One day, a young colt found a briefcase in the park, and he was wearing one of those beanies with a little propeller on top—which was an obvious sign that this colt wasn’t very bright. His name was Button Mash, and what he was doing in the park at the time wasn’t really important. But as soon as he laid eyes upon that mysterious briefcase, the fate of the world was sealed in total annihilation.
Button Mash knew better than to look through random objects that weren’t his, but he was a culturally uneducated, naïve twit. His mother tried to teach him common decency, but his head was simply too dense to comprehend that which couldn’t be transmitted with flashy lights and annoying sounds. It was mostly for these reasons that he wandered right up to that mysterious briefcase and poked it with his grubby little hoof.
As if appalled by the physical contact, the briefcase toppled over and sprung open as if to retch. But it was a briefcase and therefore lacked the necessary bodily functions to do so. All it did was let Button Mash get a good look at its insides, and a glowing red light shined over his glassy eyes. Unfortunately, Button Mash was attracted to glowing lights like a moth to an open flame, and he became very interested in this briefcase despite the fact the color red is a universal symbol for very bad things.
There were ponies all around the park, and any one of them could’ve been this briefcase’s rightful owner. Even though none of them were, the idea of being caught with something that obviously he should have nothing to do with never entered Button Mash’s thick skull. He nudged the briefcase open even more and found a curious device inside.
On one side of the briefcase there was a thin video screen of some sort, proudly displaying the number 0 in fat red lights like one would find on an alarm clock excited to ruin some humble pony’s slumber. A bundle of wires sprung out from behind the screen, thick like a ball of yarn but not nearly as adorable, and they all ran around disorderly to the other side of the briefcase, where they connected to a small box with a giant red button on top.
Now, it doesn’t take an idiot to understand that giant red buttons are renown throughout the world and the movie industry as being harbingers of very bad things. But Button Mash wasn’t an idiot; he was something else. Something that lacked self control and rational thought, like an idiot. So he pressed that giant button, eager to discover what wonders it would do.
There was a beep and the number 0 turned into a 1, and Button Mash’s eyes lit up, soaking in the unassuming red light like some demonic beast. The propeller on his beanie spun in excitement—a worrying impossibility—and Button Mash slapped the giant red button a second time. This time, the 1 turned into a 2.
“Coooooooooool,” Button Mash said in a scratchy tone normal ears would find deeply aggravating, stressing the syllable as if he knew this and wanted to cause malicious harm. But he didn’t know, because he was also a dolt. And like a dolt, he kept next to that briefcase and its strange device that wasn’t his and he knew nothing about, and continued pressing that giant red button, again and again, for apparently no other reason than to see that number climb like the easily amused buffoon he was.
The counter made it to number 86 when the central fountain in the park spontaneously imploded with a pop! It turned into a neat pile of ash, which got washed away with the newly exposed water main that started flooding the surrounding area. Predictably, ponies started screaming and panicking. Except for Button Mash, who kept pressing that button oblivious to the pandemonium growing around him.
The counter continued to climb, and periodically things in Ponyville would start imploding into ash. Any omnipresent observer would easily be able to determine the correlation between these events, but most of those capable of observing were not omnipresent, like the inhabitants of Ponyville and Equestria at large. So the random and seemingly unattributed implosions continued randomly, unattributed. However, as statistics would prove should they have been able to be conjured for such circumstances, there were those oblivious ponies who would come to realize what was going on.
One of them happened to be the briefcase’s original owner, but he imploded into ash when the counter had reached 244. It was currently at 691, and thanks to Button Mash’s complete inability to observe his surroundings, it continued to climb. A shame, really, considering anyone else in his position would’ve been able to understand what was going on after the first nearby object turned to ash. Maybe the second, if they were really dumb. But they would’ve definitely stopped by now. Too bad Button Mash was such an easily amused, immature child. Which was exactly what he was.
The next pony to understand what was happening was Princess Twilight Sparkle, although she lacked the knowledge of this phenomenon’s cause. She had a book titled “Everything You Need To Know About Doomsday Devices, Spontaneous Implosion, And Convenient Plot Devices”, but that book had ironically been loaned out to an author friend of hers days before. But it didn’t matter; it was the 4,655th item to implode. She did find a book on irony, however, and that book hadn’t imploded yet. But it wasn’t useful to her so she kept looking.
Eventually, she gave up on her books and decided to look for the source directly, searching for anything abnormal in Ponyville, because if anything, Ponyville was prone to apocalyptic scenarios, which was certainly abnormal. So she had to look for things that were abnormally abnormal. It didn’t take long for her to find the one pony who wasn’t panicking as things turned to ash around them.
Pinkie Pie, however, vehemently claimed to have nothing to do with whatever was going on. And then she turned to ash. She was object number 10,607. Which pony, nobody could say for certain, because the only other witness in Ponyville was omnipresent, not omniscient. It didn’t matter who turned to ash first anyways, because the other did too when the counter hit 13,453.
The next pony to discover what was happening was an adorable unicorn named Amethyst Star. She happened to have been running around the park in circles, screaming at the top of her lungs until they gave and she collapsed, gasping for breath. Which happened to be right behind Button Mash, hunched over the briefcase like a Quasimanedo on a typewriter.
As soon as she regained her breath, she realized what was going on, and she ran up to Button Mash and did not hesitate to slap him across the face. There could’ve been better options, but this was clearly the right choice. She didn’t care if he was a child, because for a child, he was a culturally uneducated, naïve twit. But he was also a doofus, not that that information mattered right now. But it was worth pointing out he was a doofus, because he was one.
Immediately, Button Mash began to cry. His high-pitched siren call blared like a warning signal from afar. This unjust torment forced Amethyst Star to press the big red button herself. Blissfully, she turned to ash. Button Mash continued to cry, however, because he was a child, so it was no surprise he acted like a baby. The beanie on his head was an obvious sign of that.
But once he realized nopony was going to take his new toy away from him, he went right back to pressing that big red button again and again, like an animatronic with poor path finding capabilities. The counter would climb to a staggering 54,780 before the next pony would come along and try to stop him.
This pony was none other than Princess Celestia herself. She had been alerted to the ensuing catastrophe when Philomena turned to ash. He was a phoenix, however, but then his ashes turned to ashes, so she knew something was wrong. As it were, she actually knew about this doomsday device. Last time she saw it, it was tucked away under her mattress. How it got here was anyone’s guess. She secretly blamed the Babadook. Too bad she couldn’t interrogate him, because he was the 23,457th object to turn to ash.
When Princess Celestia arrived and demanded Button Mash stop pressing that button, he ignored her, because as it should be known by now, he was a culturally uneducated, naïve twit. But Princess Celestia was just too humble for everyone’s own good, and she couldn’t stop him in time from pressing the big red button for the 57,000th time. There was no reason why it was that particular number. But it was. And then the sun turned to ash. That didn’t make any sense. But it’s okay, because sensibility was one of the first things to turn to ash. The next thing to turn to ash was Princess Celestia, and what remained of the world mourned.
The moon quickly rose in a state of confusion. Then Princess Luna turned to ash, and nobody cared.
Button Mash continued to sit there, like the brain-damaged drone that he was, pressing that button, over and over, again and again. Even as the screams started to quiet and the world around him deteriorated, he sat there, pressing that darn button. Until eventually, after the counter peaked near one million, the device itself turned to ash.
Button Mash blinked for the first time in three days. Then he collapsed of dehydration. The End.
