Human in Equestria any% speedrun (kill Celestia ending)by Anti-TachyonChaptersSetupHospital Escape (+00:02)Lyra Launch (+00:04)The Full Reverse Half Rarity (+00:00)Dream Date (-00:02)Kill Celestia (-00:16)Time! (45:58.95)Setup“‘...Fallout Equestria was one of my favourites growing up. Good luck to the runner and I can’t wait to see how they turn 600,000 words into 5 and a half paragraphs. HYYYPPEEEE’. Thank you very much for the donation! And we also have a $200 donation from Anonymous that says ‘Greetings from Germaney...’” It was almost time. He glanced toward the sound-crew table and nodded. The tech gave one last adjustment to his mic and hurried off stage. Alain Harrison had hit the big time. He was up on the main stage of the world’s premier speedrunning event and his nerves were already starting to get the better of him. He menued through to his game’s settings for the fifth time in as many minutes, quintuple-checking every setting, and especially checking that the ‘foal start’ option had been disabled. No need to start the run with a disaster like that. Chat would never let him live it down. He selected “start” and a pony-creator menu popped up. A grey, expressionless pony stared back, blank but brimming with possibilities. Perhaps this would be the one… The one to get him world record. Imagine that. A record, live on camera, in front of tens of thousands of audience members, here and online. It was hard to believe this had all started as a joke. He had no particular interest in ponies, but the guy behind him, his couch co-commentator Gage, was at least a casual fan. If by ‘casual’ one meant “insane enough to spend 12 hours a day grinding Any% Good Ending”. Although, he was practically normal and well-functioning compared to most other speedrunners. And MLP fans for that matter. He had never revealed how or why he had started running it. Gage (just Gage, no pretend names) was the sole reason he was even here. On Alain’s first ever livestream on Hitch.tv, Gage had challenged him to a race of this game, but every time the player character started crying or said “friendship” they would take a shot and see who could survive the longest. Alain couldn’t remember even half of what had happened on that stream, but he’d definitely lost. And it was wild. That day, he became PonyRunner420. Or just PonyRunner, as the stream overlay called him. Strict no-funny-numbers policy. Within a week he was well and truly down the rabbit hole. With the sole goal of making the run as short and cutscene-less as possible, the Bad Ending category was the obvious choice. Of course, he had branched out into plenty of other speed games, but there was still something that kept him coming back. Something... special, in spite of how janky and silly the game was. Or, perhaps, because of it. PonyRunner turned to face the couch. There was Gage, getting his mic adjusted by the audio guy. And there was– He frowned. To Gage’s left, there was another guy, just sitting there, on the couch. He didn’t recall requesting another guy to commentate. Suspiciously far from Gage too, in the way one does when they don’t really know someone, and know they probably shouldn’t be there. He had the distinct look of someone who had just turned up, inserted themselves into a random friend-group, and just hoped everyone would think he had been invited by someone else. And he was wearing a Rainbow Dash shirt. Huge red flag. PonyRunner gave Gage a patented “speedrunner look” and glanced towards the other guy: a look exclusively understood by speedrunners to mean “who is this guy?”. Gage replied with another look, which conveyed “No clue dude”. The last thing he wanted was one of those situations during the run. It’d be a terrible shame (and huge embarrassment) if his first marathon appearance, and the first showcase of this run, was just weird, uncomfortable drama. Clipped and shared on every social media site under the sun (and several under the moon, probably). He looked over at the tech station, hoping to catch the eye of some technician or other. No-one was looking at him. The donation reader was announcing his run. It was already too late. Gage gave him one last, meaningful look: if anything happens, I’ll manage it. Just focus on the run. He had this. He had to have this. “And I’ve just heard that it is TIME. Up next is a run of Human in Equestria by PonyRunner!” A moment passed. The crowd clapped modestly. “You’re on screen”, said a voice in his ear. Here goes everything. “Hello fast horse fans! I’m PonyRunner and this is Human in Equestria Kill Celestia%, and I am joined by my couch commentators…” He turned to face the couch behind him. Lets see how this goes… “Hi, I’m Gage. I run this game and The Enchanted Library.” “And I‘m Rainbowdashfan266. I run 100% for HiE and Friendship is Optimal”. Well, that explains why he’s here...and the shirt. Wonder what happened to the other 265 Rainbow Dash fans… True ending was an absolutely deranged category. Easily 50+ hours time invested. Most people would get bored half way through a run and give up, maybe come back for one last session to prove they totally hadn’t given up and they definitely had the motivation to finish, before abandoning it for real. Maybe this guy’d submitted it to the marathon, the organizers went “Haha, no”, and put him on this couch as a commentator instead? “Before we start,” he looked over at the donation reader. He couldn’t see the comentator’s table from where he was sitting, but they had one of those ASMR voices, which was basically all that mattered. “What palette won the bid war?” “Gimme a sec… looks like… Yellow coat and red mane won”. “Nice. The classic Varia suit look”. He knew putting “(Based)” after that choice in the donation tracker was a good idea. Especially since… He quickly customized the blank pony, selected unicorn, made sure the foal start option was disabled for the 6th time, and rotated the pony sideways so the audience could see the screw attack power-up cutie mark on it’s flank. A harmless texture edit, and totally legal by the category rules. A few members of the crowd went “woo!”, and one guy in the back screamed “IT’S SAMUS” at the top of his lungs, prompting laughter from the rest. “Or Sunset Shimmer.” said the Rainbow Dash Guy. PonyRunner had no idea who that was. “If we’re all ready to kill Celestia, I’ll count us in”. He hovered over “Begin”. 3... 2... 1… And… Celestia shovelled another waffle into her mouth. Luna was uncharacteristically late to breakfast. Something must have come up during her dream realm escapades. After the Starlight Incident, Celestia knew all too well how awful that place could be. Maybe if the retirement master plan worked out, Luna would get a taste for freedom and relaxation. Then perhaps Celestia could finally convince her to get an apprentice. Or let the Shadowbolts deal with it like they were supposed to. Luna had, perhaps unsurprisingly, become obsessed with her public image since she’d returned. She was absolutely mortified at the prospect of them impersonating her in the dreams of little fillies and colts Equestria over, no matter how much Celestia tried to reassure her that they were all still dream magic professionals. She turned her ears towards the door, as the sounds of hoof-steps echoed down the hall. Very stompy. Definitely a bad night. The door handle was wreathed in blue magic and in stepped Luna, bags under her eyes and snout scrunched into a frown. Celestia swallowed the waffle. “Good morning sister”, she said with slightly restrained cheerfulness. “uhg”, came the reply. “That bad?” “I went into the nightmare of a little colt, and it was one of those dreams. The one where you are late for a test, but you can’t leave until you find your quill, you know?” Celestia nodded. She knew all too well. “Well I spent an eternity chasing that colt down an endless maze of locker rooms, trying to return his quill to quell the nightmare, and when I caught up to him, do you know what he said?” Celestia’s face fell. This again. “He said ‘You’re not the real Luna. The real Luna says Thee and Thou’!” “Did you get angry again?” she said, taking another forkful of waffle. Honestly, the Shadowbolts should be the least of her concerns. “No, sister, I did not get mad this time. That is why I am mad now”. Luna picked a pineapple out of the fruit bowl and bit it in half, spikes and all. Celestia winced. One of these days she really ought to teach her how to eat them properly. “I do not speak like that! Why does everypony still think that I speak like that? Did I waste four months of my life in speech therapy for naught?!” she said, spraying pineapple flavored spittle across the table cloth. She was getting dangerously close to Royal Canterlot volume. “Lulu, please,” said Celestia, “it takes time for ponies to adjust their expectations. We’ve been over this”. Luna merely hmmph’d. “But I can tell that is not what’s really bothering you, is it?” Luna seemed to deflate as the anger seeped out of her. “The entire time I was there, I felt that I was being… watched by something.” “In the Colt’s dream?” “No, in the dream realm itself. It felt… alien.” She frowned. “As if thousands of eyes were suddenly turned upon our world from somewhere... outside”. It was Celestia’s turn to frown. “And you have any clue as to what it could be?” She shook her head. “No. I just feel as if something is about to happen… and happen fast”. Author's Note Was watching AGDQ and I suddenly became inspired. I have almost zero time to edit this story, but that's okay. I'm speedrunning fanfiction (let me know if anything looks weird tho). Hospital Escape (+00:02)“So the first thing you need to know is that literally every single cutscene is unskippable.” He opened his eyes. Above him, the midday sun filtered through gnarled and twisted tree branches. He squinted against the light. This wasn’t his room. He turned his head to the side. He was entirely surrounded by trees. A forest so thick that he could hardly see 10 feet between the trunks. He was in some sort of partial clearing. A Path stretch out before him. There was only one explanation. Obviously he had gotten blackout drunk at the party last night, and wandered off into the woods. There were no woods anywhere near either his house or the party. But he did have a splitting headache, which lent some credence to the theory. He reached up a hand to massage his aching scalp, and slammed himself in the face. It was yellow. And a hoof. At least he knew where this world lay on the spectrum of pony hoof hardness. “So while we’re waiting for this nonsense, I’d like to take a moment to explain some quick things we won’t have time for later. Like I said, every cutscene is unskippable… theoretically. We are going to take some drastic measures to get around this.” The yellow pony slowly got up on shaking hooves as the camera circled behind him. “So the first thing I need to explain is ‘horn cancelling’.” In an instant, the pony lunged into a forward at incredible speed, as if a timberwolf had taken a bite out of his tail. The instant he connected with the ground, however, a surge of green magic flared through his horn. The former human was upright in an instant, hoof to forehead in pain. But an instant later, he was rolling forward. Then, another flash of green light…” “Basically,” PonyRunner could already see the chat spamming BASIC MingLee LEE MingLee out of the corner of his eye, “I’m cancelling the slow, wind-down part of the roll with this ‘you can’t use magic’ animation, then cancelling that into another roll. This is the fastest movement we have at this stage of the run. Even if we weren’t forced to walk really slowly for this segment, it’s still faster than running with un-upgraded stamina. Unfortunately it only works while we don’t have magic. We will not be upgrading stamina this run, but we will be getting magic for… reasons. Very special reasons.” The ex-human rolled directly off the road into the thicket. “As you can probably guess from the category name, our main goal right now is to get to Celestia, who is in Canterlot. In a casual playthrough, there are two main ways to get there. Either we take the train, or, if you’re a pegasus, you can fly there.” The small yellow horse-with-horn continued to awkwardly stutter-roll through the forest, ignoring the various uncanny sounds surrounding him, his purpose singular and absolute. “So you’re probably thinking: ‘PonyRunner FunnyNumber, why are you a unicorn? Why don’t you just fly there? See, thing is, pegasi are actually really slow”. PonyRunner risked a glance at the stream monitor. He wasn’t sure, but the Rainbow Dash Guy whose username he couldn’t remember looked like he was frowning. “Not only do you have to do a whole quest thing to learn how to fly, which takes ages by itself, but unicorns are just… insanely broken. You’ll see. As a unicorn, we’re gonna learn everything we need to beat the game… in the next three minutes.” He rolled directly off a cliff. “Oh…” PonyRunner said, solemnly. He plunged into the treetops below. The screen faded to black. “That wasn’t supposed to happen”, “Wait… bro” said Gage, “were you going the right way?” “Was I? I thought this was the right way…” “Was that a death?!” asked Dash Guy incredulously. The audience was already laughing. They knew this bit. “Can we start over? I think we have enough time–” The screen turned white. A sterile-white tiled ceiling slowly materialized. “Eyyy just kidding!” There was laughter and mild applause at a bit well executed. “It’s like Demons’ Souls”, said Gage, “This is a forced death. Normally you just follow the path, pick up a few items, learn the controls. Then you get your cheeks clapped by a timberwolf. But if you die at any point, you just wind up in Ponyville General anyway! So PR intentionally dies here to hurry the process along”. “There’s a long cutscene coming up”, said Ponyrunner, “So now would be a great time for some donations…” Nurse Redheart had the worst luck. Nursing was difficult enough at the best of times, but all the worst, most nonsensical emergencies just had to happen during her shifts. Her’s and Doctor Horse’s, for some reason. Her patient had been discovered by pure chance by a passing pegasus. Evidently he had fallen (or, Celestia forbid, jumped) off a cliff in the middle of the Everfree. Why he was in the Everfree, nopony knew. Nopony knew anything else about him either, for that matter. She glanced down at the patient file in her hoof. No known medical history, no name, no identifying features, no record of his cutie mark, no missing ponies report (reminds me of that one green filly, she thought). And, oddly, no major injuries. One would expect falling off a cliff to have a more adverse effect on one’s health, but this unicorn was either very lucky or skilled with magic. He had escaped with nary a scratch. Nothing but sprains, bruises and a concussion, which was still dangerous, don’t get her wrong, but much less severe than it should have been? She pushed open the door. The unicorn was still lying there unconscious, position unchanged. Redheart knew it was none off her business, but she’d really hoped he’d have woken up by now, if only for the selfish reason of asking him what the buck his deal was. It was when she moved to change his IV drip, however, that she got her wish. She felt an itching in the back of her skull, as if thousands of eyes were boring into her. But when she turned, she found only one pair staring back, unblinking. His eyes were gray. Specifically, the sort of gray that said “intentionally left blank”, as if someone had forgotten to pick a color for them… “Oh! Good, you’re awake”, she said, “Any pain? Discomfort?” The yellow unicorn simply groaned in response. “That bad huh? I’ll check in with Dr. Horse and see about getting you some painkillers.” The itching in her skull had been upgraded to a buzzing feeling. It was like somepony talking to her through a very thick wall. If that wall was her skull. “It looks like we don’t have your details. Could you, perhaps, tell me your name, dear?” His reply was instant. “a” Redheart flinched. “O-oh… ah, that’s a, um, interesting name? Neighponese, I think...?” “Fun fact”, said the unicorn, “Neighponese is technically the fastest language, but in any% it actually doesn’t make a difference.” What is this guy talking about, she wondered. Maybe the head injury was more serious than any of them had realized. “It only adds up to about 1/10th of a second because of how dialogue boxes work. They display characters one at a time, but you can just mash through them to instantly complete the text box. Cutscenes all take the same amount of time regardless of language. There’s one part of the run where you can’t do this, but it ends up not mattering for a different reason. I’ll point it out when we get there.” “Excuse me? Sir? Can you–” “Don’t worry, I’m fine... I think,” said ‘a’ almost immediately, “just a little… confused, haha…” “That’s… gre–” “I just need–” “nothing difficult–”. He nodded. He wasn’t saying anything, but Redheart couldn’t help but feel he was interrupting her constantly. Oh well, just get on with the tests. She circled round to the foot of the bed and held up her clipboard. “If you could look–” The mystery stallion’s head snapped to the board. “O-o-okay…”, she moved the clipboard to the left, “now can–”. His head was already in motion before she had finished her first syllable. “Not sure why they had to put a camera tutorial here when we’ve already had to use the camera to get this far, but okay. This gives me time to explain what we’re about to do”. Who in Tartarus was this guy talking to? And what is he saying? “Coming up is a kinda gross cutscene where our character tries and fails to use the toilet. It’s really weird and uncomfortable and I don’t know why the devs always insist in including this kinda stuff”. “I have a few theories,” Gage said, “but I don’t think I can say any of them on stream”. The Rainbow Dash Guy looked like he was about to add something, but PonyRunner quickly nipped the conversation in the bud. “Regardless, we’re skipping it, so you won’t have to subject yourselves to it.” PonyRunner turned and gave Gage a weren’t you the one whose supposed to stop weird stuff from happening on stage glance, which Gage countered with a you know I’m right though look. “A lot of the trigger volumes aren’t actually tied to progression’, said PonyRunner, returning to the game, “so, generally speaking, as long was we can get to the right location, or talk to the right NPC, we can make progress without actually watching any of them first.” “And here, part of the roof actually doesn’t have collision.” Redheart looked up. There was a tile missing, leaving a pitch-black hole in the otherwise sterile ceiling. If there was a crawlspace above it, she couldn’t see into it. When she lowered her head, her patient had disappeared. “So, it’s time for some parkour” came a voice to her left. Standing on top of a crash cart was “a”, looking more goat than pony. Before Redheart could utter a single letter of disapproval, he had leapt clear across the room and landed atop a storage cabinet in the far left-hoofed corner. With one, final, almost majestic leap, he sailed straight through the hole and disappeared into the ceiling. Nurse Redheart screamed. Redheart slammed open the door and skidded into the ward hallway. She could still hear her patient talking above her. “We need to be careful with the seamwalk here.” There was a thunk as four hooves landed above her on other side of the corridor, followed by rapid hoofsteps as he disappeared down it. For a pony who’d been unconscious not sixty seconds ago, he was fast. “Our goal here is to fall back in-bounds into Dr. Horse’s office so he can teach us telekinesis. Theoretically, we could just leave the hospital now, but there are a couple of skills we have to unlock here that are critical to the run.” Redheart was at full gallop, but the voice was already receding into the distance. Doctor Horse relaxed. After the excitement earlier had turned out to be nothing life-threatening, things had become surprisingly quite at Ponyville General. That is, until a yellow unicorn fell out of the ceiling directly next to his desk. Doctor Horse spat out his coffee. “I’m having trouble using my horn”, said the uninvited guest. Horse was instantly overwhelmed, but