Obama Sweeps: The Barrier
This S**t’s More Real Than Kraft Mayo
This S**t’s More Real Than Kraft Mayo
The date was October 11, 2012 when the Eighth Continent appeared in the Atlantic Ocean. To be entirely accurate, it was suspended precisely 300 feet above sea level when it arrived, but for semantic purposes was still ‘in’ the Atlantic Ocean as much as an airplane is ‘in’ a given country despite being a considerable distance above it. Regardless of the semantic confusion the fact remained that there was now an eighth major landmass, and scientists all over the world simultaneously began flipping the fuck out over the readings on their equipment, which were also flipping the fuck out.
The public first got wind of it when a small commercial airplane in the Atlantic Ocean passed over the continent, and the 300 people onboard uploaded photographs and videos to the Internet. Needless to say, within twenty minutes of the Eighth Continent’s arrival, every human being with access to the Internet was flipping the fuck out. It wasn’t until several hours later, just when the world’s population managed to collectively calm down… the Barrier manifested.
The Barrier looked exactly like over nine thousand other fanfictions had described it – a giant, pink, shimmering sphere of energy with its center directly in line with that of Equestria. Kim Jong Un, biting the proverbial bullet on behalf of the other world leaders, redirected the nuclear missiles he was originally going to launch towards the White House to crash into the Barrier. You know, for science…and to prove that his nukes were legitimately deadly and that he wasn’t an utter political joke.
While he had managed to make (read: steal and repaint) Cold War Era nukes, as well as get and assemble the materials for a Shagohod, watching them fizzle out into a spray of flowers and cake upon hitting the Barrier in slow-motion replays sent him into a state of crippling, existential depression. This was only cured one hour later when Overlord Celestia’s press release was teleported into his office, informing the world leaders and the media outlets in their regions that the Barrier was designed to render human weaponry useless.
Oh, and the Barrier was expanding, humanity and its advancements were probably going to be eradicated in a manner of months, and the only way to survive was to be transformed into a pony. Also, don’t worry, fully functioning Conversion Bureaus would be up within the hour, having been pre-made and ready for teleporting.
President Obama stared at the press release in his hands. While this was shaping up to be an incredibly shitty apocalypse series made up of a number of ‘side stories,’ there was one thing he had that the other world leaders didn’t have.
A grim expression on his face, Obama reached down to a seemingly empty face of his desk and pressed a very specific section of the wood. There was a soft click as the hidden compartment, the existence of which had been passed down through the generations by a hidden message on the back of the Declaration of Independence, activated to reveal the President’s secret weapons. As Obama reached down to take hold of the objects within, his mind wandered to the story of where these items had originated.
“I still can’t believe these were given to George Washington nearly two centuries and a half ago,” Obama muttered, cradling the weapons in his hands. Pressing a button on one of the weapons, he was surprised by a flash of light that erupted from it almost instantly.
The Secret Servicemen, who had been standing outside the door, charged in and started waving their guns around. “Don’t shoot,” Obama quickly told the Servicemen, “Everything’s under control. Just put your guns down, already!”
“Sorry, Mister President. We were concerned for your well-being, that’s all.”
Obama pressed the button on the first device once more, and there was another flash of light. Nodding in satisfaction, he turned to his agents. “Boys –”
Cough.
“ – what?” Obama said, before getting a closer look. “Oh, sorry Pamela. I didn’t recognize you with that darker shade of brown in your hair.”
“That’s fine, sir. As you were saying?”
“Oh, right.” Obama cleared his throat. “Get me the Navy on the line.”
Several hours later, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise had came to a near standstill in the Atlantic. While the captain had been considerably worried about getting this close to the Barrier, which left a scant twenty feet between the edge of the deck and the Slowly Advancing Wall of Doom, Obama had told him this was exactly what needed to be done.
So there they were. Obama, standing fifteen feet away from the edge of the ship and forty-five feet from the Barrier itself, in his best suit and tie while the world watched. Most of them wondered what the hell he was doing, naturally, but some had to wonder what game he was playing here.
Obama reached into his pockets and retrieved the two weapons. Clicking the buttons on their fronts, they expanded from the size of marbles to the rough size of grapefruits. Throwing the first one forwards, Obama let loose a cry of “Your country needs YOU –”
A blinding flash as the weapon opened up, sending a beam of light onto the carrier’s deck in front of Obama. The creature that appeared when the light subsided looked like some kind of beagle, but with a natural beret on its head and a brush for a tail.
“Smeargle!” the president and Pokémon cried at the same time.
Meanwhile, kids all across the world were flipping their shits once they saw that yes, Pokémon were real and yes, Obama was a Pokémon trainer.
Now for a perspective change.
On the other side of the Barrier, Xenophobic Flander-Mage Catseye had gone right up to the edge of the continent to see what Obama was going to do. Rumors had spread of these legendary weapons that the humans claimed would break the Barrier, but while everypony else who was usually a main character seemed content ignoring it and planning the inevitable invasion arc, Catseye wanted to see this for herself.
After all, if the filthy, irredeemable humans DID have a way to destroy the Barrier, she wanted to see this for herself. However, since the Barrier was cast by the finest mages in Equestria – all of them named Mary Sue, in addition to Catseye herself – she severely doubted it. It was the finest MacGuffin spell ever devised, employed in millions of offshoot timelines as an impenetrable wall of ethnic cleansing, and it had not failed her once.
