Carmelo Anthony's Bad Day
Dec 25, 2014
Carmelo Anthony listlessly swiped his finger against his tablet's surface, scrolling through the Bleacher Report article. He frowned at the bold proclaimation that his team's season was a "Nightmare". This was not the Christmas present he needed.
"A nightmare?" he questioned no one in particular, since he was currently the sole occupant of the hotel room. "A nightmare!" he repeated. "They're right. This season is a listless mess. We can't play defense, we can't make shots, and we can't win games. Our team is a disaster! We've only won five games! Even the Charlette Hornets are doing better than us. And they stink!... Ugh, if only there was a way we could channel the Knicks greats of seasons past!" He wistfully thought of the great names which had preceded him. Names like Patrick Ewing, Walt Frazier, and Willis Reed. "If only," he mused, "I could take an entire team's talent and squeeze it into one player. Imagine... imagine the 1970 Knickerbockers, who fought tooth and nail to persevere over the Lakers in the Finals. Imagine that much raw talent infused in one person. Why, it would make them a beast on the court. He thought back to the article headline, and a wicked smile grew upon his face. "Why, for the opposing team, that player would be... a nightmare."
After the prerequisite evil cackling, Carmelo got right to work. He needed to learn the dark arts. Fortunately he had plenty of sources available to him. He started up Netflix and cued up the first three seasons of Supernatural, all of Gravity Falls, the Harry Potter Series, and the really old version of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. That was a lot of material, but fortunately he had had learned a time travelling technique from Fluttershy, so he just drank lots of soda and looped through the same day five or six times in a row until he had watched all that. He had some trouble staying awake the first few days, but then he realized that he was in New York City, aka land of powdered cocaine, and he easily scored himself a hit. That stuff kept him up alright.
Having powered through the dark magic crash course he was ready to begin. First, he strolled down to the local public library and printed out black and white portrait photographs of all the team members on the roster of the 1969-1970 New York Knickerbockers. Aren't library cards wonderful? Next he needed his ~~victim~~ volunteer. Taking inspiration from Captain America, he figured he would use the weakest player on the team for the possession. This was a little hard to decide, considering how horribly his team stunk this season, but he eventually settled on Andrea Bargnani, who hardly played anyway. He was staying in the same hotel, and thus was easy to find. Carmelo bribed one of the housekeepers with cocaine to slip him an extra keycard, and 'Melo entered Andrea's room unimpeded.
"Hello, Mellow 'Melo, how are you?" asked the oft-injured power forward/center, who was sitting at the suite's kitchen table.
"Not as well"--it's important to know when to say "good" and when to say "well" --as you're going to be doing," Anthony replied cryptically.
"What does that--ACK!" Andrea didn't get a chance to finish his sentence because his teammate had covered his mouth and nose with a chloroform-soaked cloth. The taller man panicked and began to hyperventilate, rapidly pumping the anesthetic into his lungs. "Curse your sudden buuut inevitabeth behtrayyyy..." And with that, Andrea Bargnani collapsed, his huge body sagging into the chair. Carmelo held the cloth there an extra moment, then gently laid the other man's head down onto the table. It was time to enact the next step of the plan.
Pencil Pusher was a software engineer who lived in Sunnyvale, California, which ironically was not as sunny as Pasadena. He had recently been promoted and was currently sitting in his windowless office trying to compile code or something. Suddenly at 11:26 a.m. a portal formed in his ceiling. It was all swirly and mysterious like portals are wont to be and looked kind of like the back of a Yu-Gi-Oh! card, except it was on his ceiling. It was probably about three feet in diameter. Maybe a little more. It's not really important. What is important is what dropped out of this portal. Lyral dropped out of this portal. Fortunately she was right-side-up. She fell through the air and landed with a hard THWOMP upon the carpeted floor with all four hooves. She bent her legs to break the fall, but it still probably wasn't very good for her knees. She was lucky Pencil Pusher worked on a ground floor, or else she might have broken through the floor and that would have been very bad for a number of reasons.
Pencil jumped in his seat at the booming sound that had just emanated from the ground behind him. His eyes wide and his hand upon his swiftly thumping chest, he turned around to find the aforementioned hole in the ceiling and pony on the ground, shaking its legs out and muttering to itself in mild pain. It noticed the human staring at it, and its mouth opened, with words coming out: "Aha, success! Hello, Pencil Pusher!"
The startled coder rolled his rolly-chair over to his office door (he was the kind of awesome software engineer who through tireless slaving as a cog in the metaphorical differentiation machine had advanced to having his own office, if only for plot convenience) and taciturnly pushed it shut. Lyra stared in awe at the way his hands gripped the door handle. Hands. She'd never tire of them, no matter how many stories were written reducing her to a one-note character.
The software engineer then turned swiveled about to face the impossible creature standing in the room. "Who are you, and how much peyote did you slip into my coffee this morning?"