after years of living in Ponyville, his brain knew the best course of action for dealing with the confusing and incomprehensible: just clock out for the day. Hit the bricks. He reverted to general practitioner mode. “What seems to be–?” said Horse, but the other unicorn was already speaking. “I guess after the accident in the Everfree, I must’ve... lost my ability to use magic? Haha…” He was behaving exceptionally suspiciously, but Doctor Horse was too far gone to notice or care. “You’re a unicorn, can you help me learn unicorn magic?” “Well, certain–”, “If you would–”, “Stand there an–”, “I’ll demonstrate”. Horse picked up his coffee mug in his magic. “Now you–”, “just have t–”, “now focus on–”, “press RB to–”. Horse had no idea what he had meant by “RB”, but this stallion obviously did. He wrapped the box of syringes – that Doctor Horse hadn’t actually pointed out to him yet – in green light, and quickly lifted and threw them across the room, in the general direction of where Doctor Horse hadn’t yet told him to put them. “A good first start, if a bit… excessive”, said Doctor Horse, but the other unicorn was already on the move, talking as if he were narrating his actions to somecreature invisible. “Now that we have TK, everything is broken wide open”, he said, blasting the office door open with his apparently “newly rediscovered” magic. Nurse Redheart skidded to a stop directly outside. Almost like he had timed this. “What the buck are you–” “Ah, Nurse Redheart! I was just helping our dear patient relearn unicorn telekinesis!” Doctor Horse smiled, but his empty eyes betrayed him. She knew that look. Don’t question it, just do your job and let somepony else deal with him. She gulped. “a, you r-ran off before I could run your hoof grip checks!” “It’s actually faster to do it in this order because of the cutscene skips.” “R-right! Sure! Anyway–” She pulled out a thaumometer, and the redhead unicorn instantly pressed his hoof against it. He seemed desperate to get this over with, and she was happy to be rid of him. There was no grip strength reading. The needle did not move. Buck. “Oh that’s–” “Let me try–” “Press X to–”, she extended her right hoof shakily. The stallion grabbed on her hoof with his own and violently yanked back. Thank Celestia she was an earth pony or this guy would’ve sent her flying across the room. “Thanks, I’m feeling much better now”, he said. And then, in a completely different tone of voice, added, “this is basically the inventory tutorial, I’ll explain why we need this later”. “That’s great!” she lied, “You’re discharged! You can leave now. The exit is–”, but he was already in motion. “TK is absolutely cracked. It’s the whole reason this run is possible. Imagine Half Life 2, Sonic ‘06 and Breath of the Wild combined”. He sheathed a crash cart parked against the wall in his magic. Oh no. Oh no-no-no-no–. In one swift movement, he leaped into the air, twisted 180 degrees, and blasted the cart directly into his own back. Both he and the cart sailed down the corridor as ungracefully as a rock and rag-dolled against the far doors. “This is the fastest form of movement”. There were echoes of laughter. Before either Doctor Horse or Nurse Redheart could comprehend the true nature of this manoeuvrer, he had already picked the cart and himself up. He positioned the cart at a roughly 45 degree angle from the door, and wedged himself into the gap between them. “This is called a ‘drop clip’”, he said, followed by, “wait, angle’s wrong”. He picked up the cart and moved it imperceptibly. Redheart and Horse could only stand and gape as he dropped the cart, picked up the cart, and then threw it at the door, pushing his upper body directly through it. He picked himself up and pulled his rear end through after him. “That’s not the exit”, said Redheart. She felt like she could hear hooves stomping in celebration. Or was that...? Both of their heads snapped backwards towards the clip-clop sounds rounding the corner behind them. It was purple, had a horn, and had wings. “Oh! Nurse Redheart, Doctor Horse!” said princess Twilight Sparkle, “Can you help me with something? Princess Luna thinks there’s some sort of disturbance in the dreamscape, and I think I’ve narrowed down the source to somewhere in this hospital. Have either of you seen anything… strange, recently?” It was going to be one of those days. Author's Note This fic is a mess I have no idea what I’m doing. Lyra Launch (+00:04)Applejack had just crossed the bridge into Ponyville when she saw… him. A yellow unicorn, with a red mane, standing almost horizontally on the side of a barrel – which he appeared to be levitating – was flying directly towards her, and her cart, at very high speeds. Whatever was going on, it seemed dangerous. Ah think Ah should probably... stop him? “Woah there pardner!” she yelled, pulling out her lasso (which, of course, she always kept on her at all times). With a flick of her neck, the lasso sailed over the unicorn and his strange transportation device. Applejack pulled down hard, yanking the strange pony to the ground, and out of whatever spell he was under. The barrel split, spilling apples everywhere. “Nice, hit the trigger”, he said. “The hay? Is this one’a mah apple barrels?” She bent down to meet the stranger’s eyes. “What exactly do ya think yer doin’? Somepony could’a been hurt! Includin’ you”, she glowered at him. The unicorn gulped. “Well… you see…”. “This is another unskippable one, so more donations if you’ve got ‘em.” said PonyRunner “Oh, actually”, said Gage, “what’s the status on the incentive? That’s coming up fairly soon”. The donation reader cleared his throat. “let me just see… so far, Twilight is in the lead with thirty-two thousand, one hundred and eighteen dollars and 69 cents”. “Nice”, intoned both Gage and PonyRunner, followed by a delayed and muttered “nice” from the Rainbow Dash Guy. “Followed by Rarity with twenty thousand dollars and 32 cents”. “Unfortunately” said PonyRunner, “all of you are wrong. Where’s Luna in the running?” “Luna is… actually third with 15k!” “Guys, guys, please. Come on! Step your game up, PR’s on record pace!” said Gage. “She’s not just best princess, she’s fastest princess.” “Yeah”, said PonyRunner, “Don’t you want to go fast? I though this was a speedrun. Shaking my head over here.” “Nah”, said the Rainbow Dash Guy smugly, “I’m voting for best pony Dashie. Everyone vote Rainbow Dash!” he called out. But Gage only smiled as he turned to face his co-couch-commentator. “Oh, she’s not an option”. “…Huh?” The smile sloughed off his face. “We never see her in any%. Or Fluttershy and Starlight actually. If we were a pegasus she’d be here instead of Applejack. We skip all her other appearances”. “So, yer tellin’ me,” said Applejack, “that yer an ‘alien’ from ‘another dai-mension’, you don’t know how you got here, and we’re all… fictional characters?” “Pretty much!” “That’s plum near the craziest thing Ah’ve ever heard!” “You’re the Element of Honesty, you tell me if I’m lying”. “Sugarcube, Ah’m not a lie detector. Believe me, if Ah was, Ah could’ve avoided a whole heapin’ mess’a problems”. “Well, believe it or not, the facts remain: I don’t have money, food, a place to stay, or a way home”, said a. Applejack’s expression softened. “Ah suppose that’s true… maybe I’m bein’ too harsh on ya, even if ya do seem… well, either way! After Ah take care of this delivery, Ah guess Ah’ll take ya to see Rarity. She’ll probably have something fer you ta do While Ah talk to Twilight about... all this.” Suddenly, a change came over the unicorn. “So, the way this section works, is it’s… kind of a reverse escort mission? Gage, can you explain this one?” “Sure. So, Applejack is going to take us around Ponyville, show us the sites, you get the idea. It’s kinda free-form, you can wander around, talk to the ponies, do whatever.” Applejack raised a solitary eyebrow at this, but nevertheless continued to pull her cart into the Ponyville outskirts. a was sticking uncomfortably close by her side. “AJ has three ‘states’: escorting, wandering and waiting. What she’s doing now is escorting. If we get too far from her, she’ll say something like–” The unicorn suddenly sprinted away from the cart. “Don’t wander off, sugarcube!” “...that, and the game won’t let us move away. There’s a soft boundary surrounding her, like a bubble that pushes us back. If anyone watching at home knows any way of getting around this, please get on the HiE Speedrun Discord–”. Discord? What the hay kinda relation did this guy have to Discord? Suddenly, his crazy-talk was starting to make a lot more sense. “...However, at certain points, AJ lets us off the hook and we can wander around a limited area without needing to be near her. She’ll just keep walking until she hits a checkpoint. If the player isn’t there when AJ arrives, she’ll wait for us to catch up, which loses time because AJ is the one that actually loads in Carousel Boutique. So, PonyRunner needs to do as much as possible here, but still be at the checkpoint exactly on time. It looks like an auto-scroller, but there is zero downtime.” Applejack was almost cross-eyed from the strain of figuring just out what in Equestria this unicorn was talking about. She almost didn’t notice him wander into an alley – just on the edge of what she considered acceptable-boundaries-for-wandering-off – and dive head-first into a dumpster. “S-sugarcube? Just what in Tartarus are you doin’?” Suddenly, he exploded out of the dumpster, scattering trash everywhere. He was holding aloft a ratty bag of bits, glowing like he’d just discovered some incredible treasure. An indeterminate number of centuries later, a unicorn felt a tingling down her spine, certain that a bond of kinship had been forged across the millennia. “This 15 bit bag is actually guaranteed to be in here, which is very convenient because it’s important for a glitch coming up soon. And, for some reason, opening the dumpster makes AJ’s cart move very slightly faster!” He put the ratty thing in his mouth and trotted on back to her cart. She really did not want to think about where it had been. She quickened her pace. She needed something, anything to distract the unicorn, and herself. “O-oh! Look! There’s the famous, ah, Sugarcube Corner!” She pointed a hoof at the bright pink dessert-themed confectionery store. “Maybe the Cakes’ll give you a free cupcake if you go in there and wash your dang mouth–” She turned to scowl at a, but there was nopony there. Only a rapidly dissipating dust cloud. “That’s our audio cue. Chat, are you ready for the greatest trick in the run?” It was an exceptionally normal day in Ponyville, and Lyra Heartstrings felt like the most exceptionally normal unicorn of all. She was sitting, normally, on a bench outside Sugarcube Corner, enjoying the normal weather and eating a deliciously normal cupcake, that she had purchased, with money, from Mr. and Mrs. Cake. Who, she had to admit, were looking extremely normal today. But there was something else. Something wrong. She felt a buzzing in her horn. This was not normal. If she concentrated, it almost sounded like a... crowd of ponies. A crowd that was chanting something. Something which sounded an awful lot like ‘Lyra Launch’. Something was approaching her. Approaching fast. She turned, cupcake forgotten. It was a yellow unicorn with a red mane, galloping directly towards her, at top speed, kicking up a trail of dust in his wake. The chanting was audible now. “LY-RA LAUNCH! LY-RA LAUNCH!” Suddenly, the unicorn snatched a nearby trash-can off the side-walk with his magic, and launched it straight at her. She didn’t have time to yell, let alone grab it with her own magic. Or cast a shield. Or do anything else a unicorn could. All she could do was hold her hooves in front of her head, and hope. There was a loud clang. The trash-can was, thankfully, empty. But it still hurt. She dropped her cupcake, and leaned away, hunched over in surprise and pain. She was filled with rage and brimming with tears. Who did this lunatic think he was? She was going to give him a piece of her mind– She didn’t get the chance. Something big and furry landed in the space between her back and the bench. She yelped in fear and snapped bolt upright. This had an unexpected effect. She felt like she was leaning back through soft, furry jello. Yellow jello. It was the unicorn. He was phasing through her body. Suddenly, everything began to vibrate, as if an enormous amount of force were being channelled out of Lyra’s body and into her attacker’s. He became a blurry haze, the mere suggestion of a pony. And then, he was gone. Lyra looked up, fear and anger replaced with confusion and wonder, as she saw the unicorn fly straight up into the air, and mid-air dodge-roll into the third story window of Sugarcube Corner. There was cheering. “Huh?” Pinkie felt like a doozy was coming on. Something totally unexpected. Ear flop, eye flutter… but then knee pinch, which meant ‘watch for broken windows’. Or ‘Watch for Rolling Rocks’, one or the other. But her tail was twitching, so something must be falling? And she’d had that all-over tingly feeling she got whenever a new pony showed up in Ponyville… which could only mean… She smiled and turned to her bedroom window, just as a yellow-coated unicorn, with a red mane, and a cutie mark depicting a ball with a lightning bolt, smashed through it. “...if you’ve ever seen a Spyro speedrun, that was basically a proxy. Lyra has a unique sitting animation, and we can hit her to cause her to go into a pain animation, and that makes enough space to wedge ourselves between her and the bench. Then, when she goes back to idling, her animation pushes us inside her hitbox. The physics has no idea how to handle it, so it just launches us directly upwards at terminal velocity. And because we didn’t jump, the game thinks we’re still grounded, so there’s a few frames where we can input a roll mid-air to get through the window. Basically, when Lyra loses her lunch we get launched.” “I knew there was a new pony in town!” Pinkie gasped, “I was going to throw you a party before you got here but then I remembered I’m supposed to ask you if you want a party before-hoof because Twilight said I need to be ‘more considerate’ about throwing parties for ponies who don’t want parties after that one time with Cranky Doodle and that other time after I threw that party for the new repair-pony and he was avoiding me somehow so I had everpony in Ponyville secretly manipulate him into coming to Sugarcube Corner as part of a giant conspiracy to throw him the BEST PARTY EVER”, she gasped for breath, “but he didn’t like the party and now he has a RESTRAINING ORDER because he thought I was going to bake him into a cupcake or something, haha I would never do something like that~”, she said, smiling. Even though the unicorn was nodding along, listening with apparent rapt attention, she still got the impression he wasn’t really hearing anything she had to say. It didn’t bother her though; she got that reaction a lot. She continued speaking unabated. Remember back like ten minutes ago”, said PonyRunner, “when I said there was one place where you couldn’t skip text boxes? The devs coded in a joke here where, if you mash through Pinkie’s text, she gets annoyed that you’re not paying attention and starts talking r-e-a-l-l-y slowly. I have to progress the text with a very specific rhythm, but it actually doesn’t matter what language we use, because the time you have to wait is hard-coded per text box. And talking to Pinkie is actually mandatory. Remind me to talk about that when we do Depression Skip.” “...and then I got a twitchy tail so I knew you were coming through the window!” said Pinkie. She inhaled, catching a whiff of something that was distinctly not sunshine and rainbows. “Wow you smell kinda bad!”, she said with undiminished joviality, “have you been dumpster diving? Didja find anything cool!?” He jiggled the sack of bits. “Wow! Kinda smelly though, I know just the solution!” she said. Pinkie produced an entire bathtub from off-screen – complete with Gummy, of course – and dumped the entire contents over a. “All clean!” “This interaction is unfortunate”, said PonyRunner, “it’s random and only happens if someone sees you dumpster diving, sort of like Stardew Valley. Luckily, because of the exact route we’ve been taking so far, the RNG is set up to always trigger it here. And this event also clears the status, so other NPCs won’t comment on it! Everything is part of the route, trust us”. “So, want me to throw you a party?” Pinkie beamed. “This is a fake choice, the dialogue loops until you say–” “Yes”. “AHHHHH I knew I knew I knew you’d want a party! I promise it’ll be the bestest, funnest party you’ve EVER HAD! Um… except it won’t be ready today… It’ll be ready TOMORROW!” She screamed, as if this were her greatest idea since pre-peeled cupcakes. “I’ll definitely be there!” said a. “Spoilers, but we skip the party”. Pinkie’s eye twitched. The audience booed. The unicorn made to climb back out of the broken window. “WAIT!” Screamed Pinkie. She was sweating. She didn’t know why. “I, um, forgot to... ask your name! For the... banners!” She was filled with inexplicable dread. “My name’s a”, he said. “And there’s the only reason why our name is one character long”. He jumped. Author's Note Content Warning: Lyra gets used for speed tech (gone wrong?!) Also lol @ all the comments saying “avoid Pinkie”. You really think a speed gamer wouldn’t be at least 4 PUs ahead of her? The Full Reverse Half Rarity (+00:00)“An’ this here’s the Ponyville market!” Applejack turned to look at her strange acquaintance. He was still there. Had he been there this whole time? He was soaking wet, but at least he no longer stank. Maybe he’d actually taken her suggestions to heart? “Ah need to drop off this load of apples at my brother Big Mac’s stall, so ya’ll just… wander ‘round? See the sights? Spend some of them… dumpster bits?” Talk ta anypony else but me, please. The bizarre stallion dashed off into the market. A brief moment of respite amidst the madness. Now, to deliver these apples… Applejack was being very… weird this run. Uncooperative. She was definitely taking at least a second longer than usual to trigger her dialogue. But even in spite of this, he could feel the pace he was on. Almost everything besides the first drop clip had gone perfectly. But that pace could slip at any moment. He’d have to do it. And he needed to do it first try. But that was later. He grabbed a physics object crate in his magic, jumped, flicked the camera around, and fired. Another quick launch, sailing directly over the flower sisters’ stall, who, of course, screamed and ducked for cover. “Remember how we did that hoof-grip tutorial way back at the start of the run”, said PonyRunner, “and that bag of bits we’ve been carrying around? This is where it all comes together”. His target was a fruit stall. But not Applejack’s. No, he needed a different kind of apple. PonyRunner had never watched the show, but Tropical Slice had the distinctive look of an original character. She had a bright orange coat, unkempt green hair and, most importantly, a cutie mark of a pineapple. She was joined by her daughter, Piña Colada, but this was irrelevant. “This is our victim. We are going to absolutely ruin her career, and the economy. Can one of you explain this for me?” Wait. No. He shouldn’t have said– “Sure, I’ll take this”, said the Rainbow Dash Guy. He sniffed. “So basically, what PonyRunner is gonna do here is an item dupe, that you can only do when you have one inventory space”. PonyRunner interacted with Slice, opening the trading window. On his side, there was only a single square of space, occupied by the bag of fifteen dumpster bits. On Tropical Slice’s side, there was a long list of various tropical fruit. “Now”, Dash Guy narrated, “he’s going to hover over the pineapples, buy as many as possible with the 15 bits, and then he’s gonna confirm the purchase and on the exact next frame he’s gonna press X to drop the bit bag from his mouth. Now we have the pineapples in our inventory, and the bit bag is still on the floor. He’s gonna drop the pineapples, pick up the bag, and repeat.” Oh. That was… perfectly fine? Correct, even. Crisis averted. “We have one inventory space, but we can hold 99 of the same item in