Ponies Watch Red vs Blue

"Well, that was certainly an interesting adventure, wouldn't you say darlings?" Rarity began leaning back into the cushion of her seat.

"Yeah, no kidding! My wings still feel numb!" Rainbow agreed, stretching out her appendages. "I'm taking a hot bath when I get home!"

"I hope Harry doesn't mind me wanting to cuddle up with him," Fluttershy commented. "He's always so warm and fluffy."

"Ah'm just glad everything turned out alright in the end," Applejack said, leaning back and tipping her hat down over her eyes. "Ah think Ah'm just gonna get some shut-eye for now."

"It was really something else. I'm just happy Flurry Heart isn't going to be causing anywhere near as much trouble as before," Twilight sighed. "Although to be honest, she's so cute that I just can't get mad at her."

"And I'm glad I finally got to reconnect with Sunburst after all this time," Starlight added. "I really owe it to you, Spike. If you hadn't pushed me to go for it, I probably never would've patched things up. Not to mention the two of us wouldn't have found a way to repair the Crystal Heart and save the Empire."

"Aww shucks, it's nothing! Honestly, I kinda feel bad that all the fans of Spike the Brave and Glorious held up your friendship lesson," he replied, flexing his arms he announced his title, causing the rest of the girls to giggle.

"I'm happy that Princess Flurry Heart was such a fun little filly to play with! Even if she did almost cause the destruction of the entire Crystal Empire," Pinkie added, bouncing in place. "Maybe Cadance and Shining Armor will let me foalsit sometime!"

"We'll see, Pinkie. I'm sure the two of them wouldn't mind some time off in the future," Twilight said. "By the way Spike, what happened to the Friendship list I gave you?"

"Oh, uh... I guess I kinda lost it in all the excitement. Sorry," he answered, not wanting to let her know she just sent all her hard work away.

"Well, that's alright I guess. I suppose you didn't really need it after all."

"Oh, I just remembered!" Starlight exclaimed.

Everypony turned to face her, curious.

"Hey, Twilight, this might  sound strange but... You never planned to send a package to another dimension, did you?"

"... Huh?" Twilight asked aloud.

"Oh! I did once! I could just never find a postal service that could take it. Probably didn't help that I didn't know the address," Pinkie answered.

Everypony just stared for a moment.

"Right... Anyway," Starlight continued. "While I was trying to find my way around the palace I opened a closet and a box with a letter fell out, along with some other things. It looked kind of strange, so I started to read a tiny bit of it before we left, but with the whole Crystaling and Sunburst things going on, I complete forgot about it until now. The letter began with something like 'To whatever world or finds this package.'"

"Um... no, I certainly didn't do that. Spike, was that part of some game you were playing?" Twilight asked her assistant.

"Uh, nope. I think I'd remember something like that," he answered.

"Pinkie, Rainbow, this ain't one of either of yer pranks, is it?" Applejack asked, tipping her hat up a bit so she could see them.

"Nah, not me," Dash answered.

"Noperoonie," Pinkie shook her head.

"Oh my! You don't think it was... real, do you?" Fluttershy asked.

"Perish the thought," Rarity scoffed.

"Actually, let's not forget that I've been to an alternate Equestria before. So it is theoretically possible there are even more universes," Twilight commented.

"Oh, that's right. I forgot."

"Wait, you've been to an alternate Equestria!?" Starlight asked in shock.

"Oh, right, we never did tell you about that, did we?"

"I left it in my room before we left for the Crystal Empire," Starlight explained as she opened the door. "Right on my- OH NO!" she cried as she dashed over to the bed, seeing the items gone. "Wh-Where is it!? I'm sure I put it here!"

"Looking for this, my dear?" came a voice from behind them. They all turned to see Discord float away from the wall, his color changing like a chameleon as she returned to his normal colors, holding the letter and the box above his paw with a magical grasp.

"GAH! WHAT IS THAT!?" Starlight exclaimed.

"What rock have you been living under?" he asked indignantly.

"Oh, we never did introduce you, did we?" Twilight admitted sheepishly. "This is-"

"Let the professionals handle this, Twilight," Discord interrupted before floating over, grabbing Starlight's hoof and shaking it. "Hello, my dear. I'm Discord, master of Chaos, and you have the distinguished honor of being introduced to me." His arm the detached from him, scurried up to her neck to reveal a the top half of a miniature Discord on the other end. "Charmed, I'm sure," it said. Starlight squealed in shock as the arm flew back and reattached itself to the main body.

"Alright Discord, you've sufficiently freaked out my pupil. What do you want?" Twilight asked, annoyed.

"Oh, I'm just here for this little package," he replied, motioning to the box. "I can tell just by the feel of it. It's from another world, and more than that one that's almost nothing like Equestria." Discord smiled with glee. "Can you believe it!? A whole other world! One without all the gag-inducing levels of Harmony and Friendship here in Equestria! Oh, I wonder what it's like!? Maybe there's a Guardian of Chaos who has to defend the world from overbearing Order! Maybe it's a world with no magic and instead the creatures living there change their bodies to do what they want! Maybe it's a world populated by millions of underaged and unemployed amateur writers who all try to cross their favorite stories together and accuse everyone else's original characters as overpowered self-inserts to vicariously live out their fantasies with the characters of their stories!"

AUTHOR'S NOTES

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"... Uh huh," Twilight replied. "Well, before we make any more assumptions, let's read that letter, shall we?"

She grabbed the item with a  levitation spell before removing it from the envelope, as all four of them leaned in to read it. What they saw got a reaction out of all of them, whether it be surprise or outright shock.

