The town of Ponyville could be described as many things. Some would say that it was homely, or picturesque, or quaint or charming or cheerful or any number of pleasant terms. Others might describe it as an isolationist community of rumour loving racist dweebs. Regardless of the individuals opinions of this town there is one thing that they are in agreement about.
Ponyville was quite small.
And in small towns such as this one, where everyone knows everyone, it can be quite difficult to keep anything to yourself. Gossip runs rampant with the news of whatever scandalous things a pony might get up to in the privacy of their own homes. Or the privacy of a giant jar of jelly as was the case for one of Ponyville’s more eccentric residents.
‘Eccentric’ being a much nicer sounding word than ‘insane’
Thus it was when the small town’s librarian and resident bookworm Twilight Sparkle began new research into the field of magic that everypony in town knew about it before the day was up. By the time Celestia lowered the sun to make way for Luna’s moon, she had become the talk of the town.
Which is where we find ourselves right now...
“Derpy, who are you talking to?” A polychromatic pegasus inquired of the slightly odd mailmare.
“Oh, no one Rainbow Dash, just narrating.” The mare in question responded with a happy smile.
“Right...don’t go all Pinkie Pie on me now, it is essential that we find out what Twilight is up to.”
“Okay boss!” Derpy replied, bouncing cheerfully and rocking about the branch that the two pegasi were perched on, causing her companion to cling on with all hooves.
Rainbow restrained the urge to berate her friend, knowing that not only would it not do much to change the mare’s behaviour but it might also alert Twilight to their presence.
‘I’ll tell her off later,’ She promised herself, ‘For now, it’s sneaky time.’
Unbeknown to the two pegasi they were being observed, but not by their unicorn target. If they had taken the time to look below them they would have noticed two tails poking out of the bushes, one a mint green and the other a two toned purple and pink.
“Why do I let you drag me on these ‘adventures’” One voice asked, it’s owner sounding tired and resigned to her fate.
“Because you can’t resist my charms, now hush. She’s going to summon it any minute now!” The other replied.
“Dare I ask what ‘it’ is?”
“The human. Twilight’s going to miscast her spell and bring a human here from another dimension. I know it, I can feel it.”
“Lyra...you do know how crazy that sounds right?”
“I can’t help but agree with her on this one.” A new voice suddenly intruded on the, so far, private conversation. The two mares gasped in surprise and whirled round to see the brown stallion lying nearby, his spiky mane and hourglass cutie mark identifying as another one of the towns increasing population of madponies.
“Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear. Eavesdropping, I know, it’s a terribly rude habit but not one I think you can chastise me for, considering your current circumstances.” He indicated the tree house they were hiding next to with a wave of his head, causing the two mares to adopt a sheepish expression.
“But you don’t understand! Once Twilight rips open the dimensional portal then I’ll be able to meet humans! Humans, Doctor. Humans. Huuuuuumaaaans.” Lyra drew some odd looks from the two other ponies for this.
“Are you done?”
“...Humans.”
“Anyways, back to my point. How flimsy do you think the dimensional barrier is? It’s not like it’s constructed out of paper mache and string, I should know after all.”
“So...no human summoning?” Lyra said, her eyes going watery.
“Afraid not, it’s obvious what is going to happen here.”
“And what’s that?” Bon Bon asked, though she felt she already knew the answer.
“Daleks, obviously. She’s going to accidentally send out a magical beacon that will summon the Dalek battle fleet to this planet.”
“Doctor not this again. Can’t you just let this whole Dalek thing go?” The candy maker said.
“Yeah, I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with these bin-shaped robots. I mean, it’s not like they’re humans. Plungers haven't got anything on hands.”
“Forget them? I can never forget them.” The Doctor stated, his voice growing dark and his eyes lost some of their youthful vigour, revealing the ancient eyes of a lonely god. “I’ve fought them. All across the galaxy I’ve fought them. Throughout all of space and time I’ve fought them. I’ve slaughtered millions, if not billions, of them but they always manage to come back, even more dangerous than before. If they even think of coming here, if they DARE to come here. Then I will do more than merely kill them. I’ll destroy them, I’ll rip apart the entire Dalek fleet and everything that makes them what they are. And they will scream my name as they burn.”
The two mares stared at the stallion in front of them, wondering what kind of life he had led, what horrors he had seen that would allow him to state his intention to destroy something with such certainty. Finally, Bon Bon worked up the courage to reply to the hourglass stallions speech.
“Doctor, have you taken your meds today?” She inquired, her voice soft and comforting.
“Nope.” He replied, all trace of anger gone from his demeanor. He now sounded almost cheerful about everything. “I don’t really like them, they taste like pears.” He noticed his conversation partners had slowly begun to back away from him. “Was it something I said?”
Nearby, three familiar fillies had formed a tower, one on top of the other, to allow them to peer through one of the libraries windows.
“Can ya see anything?” The one at the bottom squeaked, struggling to balance the weight of her two friends.
“I’m not sure. It just looks like she’s reading a book.” Replied the top of the living totem pole.
“Pfft, she’s always reading books! That’s why she’s a bookworm, not like Rainbow Dash! When do we get to the cool bit?” The middle filly said brashly, pretty sick of having to stare at the side of a tree.
“I told you this already. The book said that a powerful, well-intentioned unicorn will accidentally miscast a spell that will free the Great Cthulhu from his eternal slumber.”