it. Don’t ask where we’re keeping these pineapples”, said Gage, to much audience amusement. “Oh, and this only works before we get the saddlebags from Rarity”, Dash Guy continued, “because, afterwards, bits go into a… wallet thing. Bit bag objects stop appearing in your inventory. You can still dupe, but it’s way slower.” “While I’m duping, can someone explain why we need 99 pineapples?” Luna was tired beyond belief. But with significantly fewer pony dreams during the day, this was her best opportunity to narrow down the source of the disturbance. Follow the buzzing… And she had. The thing before her was less of a singular nightmare, and more of a writhing mass of souls, all pulling with and against one other. Luna tucked her wings and alighted silently before it. This had to be it… but what was it? Only one way to find out. The Princess of the Night drew forth a thin, white strand from her horn and cast it backwards, tethering her to the dream realm proper. A safety line, to guard against whatever lay below. She spread her wings once more, and dove horn first in. And slammed horn first into some sort of screen. At first, she thought she had failed to penetrate the anomaly, but upon closer inspection she was no longer in the dream realm at all. To her right, she felt a writhing mass of minds: restrained, but desperate to be unleashed. But in front of her, beyond the screen, lay a very strange scene. There were three… ape-like creatures, one sitting close to the screen, and two sitting far apart on a sofa, some ways behind it. She was reminded vaguely of Sunset Shimmer’s description of the creatures from the mirror realm, but she had never seen these “Hugh Mans” with her own eyes. One of them was speaking. “… the story is, roughly, that we need to ‘make friends’ with at least one member of the Mane 6, including Luna and Starlight, at which point Celestia will invite us to Canterlot Castle to meet her”, said the ape-thing with the long mane, seated on a sofa further back from the screen. “This unlocks Canterlot as a selectable destination at the train station, which is our only way of getting to her this early in the game. This is any%, so naturally we’ll be killing her instead.” Kill Celestia?! What manner of diabolical plot had she stumbled upon? “Our only options for ‘friendship’ in this run are AJ, Rarity, Twilight, Pinkie… and, of course, Luna. And by friendship I mean dating sim. And by dating sim I mean pineapple feeding and menu sim”. Luna, while not quite as shocked as she had been at the revelation that they were planning to kill her sister, was nevertheless shocked. It was hard to decipher what exactly these creatures meant, but it seemed they intended to manipulate the element-wielders in order to get close to Tia. And if they got close enough… Perhaps this was some scheme of Chrysalis’, she thought. The changelings had been reformed, but their former queen was still at large, and doubtless hungry for revenge. From the way they spoke, they must have some agent in Ponyville; one which, for all intents and purposes, seemed like a normal pony. “What’s the vote looking like?” “Let me check…” said an unseen voice that sent odd shivers of electricity down Luna’s spine, “Twilight is still in the lead with 38 thousand dollars, but in second place, Luna has actually overtaken Rarity and is sitting at 27 thousand dollars to 25! Keep those donations coming guys.” Luna was torn. On the one hoof, how dare they try to murder her sister to solicit charity money! On the other, how dare they vote for Twilight over her?! “Luna voters, you still have time to save the run. Get out there and donate.” Now Luna was even more confused. “Let me explain”, said the ape-creature sitting closest to the screen. “All of them, for some reason, accept pineapples as gifts, which increases friendship. So any pony should be fine, right? Wrong. Luna is the fastest option by a lot. Not only does she introduce the friendship mechanic to us later, so we don’t have to go out of our way to befriend anyone, but she absolutely loves pineapples for some reason. It makes the run go by so much faster. You’ll see.” Wait. ‘The Run’? She knew what this was. She had simply been looking at this scene from the wrong perspective. She lacked context… Luna drew upon all of her Gamer instincts. It was even worse than she could have imagined… They were speedrunners. She had to warn Celestia. Tropical Slice felt like she was going insane. She could have sworn she had given this stallion his order of pineapples at least 10 times now. Yet, every time she looked up, there he was, bit bag in mouth. The floor was covered in pineapples. Finally, finally, the unicorn handed over the bits, she handed over the pineapples, and he left with his ill-gotten gains. AJ was now on her way to Rarity’s boutique, having left the cart in Big Mac’s hooves for the time being. As she approached the market entrance, she scanned the area nervously for any yellow sign of the strange unicorn. She couldn’t see him yet. She felt guilty, but a part of her feverishly hoped that he had disappeared back to whatever dimension had spat him out. Or had, at least, gotten lost in the market. Her hopes were dashed, however, when a yellow blur slammed into the ground, inches from her head, the instant she laid hoof at the market’s exit. Followed by a box of pineapples. She sighed. “Rarity! Rarity!” The boutique was closed, but that wasn’t going to stop Applejack. She was desperate. “Rarity! Ah need to talk to you! It’s an emergency! Get yer flank down here!” There were hoofsteps, followed by a distant voice. “Applejack, language! Sweetie has a friend over upstairs!” ’A’ friend? The CMCs were nigh-on inseparable… anyway– The door opened, revealing the aforementioned white fashionista unicorn. She still had mane-curlers in. “This had better be important, Applejack. It is my day off–” She leaned her head to one side, locking eyes with the yellow unicorn standing behind Applejack. “Who is–” “That’s what–” “Ah need to talk–” “Can we come–?” Applejack was glancing around nervously, ears laid flat against her head. “O-oh, well, I suppose–“ “Great!” She grabbed her unicorn “companion” and threw him bodily through the doorway. “Go on, git!” It was time. “Once we load in, I’ll be attempting one of the hardest tricks in the run. There’s a walkabout section, followed a cutscene that’s really long, explains the whole plot, and we are going to try to skip all of it. This is absolutely not marathon safe, so I’ll go for it once and if I miss we’ll just watch the cutscene normally.” Inside the boutique, Rarity was heading for the kitchen, presumably to boil the kettle for her two guests. PonyRunner, however, was interested in something else: the ponnikins lining the back wall. “It’s called the Full Reverse Half Rarity”, he said “and it’s called the Full Reverse Half Rarity because, if you discover a trick, you get to name it. And I discovered this trick.” He grabbed a ponnikin in his magic. “First, we need to speed Rarity up.” He held the ponnikin over Rarity’s head, and pushed down firmly. She felt a sudden pressure in her horn and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she was in the kitchen. Funnily enough, she couldn’t remember how exactly she’d gotten into the kitchen. Or when. “...what was I doing again?” she asked herself, “oh, yes, the tea”. She took a single hoof-step forward, and suddenly found that the tea had been boiled, brewed, and placed upon the table. She didn’t remember doing any of that, either. “This is one of the only examples of a horn bonk in run. Rarity has a horn, which sticks out of her hitbox, obviously. By jamming something on her head, the game thinks she’s gotten stuck on a physics object, and just teleports her to the next pathing node. You do this way more in true ending, since there are actual unicorns you, ya know, interact with”. “If there’s one consistent theme of this run”, said Gage, “it’s the physics not knowing what’s going when things are inside each other”. Now for the difficult part. He placed the ponnikin down in front of the kitchen counter, and leapt. First, on top of the ponnikin; then, on top of the kitchen shelves. “We aren’t allowed to go upstairs, but thankfully Carousel Boutique has conveniently weird geometry. Epilepsy warning, by the way.” From there, he jumped to the clock above the kitchen window, where he perched precariously, pixel perfectly. “The ceiling curves inwards in a dome-shape, so we can do this–” He spun the camera and fired into his own face. He ragdolled straight through the wall. “We have now entered the Rainbow Hell Zone.” A garish nightmare of colours stretched on infinitely, Carousel Boutique merely an island in a sea of blinding after-images, like a hall of mirrors in a rainbow factory. “And now”, said PonyRunner, reaching below his seat, “this is how it’s going to go down”. He produced three pieces of cardboard, with a drinking cup glued between each layer, and a tiny Fluttershy figurine. “We are falling down out of here”, he mimed with Fluttershy leaving the middle layer, “and heading towards here”, placing her on the lowest layer. “We’re going to fall into the void for about 40 seconds”, he said, “I promise this is faster than watching the cutscene. Eventually we will hit this plane, called the ‘wrap point’. When we hit it, our height, the Z axis coordinates, will overflow from negative to positive. This will instantly teleport us to the height limit of the map”. He moved Fluttershy to the top layer. “But there’s a problem. We’re now in something called a ‘voidout zone’. When you’re inside a VZ, you, naturally, void out, like when you fall in a bottomless pit. This puts you back where you were just standing. Normally, there’s a value called “ActorLastStablePosition” which stores the last co-ords when you were on solid ground”, he demonstrated with Fluttershy, ”but, because we’re above the map, we have what’s called a ‘pegasus voidout’”. It was time for a certain couch commentator’s redemption arc. He turned to face the Dash Guy. “Guess Fluttershy did make an appearance after all”, he said, putting the prop down, “you do full game runs, can you explain this part?” “Oh, uh, I guess?” he said. He seemed genuinely surprised. Don’t screw this up... “Normally, the, uh, sky has a... soft boundary that pushes you downwards and back inbounds. Like, similar to the one around Applejack but weaker. Above that is something called a ‘pegasus voidout zone’, which we can glitch into with pegasus flight in full game runs. A PVZ behaves... weird? It takes your last X and Y coordinates, but instead of height it just draws a line down from the sky to find the highest stable ground, and warps us there”. “Exactly,” PonyRunner, interrupted, “and because our x and y were set when we were in the ceiling in the kitchen, the voidout warps us up from there. Directly into…” He hit the zone. Sweetie Belle was a little bored. She wasn’t really sure what she’d been expecting, but it was probably a little more… she couldn’t think of the word, but it wasn’t this! Don’t get her wrong, she was fine watching PGDQ with Button Mash. She enjoyed a good speedrun now and then, and the runs were fine this year. It’s just that Button was being so… weird! He was mostly just sitting in silence, eating popcorn and staring at the screen. Occasionally he’d risk a glance at her, before quickly looking away when he noticed her looking. And when she tried talking to him, he’d just say one word, turn bright red, and start cramming popcorn into his mouth. It was nothing like how he usually acted! What was wrong with that colt? Was it Sweetie’s fault? Was it all that… lawyer stuff? Maybe it was his mom? He’d really wanted to watch Pony Games Done Quick, but she wouldn’t let him. And with her own parents out of town (typical, she thought bitterly, but at least they weren’t Scootaloo’s parents), the only option was Rarity’s. Button had hauled the crystal TV the entire way from his house, up the stairs, and into Rarity’s “inspiration room”. Sweetie wished he’d had that kind of dedication for, you know, talking to her? She turned back to the TV. There was something… weird about this whole situation. Everything was contrived; she felt like she was being set up for some kind of prank. And if she squinted, the runner stopped looking like a pony, and the game he was playing seemed oddly familiar… There was a thump as something landed on the ceiling. “PonyRunner has to be extremely careful here. He can slide off the roof very easily” came a voice, unnaturally doubled by the TV. “He needs to stand here, and slide back inbounds on at the exact right pixel, so he hits the stairs on the same frame he activates the SweetieMash cutscene.” A yellow hoof glitched through the wall, and began to shuffle around the circumference of the room, towards the stairs. The hoof was followed by a head with a red mane. Even Button Mash had unglued his eyes from the TV. There was no need to watch it any more. It was happening for real. “We’re going to start this cutscene, and then try to leave downstairs. This tells the game we’re at a different point in the cutscene, and the Rarity cutscene gets confused and skips to the end. And oh, look, Twilight is here! And we have the saddlebag!” It was impossible to tell who grabbed who first, but one could be certain that they both screamed together. “This saves about four seconds”. Author's Note Didn’t have as much time to proofread this part, let me know if you see anything sus. I like how this is ostensibly a fic about Celestia, but Luna is doing 90% of the work. So realistic! I also enjoy introducing lore and worldbuilding that will absolutely never be followed up on, because we’re skipping all of the plot. Dream Date (-00:02)“...and they use glitches and exploits to finish without really playing the game. It is basically cheating”. “Yes, and you know this because…?” asked Celestia. Luna had cancelled all of Celestia’s midday meetings (on her behalf, violently), summoned the royal guard, and had dragged her into Celestia’s private study, in the middle of one of her petitions about funding an orphanage, to talk about… this. Luna’s eyes were bloodshot and she was drooling everywhere. Celestia was concerned and confused. “Have you forgotten, sister?”, Luna shook her head, spraying spittle, “I was a Gamer Girl back in 2013. I know all about speedrunners and their evil desire to ruin videogames for everypony”. “And they want to... kill me?” “Their depravity knows no bounds. They would just clip through them anyway”, she added. Celestia sighed. “Very well. I’ll remain in the castle while you investigate. But please get some sleep Lulu. I think I see a supernova in your mane”. Luna blanched and turned her head sideways in embarrassment. “We– I will. And I will get to the bottom of this, sister. Mark my words!” She turned on her hooves and took flight, crashing directly into the study’s door. “After a little nap”, she said, through gritted teeth. While Rarity tried to calm the panicked filly and colt, Twilight took it upon herself to ‘escort’ their strange intruder back to her castle. He didn’t seem evil. Just… very, very weird. And not just the whole ‘I’m a human from another dimension thing’. That she could almost understand. She had a whole mirror in her basement that did exactly that. No, weird as in blasting himself with boxes, phasing through walls, using Lyra as a springboard, if what Applejack said was true (and she was fairly confident that AJ wouldn’t lie her). Maybe it was something to do with the dimensional transfer process? Oh, where was Starswirl’s Dimensional Treatise Vol. 4 when she needed it… Maybe she should just ask him for another copy. He did owe her a lot of favours. “I completely forgot to mention this,” said the human-unicorn, “but right here is where Pinkie would jump us with the party invite if we hadn’t glitched into her room and triggered it early. It’s the same length either way, but since we’re waiting for Applejack it makes sense to just do it then.” “And I think it’s time to close the donation incentives, right?” said Gage. “Lets hear ‘em. But if Luna’s in the lead I’m closing them instantly.” “It looks like Twilight is still in the lead with 38k, but Luna is definitely close– Oh, just received a donation I think you’ll want to hear,” said the announcer. “We have a whopping $10000 from Rarity! It says: ‘My little sister and her coltfriend–” Coltfriend? Someone’s role-playing a li-i-ittle too hard in the dono messages, thought PonyRunner. “...have been watching the marathon all day, so I thought I’d donate to remind them to pick up after themselves when they’re done, and do try not to eat so much popcorn Sweetie, you’ll spoil your appetite! I couldn’t choose between all the options, so I think I’ll let the runner choose what he wants.” There it was. “And runners choice is, I believe, Luna!” said the announcer, ‘which puts Luna in the lead with 42 thousand dollars! Thank you so much for your very generous donation”. “Close it! Close the bid war! We’re done!” “And who am I to say no? The winner of the best pony incentive is… Princess Luna!”. PonyRunner sighed with relief. “Whoever you are, you have just saved the run.” The journey back to Twilight’s castle went by quicker than normal. Surprisingly so. Every so often, Twilight felt something hit her horn, but whenever she looked up, there was nothing there. A stray rain-cloud? She was positive she wasn’t teleporting... was she? Her human-unicorn (humicorn?) seemed to be keeping up at least. She flung open the door with her magic. “This is where you’ll be staying, while the girls and I figure out what’s up!” Most ponies who saw her crystal castle were, at the very least, interested. Usually they were impressed, or in awe, or one of many other, similar emotions. Heck, she still found herself craning her neck to take in the sights – in particular, the strange geometry of the ‘tree trunk’ never failed to impress her. Almost as if the castle interior was in a competently different place, and the door simply ‘loaded it in’! Now that she thought about it, a lot of the buildings in Ponyville felt like that. The human-turned-pony, however, seemed much more interested in one of the supply closets. The ones Starlight and Spike kept opening and throwing junk into, until they collapsed on the next pony who opened them. Which was precisely what happened to her unicorn guest when he opened it. She picked the whole mess up in her magic and quickly sorted everything back onto its proper shelf. “No no, the guest rooms are this way. I know, I know, ‘the doors all look the same’. I’m working on a floor plan and labelling system, but world ending disasters just keep getting in the way, you know how it is”, Twilight said, giving him a knowing look. He was still holding a bucket. “I need this for a clip later”. “… O-o-okay…” She pushed open the door to the guest room. It wasn’t exactly ‘modestly sized’, but it was a fair sight smaller than some of the other, more luxurious rooms of the castle. This room, however, was special in other ways. Ways pertaining to… ‘security and observation’. If somepony wanted to, oh, say, secretly observe and study an alien lifeform without them knowing, they may or may not have chosen this particular room for that purpose. “If you need anything, or if you recover your memories, just ring this bell,” which she dinged with her magic, “to let me know!” She frowned. “You… do have amnesia, right? We established that at Rarity’s… didn’t we?” “Chat, I have no idea what the plot is. I haven’t played casually in years”. Twilight grimaced and chuckled nervously. She could’ve sworn it was midday moments ago, but it was now dark outside the window. Had Princess Celestia already set the sun? “Well… see you… tomorrow?” She closed the door, and hurried to her observation room Luna couldn’t tell if she had been asleep for six minutes or six hours. But she could tell she was still cranky, which she felt was the perfect mood to confront an evil, murderous speedrunner. She rested her royal rear on her meditation mat (padded for comfort (the mat, not her)), and cast the spell that would draw her into the Dream Realm. The anomaly was exactly where she left it, but this time a single, thin cable of dream magic trailed out of it. Luna diligently traced to its end, whereupon she found it tethered to a pony’s dream. She prepared herself for combat, and dived in. … She felt very… two-dimensional. More so than usual. There was a very blurry photograph of a high-school classroom behind her. She heard soft and nonintrusive music. And there was the unicorn. “Halt! Foul crea–” “How dare–” “the Princess–” Oh no, he was already skipping her dialogue. She would need every ounce of her strength to hold on. “Oh? You–” “the Magic of Frie–” “Then prove it!