"GO GO PONY RANGERS!"

The C.C.C. jolt awake in surprise and tumble out of the pillows they slept on.

"Good morning, team." Crash greets.

"Ugh, what happened last night?" Rumble groans.

"All of you decided to participate in a competition to determine who's motor skills would shut down last."

"Say wha?"

"You had a sleep-off."

The pegasus' drowsy eyes widen.

"Almost forgot about that, who won?"

"I can't remember." Snips yawns. "Hey, where's my pillow?"

"Wait, that was YOUR pillow?" Snails asks.

Suddenly, the goofy colt belches a plethora of feathers. "Oh, there it was." he chuckles.

"Pip was the first one out, that I remember." Tender inserts.

"Snails was out the moment you said 'GO'." Snips adds. "And T's sleep-tapping gave me a little boost."

"Worth it. I showed M.C. Mallet how to jam."

"So it's down to me, Snips and..." Rumble pauses.

Everypony turns to the wide awake colt.

"Button."

"M-M-Morning guys." he stutters.

"How'd you sleep, buddy?"

"I didn't."

It was evident enough to see the little masher didn't get his 8 to 10 hours. Mane frazzled, crooked propeller hat, a true aftermath of a kid at a horror movie.

Button slowly blinks his bloodshot eyes.

"How are not out dude? That's insane!" Rumble asks astounded.

"Oh simple tactic, really. I just thought of something scary."

"What was it?"

"The...the..."

"The what?" Crash asks.

"T-The Super Cheerio Bros. Movie."

The whole team gasps in shock.

"Are you INSANE!!!" Snips exclaims. "Don't you know that's a fate worse than Tartarus!"

Pipsqueak faints as Snails surprise-chokes on pillow feathers.

"What's so scary about it?"

"Trust me on this one Crash, you don't wanna to know." Rumble states. "Snips, don't tell him. Ya shouldn't have told me, but you did and now I'm telling you Crash, you don't wanna know."

"OMC, it's a Code Brown!" Pip squeals.

Somepony sat on the fast forward setting again as the team frantically rush upstairs to the kitchen while Crash consoles the traumatized colt. Eventually they come galloping back in with a hot cup of coffee and feed him it.

He doesn't respond.

"For buck sake Pip, it's decaf!" Rumble hisses.

"My bad."

They run back upstairs and back with the real deal and the pegasus serves it.

"How 'bout now?"

Button's eye twitches.

"Did it work?"

Crash hops in front of his buddy and waves at his jittering eyes.

"I have some concer-"

Suddenly, Button spontaneously bucks Crash into a stack of cardboard boxes, flailing and galloping around the room.

"T, initiate Operation: Chill Pill!"

Taps grabs a pair of headphones and tackles the rogue colt. "Dude, you need to chill!"

"URGGH, YOUR NAME CAN'T ALSO BE CHEERIO, CHEERIO!" he growls.

"I said CHILL!"

He slams the headset on him and cranks it to 11 as Crosstopher Chris' 'Railing' blasts in his eardrums. Button's psychotic little episode comes to a close as the soothing guitar's melody calms his caffeine-filled nerves.

"How long was I out?" he huffs.

"We don't know if you were out PERIOD." Rumble states.

"W-Where's Crash?"

"If you are referring to your mechanical companion that finds being thrown around in an abusive fashion to be quite tiresome, I'm right here 'pal'." the toy utters, emerging from the pile.

There, the lid attatched to his belly unhinges and falls apart, revealing a glowing blue sphere within that fills the dim room with light.

"Crash, what is that?"

"I'm afraid I do not know. Appears to be a certain type of energy, I believe."

Button inches his way towards the mysterious object pulsing inside the toy. "Is it unstable?"

"Hard to tell, but I wouldn't recommend touching-"

The sphere engulfs the colt in a blanket of electricity and throws him into the wall, shaking the room.

"-it..." he finishes, closing the lid.

"What's going on down here?" A skeptic Trims comes downstairs, observing the crash site...

No pun intended.

"Nothing Dad." Snips blurts. "Button just had a bad dream."

"Must've been a pretty bad dream. Welp, time to gather your things. Don't want your parents thinking I'm foalnapping ya. Plus, y'all have school tomorrow."

The group groan in disappointment as the stallion trots back upstairs.

"Ugh, sleepo- I mean meeting, adjacent." Rumble huffs.

"You mean 'adjourned'?" the toy inserts.

"Whatever. C.C.C., guys."

"C.C.C." the others sigh.

"Extraordinary." Crash says. "I'm not familiar with this type of energy. Isn't it interesting?"

"Y-Yeah, bud- *ZAP* i-it's very- *ZAP* interesting." the statically charged colt winces.

The two friends are walking their way home, Crash riding in the backpack.