Even if they did manage to destroy the Barrier, she had already cast her signature Xenophobic Flanderization enchantment over the whole continent, ‘inspiring’ ponies to take their rightful places as rulers of Existence. Already two million Potioneers were standing at the ready, ready to blot out Celestia’s glorious sun with soaring vials.
Still, there was this odd trope in literature about underestimating one’s opponents, one that Catseye as a writer and shameless author-insert knew very well. Considering that was how Equestrian victory was won in thirty thousand TCB universes, she had banked on that more times than she would have liked. Anyway, she had, er, ‘persuaded’ three alicorns, the Mane Six, Doctor Whooves, and even Blueblood in a golem mech to be present as well.
…yeah, she had this universe in the bag.
After watching Barack Obama to throw out some weird painter dog and shout something that sounded like ‘Shell Smash’ a few times – the Barrier was good for so many things, but hearing things from across it was weird and warbled language something fierce – Catseye was left wondering what his angle was. Was this some kind of a joke? A crackfic written by one of her fans in which the humans have one last, crazy attempt at destroying the Barrier before failing miserably and becoming the perfect ponies they were always meant to be?
…
Wait. He just sent the painter dog thing back. What was that he had said a few seconds before…
“Baton Pass?”
What in Tartarus was that supposed to –
Was that…a big red fish?
Obama brought back the painter dog…in order to summon a big red fish that was just flopping around with this pathetic scowl on its face?
He thought THAT would break the Barrier?
She tried her hardest, she really did, but she couldn’t stop herself from breaking out into a laughing fit.
On the other side of the Barrier, a massive set of stairs were being wheeled over in front of the Magikarp. A defector, one ‘King Sombra,’ had gladly made them when Obama had been asking for ‘a big damn set of stairs.’ Actually, that was the whole reason he defected – the first mention of stairs, and the spell over him had broken instantly. He had teleported straight over and conjured it all with dark crystal magic, beaming with pride at his exact angles on each step.
That was why his cutie mark was a set of flawless stairs after all – he was an incredible stair-smith.
Back to the meat of our plot, pun possibly intended, Obama took a knee next to Magikarp. “Now, uh, ‘James Tiberious Magikarp’…” Obama started, before pausing to recheck the nickname label on the Pokeball. Sure enough, that was its actual name. Obama briefly wondered how George Washington could have made a Star Trek pun over a century and a quarter before Star Trek was even a ‘thing.’
“Karp,” said James Tiberious Magikarp.
Obama snapped out of his musing. He looked up at the wide, tall stairs leading up to the Barrier, and Obama gestured with a hand to the staircase in question. “Do you see those stairs?”
“Karp.”
“Now, here’s what I want you to do,” Obama said, now holding one wrist in his other hand. “I want you to use Bounce on those stairs, climb up to the top of them, and then attack the Barrier with Flail. The human race is counting on your service, James. Can you destroy the Barrier and save the world?”
“Karp.”
“Godspeed, James Tiberious Magikarp,” Obama said, saluting the fish Pokémon. Standing to his full height and pointing in a manner that brought an image of an Ace Attorney to mind, Obama said, “Magikarp…ascend.”
From out of nowhere, a bunch of living boomboxes on legs – Legsteps if you will – appeared in a half-circle around the President and the Pokémon, the open face of the formation facing the Barrier. They then kicked up a very fitting beat as Magikarp ascended the forty-foot stairs.
On the other side of the Barrier, Catseye spotted the Magikarp resting at the top of the stairs, staring down menacingly. This only made Catseye laugh harder.
Looking down one final time, James Tiberious Magikarp thought back to his father, who had been eaten by ponies in another TCB universe.
‘My name is James Tiberious Magikarp,’ he said, roaring his fury to the heavens. ‘You killed my father. Prepare to die!’
James Tiberious Magikarp used Bounce one last time, then prepared to use Flail the second before he hit the Barrier…
“Karp Kar Magikarp. Kar Mag Karp Magi. Karp Karp Karp!”
Then there was a comical ‘sproing’ sound as it launched itself off of the stairs. Catseye began to laugh so hard she would nearly faint…
…only to have it die off the second she heard the Barrier rapidly crack, shatter, and break in the space of a matter of nanoseconds.
“Oh, you have got to be 
ing kidding me…” she said, eyes shooting open in dawning horror.
Obama’s Magikarp then plowed though the remains of the Barrier, landing on her in such a way that it killed Catseye instantly. While the light left the misanthropic Author Avatar’s eyes, her carefully woven spell over the citizens of Equestria shattered like a team of legendaries against the godly might of one fully set up Magikarp.
Or, you know, just like the Barrier.
And so, with their original personalities in place once again, the Equestrians fully threw out anything made towards the ultimate purpose of exterminating the human race.
In the end, while no overblown war novels or borderline autoerotic misanthropic fantasties were ever given a chance to develop in that universe, Equestrians and Mankind ended up agreeing to work together in a pact of Friendship and Magic (to almost no one’s surprise). As in any Golden Age of Friendship, Magic, and Science, there was much rejoicing…
…except for Catseye. She watched on from the Afterlife, spending the rest of eternity cycling between weeping for her shattered dream of a human-free multiverse and being royally pissed off that she was killed by a fucking Magikarp.
Author's Note
Thought I'd crank out a quick crackfic for April Fool's day, so this happened.
Disclaimer: I have no personal issues with the writer commonly associated with the OC. I actually am inspired by her dedication to write, and the sheer volume of her works. I suggest the readers also pay close attention to which name I used, and the ultimate conclusion of the story.