–” PonyRunner’s hands flew across the keyboard. He was menuing harder than he’d ever menued in his life. Luna felt she had known this stallion all her life. His tragic past in the orphanage, his struggle with mental illness, his triumphs, his marriage, his desolation at her death, the loneliness in being separated from his family… She pitied the poor creature. No, not just pitied. Something else. Something more. He hoofed her a 15th pineapple. It was love. Definitely love. “Now, you may be asking”, said PonyRunner, “how did we get real pineapples into the dream realm? The answer is: very carefully”. “Let’s just call it lucid dreaming”, said the Dash Guy. Wow, that was actually funny! He was improving! “I was wrong–” “I hope you don’t thi–” “I will–” “Farewell for now–” “And with that, we’ve reached Heart Level 6. We are officially dating Princess Luna!”, declared PonyRunner to thunderous applause. A brief fade to black, and a was once again wide awake. “We’re now in the endgame. Canterlot is open, and the only thing between us and killing Celestia is pure execution. No waiting, no plot, just action. “But first, remember that party Pinkie was throwing for us? We need to skip it.” PonyRunner dodge rolled out of bed and grabbed the bucket. “This is called Clinical Depression Skip. Don’t ask what happens at the party casually”. He held the bucket against the wall and simply walked straight through it. “Walls don’t actually exist if you have a bucket. Don’t believe Big Wall’s lies”. He remained clipped halfway through the wall, and began to carefully trot along the edge of the room, along the edge of the hallway outside. “There are trigger volumes everywhere. Someone really did not want you missing this party. If we step too far out of the room, Pinkie will lock us into the same following state AJ did earlier. There’s no escape. “There are trigger volumes outside the window, in the ceiling, and the party is directly below us. It covers the entire corridor outside too. But, because the crystal castle’s walls are thicker than normal, we can seamwalk along the edge where it touches inbounds without hitting any of them. “You can actually see four different Pinkies waiting for us outside”, he pointed at his screen, as if anyone else could see it. The audience laughed. There were, indeed, four Pinkies, all t-posing – which looked very odd on a pony – below him, above him, in the corridor, and standing dangerously atop some sort of flying contraption outside the window. Every inch of the castle had been covered in banners, each with a single, solitary letter: ‘a’. PonyRunner trotted his character across the walls of the adjoining rooms, until he came to the end of the corridor. “We’ve dodged the hallway trigger, but going down the stairs triggers the party. So we’re going to use the stairs in a slightly different way–” He dropped a pineapple at his hooves, stood on it, and picked it up in his magic. Both fruit and pony began to vibrate, and suddenly fell through the floor. “Don’t ask why that happens. No-one knows”. Tropical Slice was distraught at the prospect of bankruptcy. The yellow unicorn had fallen out of the sky for a second time, this time demanding a refund for his 15 bits. The pineapples he returned were beginning to rot. She took the lot of them anyway, on the verge of tears. “Since we didn’t have an inventory last time, we couldn’t carry any money. But we do still have pineapples, so we can trade the rest of them back for the money for a train ticket.” “I believe in full game runs”, said Gage, “the best money-maker is washing windows, right?” Dash Guy nodded. “Yeah, you do some RNG manipulation, otherwise there’s a random event where you get accused of being an alien spy by the Mane Six. You have to run away for a bit, and then you get caught and interrogated. It’s like a two minute time waste.” One more launch, and he was already at the train platform. He mashed through the ticket buying menu, bought a ticket to Canterlot with bits to spare, and boarded the Friendship Express. “Welcome to the train, don’t blink or you’ll miss it–” Out of his saddle bags, he dropped his last pineapple. He opened the window, jumped out, turned, fired. With years of practice it had become almost second nature. The pineapple connected, launching him back towards the train, and onto it’s roof. From up here, it was obvious that the train was stationary; the Equestrian countryside was the thing in motion, looping and loading in and out as needed. “It’s been a long time, but there’s a sidequest here with Ditzy? Or Derpy? Whatever her name is. The one with the eyes. The train gets stopped and attacked by a bird and a cat I think? Or demons? We’ll never know, because the Canterlot loading zone is just sitting there at the front of the train”. A gallop, a jump, and he was through. Suddenly back in-bounds, he stepped off the train, and into Canterlot. Author's Note Double chapter because it’s shorter and we’re almost at the end! Kill Celestia (-00:16)“... and it turns out I was wrong”, said Luna, “nopony who loves pineapples as much as him could be evil”. She took another bite, leaf-first. Celestia’s eye began to twitch. “Luna, what are you talking about?! You’re dating him? You said he wanted to kill me!” “Oh, he does,” she said, nonchalantly, “but that, dear sister, seems like more of a you issue”. Luna made to take another bite. Celestia smacked the pineapple out of her magic. “Stop eating them like that”, she yelled, “You’re only supposed to eat the insides!” Celestia simply turned on her hooves and teleported away, leaving Luna’s mouth hanging open and pineappleless. She needed to calm down. She was feeling particularly Daybreaker-esque. A trail of magic flew to her horn, and a scroll materialised directly on top of her nose. It was from Twilight, of course. Perhaps she had good news? Primcess Celestia I was observign the human and he phased through the wall and escaped the castle! He’s boarded a train to Cnterlot It was filled with spelling errors. It was not good news. Freed from the petty constraints of “plot” and “physics”, PonyRunner flew high above the streets of Canterlot atop the luggage cart of a particularly irate unicorn aristocrat. He arrived at the castle gates in mere seconds. He was very careful to never look directly at it. “This is basically the only combat segment of the run. Or stealth segment, technically”. He dropped one, singular bit from his bit-bag on the floor, and grabbed it. “The royal guards are… interesting. Not sure what Celestia’s paying them but it’s either not enough or too much.” PonyRunner sprinted past the two guarding the gate. They seemed much more interested in the bit than him. “Is that contraband?” said one, “What are you doing with that?” “Even though we’re trespassing”, said PonyRunner, “it gets overwritten by the fact we’re holding something suspicious. And if we break line of sight–” He ducked round the side of the castle, and shot the coin directly at one of the guards. “What was that noise?” they both said, near simultaneously, “Show yourself!” “… and now they’re too busy looking for the coin to notice we’re trespassing”. He emerged from behind the wall, grabbed the luggage cart he’d flown in on, and approached the massive main doors backwards, very careful to keep them off-screen. “Now for the out of bounds to get into the palace. Is this a palace, or a castle? Anyway, this is why bad-end runs are so fast. You’re supposed to do whole a whole late-game optional quest thing, where I think Sombra corrupts you and you become evil? I mean, Sombra’s literally loaded behind this door so I assume that’s what happens. But we can just clip through the door and into the cutscene because it’s always loaded. At all times. “That’s why I’m not looking at the castle-palace, by the way”, he said, walking backwards and placing the cart at a 45 degree angle, “normally, when you press X on the door, it loads a completely different castle map. But the real castle is just... behind the door. For the final fight scene I guess? It’s really laggy, so I want to keep it off-screen as much as possible.” He grabbed the cart, dropped it, and was through. Canterlot Castle had seen better days. It looked almost pre-ravaged, with bits of black crystal sticking out of very surface at random angles. Piles of guards, dead or unconscious, surrounded King Sombra. He was also T-posing. “Oh, dear Sombra, did you think I’d let you have all the glory?”, said a, menacingly holding aloft the Black-Heart Talisman, which he, of course, had obtained as part of a long and arduous quest, braving the harsh winds and snows of the Crystal Empire. He had single hoofedly defeated a windigo for it, which you would’ve known if you’d been paying attention to the plot. “Impossible!” screamed Sombra, as he disintegrated into smoke and swirled into the talisman. His horn clattered to the floor. a merely laughed. It was about time he dealt with Celestia, and took his rightful place on the throne. “This cutscene gives us Sombra’s horn and, for some reason, auto-unlocks the horn laser and shield spells”, explained PonyRunner, “they’re nice to have, but we don’t really have the mana to use them consistently”. He didn’t have splits, but he could feel it. The Run. This was it. He practically (and sometimes literally) flew down the halls. Another quick launch and... “Halt–” said a pegasus of the royal guard. Before the pegasus could even raise his spear, PonyRunner levitated a box and, swinging his mouse wildly across the full length of the desk, threw it at him at blinding speeds. The guard fell to the floor. He threw the box again. And again. And again. And again. The guard was no longer moving. “There are a lot of guards in the area up ahead. We can’t really take all of them at once in combat at this level. Luckily, they’re all really stupid. If we pick up this explosive barrel and throw it in this exact spot”, he grabbed the barrel and flung it down the corridor, “all the guards and civilians come running out to investigate that, instead of the body of the guard we just ‘knocked out’”. And, just as predicted, a steady stream of guards, cleaning staff and dignitaries filed out of the throne room, all beelining straight to the source of the explosion, where they all milled around looking confused. PonyRunner simply galloped past, unseen by their narrow vision cones. “I feel like leaving explosive barrels lying around your castle would be a fire hazard”, said Gage, “but I’m not a princess, so what would I know?” “Coming up is the final battle with Celestia”, Gage continued, “this fight is extremely difficult casually, and we are severely under-levelled for it. PR has to have complete concentration, so I’ll explain what's going on”. Celestia stood alone in her throne room. The Element-Bearers had been outmanoeuvred. Her sister had been corrupted. And a full half of her ponies had abandoned her. She was undeterred. Anger did not behove her naturally comforting, kind and regal features. But the time for appearances had long since slipped past. Contrary to popular speculation, Celestia was not all-powerful. Much of her alicorn magic was bound up in keeping the Sun shining. But, she did have a few tricks down her proverbial horseshoes. And royal guard soldiers waiting in the wings. She held a sword in her magic. Why would a magical pony princess, wielding the power of the sun, need a sword? Coolness factor. The yellow-coated, red-maned usurper entered the throne room. She descended the steps. She knew why she heard boss music. “I am Celestia, Princess of the Sun, and I have never known defeat”. Except for Chrysalis. Twice. And Tirek technically. But we needn’t mention them. She advanced on the usurper, and magically threw her sword forward. With expert timing, the unicorn dodged under the blade. Yanking a dark crystal out of the floor, he snapped his head instantly from left to right with at a speed that would’ve broken any normal pony’s neck, launching the crystal at incredible speed. Celestia had only an instant to shield herself from the attack. His methods were… unconventional. This would be difficult. “PR increases the DPI on his mouse to increase the speed of launched objects to ludicrous levels, which will be our main source of damage in this fight.” Celestia spread her wings and launched herself clear across the room, sword aimed straight for his heart. He raised a shield and barely blocked the strike, his horn sparking from the effort. “Remember, we have un-upgraded mana and stamina. TK is the most efficient use of both in terms of DPS”. Celestia blasted her wings forward, and herself backwards into the air. Keep his eyes on me, and not on what was coming. She charged her horn with the full power of the sun. At this signal of hers, pegasi lurking in the rafters pushed boxes, filled with explosively charged crystals, down onto the unicorn. Simultaneously, earth pony guards crashed through the windows lining the throne room and charged. She fired a lance of pure heat. But PonyRunner jumped, grabbed several of the boxes in his magic, and launched them at Celestia. Unable to shield herself, they slammed into her body and detonated, blasting her backwards and taking a chunk out of her metaphysical health bar. But it would take more than that to kill an alicorn. Instead, she redoubled her efforts, pouring even more energy into the beam as it swept across the unicorn speedrunner. There was a bright flash as the beam connected. Everypony stopped. The charging guards skidded to a halt. The pegasi held their explosives. Celestia withdrew her magic. The whole room was filled with smoke and the heat of molten stone. “Is he–” an earth pony guard began, only for one of the explosive crystal crates to come sailing out of the smoke and bonk Celestia in the snout. “PR deliberately takes a hit here, because it cancels this slow special attack and makes Celestia vulnerable– wait, you didn’t take damage?” “If you dodge-roll into the laser, the game thinks you got hit, but you don’t take damage because of the i-frames”, said PonyRunner, “I’m surprised no-one else uses this strat. It’s really easy to pull off, even casually”. “Idiots!”, she yelled, “why did you stop attacking?! What am I paying you for?” “But… you stopped attacking too…”, said one guard, forlornly. If you want something done right… She flourished her sword, telegraphing her ultimate move. “Everyone struggles with this attack, but there's a foolproof way to avoid taking damage.” The sword whirled through the air as Celestia lunged forward again. He would not escape this unscathed. Every square inch of air was filled with steel and death. The cowardly unicorn began to run. She had him now. “When she starts the attack, you want to run away for the first swing, then roll into her for the second swing”. Like a shark smelling blood in the water, Celestia readied the blade for a second dance of death. But the unicorn turned, and jumped, somehow finding the gaps between her slashes. He was behind her now. “Impossible!” Filled with rage, Celestia turned and raised herself into the air for one, final strike. PonyRunner took one step backwards She missed. He picked up another of the conveniently pegasus-provided explosives and slammed it into her face. “Then for the third, depending on where you are, you either stay still, or walk backwards away from her while locked on. If you’re next to her, just circle around her to the right and she’ll do the blade-dance in the wrong direction, and you can punish. Or you could just git gud”. Celestia raised her shield, as the unicorn blasted her with a burst of magic, augmented by Sombra’s dark-magic-infused horn, forcing her back. How was she on the back hoof?! Rage broiled and burned beneath her skin. She was losing control. And why shouldn’t she? Why not lose control? Why not become the better, prettier, and more powerful version of herself? “At half health, she transitions to phase two. This is where things get interesting”. “Imbeciles!” She she yelled, blasting back the unicorn and her worthless royal guards. She turned her head upwards towards the pegasi, singling out one in particular. Her eyes had shrunk to jagged slits. “Stop dropping garbage into the arena for him to throw at me!” The pegasus’ eyes also shrank, this time to pinpricks. “YES SIR YOUR MAJESTY SIR!” he yelled – cross-eyed – and saluted, dropping the barrel of – very explosive – crystals and crystal accessories directly on top of her. But Celestia was no longer looking at him. Celestia was no longer present. Staring at the unicorn usurper with sun-scorched eyes, Daybreaker erupted into flames. The crystal barrel exploded. Useless. Everypony else was absolutely useless. Luna, Twilight, the other imbecile Elements of Harmony. What was Cadence doing to Shining Armor right now, instead of helping her? Disgusting. “You little insect. You’ve made me use more than 10% of my power. How unfortunate for you~”. She prepared to strike… ... and was hit with the full force of the explosion hitbox she had been standing inside for the last 10 seconds. Daybreaker was blasted backwards with enough force to snap her throne in half and crater the wall behind. “Oh my god. What the f– what was that? This is actually unbelievable”, said Gage. Even Dash Guy was leaning forward, mouth open, staring with unbelieving eyes at the screen. “That was like, 25% of her health bar!” “I have NEVER seen that happen before”, said PonyRunner. It was a marathon after all. Had that hitbox been damaging her the entire phase transition? There was no time for delay. PonyRunner had to capitalised on this blessing of RNGsus. He blasted Daybreaker with a quick lance of magic. He galloped forward, grabbed a piece of the throne, and slammed it into her head. “Well, you heard it here first, folks.” said the donation reader, “new speed tech being discovered live at PGDQ!” Everything under the sun was in chaos. The castle was on fire. Chunks of ceiling and wall rained down on the battlefield. Guards panicked and ran, or flew, for their lives. The situation was excellent for PonyRunner. “Time is coming up soon”. Daybreaker fired a lance of flame at the unicorn, who simply shielded and rolled right through. She teleported to the centre of the room before he could blast her with magic. But she was now in the perfect position… The unicorn snapped his head up and fired. The chandelier, which had been hanging there in every season of the show, just slightly off camera, was severed from its mount and came crashing down. “3… 2… 1…” “And…” Author's Note Double update because the final chapter is tiny (because of the split gimmick I used for the chapter titles). Time! (45:58.95)PonyRunner pushed himself back from the computer, laid back his head, and covered his face with his hands. He was shaking from the adrenaline and stress. But it was over. He’d done it. That had to have been close. “Was that damageless?!” said the Dash guy. He really should learn that guy’s name. “I think so…” he said. His voice came muffled through his hands. Gage brought his lapel mic closer to his mouth. “Can someone on the tech bench tell us what time that was?” PonyRunner almost didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t manage more stress. With Celestia defeated – load bearing boss that she was – the castle began to crumble around a. The unicorn turned from the rubble and slowly trotted away, out of the demolished throne room, out of the castle, out of Equestria, and into the credits. “The time was…” said the announcer, “45 minutes, 58.95 seconds”. “Well, that’s definitely a PB…” he said. There was some applause, and a little chat spam. “It’s also world record by 6 seconds.” Everyone went wild. He collapsed in his chair. Gage grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him gently. “Congrats, dude. That was a perfect run”. “Well, I wouldn’t say perfect…” The Dash Guy was standing beside him too. The premonitions of a frown graced PonyRunner’s forehead. “But pretty damn close”, he smiled. “Better practice that drop clip for next run”. PonyRunner was smiling too. He stood up. One guy at the back yelled “Speech!” After that run, a speech seemed like the easiest thing in the world. “Thank you to everyone who watched and donated. I’m so happy I got the chance to show off this run live and support this great cause. Shoutouts to the couch, the HiE Discord. I know we make fun of this game and rag on it a lot… but I wouldn’t keep coming back to it unless there was something really… special about it. I dunno what it is, but it’s pretty magical. “I think everyone should give it a shot, even if it’s just once. Even if it’s just a quick run, a full playthrough, whatever, give it a try. And if you want to start running the game, there’s plenty of tutorials out there. We have side categories, like Larson% where you just rush the alicorn quest. And Smile% is exactly like this run but shorter; you get to Pinkie, you clip inside her hitbox, and that kills you somehow.” There was laughter and cheering. He put his arms over the shoulders of his two couch commentators (with, admittedly, a little hover-handing). “That’s everything. Thanks for having us! You can cut us off now.” And they did. “Thanks to PonyRunner and crew for the great run, and congrats on the world record!” said the announcer, cueing the OC remix playlist, “coming up next we have a run of Prey 2020 by Kkat. That’s going to be a very interesting run…“ Somewhere, buried beneath the rubble, a small part of Celestia wondered whether he should really be celebrating, considering she wasn’t actually dead yet. A much larger, louder part of her told her to shut up and let him have this, unless she wanted him to finish the job. ~The End~ Author's Note The end! Thanks for reading! (Run invalid, but I won’t tell if you won’t ) This fic was burning a hole in by brain and I had to get rid of it as soon as possible. I’m honestly amazed at the positive reaction its gotten. Thanks so much! If this is the only fic I ever write, I’ll be happy... but I still have few stupid ideas I want to try. Maybe some day