"Maybe we should pay a visit to the Doctor's about this."

*ZAP* "Swell."

A shockingly short trip later, Button makes it to the lab's entrance. As he prepares to knock on the door, what sounded like a group of trash cans in an alley fight alerts him before a metal spring shatters the building's window, narrowly missing the colt.

"Oop, do come in!" Whooves hollers through the mic near the doorbell.

The boys enter the living room, where almost all of the doc's possessions are strewn about the floor as even more hit the ground with every earth-shattering SMASH.

The two cautiously make it downstairs where they witness the frantic doctor struggling to remove a vacuum-like device engulfing Derpy's face.

"Oh, a-afternoon gentlecolts! I-I'm in the middle of a small....PREDICAMENT!"

The rogue vacuum's tube lifts and flails the stallion around, slamming him into every corner of the room. "Don't worry, chaps! It's battery should die out in an hour or-"

Suddenly, the tube abruptly stops, dropping Whooves on his flank and spitting the pegasus' head out.

"Well...that really sucked." Crash chuckles.

"W-What happened?" Derpy groans in a daze.

"It appears to be- Miss Hooves, your eyes!" Whooves exclaims.

The concern pegasus pulls out a mirror and sees that her blonde eyes are straightened out.

"AH, that's not right!" she screams. "Fixitfixitfixitfixitfixitfixitfixit!!!"

The vacuum springs back to life and flings a pebble from its tube, thumping the mare's face. She looks back at the mirror to see her eyes back to its normal crooked self.

"Ahh, much better." she sighs in relief.

"A tad odd." Whooves ponders. "Poor gadget seems to be on the fritz."

"Or you could pull the plug on the situation." Crash chuckles, holding the gizmo's plug.

Button cringes and rubs between his eyes.

"What? I thought it was quite humorous."

"Don't Crash, bud......just don't."

"I don't get it." Derpy inserts.

"Anyways, what brings you two here?" Whooves asks.

"Oh, almost forgot. Crash here has some magic, science-y ball of whatever and came to see if you can identify it. Kinda looks like a Dragon-Sphere."

"Do we now? Let's have a looksee, then."

Crash climbs atop the tinkering table and sits for the stallion, who examines him with a comically large magnifying glass. The toy unscrews his chest, nearly blinding the doctor with the orb's light.

"So....whataya think, doc?" Button asks.

"I will say, it is very bright."

"Yeeeees, I can see that, but what IS i-"

"GREAT WILD WIGGLERS!!!" Whooves gasps. "I thought this was a myth!"

"What, what is it?! Is it kryptonite? Oh please tell me it's kryptonite!"

"This, my dear young lad, is a highly unstable radioactive energy known as [SCIENCE BABBLE]!"

"WOW, [SCIENCE BABBLE]....what does that mean?" the colt asks.

"It means this." the ecstatic stallion picks up a pencil off the desk and places it in the orb's center. The charred tool shoots out, ricochets around the lab and strikes the colt in the flank.

"Urgh, I get the point!" he winces. "Sweet Celestia, now I'M doing it!"

"This is quite alarming. What sort of manufacturing company would fit a toy with unstable energy?"

"Well, it IS Haybro we're talking about." Button shrugs.

"Interesting." Whooves says. "Research Recess?"

"Research Recess." the toy nods in anticipation. "This could take awhile, though."

"Meaning...?" the colt asks.

"I'll...walk him out." he sighs, leading him to the door upstairs.

"That long, eh?"

"Genius takes time." Crash states.

The little gamer rolls his eyes as he's escorted to the front door.

"You sure you're gonna be okay, pal?"

"I believe I will manage, friend."

Downstairs, a loud THUD echoes through the building.

"Soooorry, my fault!" Derpy hollers.

"Eh, more or less." he finishes.

"Just try not to fry me next time," Button chuckles. "Can't have my mane look all frazzled in front of-"

"Is Sweetie Belle all you think about?" Crash asks.

"O-Of course not! What makes you say that?"

"Alright then. I'll say a word and I want you to tell me the first thing that comes to mind."

"Fine, go."

"Book."

"Sweetie's intelligence."

"Hat."

"Sweetie's fashion sense."

"Pony?"

"Sweetie Belle." Button says dreamily.

"Your attempts at denial are futile due to your incompetence."

"Aw come on! Give it another go."

"Fine." Crash huffs. "Toy."

"Silly." Button says.

"Colt."

"Smart."

"Inane."

"Slow."

"Dumb."

"Fool."

"Who?"

"You."

"What?"

"Chicken Butt!"

Crash laughs at the exchange, Button soon joining in.

"I'll see ya later, Crash."

"Farewell, partner."

The two share a hoofbump before parting ways.

Author's Note

Still alive, haven't given up on Button.

Operation Chill Pill:

https://m.