Randomness

Royal Palace, Canterlot

“[No, repeat after me: ‘Hello’]” says Luna while trying to motion Mario’s group to repeat what she said. She has been trying nearly all day to communicate with them, and the only one who is taking the lessons to heart is Waluigi.

“I don’t know what she’s saying,” grumbles Wario while rubbing his brow. To him, all he is hearing is horse sounds, and hearing Waluigi repeat such noises is both annoying and creepy.

“You don’t say,” says Mario sarcastically.

“[Halo],” says Waluigi slowly.

Mario and Wario look at Waluigi, their patience is quickly draining for everything. They have a job to do and instead of trying to apprehend a dangerous creature, they are stuck in a royal bedroom taking language lessons from a horse.

“[No, it’s ‘Hello’],” says Luna patiently.

“This is a waste of time!” snaps Wario.

“Agreed. We need to get out of here,” says Mario with a quick nod.

Mario and Wario stand up and try to get Waluigi to stand up as well, but he holds up hand and says “Ahahaha” and looks at Luna while stroking his chin in deep thought. The two stare at Waluigi, waiting for him to do whatever it is he’s going to do, and the ticking clock does a fantastic job of grinding their gears. Finally, after the longest five seconds of the day, a bright light bulb turns on in Waluigi’s head and he gets a confident smile.

“[Hello],” says Waluigi, his tone matching the confidence in his smile.

Luna squeals and claps her hooves together, making Mario and Wario scratch their heads. They had seen plenty of weird things, but seeing an equine clap is one for the books.

“[Well done! Well done, Waluigi!]” praises Luna.

Waluigi smiles smugly at his partners and winks. The other two grimace and look at the Night Princess and wonder what has gotten her so excited.

“I think I’m making progress” says Waluigi proudly.

“Yeah, well guess what? Playtime’s over with the horse. We have to go” says Wario sternly.

“They aren’t horses! They are ponies! Very adorable, intelligent ponies that are a gift from God Himself to show us the goodness of the universe!”

Waluigi scoots next to Luna and hugs her, his eyes start tearing up and he begins sniffling, which, in turn, gives him a great whiff of her fantastic shampoo. Overacting and overreacting. Just another thing to add to the list of nonsense the group has been through in a short timespan.

“She even smells great! Go on, sniff her!”

“Uh... Waluigi, I think you’re-” starts Mario uneasily.

“They have souls and cultures!” sobs Waluigi hysterically. “They are no different from us and she’s been so helpful trying to teach us the ways of her people and you guys are so obsessed with our mission that you haven’t stopped to smell the roses!”

Mario sighs irritably while he rubs his brow and does his darndest to keep his voice in check. It’s not that he doesn’t want to learn the ways of a new culture, he’s a traveler, he learns new cultures all the time! But they have to stop an extremely dangerous yoshi, and besides, he really isn’t in the mood to learn the ways of magical ponies.

“Waluigi,” begins Mario with forced patience, “we can’t stop to smell the roses because Rex will burn the roses if we don’t stop him.”

“Well did it ever occur to you that we must learn the language of the roses to make our job easier to accomplish?” retorts Waluigi.

“Wait? Are we learning flower languages now?” asks Wario.

“No, Wario, Waluigi wants us to learn pony with him,” says Mario.

“It’s Equestrian,” corrects Waluigi. “[Isn’t that left, Luna? Pineapples are forced vails?]”

Luna smiles and pats Waluigi’s back with her wing. “[We still have much work to do, Waluigi.]”

Waluigi grins and points at Luna while nodding at Mario and Wario. “See? She totally digs me.”

Wario and Mario facepalm while Waluigi continues practicing Equestrian with Luna.

“Waluigi, she’s a horse. Horses do not dig humans. They dig in dirt and poop all over the place,” says Wario through gritted teeth.

“As much fun as it is to learn a new language, it takes weeks to do so, and we don’t have weeks,” states Mario over Wario.

“[‘How do you do?’]” says Luna to Waluigi.

“[How do you do?]” repeats Waluigi as he clumsily shakes Luna’s hoof, then he looks at his teammates and says: “You wouldn’t understand. I feel a connection with this creature. Like we were meant to be buddies. Or something-” he takes a deep sniff and looks towards the ceiling dramatically with his hand balled over his heart “-more.”

“Okay, time to take a break!” says Mario, his concern for Waluigi’s sanity now jumping to number two on his list of important things to do.

Mario tugs Waluigi away and pushes him towards Wario. Luna appears to be hurt by this, and stands up when Wario and Waluigi get into a heated argument of some kind. But Mario smiles reassuringly at her and informs her that they do that all the time, not that she can understand him anyway.

“Love and tolerance, asshole!” shouts Waluigi.

Mario cringes at Waluigi’s outburst, and Luna ruffles her feathers and her eyes narrow. Mario holds up his hands defensively and takes a step back as she takes a threatening step forward.