Setup“‘...Fallout Equestria was one of my favourites growing up. Good luck to the runner and I can’t wait to see how they turn 600,000 words into 5 and a half paragraphs. HYYYPPEEEE’. Thank you very much for the donation! And we also have a $200 donation from Anonymous that says ‘Greetings from Germaney...’” It was almost time. He glanced toward the sound-crew table and nodded. The tech gave one last adjustment to his mic and hurried off stage. Alain Harrison had hit the big time. He was up on the main stage of the world’s premier speedrunning event and his nerves were already starting to get the better of him. He menued through to his game’s settings for the fifth time in as many minutes, quintuple-checking every setting, and especially checking that the ‘foal start’ option had been disabled. No need to start the run with a disaster like that. Chat would never let him live it down. He selected “start” and a pony-creator menu popped up. A grey, expressionless pony stared back, blank but brimming with possibilities. Perhaps this would be the one… The one to get him world record. Imagine that. A record, live on camera, in front of tens of thousands of audience members, here and online. It was hard to believe this had all started as a joke. He had no particular interest in ponies, but the guy behind him, his couch co-commentator Gage, was at least a casual fan. If by ‘casual’ one meant “insane enough to spend 12 hours a day grinding Any% Good Ending”. Although, he was practically normal and well-functioning compared to most other speedrunners. And MLP fans for that matter. He had never revealed how or why he had started running it. Gage (just Gage, no pretend names) was the sole reason he was even here. On Alain’s first ever livestream on Hitch.tv, Gage had challenged him to a race of this game, but every time the player character started crying or said “friendship” they would take a shot and see who could survive the longest. Alain couldn’t remember even half of what had happened on that stream, but he’d definitely lost. And it was wild. That day, he became PonyRunner420. Or just PonyRunner, as the stream overlay called him. Strict no-funny-numbers policy. Within a week he was well and truly down the rabbit hole. With the sole goal of making the run as short and cutscene-less as possible, the Bad Ending category was the obvious choice. Of course, he had branched out into plenty of other speed games, but there was still something that kept him coming back. Something... special, in spite of how janky and silly the game was. Or, perhaps, because of it. PonyRunner turned to face the couch. There was Gage, getting his mic adjusted by the audio guy. And there was– He frowned. To Gage’s left, there was another guy, just sitting there, on the couch. He didn’t recall requesting another guy to commentate. Suspiciously far from Gage too, in the way one does when they don’t really know someone, and know they probably shouldn’t be there. He had the distinct look of someone who had just turned up, inserted themselves into a random friend-group, and just hoped everyone would think he had been invited by someone else. And he was wearing a Rainbow Dash shirt. Huge red flag. PonyRunner gave Gage a patented “speedrunner look” and glanced towards the other guy: a look exclusively understood by speedrunners to mean “who is this guy?”. Gage replied with another look, which conveyed “No clue dude”. The last thing he wanted was one of those situations during the run. It’d be a terrible shame (and huge embarrassment) if his first marathon appearance, and the first showcase of this run, was just weird, uncomfortable drama. Clipped and shared on every social media site under the sun (and several under the moon, probably). He looked over at the tech station, hoping to catch the eye of some technician or other. No-one was looking at him. The donation reader was announcing his run. It was already too late. Gage gave him one last, meaningful look: if anything happens, I’ll manage it. Just focus on the run. He had this. He had to have this. “And I’ve just heard that it is TIME. Up next is a run of Human in Equestria by PonyRunner!” A moment passed. The crowd clapped modestly. “You’re on screen”, said a voice in his ear. Here goes everything. “Hello fast horse fans! I’m PonyRunner and this is Human in Equestria Kill Celestia%, and I am joined by my couch commentators…” He turned to face the couch behind him. Lets see how this goes… “Hi, I’m Gage. I run this game and The Enchanted Library.” “And I‘m Rainbowdashfan266. I run 100% for HiE and Friendship is Optimal”. Well, that explains why he’s here...and the shirt. Wonder what happened to the other 265 Rainbow Dash fans… True ending was an absolutely deranged category. Easily 50+ hours time invested. Most people would get bored half way through a run and give up, maybe come back for one last session to prove they totally hadn’t given up and they definitely had the motivation to finish, before abandoning it for real. Maybe this guy’d submitted it to the marathon, the organizers went “Haha, no”, and put him on this couch as a commentator instead? “Before we start,” he looked over at the donation reader. He couldn’t see the comentator’s table from where he was sitting, but they had one of those ASMR voices, which was basically all that mattered. “What palette won the bid war?” “Gimme a sec… looks like… Yellow coat and red mane won”. “Nice. The classic Varia suit look”. He knew putting “(Based)” after that choice in the donation tracker was a good idea. Especially since… He quickly customized the blank pony, selected unicorn, made sure the foal start option was disabled for the 6th time, and rotated the pony sideways so the audience could see the screw attack power-up cutie mark on it’s flank. A harmless texture edit, and totally legal by the category rules. A few members of the crowd went “woo!”, and one guy in the back screamed “IT’S SAMUS” at the top of his lungs, prompting laughter from the rest. “Or Sunset Shimmer.” said the Rainbow Dash Guy. PonyRunner had no idea who that was. “If we’re all ready to kill Celestia, I’ll count us in”. He hovered over “Begin”. 3... 2... 1… And… Celestia shovelled another waffle into her mouth. Luna was uncharacteristically late to breakfast. Something must have come up during her dream realm escapades. After the Starlight Incident, Celestia knew all too well how awful that place could be. Maybe if the retirement master plan worked out, Luna would get a taste for freedom and relaxation. Then perhaps Celestia could finally convince her to get an apprentice. Or let the Shadowbolts deal with it like they were supposed to. Luna had, perhaps unsurprisingly, become obsessed with her public image since she’d returned. She was absolutely mortified at the prospect of them impersonating her in the dreams of little fillies and colts Equestria over, no matter how much Celestia tried to reassure her that they were all still dream magic professionals. She turned her ears towards the door, as the sounds of hoof-steps echoed down the hall. Very stompy. Definitely a bad night. The door handle was wreathed in blue magic and in stepped Luna, bags under her eyes and snout scrunched into a frown. Celestia swallowed the waffle. “Good morning sister”, she said with slightly restrained cheerfulness. “uhg”, came the reply. “That bad?” “I went into the nightmare of a little colt, and it was one of those dreams. The one where you are late for a test, but you can’t leave until you find your quill, you know?” Celestia nodded. She knew all too well. “Well I spent an eternity chasing that colt down an endless maze of locker rooms, trying to return his quill to quell the nightmare, and when I caught up to him, do you know what he said?” Celestia’s face fell. This again. “He said ‘You’re not the real Luna. The real Luna says Thee and Thou’!” “Did you get angry again?” she said, taking another forkful of waffle. Honestly, the Shadowbolts should be the least of her concerns. “No, sister, I did not get mad this time. That is why I am mad now”. Luna picked a pineapple out of the fruit bowl and bit it in half, spikes and all. Celestia winced. One of these days she really ought to teach her how to eat them properly. “I do not speak like that! Why does everypony still think that I speak like that? Did I waste four months of my life in speech therapy for naught?!” she said, spraying pineapple flavored spittle across the table cloth. She was getting dangerously close to Royal Canterlot volume. “Lulu, please,” said Celestia, “it takes time for ponies to adjust their expectations. We’ve been over this”. Luna merely hmmph’d. “But I can tell that is not what’s really bothering you, is it?” Luna seemed to deflate as the anger seeped out of her. “The entire time I was there, I felt that I was being… watched by something.” “In the Colt’s dream?” “No, in the dream realm itself. It felt… alien.” She frowned. “As if thousands of eyes were suddenly turned upon our world from somewhere... outside”. It was Celestia’s turn to frown. “And you have any clue as to what it could be?” She shook her head. “No. I just feel as if something is about to happen… and happen fast”. Author's Note Was watching AGDQ and I suddenly became inspired. I have almost zero time to edit this story, but that's okay. I'm speedrunning fanfiction (let me know if anything looks weird tho).
Hospital Escape (+00:02)“So the first thing you need to know is that literally every single cutscene is unskippable.” He opened his eyes. Above him, the midday sun filtered through gnarled and twisted tree branches. He squinted against the light. This wasn’t his room. He turned his head to the side. He was entirely surrounded by trees. A forest so thick that he could hardly see 10 feet between the trunks. He was in some sort of partial clearing. A Path stretch out before him. There was only one explanation. Obviously he had gotten blackout drunk at the party last night, and wandered off into the woods. There were no woods anywhere near either his house or the party. But he did have a splitting headache, which lent some credence to the theory. He reached up a hand to massage his aching scalp, and slammed himself in the face. It was yellow. And a hoof. At least he knew where this world lay on the spectrum of pony hoof hardness. “So while we’re waiting for this nonsense, I’d like to take a moment to explain some quick things we won’t have time for later. Like I said, every cutscene is unskippable… theoretically. We are going to take some drastic measures to get around this.” The yellow pony slowly got up on shaking hooves as the camera circled behind him. “So the first thing I need to explain is ‘horn cancelling’.” In an instant, the pony lunged into a forward at incredible speed, as if a timberwolf had taken a bite out of his tail. The instant he connected with the ground, however, a surge of green magic flared through his horn. The former human was upright in an instant, hoof to forehead in pain. But an instant later, he was rolling forward. Then, another flash of green light…” “Basically,” PonyRunner could already see the chat spamming BASIC MingLee LEE MingLee out of the corner of his eye, “I’m cancelling the slow, wind-down part of the roll with this ‘you can’t use magic’ animation, then cancelling that into another roll. This is the fastest movement we have at this stage of the run. Even if we weren’t forced to walk really slowly for this segment, it’s still faster than running with un-upgraded stamina. Unfortunately it only works while we don’t have magic. We will not be upgrading stamina this run, but we will be getting magic for… reasons. Very special reasons.” The ex-human rolled directly off the road into the thicket. “As you can probably guess from the category name, our main goal right now is to get to Celestia, who is in Canterlot. In a casual playthrough, there are two main ways to get there. Either we take the train, or, if you’re a pegasus, you can fly there.” The small yellow horse-with-horn continued to awkwardly stutter-roll through the forest, ignoring the various uncanny sounds surrounding him, his purpose singular and absolute. “So you’re probably thinking: ‘PonyRunner FunnyNumber, why are you a unicorn? Why don’t you just fly there? See, thing is, pegasi are actually really slow”. PonyRunner risked a glance at the stream monitor. He wasn’t sure, but the Rainbow Dash Guy whose username he couldn’t remember looked like he was frowning. “Not only do you have to do a whole quest thing to learn how to fly, which takes ages by itself, but unicorns are just… insanely broken. You’ll see. As a unicorn, we’re gonna learn everything we need to beat the game… in the next three minutes.” He rolled directly off a cliff. “Oh…” PonyRunner said, solemnly. He plunged into the treetops below. The screen faded to black. “That wasn’t supposed to happen”, “Wait… bro” said Gage, “were you going the right way?” “Was I? I thought this was the right way…” “Was that a death?!” asked Dash Guy incredulously. The audience was already laughing. They knew this bit. “Can we start over? I think we have enough time–” The screen turned white. A sterile-white tiled ceiling slowly materialized. “Eyyy just kidding!” There was laughter and mild applause at a bit well executed. “It’s like Demons’ Souls”, said Gage, “This is a forced death. Normally you just follow the path, pick up a few items, learn the controls. Then you get your cheeks clapped by a timberwolf. But if you die at any point, you just wind up in Ponyville General anyway! So PR intentionally dies here to hurry the process along”. “There’s a long cutscene coming up”, said Ponyrunner, “So now would be a great time for some donations…” Nurse Redheart had the worst luck. Nursing was difficult enough at the best of times, but all the worst, most nonsensical emergencies just had to happen during her shifts. Her’s and Doctor Horse’s, for some reason. Her patient had been discovered by pure chance by a passing pegasus. Evidently he had fallen (or, Celestia forbid, jumped) off a cliff in the middle of the Everfree. Why he was in the Everfree, nopony knew. Nopony knew anything else about him either, for that matter. She glanced down at the patient file in her hoof. No known medical history, no name, no identifying features, no record of his cutie mark, no missing ponies report (reminds me of that one green filly, she thought). And, oddly, no major injuries. One would expect falling off a cliff to have a more adverse effect on one’s health, but this unicorn was either very lucky or skilled with magic. He had escaped with nary a scratch. Nothing but sprains, bruises and a concussion, which was still dangerous, don’t get her wrong, but much less severe than it should have been? She pushed open the door. The unicorn was still lying there unconscious, position unchanged. Redheart knew it was none off her business, but she’d really hoped he’d have woken up by now, if only for the selfish reason of asking him what the buck his deal was. It was when she moved to change his IV drip, however, that she got her wish. She felt an itching in the back of her skull, as if thousands of eyes were boring into her. But when she turned, she found only one pair staring back, unblinking. His eyes were gray. Specifically, the sort of gray that said “intentionally left blank”, as if someone had forgotten to pick a color for them… “Oh! Good, you’re awake”, she said, “Any pain? Discomfort?” The yellow unicorn simply groaned in response. “That bad huh? I’ll check in with Dr. Horse and see about getting you some painkillers.” The itching in her skull had been upgraded to a buzzing feeling. It was like somepony talking to her through a very thick wall. If that wall was her skull. “It looks like we don’t have your details. Could you, perhaps, tell me your name, dear?” His reply was instant. “a” Redheart flinched. “O-oh… ah, that’s a, um, interesting name? Neighponese, I think...?” “Fun fact”, said the unicorn, “Neighponese is technically the fastest language, but in any% it actually doesn’t make a difference.” What is this guy talking about, she wondered. Maybe the head injury was more serious than any of them had realized. “It only adds up to about 1/10th of a second because of how dialogue boxes work. They display characters one at a time, but you can just mash through them to instantly complete the text box. Cutscenes all take the same amount of time regardless of language. There’s one part of the run where you can’t do this, but it ends up not mattering for a different reason. I’ll point it out when we get there.” “Excuse me? Sir? Can you–” “Don’t worry, I’m fine... I think,” said ‘a’ almost immediately, “just a little… confused, haha…” “That’s… gre–” “I just need–” “nothing difficult–”. He nodded. He wasn’t saying anything, but Redheart couldn’t help but feel he was interrupting her constantly. Oh well, just get on with the tests. She circled round to the foot of the bed and held up her clipboard. “If you could look–” The mystery stallion’s head snapped to the board. “O-o-okay…”, she moved the clipboard to the left, “now can–”. His head was already in motion before she had finished her first syllable. “Not sure why they had to put a camera tutorial here when we’ve already had to use the camera to get this far, but okay. This gives me time to explain what we’re about to do”. Who in Tartarus was this guy talking to? And what is he saying? “Coming up is a kinda gross cutscene where our character tries and fails to use the toilet. It’s really weird and uncomfortable and I don’t know why the devs always insist in including this kinda stuff”. “I have a few theories,” Gage said, “but I don’t think I can say any of them on stream”. The Rainbow Dash Guy looked like he was about to add something, but PonyRunner quickly nipped the conversation in the bud. “Regardless, we’re skipping it, so you won’t have to subject yourselves to it.” PonyRunner turned and gave Gage a weren’t you the one whose supposed to stop weird stuff from happening on stage glance, which Gage countered with a you know I’m right though look. “A lot of the trigger volumes aren’t