Please, Don't Touch Anything
What Could Possibly Go Wrong
Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, Student of Princess Celestia, Basically Equestria’s Only Scientist, Avid Button-Presser, was confused. A teleport spell had apparently messed up, bringing her to this… place. A human had walked out as soon as she appeared, and without even a hint of surprise, had asked her to take up his post while he went to the toilet, warning her not to touch anything. And so here she was, waiting for him to return. He probably knew what he was doing. But before her was a machine. A big grey box of metal, with a green monitor displaying a city. On the box itself were two inputs; a red lever proclaiming “Reset” and a large red button, sitting tantalizingly in the middle. There was a board off to the side that seemed to have graffiti as well as multiple typos, as Sunset had called them, ambient music coming from unseen speakers, and not much else. When she looked behind her, there was nothing but an empty void, with a large purple eye staring at her. She quickly looked away. Aside from that, she was bored.
Twilight looked longingly at the red button. Surely one press wouldn’t hurt? She reached out with a hoof, placing it on the red platform. Just as she pressed down, she heard the clump of the man’s boots against the floor as he returned, but it was too late; the button had depressed with a soft click. The music suddenly changed, the footsteps stopped, and the metal just below the button sunk in slightly, before spinning to reveal a red switch. Curious, she flicked it, the red light beside turning on. Seeing nothing else happen, she pressed the button again.
The switch descended into the machine again, and a panel just under the monitor opened, flicking up cards reading 3, 2, 1.
The city on the monitor exploded.
Twilight stared, as the city burst apart with a massive mushroom cloud, that her endeavours into the human world described as a nuclear bomb, or a nuke. As the screen flickered from the radiation, she shrieked, looking around for something, anything, to make this right. Spotting the Reset Lever, she slammed it down. Feeling the distinct feel of a time rewind spell, the city reformed, and a picture of a mushroom appeared on the wall.
Twilight Sparkle stared.
Shaking herself back to her senses, she looked down. A previously-unnoticed selection of 25 dark lights were visible, to the left of the Reset Lever. The second had started glowing a soft yellow. She groaned. If this was anything like those games she played with her friends, she’d have to get every ‘ending’ before she could leave. Suspecting the man returning was an ending, especially as she’d heard his footsteps earlier, she sat down to wait.
Sure enough, the man returned.
“Great, thanks. You’ve really helped me.” He said, leaning in the door.
“What took you so long? Something could happen?” Twilight replied.
“Really? Like what, the apocalypse?” He responded, causing Twilight to stifle a laugh.
“You’ve got to have an education to run this machine.” He then said, prompting Twi to take offense. But before she could respond, he simply ducked out again. Suspicions confirmed, she reached out and pressed the Lever.
Time spun backwards, and she pressed the button again. Making sure not to hit the switch, she used her magic to press against the machine beside a tiny arrow that had formed when she pressed the button. The panel sunk, another arrow generating. Going around the board like this, she eventually pressed the final button, and they all vanished, creating a board of 5x3 green squares. When she pressed one, it and all the others beside it changed to yellow. Letting out a deep sigh, she got to work.
After much trial and error, she eventually got them all yellow, and the cards flicked up again. This time, the city was split in twain by a split in the earth. Hitting Reset again, a small pin of a planet cracked in half showed up, dangling off the monitor. Staring at exactly what she had ended up doing, she carefully reached out and hit the button again. When nothing new showed up, she pressed it again, this time a panel rising up with the Roaman numerals I, II, and III. Looking around, she spotted some of the graffiti on the instruction board. Cautiously pressing the numerals in the order of I, III, II, II, III, I, a lever to the left rose up, capable of being swung left or right, but not back the other way, and a panel with four buttons and a label reading “Don’t do it!”
Smiling, she got to work.
It had taken her ages, but finally she only had a few endings to go. She went through the by now instinctual actions, rapidly hitting the button 15 times until both hammer and screwdriver were visible. The hardest of these by far was City Boom, a stupid game that showed up every few Resets, and all she got out of it was a silly plane sticker. After that was the one she had dubbed the Midnight Ending, as she wasn’t sure what had caused that massive laser. She had unscrewed the instruction panel, revealing several clocks that would change every 5 seconds, every 5 minutes, and every hour, respectively. She had to severely use up most of her magic to change the time to midnight, so that all the clocks matched. When that was done, it gave her a ticket, that, after putting the code on it into the Numberpad, destroyed the now nighttime city in yet another new way.
She lifted the hammer, wondering what it was for. She had only discovered it last time, in the Powerout Ending, where hitting the Button 20 times caused the Screen to go dark. She lifted it, and, not finding anything better to do, whacked the Screen.
It shattered under the assault, revealing a button with a large ? on it. Carefully, she reached around the glass shards, and pressed it.
Everything went white for a moment, until it happened.
A massive pyramid appeared, with four symbols around it. An eye on the side facing her opened, and regarded her with scorn. Looking around, she was floating in nothing but gold and white lines. Screaming, Twilight grabbed around with her magic, trying desperately to get out of here, wherever here was. She hit something, and hoping beyond hope it was the Reset Lever, slammed it down with as much force as she could. The world went white again, and then she was back in front of the Machine, with the screen repaired and a picture of an eye in a triangle on the wall. She stared at it for a time, before slowly going back to the machine.