“Uh, everything is okay, Your Highness... if you are a Highness” says Mario uneasily.

Luna is not convinced, and Mario chuckles nervously while looking at the bickering couple.

“You guys, you’re sounding like a married couple. Cool it!” orders Mario.

“He’s saying mean things about Luna!” whines Waluigi.

“I called her a horse,” says Wario defensively.

“She’s a pony!”

“Horse!”

“Pony!”

“Horse!”

“PONY!”

“HORSE!”

“ALICORN!” screams Mario.

Wario and Waluigi stop arguing and Mario steps next to Luna and point to her horn and lifts up one of her wings. Doing that makes her pull away and give him a dirty look, but she does calm down a bit when she sees that Mario is getting control over the situation that should’ve never occurred.

“Horn and wings mean she’s an alicorn,” states Mario in a mix of anger and a snobbish intellectual tone. “So she’s not a pony. She’s not a horse. She’s an alicorn. Now please. Stop. Arguing!”

That shuts them up.

Mario sighs and looks at Luna apologetically and forces himself to smile.

“Sorry, but sometimes I gotta straighten them out. Happened a lot during the Olympics,” says Mario.

“[We have no idea what you just said],” says Luna dryly.

“Yeah... okay. Listen, we’re going to need to have a team meeting, so please don’t kill us. Just relax and um... yeah.”

***

Luna watches Mario lead his teammates onto the balcony and have a private conversation with them. Luna sighs and sits down, and then summons an extra large can of caramel flavored “Xtreme Energy” energy drink. Of all the new edibles that took place over her thousand year “vacation”, as the elite so rudely say, energy drinks are her favorite. It’s because of energy drinks that Luna is able to stay up as late as she does reading over resolutions, destroying n00bs in onlines matches, and teaching aliens her language. However, she never taught aliens her language before, and so far it’s turning out to be an interesting experience.

When Luna takes a sip of the energy drink she gets the expected surge of energy, followed closely by the side effects of eye twitch, wing expansion, and jitters. Luckily for her, these side effects last only a second. But for the average pony, it lasts a good two minutes before slowing down. As for Celestia... well, Luna vowed to never let her have another one after seeing her play with the sun like a yoyo after having half a can. Some ponies just aren’t cut out to have energy drinks.

Luna does her best to sit still as she watches the three argue about whatever it is that they are arguing about, and when it becomes apparent that they are going to be at their throats for a while she decides to leave. She has some work to do anyway.

“Waluigi, we will be leaving your presence and will return shortly” says Luna politely.

“Okay, sun you soon flower,” says Waluigi with a wave, then he turns to Mario and says: “[Real men wear purple.]”

“[What does that have to do with anything?]” asks Mario, genuinely confused.

Luna beams and walks out of the room with full confidence that Waluigi can learn their language in no time. But as for the other two? They can take lessons when they want to, but she’ll keep her focus on Waluigi.

Luna walks out into the hallway and teleports herself into the Evidence Locker Room and heads straight towards the items that Mario’s group had with them when they arrived in the garden. Walking through the room is like going through a maze, and she’s glad that her status had given her the privilege of the guards not giving her any trouble. However, she swears that she hears some of the guards whistle at her as she walks by them. But after a strenuous fifteen minute search she finally finds what she’s looking for. A big box labeled: CASE: 12345: “VISITORS”.

Luna pulls the box out with her magic, sets it down on a table, and gently opens up the box. She pulls out a jumbo sized feather and turns it in front of her eyes to get a better look at it. It’s so simple, yet so amazing. She can see the magical residue radiating off of it, and it’s like nothing she’s ever seen before. And for some reason she wants to sniff it. She brings it closer to her nose and after a quick sniff the feather disappears in a puff of smoke and the smoke wraps around her neck and forms a yellow cape. The cape is snug, and surprisingly fits her perfectly.

Luna smiles and puffs out her chest while ruffling her feathers.

“This cape fits us well,” says Luna to herself with a bit of joy. She looks looks over her shoulder to see the extent of it and finds that it covers her whole back, leaving just enough room for her to use her wings comfortably. And speaking of comfortable, the cape is, by far, the most comfortable thing she was worn in a long time. Truly a gift from the mysterious beyond.

Luna smirks and takes a smug step forward, and the cape launches her off her feet and she crashes, head first, into one of the shelves, causing it to fall over and knock over the next shelf, and the domino effect takes over. Deafening crash after deafening crash echoes throughout the locker room, and loose papers and anything else that is light enough to fly around does. Luna groans and sits up while rubbing her head, and she looks around sheepishly at the damage caused by a simple step and winces when she hears guards crying out in pain and searching for their buried comrades.

“Oops,” whispers Luna shamefully.