actually tied to progression’, said PonyRunner, returning to the game, “so, generally speaking, as long was we can get to the right location, or talk to the right NPC, we can make progress without actually watching any of them first.” “And here, part of the roof actually doesn’t have collision.” Redheart looked up. There was a tile missing, leaving a pitch-black hole in the otherwise sterile ceiling. If there was a crawlspace above it, she couldn’t see into it. When she lowered her head, her patient had disappeared. “So, it’s time for some parkour” came a voice to her left. Standing on top of a crash cart was “a”, looking more goat than pony. Before Redheart could utter a single letter of disapproval, he had leapt clear across the room and landed atop a storage cabinet in the far left-hoofed corner. With one, final, almost majestic leap, he sailed straight through the hole and disappeared into the ceiling. Nurse Redheart screamed. Redheart slammed open the door and skidded into the ward hallway. She could still hear her patient talking above her. “We need to be careful with the seamwalk here.” There was a thunk as four hooves landed above her on other side of the corridor, followed by rapid hoofsteps as he disappeared down it. For a pony who’d been unconscious not sixty seconds ago, he was fast. “Our goal here is to fall back in-bounds into Dr. Horse’s office so he can teach us telekinesis. Theoretically, we could just leave the hospital now, but there are a couple of skills we have to unlock here that are critical to the run.” Redheart was at full gallop, but the voice was already receding into the distance. Doctor Horse relaxed. After the excitement earlier had turned out to be nothing life-threatening, things had become surprisingly quite at Ponyville General. That is, until a yellow unicorn fell out of the ceiling directly next to his desk. Doctor Horse spat out his coffee. “I’m having trouble using my horn”, said the uninvited guest. Horse was instantly overwhelmed, but after years of living in Ponyville, his brain knew the best course of action for dealing with the confusing and incomprehensible: just clock out for the day. Hit the bricks. He reverted to general practitioner mode. “What seems to be–?” said Horse, but the other unicorn was already speaking. “I guess after the accident in the Everfree, I must’ve... lost my ability to use magic? Haha…” He was behaving exceptionally suspiciously, but Doctor Horse was too far gone to notice or care. “You’re a unicorn, can you help me learn unicorn magic?” “Well, certain–”, “If you would–”, “Stand there an–”, “I’ll demonstrate”. Horse picked up his coffee mug in his magic. “Now you–”, “just have t–”, “now focus on–”, “press RB to–”. Horse had no idea what he had meant by “RB”, but this stallion obviously did. He wrapped the box of syringes – that Doctor Horse hadn’t actually pointed out to him yet – in green light, and quickly lifted and threw them across the room, in the general direction of where Doctor Horse hadn’t yet told him to put them. “A good first start, if a bit… excessive”, said Doctor Horse, but the other unicorn was already on the move, talking as if he were narrating his actions to somecreature invisible. “Now that we have TK, everything is broken wide open”, he said, blasting the office door open with his apparently “newly rediscovered” magic. Nurse Redheart skidded to a stop directly outside. Almost like he had timed this. “What the buck are you–” “Ah, Nurse Redheart! I was just helping our dear patient relearn unicorn telekinesis!” Doctor Horse smiled, but his empty eyes betrayed him. She knew that look. Don’t question it, just do your job and let somepony else deal with him. She gulped. “a, you r-ran off before I could run your hoof grip checks!” “It’s actually faster to do it in this order because of the cutscene skips.” “R-right! Sure! Anyway–” She pulled out a thaumometer, and the redhead unicorn instantly pressed his hoof against it. He seemed desperate to get this over with, and she was happy to be rid of him. There was no grip strength reading. The needle did not move. Buck. “Oh that’s–” “Let me try–” “Press X to–”, she extended her right hoof shakily. The stallion grabbed on her hoof with his own and violently yanked back. Thank Celestia she was an earth pony or this guy would’ve sent her flying across the room. “Thanks, I’m feeling much better now”, he said. And then, in a completely different tone of voice, added, “this is basically the inventory tutorial, I’ll explain why we need this later”. “That’s great!” she lied, “You’re discharged! You can leave now. The exit is–”, but he was already in motion. “TK is absolutely cracked. It’s the whole reason this run is possible. Imagine Half Life 2, Sonic ‘06 and Breath of the Wild combined”. He sheathed a crash cart parked against the wall in his magic. Oh no. Oh no-no-no-no–. In one swift movement, he leaped into the air, twisted 180 degrees, and blasted the cart directly into his own back. Both he and the cart sailed down the corridor as ungracefully as a rock and rag-dolled against the far doors. “This is the fastest form of movement”. There were echoes of laughter. Before either Doctor Horse or Nurse Redheart could comprehend the true nature of this manoeuvrer, he had already picked the cart and himself up. He positioned the cart at a roughly 45 degree angle from the door, and wedged himself into the gap between them. “This is called a ‘drop clip’”, he said, followed by, “wait, angle’s wrong”. He picked up the cart and moved it imperceptibly. Redheart and Horse could only stand and gape as he dropped the cart, picked up the cart, and then threw it at the door, pushing his upper body directly through it. He picked himself up and pulled his rear end through after him. “That’s not the exit”, said Redheart. She felt like she could hear hooves stomping in celebration. Or was that...? Both of their heads snapped backwards towards the clip-clop sounds rounding the corner behind them. It was purple, had a horn, and had wings. “Oh! Nurse Redheart, Doctor Horse!” said princess Twilight Sparkle, “Can you help me with something? Princess Luna thinks there’s some sort of disturbance in the dreamscape, and I think I’ve narrowed down the source to somewhere in this hospital. Have either of you seen anything… strange, recently?” It was going to be one of those days. Author's Note This fic is a mess I have no idea what I’m doing.
Lyra Launch (+00:04)Applejack had just crossed the bridge into Ponyville when she saw… him. A yellow unicorn, with a red mane, standing almost horizontally on the side of a barrel – which he appeared to be levitating – was flying directly towards her, and her cart, at very high speeds. Whatever was going on, it seemed dangerous. Ah think Ah should probably... stop him? “Woah there pardner!” she yelled, pulling out her lasso (which, of course, she always kept on her at all times). With a flick of her neck, the lasso sailed over the unicorn and his strange transportation device. Applejack pulled down hard, yanking the strange pony to the ground, and out of whatever spell he was under. The barrel split, spilling apples everywhere. “Nice, hit the trigger”, he said. “The hay? Is this one’a mah apple barrels?” She bent down to meet the stranger’s eyes. “What exactly do ya think yer doin’? Somepony could’a been hurt! Includin’ you”, she glowered at him. The unicorn gulped. “Well… you see…”. “This is another unskippable one, so more donations if you’ve got ‘em.” said PonyRunner “Oh, actually”, said Gage, “what’s the status on the incentive? That’s coming up fairly soon”. The donation reader cleared his throat. “let me just see… so far, Twilight is in the lead with thirty-two thousand, one hundred and eighteen dollars and 69 cents”. “Nice”, intoned both Gage and PonyRunner, followed by a delayed and muttered “nice” from the Rainbow Dash Guy. “Followed by Rarity with twenty thousand dollars and 32 cents”. “Unfortunately” said PonyRunner, “all of you are wrong. Where’s Luna in the running?” “Luna is… actually third with 15k!” “Guys, guys, please. Come on! Step your game up, PR’s on record pace!” said Gage. “She’s not just best princess, she’s fastest princess.” “Yeah”, said PonyRunner, “Don’t you want to go fast? I though this was a speedrun. Shaking my head over here.” “Nah”, said the Rainbow Dash Guy smugly, “I’m voting for best pony Dashie. Everyone vote Rainbow Dash!” he called out. But Gage only smiled as he turned to face his co-couch-commentator. “Oh, she’s not an option”. “…Huh?” The smile sloughed off his face. “We never see her in any%. Or Fluttershy and Starlight actually. If we were a pegasus she’d be here instead of Applejack. We skip all her other appearances”. “So, yer tellin’ me,” said Applejack, “that yer an ‘alien’ from ‘another dai-mension’, you don’t know how you got here, and we’re all… fictional characters?” “Pretty much!” “That’s plum near the craziest thing Ah’ve ever heard!” “You’re the Element of Honesty, you tell me if I’m lying”. “Sugarcube, Ah’m not a lie detector. Believe me, if Ah was, Ah could’ve avoided a whole heapin’ mess’a problems”. “Well, believe it or not, the facts remain: I don’t have money, food, a place to stay, or a way home”, said a. Applejack’s expression softened. “Ah suppose that’s true… maybe I’m bein’ too harsh on ya, even if ya do seem… well, either way! After Ah take care of this delivery, Ah guess Ah’ll take ya to see Rarity. She’ll probably have something fer you ta do While Ah talk to Twilight about... all this.” Suddenly, a change came over the unicorn. “So, the way this section works, is it’s… kind of a reverse escort mission? Gage, can you explain this one?” “Sure. So, Applejack is going to take us around Ponyville, show us the sites, you get the idea. It’s kinda free-form, you can wander around, talk to the ponies, do whatever.” Applejack raised a solitary eyebrow at this, but nevertheless continued to pull her cart into the Ponyville outskirts. a was sticking uncomfortably close by her side. “AJ has three ‘states’: escorting, wandering and waiting. What she’s doing now is escorting. If we get too far from her, she’ll say something like–” The unicorn suddenly sprinted away from the cart. “Don’t wander off, sugarcube!” “...that, and the game won’t let us move away. There’s a soft boundary surrounding her, like a bubble that pushes us back. If anyone watching at home knows any way of getting around this, please get on the HiE Speedrun Discord–”. Discord? What the hay kinda relation did this guy have to Discord? Suddenly, his crazy-talk was starting to make a lot more sense. “...However, at certain points, AJ lets us off the hook and we can wander around a limited area without needing to be near her. She’ll just keep walking until she hits a checkpoint. If the player isn’t there when AJ arrives, she’ll wait for us to catch up, which loses time because AJ is the one that actually loads in Carousel Boutique. So, PonyRunner needs to do as much as possible here, but still be at the checkpoint exactly on time. It looks like an auto-scroller, but there is zero downtime.” Applejack was almost cross-eyed from the strain of figuring just out what in Equestria this unicorn was talking about. She almost didn’t notice him wander into an alley – just on the edge of what she considered acceptable-boundaries-for-wandering-off – and dive head-first into a dumpster. “S-sugarcube? Just what in Tartarus are you doin’?” Suddenly, he exploded out of the dumpster, scattering trash everywhere. He was holding aloft a ratty bag of bits, glowing like he’d just discovered some incredible treasure. An indeterminate number of centuries later, a unicorn felt a tingling down her spine, certain that a bond of kinship had been forged across the millennia. “This 15 bit bag is actually guaranteed to be in here, which is very convenient because it’s important for a glitch coming up soon. And, for some reason, opening the dumpster makes AJ’s cart move very slightly faster!” He put the ratty thing in his mouth and trotted on back to her cart. She really did not want to think about where it had been. She quickened her pace. She needed something, anything to distract the unicorn, and herself. “O-oh! Look! There’s the famous, ah, Sugarcube Corner!” She pointed a hoof at the bright pink dessert-themed confectionery store. “Maybe the Cakes’ll give you a free cupcake if you go in there and wash your dang mouth–” She turned to scowl at a, but there was nopony there. Only a rapidly dissipating dust cloud. “That’s our audio cue. Chat, are you ready for the greatest trick in the run?” It was an exceptionally normal day in Ponyville, and Lyra Heartstrings felt like the most exceptionally normal unicorn of all. She was sitting, normally, on a bench outside Sugarcube Corner, enjoying the normal weather and eating a deliciously normal cupcake, that she had purchased, with money, from Mr. and Mrs. Cake. Who, she had to admit, were looking extremely normal today. But there was something else. Something wrong. She felt a buzzing in her horn. This was not normal. If she concentrated, it almost sounded like a... crowd of ponies. A crowd that was chanting something. Something which sounded an awful lot like ‘Lyra Launch’. Something was approaching her. Approaching fast. She turned, cupcake forgotten. It was a yellow unicorn with a red mane, galloping directly towards her, at top speed, kicking up a trail of dust in his wake. The chanting was audible now. “LY-RA LAUNCH! LY-RA LAUNCH!” Suddenly, the unicorn snatched a nearby trash-can off the side-walk with his magic, and launched it straight at her. She didn’t have time to yell, let alone grab it with her own magic. Or cast a shield. Or do anything else a unicorn could. All she could do was hold her hooves in front of her head, and hope. There was a loud clang. The trash-can was, thankfully, empty. But it still hurt. She dropped her cupcake, and leaned away, hunched over in surprise and pain. She was filled with rage and brimming with tears. Who did this lunatic think he was? She was going to give him a piece of her mind– She didn’t get the chance. Something big and furry landed in the space between her back and the bench. She yelped in fear and snapped bolt upright. This had an unexpected effect. She felt like she was leaning back through soft, furry jello. Yellow jello. It was the unicorn. He was phasing through her body. Suddenly, everything began to vibrate, as if an enormous amount of force were being channelled out of Lyra’s body and into her attacker’s. He became a blurry haze, the mere suggestion of a pony. And then, he was gone. Lyra looked up, fear and anger replaced with confusion and wonder, as she saw the unicorn fly straight up into the air, and mid-air dodge-roll into the third story window of Sugarcube Corner. There was cheering. “Huh?” Pinkie felt like a doozy was coming on. Something totally unexpected. Ear flop, eye flutter… but then knee pinch, which meant ‘watch for broken windows’. Or ‘Watch for Rolling Rocks’, one or the other. But her tail was twitching, so something must be falling? And she’d had that all-over tingly feeling she got whenever a new pony showed up in Ponyville… which could only mean… She smiled and turned to her bedroom window, just as a yellow-coated unicorn, with a red mane, and a cutie mark depicting a ball with a lightning bolt, smashed through it. “...if you’ve ever seen a Spyro speedrun, that was basically a proxy. Lyra has a unique sitting animation, and we can hit her to cause her to go into a pain animation, and that makes enough space to wedge ourselves between her and the bench. Then, when she goes back to idling, her animation pushes us inside her hitbox. The physics has no idea how to handle it, so it just launches us directly upwards at terminal velocity. And because we didn’t jump, the game thinks we’re still grounded, so there’s a few frames where we can input a roll mid-air to get through the window. Basically, when Lyra loses her lunch we get launched.” “I knew there was a new pony in town!” Pinkie gasped, “I was going to throw you a party before you got here but then I remembered I’m supposed to ask you if you want a party before-hoof because Twilight said I need to be ‘more considerate’ about throwing parties for ponies who don’t want parties after that one time with Cranky Doodle and that other time after I threw that party for the new repair-pony and he was avoiding me somehow so I had everpony in Ponyville secretly manipulate him into coming to Sugarcube Corner as part of a giant conspiracy to throw him the BEST PARTY EVER”, she gasped for breath, “but he didn’t like the party and now he has a RESTRAINING ORDER because he thought I was going to bake him into a cupcake or something, haha I would never do something like that~”, she said, smiling. Even though the unicorn was nodding along, listening with apparent rapt attention, she still got the impression he wasn’t really hearing anything she had to say. It didn’t bother her though; she got that reaction a lot. She continued speaking unabated. Remember back like ten minutes ago”, said PonyRunner, “when I said there was one place where you couldn’t skip text boxes? The devs coded in a joke here where, if you mash through Pinkie’s text, she gets annoyed that you’re not paying attention and starts talking r-e-a-l-l-y slowly. I have to progress the text with a very specific rhythm, but it actually doesn’t matter what language we use, because the time you have to wait is hard-coded per text box. And talking to Pinkie is actually mandatory. Remind me to talk about that when we do Depression Skip.” “...and then I got a twitchy tail so I knew you were coming through the window!” said Pinkie. She inhaled, catching a whiff of something that was distinctly not sunshine and rainbows. “Wow you smell kinda bad!”, she said with undiminished joviality, “have you been dumpster diving? Didja find anything cool!?” He jiggled the sack of bits. “Wow! Kinda smelly though, I know just the solution!” she said. Pinkie produced an entire bathtub from off-screen – complete with Gummy, of course – and dumped the entire contents over a. “All clean!” “This interaction is unfortunate”, said PonyRunner, “it’s random and only happens if someone sees you dumpster diving, sort of like Stardew Valley. Luckily, because of the exact route we’ve been taking so far, the RNG is set up to always trigger it here. And this event also clears the status, so other NPCs won’t comment on it! Everything is part of the route, trust us”. “So, want me to throw you a party?” Pinkie beamed. “This is a fake choice, the dialogue loops until you say–” “Yes”. “AHHHHH I knew I knew I knew you’d want a party! I promise it’ll be the bestest, funnest party you’ve EVER HAD! Um… except it won’t be ready today… It’ll be ready TOMORROW!” She screamed, as if this were her greatest idea since pre-peeled cupcakes. “I’ll definitely be there!” said a. “Spoilers, but we skip the party”. Pinkie’s eye twitched. The audience booed. The unicorn made to climb back out of the broken window. “WAIT!” Screamed Pinkie. She was sweating. She didn’t know why. “I, um, forgot to... ask your name! For the... banners!” She was filled with inexplicable dread. “My name’s a”, he said. “And there’s the only reason why our name is one character long”. He jumped. Author's Note Content Warning: Lyra gets used for speed tech (gone wrong?!) Also lol @ all the comments saying “avoid Pinkie”. You really think a speed gamer wouldn’t be at least 4 PUs ahead of her?