She only had four to go. Bringing up the now-familiar Lever, she heaved it to the left, simultaneously unscrewing the Colorpanel with the Screwdriver. She had been fiddling with the Colorpanel earlier, and had discovered that pressing Red, Red, Red, Red, caused the Morse Buttons to turn into a keyport. Now she was searching for the key. But inputting almost anything she could think of into the Numberpad didn’t work. In despair, she started banging her head against the Machine. Most certainly by coincidence and not because the author had no ideas for how she’d figure out the code, her horn pressed against the Numberpad, inputting 2, 0, 0, 1. As she raised her head again, the panel descended and slid to the side, revealing three wheels with letters. Thinking about what 2001 could mean, she remembered watching a film with Sunset, a film about… planets. She spun through the wheels, quickly discovering that the only two planets she could input were Earth and Pluto. As Earth didn’t do anything, she spun them round to read PL, U, TO, and pressed the button underneath.
The middle wheel opened, revealing a key. Picking it up, she plugged it into the Keyport.
The Machine closed up, the Cards flicking up. A rocket blasted off from the City, flying into space. Her satisfied grin quickly turned into a grimace of horror, as she saw what joined it out there. She quickly Reset.
Now, she had three lights to activate. Not knowing what else to do, she opened the Hammer compartment, lifted it up… and dropped it on the Button.
The red device cracked, and an alarm started blaring. Looking around, scared, she hit the button again. It cracked more. One more. She hit it a fourth time… and a thing made of what looked like blood rose up. Still holding the hammer, she stared at it… before promptly turning to vomit into the black void behind her, completely ignoring the purple eye. It gave her a disapproving look, but didn’t do anything to stop her. Wiping the last remnants of her breakfast (When did she last eat? It had been ages for her) she backed up to the edge of the void, levitated the hammer over, and hit the thing. Blood began dribbling down from the wreckage of the Button, and bloody pustules burst out of the metal. Shrieking her head off, Twilight began smacking them with the Hammer, the sheer force behind her blows causing them to pop instantly. As soon as all those ones were gone, the forcefield around the thing dissipated. She hit it again, and more sprouted. Now utterly terrified and panicking, she somehow pulled a flamethrower out of nowhere, screeching "KILLITKILLITKILLITKILLITKILLITKILLITKILLITKILLITKILLITKILLIT" and bathing the entire machine in flame. Once the flamethrower finally ran out of fuel, it vanished, revealing a very charred corpse of the Blood Baby. The purple mare, breathing heavily, covered in blood sprays, looked at her reward; three symbols on the Screen. She stared, before screeching.
“WHAT THE-“
She had thrown the Hammer up in the air, and it came down on the Reset Lever, restoring some semblance of sanity to the room. Twilight’s coat was once more clean, and a disturbing picture was now visible, beside what she had finally identified as a Death Star. She stared at it.
“That wasn’t worth it. At all.”
Through a lot of trial and error, going through other endings, and thought, Twilight thought she had it. The second-to last ending. She reached out, and brought up the Numberpad. Looking to the left, she viewed the Ending That Shall Not Be Spoken Of picture, and the Death Star picture. However, it was cut in half by the Morse Buttons panel, and she keyed in the number revealed. 4. 0. 2. 0. To her delight, it had an effect. A panel opened below the Colorpanel, looking like wings. She unscrewed the Colorpanel, and plugged in Yellow, Red, Blue, Blue. The Wings opened, revealing a very fancy looking button, held in place by a lever connected to a hole beside it. She reached over to the Morse Buttons, pressing Bottom Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Left, Bottom Right. Two protrusions extended from the right of the Machine; a box labelled D4, and two buttons alongside three 0s. Ignoring the latter, she unscrewed the instruction panel, at the same time inputting the code to reveal the 7x7 pad. Studying the circuitry behind the instruction panel, she put the symbol of a diamond into the 7x7 pad. The D4 box opened, revealing a perfectly-cut diamond. She looked at it, rather sad that she couldn’t duplicate such a beautiful object (She had tried, it vanished with the Resets), before slotting it into the hole. The lever retracted, and she reached out, pressing the wooden button. As everything folded up and the Cards emerged, she sat back. On the Screen, a plane flew over the top of the City, to be grabbed by a tentacle, before the entire City was consumed by a massive sandworm thing with too many eyes. Raising an eyebrow of her own, Twilight reached out to pull the Reset Lever.
As time unwound, the man began talking again.
“Hey! I need to take a bathroom break, wait here a moment!”
Confused, Twilight played along. “Wait! What’s this panel for?”
“Ah, don’t worry. It’s just a coffee machine.”
Now very confused, Twilight responded with a simple “What?”
“I know. It just kinda appeared here one day. It sometimes shows ads on the screen. You can order some coffee while I’m gone, just hit the red button.” He walked off, and Twilight, utterly bemused, reached out and pressed the Button.
A panel to the left descended into the machine, coming back up with a mug of coffee. On the mug was ‘Dimensional Coffee! Guaranteed to take you back home!’
Now laughing, Twilight reached out with her magic, and took the coffee, closing her eyes as she did. It really was quite good coffee…
The Princess of Friendship woke up in bed, the pleasant taste of the coffee still on her tongue. She looked over, and saw a perfectly cut diamond on the nightstand. Smiling, she got out of bed, walking over to the window. She looked out on Equestria, before her gaze landed on Canterlot.
Her grin widened.
Author's Note
There were no PDTA stories on Fimfiction. I decided to correct that.
Also, I made an edit to the Blood Baby Ending.