She tries to take the cape off, but that somehow translates to the cape flinging her to the ceiling. Her head leaves a nasty crack on the ceiling and stars dance around her vision for a moment after she belly flops on the floor. After crashing to the floor, she tries again to get the cape off, this time using magic, but that proves to be a huge mistake.

***

Waluigi is sitting on the bed, having a not so exciting staring contest with the day guards. Unlike the Night Guards, these one didn’t have a personality and Waluigi actually poked them to make sure that they weren’t statues. He even went as far as poking one in the eye, and that led to a painful kick in the crotch and that guard being replaced by a pony that looked more like a horse on steroids.

Waluigi huffs, and in turn, the massive replacement guard huffs, blowing away a layer of dust Waluigi didn’t even realize was there. He took that as a sign to move across the room. By Mario. Where it is safe from unnaturally big ponies.

Mario and Wario are sitting on the balcony, staring at the city in front of them, and literally twiddling their thumbs. After their argument, things have cooled down drastically, and now everyone is bored.

“I’m hungry,” blurts Wario suddenly.

“Too bad,” says Mario without hesitation.

“I get grumpy when I’m hungry.”

“And I get grumpy when Peach puts guacamole in cakes.”

Wario glances at Mario out of the corner of his eye. “When I get grumpy, I get hungry. And when I get hungry baby birds die because I love eggs.”

“So when you’re grumpy, you’re hungry, and when you’re hungry, you’re grumpy.”

“It is a vicious cycle that can only be stopped by the blood of babies.”

Mario slams his hands on his knees and stands up. “That's it, you have officially creeped me out.”

Mario walks past Waluigi and Luigi’s drooling clone sits where Mario was previously.

“I’m bored,” whines Waluigi. “I wish something exciting would happen.”

“We could play Ultimate Scrabble, again,” suggests Wario.

“We never played Ultimate Scrabble. Do they even have Scrabble here?”

Wario shrugs. “Don’t know, but now that you mentioned it, I am wishing for something to happen. Like us being freed or an explosion.”

Suddenly, the garden explodes and Wario and Waluigi fall out of their seats, shielding their eyes from the massive explosion of dirt, fertilizer, and concrete. A horrified shriek rings out from the explosion and a blue blur shoots into the sky. Wario jumps to his feet and squints his eyes to get a better look at the speeding streak.

“Well crap, Mario is not going to like this,” says Wario worryingly.

“What happened!” yells Mario frantically as he runs to the balcony with the two guards in the room.

Wario points towards the blur, which is now twisting and twirling. “I think Sonic followed us here and got ahold of some drugs!”

“What!?”

“Yeah! He completely blew up a garden and is now flying around like a maniac!”

“No!” says Waluigi suddenly. Mario and Wario look at Waluigi, and he cranes his neck as he leans over the railing in a feeble attempt to get a closer look at the screaming blur. “That not Sonic, that is Princess Luna! She must’ve gotten a hold of one of our capes, and now the cape is reacting to her godly powers!”

Waluigi turns around, not caring about the dumbfounded looks his teammates are giving him. He puffs out his chest and presses his thumb against his heart, wincing slightly when the screaming hurts his ears.

“I must save the princess!” says Waluigi dramatically.

“Waluigi, this is a powerful being who is going nuts with a cape! She’s going to get you killed!” says Wario angrily, although the others know that he’s worried about Waluigi’s safety.

“Mario, you know we can’t sit idly by while someone is in danger!”

“You’re right, we can’t,” says Mario while trying to remain calm about the odd situation. “But we’re going to need a way to stop-”

Luna zooms by the window and her shriek is so loud that it shatters the glass, making the group duck and clutch their ears instinctively. But despite their best efforts, the shriek momentarily destroys the their hearing.

“I cannot wait any longer! I will save my princess!” exclaims Waluigi dramatically.

Waluigi runs towards the balcony as Luna zips by again and Wario and Mario chase after him. Then he screams “I’m coming, Luna!” and swan dives off the balcony. Wario and Mario skid to a halt, horrified by what they just saw, and hesitantly look over the edge. Then a blur speeds past them high into the sky with two sets of screaming to go along with it.

“Well butcher my ears and call me Rick, he did it. He actually landed on a princess,” says Wario proudly.

Mario nods, but halfway through his nod the stupidity of Wario’s statement sinks in and Mario slowly looks at his clone. Wario sniffles proudly and wipes a tear from his eye and Mario shakes his head and looks back at the odd spectacle.

*

Waluigi jumps on Luna’s back with amazing accuracy and quickly wraps his arms around her neck. The alicorn twirls and does loops in the air while screaming hysterically. Waluigi can feel his eyes drying out and his grip loosening. He adjusts his grip around Luna’s neck and reaches for the clipping on the cape.

“I... Must... Not... Fail!” says Waluigi, his speech distorted by the way the wind is practically ripping his cheeks off.

