.” As if hypnotized, the yellow pegasus slowly nods and starts turning away from us.
“Oh. Okay. Have fun you two...” With that, she goes back to her seat and minds her own business. Babs glares into my soul and lets out a low growl, like a tiger getting ready to pounce a pesky human who wandered into its territory. She’s going to get what she wants, whether that means me bowing down to her every whim or her destroying the world in the process.
“Looks like reinforcements ain’t comin’, Mister.”
What is it with females being masters of manipulation?
=(A/N)=
Listen.
Surprisingly, Babs didn’t rip my spine out through my rectum once we found an isolated spot away from town to have our little chat. Fluttershy, being the good kindness machine that she is, decided to invite us to her cottage for some lunch and tea. Fluttershy is not the pony I’m worrying about, of course. She does everything I subconsciously tell her to do. That is, of course, unless Babs interferes like she did back on the train.
This is why I feel the need to smack children sometimes.
Walking through the woods together, me and the chunky filly are not sure what to say to each other at the moment. I mean, how could we even begin with this? At least it’s lovely day out. I made it that way, of course. The sunbeams shine through the tree branches like something out a surrealist experimental film, so lively and piercing.
“Hey, uh... Ah got a question.”
“Yes, my child?”
“If you’re the Creator, and I have these powers, what does that make me?”
Good question. I stop and look down at Babs. If she was hellbent on making me suffer earlier, that time has long passed. Her body is tense, and her face distorted to carrying a defiant frown, like a student who doesn’t know what to do on the eve before a big project is due. A project that has yet to be even started.
“Hmm... What do you feel, Babs Seed?”
“Hopeless. Confused. Maybe a little relieved,” she says to me, lightly rubbing her own cheek with her hoof, her eyes hazy.
“Oh? Relieved?” What she means by that can’t be a good thing.
“Well, since none of the ponies Ah care about are real, I can get away with anythin’ and not feel bad about it,” Babs says, letting out a disheartened chuckle. “None of it matters if Ah know it doesn’t.”
“That’s not quite true, you know.”
“Prove me wrong.” Now that’s a challenge I’m willing to accept.
“Alright. Follow me, then. I have to show you something, and I know you don’t believe anything I say right now, but you’ll see what you’re dealing with.”
“Got nowhere else to go, Ah guess.” Babs sighs and follows my lead as we venture through the forest in the afternoon air, and soon enough we come across an opening where the trees part and a clear view of Ponyville can be seen.
From our vantage point up on a grassy cliff, the earth pony beside me blinks with bewilderment, and at what I know exactly.
“How did...” the filly whispers. “The town ain’t supposed to be here, is it.”
“No, it isn’t. I moved it, which wasn’t very hard. Took a second or two at the most.”
“Did ya just seriously fuck geography in the ass?”
“Yeeeeep!” I can’t help but grin widely.
“What’s that supposed to prove?”
“If I can do it, then so can you.”
“Wait... does this mean I’m a Creator too? Liar.”
“Close your eyes, and think about moving Ponyville somewhere else. Heck, think about pushing it, or picking it up like it’s an action figure and placing it in a different location.”
“Urrgh... Fine. But ya gotta hold your hooves over my eyes so Ah can concentrate.”
“Fair enough,” I say and do as I’m told, sitting next to Babs with my forelegs wrapped around her head. I hear a faint rumbling noise, and sure enough, the little filly’s trying her best to work this magic she didn’t even know she had thirty seconds ago.
What I witness next is something I thought only myself and others of my kind could do. Within moments the rural town of Ponyville is wiped from the plains it was just occupying. It’s as though an eraser cleared the town off the map like it was a curse word on a chalkboard. Babs quiets down from the low rumbling sound she was making and tries to open her eyes.
“Did Ah do it?”
“See for yourself,” I say to her as I release my grip on her eyes, and she looks down at the plains below us in amazement.
“It’s gone! It’s really gone!”
“Mhmm. Saw it myself. You... are a Creator, Babs. A Creator born in a pocket universe made by another Creator.”
“Woah... What does that make us?” Another good question. I rest my hoof on Babs’ shoulder and look at her with a genuine smile.
“I guess that makes us father and daughter, in a way. Co-rulers of our own world. Everything you see before you is yours. How does that sound?”
“Sounds like it could be fun," Babs says, her frown now turning upward.
Maybe this won't be so bad after all. I can keep her quiet about her knowledge while at the same time exploiting our powers and creating a universe that won't even resemble how it originally was sometimes. And the best part is that we don't have top worry about backlash so long as everything is in its rightful place by the end.
Wait. I just thought of something...
“Babs?”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“How did you discover that you’re the only non-machine in this pocket universe aside from yours truly?”
“Oh, Ah saw it in the fic description, among otha' things,” Babs giggles sheepishly. “Ya gotta cut back on the horse porn, Dad. Just sayin'.”
“...Fuck!”
FIN