The Full Reverse Half Rarity (+00:00)“An’ this here’s the Ponyville market!” Applejack turned to look at her strange acquaintance. He was still there. Had he been there this whole time? He was soaking wet, but at least he no longer stank. Maybe he’d actually taken her suggestions to heart? “Ah need to drop off this load of apples at my brother Big Mac’s stall, so ya’ll just… wander ‘round? See the sights? Spend some of them… dumpster bits?” Talk ta anypony else but me, please. The bizarre stallion dashed off into the market. A brief moment of respite amidst the madness. Now, to deliver these apples… Applejack was being very… weird this run. Uncooperative. She was definitely taking at least a second longer than usual to trigger her dialogue. But even in spite of this, he could feel the pace he was on. Almost everything besides the first drop clip had gone perfectly. But that pace could slip at any moment. He’d have to do it. And he needed to do it first try. But that was later. He grabbed a physics object crate in his magic, jumped, flicked the camera around, and fired. Another quick launch, sailing directly over the flower sisters’ stall, who, of course, screamed and ducked for cover. “Remember how we did that hoof-grip tutorial way back at the start of the run”, said PonyRunner, “and that bag of bits we’ve been carrying around? This is where it all comes together”. His target was a fruit stall. But not Applejack’s. No, he needed a different kind of apple. PonyRunner had never watched the show, but Tropical Slice had the distinctive look of an original character. She had a bright orange coat, unkempt green hair and, most importantly, a cutie mark of a pineapple. She was joined by her daughter, Piña Colada, but this was irrelevant. “This is our victim. We are going to absolutely ruin her career, and the economy. Can one of you explain this for me?” Wait. No. He shouldn’t have said– “Sure, I’ll take this”, said the Rainbow Dash Guy. He sniffed. “So basically, what PonyRunner is gonna do here is an item dupe, that you can only do when you have one inventory space”. PonyRunner interacted with Slice, opening the trading window. On his side, there was only a single square of space, occupied by the bag of fifteen dumpster bits. On Tropical Slice’s side, there was a long list of various tropical fruit. “Now”, Dash Guy narrated, “he’s going to hover over the pineapples, buy as many as possible with the 15 bits, and then he’s gonna confirm the purchase and on the exact next frame he’s gonna press X to drop the bit bag from his mouth. Now we have the pineapples in our inventory, and the bit bag is still on the floor. He’s gonna drop the pineapples, pick up the bag, and repeat.” Oh. That was… perfectly fine? Correct, even. Crisis averted. “We have one inventory space, but we can hold 99 of the same item in it. Don’t ask where we’re keeping these pineapples”, said Gage, to much audience amusement. “Oh, and this only works before we get the saddlebags from Rarity”, Dash Guy continued, “because, afterwards, bits go into a… wallet thing. Bit bag objects stop appearing in your inventory. You can still dupe, but it’s way slower.” “While I’m duping, can someone explain why we need 99 pineapples?” Luna was tired beyond belief. But with significantly fewer pony dreams during the day, this was her best opportunity to narrow down the source of the disturbance. Follow the buzzing… And she had. The thing before her was less of a singular nightmare, and more of a writhing mass of souls, all pulling with and against one other. Luna tucked her wings and alighted silently before it. This had to be it… but what was it? Only one way to find out. The Princess of the Night drew forth a thin, white strand from her horn and cast it backwards, tethering her to the dream realm proper. A safety line, to guard against whatever lay below. She spread her wings once more, and dove horn first in. And slammed horn first into some sort of screen. At first, she thought she had failed to penetrate the anomaly, but upon closer inspection she was no longer in the dream realm at all. To her right, she felt a writhing mass of minds: restrained, but desperate to be unleashed. But in front of her, beyond the screen, lay a very strange scene. There were three… ape-like creatures, one sitting close to the screen, and two sitting far apart on a sofa, some ways behind it. She was reminded vaguely of Sunset Shimmer’s description of the creatures from the mirror realm, but she had never seen these “Hugh Mans” with her own eyes. One of them was speaking. “… the story is, roughly, that we need to ‘make friends’ with at least one member of the Mane 6, including Luna and Starlight, at which point Celestia will invite us to Canterlot Castle to meet her”, said the ape-thing with the long mane, seated on a sofa further back from the screen. “This unlocks Canterlot as a selectable destination at the train station, which is our only way of getting to her this early in the game. This is any%, so naturally we’ll be killing her instead.” Kill Celestia?! What manner of diabolical plot had she stumbled upon? “Our only options for ‘friendship’ in this run are AJ, Rarity, Twilight, Pinkie… and, of course, Luna. And by friendship I mean dating sim. And by dating sim I mean pineapple feeding and menu sim”. Luna, while not quite as shocked as she had been at the revelation that they were planning to kill her sister, was nevertheless shocked. It was hard to decipher what exactly these creatures meant, but it seemed they intended to manipulate the element-wielders in order to get close to Tia. And if they got close enough… Perhaps this was some scheme of Chrysalis’, she thought. The changelings had been reformed, but their former queen was still at large, and doubtless hungry for revenge. From the way they spoke, they must have some agent in Ponyville; one which, for all intents and purposes, seemed like a normal pony. “What’s the vote looking like?” “Let me check…” said an unseen voice that sent odd shivers of electricity down Luna’s spine, “Twilight is still in the lead with 38 thousand dollars, but in second place, Luna has actually overtaken Rarity and is sitting at 27 thousand dollars to 25! Keep those donations coming guys.” Luna was torn. On the one hoof, how dare they try to murder her sister to solicit charity money! On the other, how dare they vote for Twilight over her?! “Luna voters, you still have time to save the run. Get out there and donate.” Now Luna was even more confused. “Let me explain”, said the ape-creature sitting closest to the screen. “All of them, for some reason, accept pineapples as gifts, which increases friendship. So any pony should be fine, right? Wrong. Luna is the fastest option by a lot. Not only does she introduce the friendship mechanic to us later, so we don’t have to go out of our way to befriend anyone, but she absolutely loves pineapples for some reason. It makes the run go by so much faster. You’ll see.” Wait. ‘The Run’? She knew what this was. She had simply been looking at this scene from the wrong perspective. She lacked context… Luna drew upon all of her Gamer instincts. It was even worse than she could have imagined… They were speedrunners. She had to warn Celestia. Tropical Slice felt like she was going insane. She could have sworn she had given this stallion his order of pineapples at least 10 times now. Yet, every time she looked up, there he was, bit bag in mouth. The floor was covered in pineapples. Finally, finally, the unicorn handed over the bits, she handed over the pineapples, and he left with his ill-gotten gains. AJ was now on her way to Rarity’s boutique, having left the cart in Big Mac’s hooves for the time being. As she approached the market entrance, she scanned the area nervously for any yellow sign of the strange unicorn. She couldn’t see him yet. She felt guilty, but a part of her feverishly hoped that he had disappeared back to whatever dimension had spat him out. Or had, at least, gotten lost in the market. Her hopes were dashed, however, when a yellow blur slammed into the ground, inches from her head, the instant she laid hoof at the market’s exit. Followed by a box of pineapples. She sighed. “Rarity! Rarity!” The boutique was closed, but that wasn’t going to stop Applejack. She was desperate. “Rarity! Ah need to talk to you! It’s an emergency! Get yer flank down here!” There were hoofsteps, followed by a distant voice. “Applejack, language! Sweetie has a friend over upstairs!” ’A’ friend? The CMCs were nigh-on inseparable… anyway– The door opened, revealing the aforementioned white fashionista unicorn. She still had mane-curlers in. “This had better be important, Applejack. It is my day off–” She leaned her head to one side, locking eyes with the yellow unicorn standing behind Applejack. “Who is–” “That’s what–” “Ah need to talk–” “Can we come–?” Applejack was glancing around nervously, ears laid flat against her head. “O-oh, well, I suppose–“ “Great!” She grabbed her unicorn “companion” and threw him bodily through the doorway. “Go on, git!” It was time. “Once we load in, I’ll be attempting one of the hardest tricks in the run. There’s a walkabout section, followed a cutscene that’s really long, explains the whole plot, and we are going to try to skip all of it. This is absolutely not marathon safe, so I’ll go for it once and if I miss we’ll just watch the cutscene normally.” Inside the boutique, Rarity was heading for the kitchen, presumably to boil the kettle for her two guests. PonyRunner, however, was interested in something else: the ponnikins lining the back wall. “It’s called the Full Reverse Half Rarity”, he said “and it’s called the Full Reverse Half Rarity because, if you discover a trick, you get to name it. And I discovered this trick.” He grabbed a ponnikin in his magic. “First, we need to speed Rarity up.” He held the ponnikin over Rarity’s head, and pushed down firmly. She felt a sudden pressure in her horn and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she was in the kitchen. Funnily enough, she couldn’t remember how exactly she’d gotten into the kitchen. Or when. “...what was I doing again?” she asked herself, “oh, yes, the tea”. She took a single hoof-step forward, and suddenly found that the tea had been boiled, brewed, and placed upon the table. She didn’t remember doing any of that, either. “This is one of the only examples of a horn bonk in run. Rarity has a horn, which sticks out of her hitbox, obviously. By jamming something on her head, the game thinks she’s gotten stuck on a physics object, and just teleports her to the next pathing node. You do this way more in true ending, since there are actual unicorns you, ya know, interact with”. “If there’s one consistent theme of this run”, said Gage, “it’s the physics not knowing what’s going when things are inside each other”. Now for the difficult part. He placed the ponnikin down in front of the kitchen counter, and leapt. First, on top of the ponnikin; then, on top of the kitchen shelves. “We aren’t allowed to go upstairs, but thankfully Carousel Boutique has conveniently weird geometry. Epilepsy warning, by the way.” From there, he jumped to the clock above the kitchen window, where he perched precariously, pixel perfectly. “The ceiling curves inwards in a dome-shape, so we can do this–” He spun the camera and fired into his own face. He ragdolled straight through the wall. “We have now entered the Rainbow Hell Zone.” A garish nightmare of colours stretched on infinitely, Carousel Boutique merely an island in a sea of blinding after-images, like a hall of mirrors in a rainbow factory. “And now”, said PonyRunner, reaching below his seat, “this is how it’s going to go down”. He produced three pieces of cardboard, with a drinking cup glued between each layer, and a tiny Fluttershy figurine. “We are falling down out of here”, he mimed with Fluttershy leaving the middle layer, “and heading towards here”, placing her on the lowest layer. “We’re going to fall into the void for about 40 seconds”, he said, “I promise this is faster than watching the cutscene. Eventually we will hit this plane, called the ‘wrap point’. When we hit it, our height, the Z axis coordinates, will overflow from negative to positive. This will instantly teleport us to the height limit of the map”. He moved Fluttershy to the top layer. “But there’s a problem. We’re now in something called a ‘voidout zone’. When you’re inside a VZ, you, naturally, void out, like when you fall in a bottomless pit. This puts you back where you were just standing. Normally, there’s a value called “ActorLastStablePosition” which stores the last co-ords when you were on solid ground”, he demonstrated with Fluttershy, ”but, because we’re above the map, we have what’s called a ‘pegasus voidout’”. It was time for a certain couch commentator’s redemption arc. He turned to face the Dash Guy. “Guess Fluttershy did make an appearance after all”, he said, putting the prop down, “you do full game runs, can you explain this part?” “Oh, uh, I guess?” he said. He seemed genuinely surprised. Don’t screw this up... “Normally, the, uh, sky has a... soft boundary that pushes you downwards and back inbounds. Like, similar to the one around Applejack but weaker. Above that is something called a ‘pegasus voidout zone’, which we can glitch into with pegasus flight in full game runs. A PVZ behaves... weird? It takes your last X and Y coordinates, but instead of height it just draws a line down from the sky to find the highest stable ground, and warps us there”. “Exactly,” PonyRunner, interrupted, “and because our x and y were set when we were in the ceiling in the kitchen, the voidout warps us up from there. Directly into…” He hit the zone. Sweetie Belle was a little bored. She wasn’t really sure what she’d been expecting, but it was probably a little more… she couldn’t think of the word, but it wasn’t this! Don’t get her wrong, she was fine watching PGDQ with Button Mash. She enjoyed a good speedrun now and then, and the runs were fine this year. It’s just that Button was being so… weird! He was mostly just sitting in silence, eating popcorn and staring at the screen. Occasionally he’d risk a glance at her, before quickly looking away when he noticed her looking. And when she tried talking to him, he’d just say one word, turn bright red, and start cramming popcorn into his mouth. It was nothing like how he usually acted! What was wrong with that colt? Was it Sweetie’s fault? Was it all that… lawyer stuff? Maybe it was his mom? He’d really wanted to watch Pony Games Done Quick, but she wouldn’t let him. And with her own parents out of town (typical, she thought bitterly, but at least they weren’t Scootaloo’s parents), the only option was Rarity’s. Button had hauled the crystal TV the entire way from his house, up the stairs, and into Rarity’s “inspiration room”. Sweetie wished he’d had that kind of dedication for, you know, talking to her? She turned back to the TV. There was something… weird about this whole situation. Everything was contrived; she felt like she was being set up for some kind of prank. And if she squinted, the runner stopped looking like a pony, and the game he was playing seemed oddly familiar… There was a thump as something landed on the ceiling. “PonyRunner has to be extremely careful here. He can slide off the roof very easily” came a voice, unnaturally doubled by the TV. “He needs to stand here, and slide back inbounds on at the exact right pixel, so he hits the stairs on the same frame he activates the SweetieMash cutscene.” A yellow hoof glitched through the wall, and began to shuffle around the circumference of the room, towards the stairs. The hoof was followed by a head with a red mane. Even Button Mash had unglued his eyes from the TV. There was no need to watch it any more. It was happening for real. “We’re going to start this cutscene, and then try to leave downstairs. This tells the game we’re at a different point in the cutscene, and the Rarity cutscene gets confused and skips to the end. And oh, look, Twilight is here! And we have the saddlebag!” It was impossible to tell who grabbed who first, but one could be certain that they both screamed together. “This saves about four seconds”. Author's Note Didn’t have as much time to proofread this part, let me know if you see anything sus. I like how this is ostensibly a fic about Celestia, but Luna is doing 90% of the work. So realistic! I also enjoy introducing lore and worldbuilding that will absolutely never be followed up on, because we’re skipping all of the plot.
Dream Date (-00:02)“...and they use glitches and exploits to finish without really playing the game. It is basically cheating”. “Yes, and you know this because…?” asked Celestia. Luna had cancelled all of Celestia’s midday meetings (on her behalf, violently), summoned the royal guard, and had dragged her into Celestia’s private study, in the middle of one of her petitions about funding an orphanage, to talk about… this. Luna’s eyes were bloodshot and she was drooling everywhere. Celestia was concerned and confused. “Have you forgotten, sister?”, Luna shook her head, spraying spittle, “I was a Gamer Girl back in 2013. I know all about speedrunners and their evil desire to ruin videogames for everypony”. “And they want to... kill me?” “Their depravity knows no bounds. They would just clip through them anyway”, she added. Celestia sighed. “Very well. I’ll remain in the castle while you investigate. But please get some sleep Lulu. I think I see a supernova in your mane”. Luna blanched and turned her head sideways in embarrassment. “We– I will. And I will get to the bottom of this, sister. Mark my words!” She turned on her hooves and took flight, crashing directly into the study’s door. “After a little nap”, she said, through gritted teeth. While Rarity tried to calm the panicked filly and colt, Twilight took it upon herself to ‘escort’ their strange intruder back to her castle. He didn’t seem evil. Just… very, very weird. And not just the whole ‘I’m a human from another dimension thing’. That she could almost understand. She had a whole mirror in her basement that did exactly that. No, weird as in blasting himself with boxes, phasing through walls, using Lyra as a springboard, if what Applejack said was true (and she was fairly confident that AJ wouldn’t lie her). Maybe it was something to do with the dimensional transfer process? Oh, where was Starswirl’s Dimensional Treatise Vol. 4 when she needed it… Maybe she should just ask him for another copy. He did owe her a lot of favours. “I completely forgot to mention this,” said the human-unicorn, “but right here is where Pinkie would jump us with the party invite if we hadn’t glitched into her room and triggered it early. It’s the same length either way, but since we’re waiting for Applejack it makes sense to just do it then.” “And I think it’s time to close the donation incentives, right?” said Gage. “Lets hear ‘em. But if Luna’s in the lead I’m closing them instantly.” “It looks like Twilight is still in the lead with 38k, but Luna is definitely close– Oh, just received a donation I think you’ll want to hear,” said the announcer. “We have a whopping $10000 from Rarity! It says: ‘My little sister and her coltfriend–” Coltfriend? Someone’s role-playing a li-i-ittle too hard in the dono messages, thought PonyRunner. “...have been watching the marathon all day, so I thought I’d donate to remind them to pick up after themselves when they’re done, and do try not to eat so much popcorn Sweetie, you’ll spoil your appetite! I couldn’t choose between all the options, so I think I’ll let the runner choose what he wants.” There it was. “And runners choice is, I believe, Luna!” said the announcer, ‘which puts Luna in the lead with 42 thousand dollars! Thank you so much for your very generous donation”. “Close it! Close the bid war! We’re done!” “And who am I to say no? The winner of the best pony incentive is… Princess Luna!”