When he finally gets a good grip on the cape’s clip and he gives it a hard tug. A little too hard of a tug, though. Waluigi flies off of Luna’s back with the cape in his grip and he laughs victoriously even though he’s falling from hundreds feet in the air. But he’s not panicking because he knows that all he has to do is put the cape on and he can fly.

But the cape suddenly bursts into flames and a demonic face appears in the fire and shrieks at Waluigi with a terrifying howl that makes Waluigi shriek and try to let go. But the cape is glued to his hands and is now refusing to leave him.

“YOU HAVE PARTED ME FROM MY MASTER! YOU SHALL DIE A PEASANT’S DEATH!” roars the burning cape.

Waluigi shrieks and flails his arms in a desperate attempt to get the cape away, but the fiery monster wraps itself around Waluigi and its face expands twice its original size and moves in to bite his head off. But then a blue beam rips through the entity and it shrieks in pain as it dissolves into oblivion. Then Luna flies through the remains of the cape creature and wraps her hooves Waluigi and they swoop up right before hitting the ground. Waluigi looks down and realizes how close he was to splattering and laughs nervously, then he smiles thankfully at Luna.

“[Thank her, your sunny seat,]” says Waluigi gratefully.

Luna chuckles. “[We should be the one thanking you, Waluigi.]”

Then Luna hits white brick of the palace wall, and the two fall stiff to the ground with perfect imprints shaped as them marking where they hit.

Everything freezes and Pinkie Pie tsks as she walks out from the next chapter, shaking her head. She sits directly in front of the screen and looks at you, fellow readers, with a solemn expression.

“Well,” sighs Pinkie Pie depressingly. “How long has it been since this thing was updated? Quite a while, huh? Well, of course it has since Marky Mark here decided to cancel the thing.”

Pinkie Pie puts on Rarity’s glasses pulls out a chart showing the statistics of Randomness from off the screen.

“As Mark’s favorite pony of Twilight’s entourage -and my neat ability to break the fourth wall, which is in serious abuse right now- I have been chosen to explain to you, fellow readers of this messed up story, why it was canceled and what Mark intends to do about it.”

Pinkie Pie clears her throat and points at the pie chart with a ruler from Cheerilee’s classroom. The chart is split into categories labeled: grammar, rating, and development. Development makes up seventy percent of the chart while grammar makes up twenty five percent, leaving the last five percent to rating.

“As you can see,” begins Pinkie Pie with matter-of-fact tone that would make Twilight proud, “the majority of why Mark cancelled this project is because the story had no development. Nothing made sense, everything was random. We had all kinds of stuff, like sporadic violence, out-of-character characters, and lots of Luigi abuse. As a wise person once said: If you got no story, porn it with explosions. And Mark took it to heart.”

Pinkie Pie flips the page to show a more intricate detail of the development part of the pie chart. The majority of the page is taken up by Rex flipping everyone the bird.

“After some meditating, Mark realized that this story was going the wrong route. He wanted a comedy, but it was quickly turning into some kind of ugly, pointless, horrible thing that nobody would like. After having a dramatic interview with Mark, I discovered that he was actually trying to do a parody of crossover’s, but his dark imagination and horrible planning skills took him down a bad path.”

Pinkie Pie slaps Rex’s face with a ruler.

“He also stated that he likes Rex as a yoshi-Joker, but felt that he was the main reason for Randomness’s mess, but plans on using him for something else that isn’t pony related.”

Pinkie Pie flips the page again to the more detailed approach at grammar.

“Mark also puts the blame of this massive fail on poor grammar. He admits that he sucked at grammar, but now claims that he got better. Should we believe him? Probably. I mean he is writing Mare-Do-Well: Regeneration, and I guess it’s good because of all of those green thumbs and favorites. But I haven’t read it because it looks too serious for me. Which brings me to my next point. He said that the mix of poor grammar and lack of story made Randomness impossible to fix, and-” she flips the page to another detailed graph, this time of the voting ratio for Randomness “-fully agrees with the downvotes and wondered how it was possible that this, I quote, ‘poor excuse for a comedy wasn’t destroyed by a train?’, end quote.”

Pinkie Pie flips the page again to a picture of Mark Garg Von Herb’s avatar.

“So Mark is now proposing a reboot of Randomness, except this time it will be bigger, better, and feature less Joker-yoshis and more story. And apparently it will be under a different name and have a different story and a bunch of other stuff that I didn’t really catch.”

Pinkie Pie looks at the clock on your computer screen, and her eyes bulge to twice their size as she realizes the horribleness of what she is seeing.

“Oh my gosh! I’m late for something super important! Bye guys!”

Pinkie Pie zooms off of the screen and leaves a trail of happiness for everyone to download and make the world a better place.

So officially concludes a weak story that is being canceled for all the right reasons in the weakest way possible.