To whatever world finds this package,

I don't know if you'll believe what I've written here, hell I don't even know if you can even read this, but here goes. My world is in a pretty sorry state right now. Wars are happening everywhere, the environment is deteriorating, and the people in charge of most of the nations of the world are either too stupid, ignorant, greedy, or insane to really care. I'm sure people have thought this in the past, but it really does look like I'm going to see the end of my world, or at least the end of my species and civilization.

By pure chance me and some of my buddies have found a portal that leads to, what we can only assume, is another reality. Unfortunately, it's nowhere big enough to let even a single one of us through it, and even it was we have no idea where it goes or if there would be any way back. At some point you ask yourself "when I die, what do I want to leave behind?", and strangely enough we seem to be in a position to make that choice for an entire world, for a species that's lived thousands of years and whose hubris may very well be the cause of it of destroying itself. After much discussion between me and my friends we decided what to pass on to another world, if not so they can learn from us then at least so we can take some small comfort in being remembered.

Now while most people would probably send inventions, scientific formulas, political ideas, or philosophies we decided to send entertainment. This might seem like an odd choice, but we came to the conclusion that entertainment and stories reflect our societies' values, or perhaps critique and rage against them. Sometimes a chapter from a story or a character's development over the course of it can convey an idea or a belief better than some guy standing behind a podium giving a lecture.

With that in mind, please enjoy an incredibly subjective collection of what me and my pals feel is some of the best entertainment our civilization has to offer. I hope you have the technology and courtesy to watch it.

Sincerely,

A small handful of the Humans of Planet Earth

P.S. We have no idea if all of these packages are going to the same place. And hey, if it turns out we're not dead, maybe we'll send you guys more! Wouldn't that be nice?

For at least a minute, the whole room was silent.

"Well, I certainly didn't expect to read anything like this today," Discord quipped.

"A whole world... a whole species, one that lasted thousands of years, just... gone..." Starlight muttered in utter shock.

"H-Hey, maybe it's not so bad? I mean, they said it looked like it was going to be the end of the world, not that it was. M-Maybe they can bounce back?" Spike suggested, hoping to clear the mood.

Twilight opened up the box and was surprised to find objects she recognized. "These... are devices I saw in the alternate Equestria!" she exclaimed as she pulled them out. "This is a television. And this is a DVD player." A terrible thought just crossed her mind. "Spike, Starlight, take all of these things out, I need to check on something!"

Without waiting for a response she teleported away with a flash, leaving the rest to pull out the items from inside. One of them was a case of something with a title written on it.

Red vs Blue

On the back was a short description.

Two groups of soldiers fight each other (and occasionally the other team) in a box canyon in the middle of nowhere. At least, that's how it starts...

"That's... a strange synopsis," Starlight muttered.

Discord, on the other hoof, smiled widely. "Oh, this sounds fun!"

A moment later Twilight teleported back in, smiling in relief.

"Where'd you go Twilight?" Spike asked.

"The technology and the things described in the letter reminded me of the other Equestria, especially the parts about the humans, so I wrote a letter to Sunset Shimmer to ask if everything was ok. It turns out, though there are some similarities, she says their world isn't in as nearly bad a shape as the way I described the world the package was from," she explained.

"Oh, good. Yeah, they kinda sound kind of the same."

"Still, it is pretty sad to think any world is in such a bad state," she said before picking up the devices. "It's a real shame, but I don't think we have the technology to run these."

"Oh don't you worry your purple pony princess head, I'll handle that," Discord assured her. "But first-" a snap of his paw seven other figures appeared in the room, all of them falling. Discord caught Fluttershy before she hit the floor, while Pinkie somehow managed to land gracefully. Everpony else crashed to the floor.

"Ugh, what the hay happened?" Rainbow Dash asked, rubbing her head.

"Only the best thing ever!" Discord replied before snapping his claw sent them all into a large room in the palace, thankfully with no falls this time. Couches and snacks snacks already laid out.

"Discord, what is the meaning of this?" Celestia asked firmly.

Discord simply pointed to Twilight. With all heads turned to her she chuckled nervously for a moment before beginning to explain.

"Goodness gracious. Then this may be all that survived from an entire world?" Rarity asked in shock.

"Woo wee. That's some story, Ah'll tell ya what," Applejack added, still trying to process everything.

"Such a sad tale. They sound like such a prosperous people, and for them to destroy themselves by what could be avoided from what it sounds," Celestia commented.

"So dreadful," Luna agreed.

"I... I think we owe it to them to watch this," Twilight began. "From the sounds of things they may not have been great leaders or thinkers of their world, but they at least had the forethought to try and do something. I think we should honor that."

The rest of the group agreed, except for Discord who was busy sandpapering his nails. "Are you done with the mashies yet? Good, now let's get started!"

"What about you, Princesses? Don't you have things to get done?" Starlight asked.

"Nothing pressing, and after the events of the Crystal Empire, I personally could use a break," Luna replied.

"Agreed," Celestia added.

"I'll get the snacks!" Pinkie declared before zipping away in a puff of smoke.

"And I've already set the rest up! You're all very welcome," Discord said with a bow, the two devices plugged into an outlet that clearly wasn't there before.

"Well, I guess there's just one thing left to do: Sit and watch," Spike said.

Pinkie arrived with some cupcakes, popcorn, and potato chips a moment later. Everyone took a spot on the couches, while Twilight levitated the first disc into the DVD player and hit "play".