“Are ya sure that it’ll be Twahlaht?” The red headed farm filly asked.
“Duh, who else would be powerful enough to wake up an Old One?” The confident unicorn replied from her place on top of the others.
“Then why don’t we just go in there and stop her now?” The impatient pegasus demanded.
“How can you not remember the plan?! We went over it ten minutes ago! I made diagrams and everything...with colour!”
“Sweetie, when you go into lecture mode I tend to just kind of drift off.”
“T’be honest Sweetie, I do too.”
The filly with the mulberry mane sighed before once again reciting her genius plan to her attention deficit friends.
“After Twilight messes up her spell and summons Cthulhu back to this realm then he will immediately try to destroy Equestria. Then, whilst everyone else is panicking, we swoop in and kick his flank, saving the day and earning our cutie marks.”
Her friends looked at her in silence for a moment before voicing their concerns.
“An how, exactly, are we just gonna ‘kick his flank’?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Do terrors from beyond this reality even have flanks to be kicked?” Scootaloo added, clearly more concerned about the highest priority.
Their conversation quickly dissolved into bickering as they each put forward what they considered to be the best way to defeat the eldritch beast. Everything from a magical banishment pentagram to a huge, oversized catapult to fling the monster into space was suggested by the imaginative trio.
On the opposite side of the library a nervous yellow pegasus slowly approached, cunningly disguised as a tree.
‘Oh, I’m know she wouldn’t mean to but I’m sure that Twilight will accidently enchant all the animals to eat only cabbages...and then there would be a terrible cabbage shortage...and then the animals would start to go hungry. I...I just can’t let that happen.’ She thought to herself.
High above a bright pink balloon slowly circled the tree house, the pink party pony in its basket looking down through a high-powered telescope.
“That silly Twilight’s going to accidentally suck all the happiness out of cupcakes, I just know it! It’s up to Pinkie Pie to save the day!”
Two Earth ponies slowly crept along the ground, keeping their barrels as low as possible so that they wouldn’t be seen.
“Hurry up Big Mac! We gots to make sure that Twa don’t turn all our apples into pumpkins!”
A startling clean white unicorn, somehow managing to sneak elegantly, approached her friend’s home.
“I simply must stop Twilight before she turns all the beautiful gems in Equestria into horrid coal!” She announced dramatically to thin air.
“Stop her before it’s too late!”
“For the children’s sake!”
“Save the mare, save the world.”
“It’s not her fault really, poor dear, but we have to be ready.”
“Can’t let her do this.”
“Save the town hall from being destroyed...again.”
Contrary to popular belief, trees, whilst brilliant at absorbing carbon dioxide and turning it into oxygen, are not very soundproof. In fact they are, without any shred of doubt, very much not soundproof at all.
This is a fact that Twilight Sparkle can attest to personally.
As the whispers and suspicions of the towns ponies slowly floated to her ears, she couldn’t help but feel her ire begin to rise. All she wanted to do was a simple bit of magical research in the privacy of her own home but apparently that was too much to ask for without everypony thinking the armageddon was about to happen!
“Not to mention she’s getting a bit chubby as well as being accident prone.” The latest whisper drifted in.
Twilight snapped, her mane became frizzy and she began to grind her teeth together as she stalked towards the door. Flinging the wooden barrier open with a quick burst of magic, and almost breaking it off its hinges at the same time, she strode outside, the corona of light around her horn expanding and gaining another layer.
“Alright, that’s it! Everypony leave. Right now!”
There was a distinct and suspicious lack of movement from the various shrubbery around her house.
“I warned you!” With this statement, Twilight decided to show them the true power of her magic.
Ponies began to slowly be dragged from their hiding places, various parts of their bodies covered in violet light. Some of them were surrounded entirely by the magical aura whilst others were picked up unceremoniously by their tails and held upside down. Fairly soon a large heap of ponies had formed in front of Twilight, each one looking rather embarrassed at being caught red-hoofed.
She didn’t even need to say anything, she just glared at them and, one by one, they shuffled away, their heads held low and their hooves scraping the floor in shame.
Once she was finally satisfied that she had been left alone she walked back inside her humble abode, took a deep calming breath, and began to cast her spell.
Princess Luna, Diarch of Equestria and Ruler of the Night, looked out from the balcony of the Royal Reading Room, observing her beautiful night in all its glory. She was truly proud of her handiwork with the celestial heavens, each star in the exact right place to create the dazzling display before her. Noticing something odd on the horizon she turned to address her sister.
“Tia?”
Celestia, Princess of Equestria and long-suffering sister, sighed in irritation as she was once again ripped away from the tales of Daring Do’s latest adventure by another of her sisters questions.
“Yes Luna?”
“We art unfamiliar with modern custom, but is Ponyville supposed to be engulfed in a mushroom cloud this time of year?”
The royal white alicorn, with the infinite patience acquired only by being the millennia long ruler of a country where the ridiculous is commonplace, slowly took off her reading glasses and carefully marked her position in Miss Do’s novel before rising from her cushions and joining her sister on the balcony.
“No Luna. No it is not.”
Both sisters stared at the destruction wrought upon their beloved land, their faces impassive but their hearts heavy.
“We believe that we have won the wager about young Twilight Sparkle.” Luna eventually stated.
Just a silly little comedy I wrote to prove to myself that I could write an MLP fanfic that didn't involve any humans.
Hope you all enjoyed it and thanks for reading,
Barrel-of-fun