Lyra laughed heartily. "Oh, Pencil, believe me this is real. You're not tripping. I'm the real deal. And I know you know me. You've written about me. Probably." Lyra surreptitiously filched a tablet off Pencil's desk, opened a web browser, went to LittleHorseWords.au, and looked up what Pencil Pusher had published there. "Aha, yep. You're no JasonThe~~Human~~Argonaut or shortskirtslongjacket but you did indeed write something about me being an unwitting participant in one of Twilight's experiments. I should read it sometime. Anyway, I'm very much real. Come on, touch me." She reached out a hoof.
The man skeptically leaned forward and touched a fingertip to the outstretched limb. It was indeed real. his eyes went even wider as he stood up and patted Lyra's barrel, shoulders, haunches, all over her. She was a real live technicolor talking minature horse. He felt the alicorn (old definition, not new one) of her horn in awe.
Lyra flinched "Uh, unicorn horns are kind of a no touchy zone. Please let go."
Pencil's hand flew back and he blushed. "Sorry. I just don't usually have hallucinations that feel this real."
Lyra frowned. "Dude. I'm real. This is real. This is all happening. You're not tripping or dreaming or anything, I swear. Now, do you want to know why I'm here?"
Pencil scratched behind his head. "Yeah, I don't believe you, but uh, sure. Why are you here?"
Lyra smiled and bounced in place a little. It was adorable. Mind you pretty much everything she does is, but still. "Why, Pencil Pusher, I thought you'd never ask! You see..."
She then regaled him with what had transpired so far in the tale of Nightmare Knicks. I'm going to skip this part, because you've already heard it and repeating it would be poor storytelling technique, though considering the material here it would be right at home.
"...So in summation, that is why I need you to come back with me to Equestria."
"What!?" Pencil interjected. "You've got to be kidding. I'm in the middle of a project. I can't just hop over to Equestria all willy nilly just 'cause some mages messed up their dark magic. I'm a busy guy! Plus, I mean, like, what if going through that portal is like a metaphor or something and I fall into a coma? That'd be way uncool. Sorry, Lyra, but I I'm afraid I must decline the invitation."
Lyra's lips pouted and her eyes watered. "Awww. Pleeeease? Look, Pencil Pusher, You're tall. You'd make a great center. Also, you seem to like wearing plaid flannel shirts, but that's not important. What is important is that..."
Pencil Pusher shot his hand out with a flick of the wrist in a sort of "talk to the hand" motion. "Lyra, I'm going to stop you right there. I may be tall for a white computer geek, but I am certainly not tall by NBA standards. I'm super lanky too. Like, Jerry West probably weighs at least 50 pounds more than me, and he's my height. He's also fairly short for an NBA player. For an NBA center you need to be looking for someone who's at least 6'10'' and probably a good 250 pounds. That's not me."
Lyra looked hurt. "But Pencil Pusher, though no fault of your own, you're sort of the one who indirectly inspired this whole mess. You gotta help us!"
The man sighed. "Look, is basketball a thing in Equestria? Like, I know you guys play polo, at least in the comics, and Rarity's dad (what ever his name is) has footballs as a cutie mark, though," he added as an aside, "I guess it would be called hoofball there? Anyway, does anypony else beside Nightmare Knicks even know how to play basketball?"
Lyra hadn't considered that. "You know, come to think of it, no. It's a cool game no doubt--I'll see if I can get some games set up or a league going or something once this whole affair blows over. But for now, no. She's the only pony who knows how to play. Unless someone's written a crossover with that beautifully surreal Charles Barkley game.. I'd pay money to read that. A small amount at least."
Lyra finally acknowledged Pencil Pusher's frantic "hurry up and get to the point" hand gestures. Upon noticing them, Lyra stood transfixed by them, her head head bobbing in synchronous gentle circles, because as everypony knows, Lyra loves hands. Finally snapping out of her trance, she concluded awkwardly, "Yeah, so, um, yeah, no, only her."
Pencil smiled. "Well then, there you go. Knicks wouldn't be able to field a team anyway. Just have Jerry West play her one on one. I'm sure he'll do fine."
Lyra sighed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I wanted to have a cool montage where I gathered a ragtag team, but I guess there's really no need for it. Sorry for bothering you, Pencil. I'll go now."
Pencil squatted down and wrapped his lanky arms around her neck. "Hey now, don't sweat it. You have your heart in the right place, and that's what's important. I have faith you and your friends will get this whole thing sorted out."
Lyra's eyes shimmered a little as she rose onto her hind legs to return the hug. "Thanks Pencil. For the advice and the encouragement and whatnot. I'll miss you."
Pencil smirked, ruffling her hair. "Silly filly, this isn't goodbye forever. This is just goodbye until next time. Now go. You have a bball player to couch."
Lyra trotted back to underneath the portal, turned, and saluted her friend. "You bet. I'll make you proud!" And with that her horn shimmered and she levitated herself back up into the portal, kind of like the Lorax, except he lifted himself by the seat of his pants with a sad, sad, sad backwards glance. Lyra left on a positive note. As her legs disappeared from view, the vortex shrunk until it too was gone. All that remained of Lyra's visit were four indentation in the carpet where she had landed. Pencil Pusher sighed deeply and slouched down into his chair. He took a long, long dreg of his coffee, shaking his head with scrunched eyebrows and pursed lips. "Man, today's been weird."
"I'll say," replied the potted petunia on his desk.