. PonyRunner sighed with relief. “Whoever you are, you have just saved the run.” The journey back to Twilight’s castle went by quicker than normal. Surprisingly so. Every so often, Twilight felt something hit her horn, but whenever she looked up, there was nothing there. A stray rain-cloud? She was positive she wasn’t teleporting... was she? Her human-unicorn (humicorn?) seemed to be keeping up at least. She flung open the door with her magic. “This is where you’ll be staying, while the girls and I figure out what’s up!” Most ponies who saw her crystal castle were, at the very least, interested. Usually they were impressed, or in awe, or one of many other, similar emotions. Heck, she still found herself craning her neck to take in the sights – in particular, the strange geometry of the ‘tree trunk’ never failed to impress her. Almost as if the castle interior was in a competently different place, and the door simply ‘loaded it in’! Now that she thought about it, a lot of the buildings in Ponyville felt like that. The human-turned-pony, however, seemed much more interested in one of the supply closets. The ones Starlight and Spike kept opening and throwing junk into, until they collapsed on the next pony who opened them. Which was precisely what happened to her unicorn guest when he opened it. She picked the whole mess up in her magic and quickly sorted everything back onto its proper shelf. “No no, the guest rooms are this way. I know, I know, ‘the doors all look the same’. I’m working on a floor plan and labelling system, but world ending disasters just keep getting in the way, you know how it is”, Twilight said, giving him a knowing look. He was still holding a bucket. “I need this for a clip later”. “… O-o-okay…” She pushed open the door to the guest room. It wasn’t exactly ‘modestly sized’, but it was a fair sight smaller than some of the other, more luxurious rooms of the castle. This room, however, was special in other ways. Ways pertaining to… ‘security and observation’. If somepony wanted to, oh, say, secretly observe and study an alien lifeform without them knowing, they may or may not have chosen this particular room for that purpose. “If you need anything, or if you recover your memories, just ring this bell,” which she dinged with her magic, “to let me know!” She frowned. “You… do have amnesia, right? We established that at Rarity’s… didn’t we?” “Chat, I have no idea what the plot is. I haven’t played casually in years”. Twilight grimaced and chuckled nervously. She could’ve sworn it was midday moments ago, but it was now dark outside the window. Had Princess Celestia already set the sun? “Well… see you… tomorrow?” She closed the door, and hurried to her observation room Luna couldn’t tell if she had been asleep for six minutes or six hours. But she could tell she was still cranky, which she felt was the perfect mood to confront an evil, murderous speedrunner. She rested her royal rear on her meditation mat (padded for comfort (the mat, not her)), and cast the spell that would draw her into the Dream Realm. The anomaly was exactly where she left it, but this time a single, thin cable of dream magic trailed out of it. Luna diligently traced to its end, whereupon she found it tethered to a pony’s dream. She prepared herself for combat, and dived in. … She felt very… two-dimensional. More so than usual. There was a very blurry photograph of a high-school classroom behind her. She heard soft and nonintrusive music. And there was the unicorn. “Halt! Foul crea–” “How dare–” “the Princess–” Oh no, he was already skipping her dialogue. She would need every ounce of her strength to hold on. “Oh? You–” “the Magic of Frie–” “Then prove it!–” PonyRunner’s hands flew across the keyboard. He was menuing harder than he’d ever menued in his life. Luna felt she had known this stallion all her life. His tragic past in the orphanage, his struggle with mental illness, his triumphs, his marriage, his desolation at her death, the loneliness in being separated from his family… She pitied the poor creature. No, not just pitied. Something else. Something more. He hoofed her a 15th pineapple. It was love. Definitely love. “Now, you may be asking”, said PonyRunner, “how did we get real pineapples into the dream realm? The answer is: very carefully”. “Let’s just call it lucid dreaming”, said the Dash Guy. Wow, that was actually funny! He was improving! “I was wrong–” “I hope you don’t thi–” “I will–” “Farewell for now–” “And with that, we’ve reached Heart Level 6. We are officially dating Princess Luna!”, declared PonyRunner to thunderous applause. A brief fade to black, and a was once again wide awake. “We’re now in the endgame. Canterlot is open, and the only thing between us and killing Celestia is pure execution. No waiting, no plot, just action. “But first, remember that party Pinkie was throwing for us? We need to skip it.” PonyRunner dodge rolled out of bed and grabbed the bucket. “This is called Clinical Depression Skip. Don’t ask what happens at the party casually”. He held the bucket against the wall and simply walked straight through it. “Walls don’t actually exist if you have a bucket. Don’t believe Big Wall’s lies”. He remained clipped halfway through the wall, and began to carefully trot along the edge of the room, along the edge of the hallway outside. “There are trigger volumes everywhere. Someone really did not want you missing this party. If we step too far out of the room, Pinkie will lock us into the same following state AJ did earlier. There’s no escape. “There are trigger volumes outside the window, in the ceiling, and the party is directly below us. It covers the entire corridor outside too. But, because the crystal castle’s walls are thicker than normal, we can seamwalk along the edge where it touches inbounds without hitting any of them. “You can actually see four different Pinkies waiting for us outside”, he pointed at his screen, as if anyone else could see it. The audience laughed. There were, indeed, four Pinkies, all t-posing – which looked very odd on a pony – below him, above him, in the corridor, and standing dangerously atop some sort of flying contraption outside the window. Every inch of the castle had been covered in banners, each with a single, solitary letter: ‘a’. PonyRunner trotted his character across the walls of the adjoining rooms, until he came to the end of the corridor. “We’ve dodged the hallway trigger, but going down the stairs triggers the party. So we’re going to use the stairs in a slightly different way–” He dropped a pineapple at his hooves, stood on it, and picked it up in his magic. Both fruit and pony began to vibrate, and suddenly fell through the floor. “Don’t ask why that happens. No-one knows”. Tropical Slice was distraught at the prospect of bankruptcy. The yellow unicorn had fallen out of the sky for a second time, this time demanding a refund for his 15 bits. The pineapples he returned were beginning to rot. She took the lot of them anyway, on the verge of tears. “Since we didn’t have an inventory last time, we couldn’t carry any money. But we do still have pineapples, so we can trade the rest of them back for the money for a train ticket.” “I believe in full game runs”, said Gage, “the best money-maker is washing windows, right?” Dash Guy nodded. “Yeah, you do some RNG manipulation, otherwise there’s a random event where you get accused of being an alien spy by the Mane Six. You have to run away for a bit, and then you get caught and interrogated. It’s like a two minute time waste.” One more launch, and he was already at the train platform. He mashed through the ticket buying menu, bought a ticket to Canterlot with bits to spare, and boarded the Friendship Express. “Welcome to the train, don’t blink or you’ll miss it–” Out of his saddle bags, he dropped his last pineapple. He opened the window, jumped out, turned, fired. With years of practice it had become almost second nature. The pineapple connected, launching him back towards the train, and onto it’s roof. From up here, it was obvious that the train was stationary; the Equestrian countryside was the thing in motion, looping and loading in and out as needed. “It’s been a long time, but there’s a sidequest here with Ditzy? Or Derpy? Whatever her name is. The one with the eyes. The train gets stopped and attacked by a bird and a cat I think? Or demons? We’ll never know, because the Canterlot loading zone is just sitting there at the front of the train”. A gallop, a jump, and he was through. Suddenly back in-bounds, he stepped off the train, and into Canterlot. Author's Note Double chapter because it’s shorter and we’re almost at the end!
Kill Celestia (-00:16)“... and it turns out I was wrong”, said Luna, “nopony who loves pineapples as much as him could be evil”. She took another bite, leaf-first. Celestia’s eye began to twitch. “Luna, what are you talking about?! You’re dating him? You said he wanted to kill me!” “Oh, he does,” she said, nonchalantly, “but that, dear sister, seems like more of a you issue”. Luna made to take another bite. Celestia smacked the pineapple out of her magic. “Stop eating them like that”, she yelled, “You’re only supposed to eat the insides!” Celestia simply turned on her hooves and teleported away, leaving Luna’s mouth hanging open and pineappleless. She needed to calm down. She was feeling particularly Daybreaker-esque. A trail of magic flew to her horn, and a scroll materialised directly on top of her nose. It was from Twilight, of course. Perhaps she had good news? Primcess Celestia I was observign the human and he phased through the wall and escaped the castle! He’s boarded a train to Cnterlot It was filled with spelling errors. It was not good news. Freed from the petty constraints of “plot” and “physics”, PonyRunner flew high above the streets of Canterlot atop the luggage cart of a particularly irate unicorn aristocrat. He arrived at the castle gates in mere seconds. He was very careful to never look directly at it. “This is basically the only combat segment of the run. Or stealth segment, technically”. He dropped one, singular bit from his bit-bag on the floor, and grabbed it. “The royal guards are… interesting. Not sure what Celestia’s paying them but it’s either not enough or too much.” PonyRunner sprinted past the two guarding the gate. They seemed much more interested in the bit than him. “Is that contraband?” said one, “What are you doing with that?” “Even though we’re trespassing”, said PonyRunner, “it gets overwritten by the fact we’re holding something suspicious. And if we break line of sight–” He ducked round the side of the castle, and shot the coin directly at one of the guards. “What was that noise?” they both said, near simultaneously, “Show yourself!” “… and now they’re too busy looking for the coin to notice we’re trespassing”. He emerged from behind the wall, grabbed the luggage cart he’d flown in on, and approached the massive main doors backwards, very careful to keep them off-screen. “Now for the out of bounds to get into the palace. Is this a palace, or a castle? Anyway, this is why bad-end runs are so fast. You’re supposed to do whole a whole late-game optional quest thing, where I think Sombra corrupts you and you become evil? I mean, Sombra’s literally loaded behind this door so I assume that’s what happens. But we can just clip through the door and into the cutscene because it’s always loaded. At all times. “That’s why I’m not looking at the castle-palace, by the way”, he said, walking backwards and placing the cart at a 45 degree angle, “normally, when you press X on the door, it loads a completely different castle map. But the real castle is just... behind the door. For the final fight scene I guess? It’s really laggy, so I want to keep it off-screen as much as possible.” He grabbed the cart, dropped it, and was through. Canterlot Castle had seen better days. It looked almost pre-ravaged, with bits of black crystal sticking out of very surface at random angles. Piles of guards, dead or unconscious, surrounded King Sombra. He was also T-posing. “Oh, dear Sombra, did you think I’d let you have all the glory?”, said a, menacingly holding aloft the Black-Heart Talisman, which he, of course, had obtained as part of a long and arduous quest, braving the harsh winds and snows of the Crystal Empire. He had single hoofedly defeated a windigo for it, which you would’ve known if you’d been paying attention to the plot. “Impossible!” screamed Sombra, as he disintegrated into smoke and swirled into the talisman. His horn clattered to the floor. a merely laughed. It was about time he dealt with Celestia, and took his rightful place on the throne. “This cutscene gives us Sombra’s horn and, for some reason, auto-unlocks the horn laser and shield spells”, explained PonyRunner, “they’re nice to have, but we don’t really have the mana to use them consistently”. He didn’t have splits, but he could feel it. The Run. This was it. He practically (and sometimes literally) flew down the halls. Another quick launch and... “Halt–” said a pegasus of the royal guard. Before the pegasus could even raise his spear, PonyRunner levitated a box and, swinging his mouse wildly across the full length of the desk, threw it at him at blinding speeds. The guard fell to the floor. He threw the box again. And again. And again. And again. The guard was no longer moving. “There are a lot of guards in the area up ahead. We can’t really take all of them at once in combat at this level. Luckily, they’re all really stupid. If we pick up this explosive barrel and throw it in this exact spot”, he grabbed the barrel and flung it down the corridor, “all the guards and civilians come running out to investigate that, instead of the body of the guard we just ‘knocked out’”. And, just as predicted, a steady stream of guards, cleaning staff and dignitaries filed out of the throne room, all beelining straight to the source of the explosion, where they all milled around looking confused. PonyRunner simply galloped past, unseen by their narrow vision cones. “I feel like leaving explosive barrels lying around your castle would be a fire hazard”, said Gage, “but I’m not a princess, so what would I know?” “Coming up is the final battle with Celestia”, Gage continued, “this fight is extremely difficult casually, and we are severely under-levelled for it. PR has to have complete concentration, so I’ll explain what's going on”. Celestia stood alone in her throne room. The Element-Bearers had been outmanoeuvred. Her sister had been corrupted. And a full half of her ponies had abandoned her. She was undeterred. Anger did not behove her naturally comforting, kind and regal features. But the time for appearances had long since slipped past. Contrary to popular speculation, Celestia was not all-powerful. Much of her alicorn magic was bound up in keeping the Sun shining. But, she did have a few tricks down her proverbial horseshoes. And royal guard soldiers waiting in the wings. She held a sword in her magic. Why would a magical pony princess, wielding the power of the sun, need a sword? Coolness factor. The yellow-coated, red-maned usurper entered the throne room. She descended the steps. She knew why she heard boss music. “I am Celestia, Princess of the Sun, and I have never known defeat”. Except for Chrysalis. Twice. And Tirek technically. But we needn’t mention them. She advanced on the usurper, and magically threw her sword forward. With expert timing, the unicorn dodged under the blade. Yanking a dark crystal out of the floor, he snapped his head instantly from left to right with at a speed that would’ve broken any normal pony’s neck, launching the crystal at incredible speed. Celestia had only an instant to shield herself from the attack. His methods were… unconventional. This would be difficult. “PR increases the DPI on his mouse to increase the speed of launched objects to ludicrous levels, which will be our main source of damage in this fight.” Celestia spread her wings and launched herself clear across the room, sword aimed straight for his heart. He raised a shield and barely blocked the strike, his horn sparking from the effort. “Remember, we have un-upgraded mana and stamina. TK is the most efficient use of both in terms of DPS”. Celestia blasted her wings forward, and herself backwards into the air. Keep his eyes on me, and not on what was coming. She charged her horn with the full power of the sun. At this signal of hers, pegasi lurking in the rafters pushed boxes, filled with explosively charged crystals, down onto the unicorn. Simultaneously, earth pony guards crashed through the windows lining the throne room and charged. She fired a lance of pure heat. But PonyRunner jumped, grabbed several of the boxes in his magic, and launched them at Celestia. Unable to shield herself, they slammed into her body and detonated, blasting her backwards and taking a chunk out of her metaphysical health bar. But it would take more than that to kill an alicorn. Instead, she redoubled her efforts, pouring even more energy into the beam as it swept across the unicorn speedrunner. There was a bright flash as the beam connected. Everypony stopped. The charging guards skidded to a halt. The pegasi held their explosives. Celestia withdrew her magic. The whole room was filled with smoke and the heat of molten stone. “Is he–” an earth pony guard began, only for one of the explosive crystal crates to come sailing out of the smoke and bonk Celestia in the snout. “PR deliberately takes a hit here, because it cancels this slow special attack and makes Celestia vulnerable– wait, you didn’t take damage?” “If you dodge-roll into the laser, the game thinks you got hit, but you don’t take damage because of the i-frames”, said PonyRunner, “I’m surprised no-one else uses this strat. It’s really easy to pull off, even casually”. “Idiots!”, she yelled, “why did you stop attacking?! What am I paying you for?” “But… you stopped attacking too…”, said one guard, forlornly. If you want something done right… She flourished her sword, telegraphing her ultimate move. “Everyone struggles with this attack, but there's a foolproof way to avoid taking damage.” The sword whirled through the air as Celestia lunged forward again. He would not escape this unscathed. Every square inch of air was filled with steel and death. The cowardly unicorn began to run. She had him now. “When she starts the attack, you want to run away for the first swing, then roll into her for the second swing”. Like a shark smelling blood in the water, Celestia readied the blade for a second dance of death. But the unicorn turned, and jumped, somehow finding the gaps between her slashes. He was behind her now. “Impossible!” Filled with rage, Celestia turned and raised herself into the air for one, final strike. PonyRunner took one step backwards She missed. He picked up another of the conveniently pegasus-provided explosives and slammed it into her face. “Then for the third, depending on where you are, you either stay still, or walk backwards away from her while locked on. If you’re next to her, just circle around her to the right and she’ll do the blade-dance in the wrong direction, and you can punish. Or you could just git gud”. Celestia raised her shield, as the unicorn blasted her with a burst of magic, augmented by Sombra’s dark-magic-infused horn, forcing her back. How was she on the back hoof?! Rage broiled and burned beneath her skin. She was losing control. And why shouldn’t she? Why not lose control? Why not become the better, prettier, and more powerful version of herself? “At half health, she transitions to phase two. This is where things get interesting”. “Imbeciles!” She she yelled, blasting back the unicorn and her worthless royal guards. She turned her head upwards towards the pegasi, singling out one in particular. Her eyes had shrunk to jagged slits. “Stop dropping garbage into the arena for him to throw at me!” The pegasus’ eyes also shrank, this time to pinpricks. “YES SIR YOUR MAJESTY SIR!” he yelled – cross-eyed – and saluted, dropping the barrel of – very explosive – crystals and crystal accessories directly on top of her. But Celestia was no longer looking at him. Celestia was no longer present. Staring at the unicorn usurper with sun-scorched eyes, Daybreaker erupted into flames. The crystal barrel exploded. Useless. Everypony else was absolutely useless. Luna, Twilight, the other imbecile Elements of Harmony. What was Cadence doing to Shining Armor right now, instead of helping her? Disgusting. “You little insect. You’ve made me use more than 10% of my power. How unfortunate for you~”. She prepared to strike… ... and was hit with the full force of the explosion hitbox she had been standing inside for the last 10 seconds. Daybreaker was blasted backwards with enough force to snap her throne in half and crater the wall behind. “Oh my god. What the f– what was that? This is actually unbelievable”, said Gage. Even Dash Guy was leaning forward, mouth open, staring with unbelieving eyes at the screen. “That was like, 25% of her health bar!” “I have NEVER seen that happen before”, said PonyRunner. It was a marathon after all. Had that hitbox been damaging her the entire phase transition? There was no time for delay. PonyRunner had to capitalised on this blessing of RNGsus. He blasted Daybreaker with a quick lance of magic. He galloped forward, grabbed a piece of the throne, and slammed it into her head. “Well, you heard it here first, folks.” said the donation reader, “new speed tech being discovered live at PGDQ!” Everything under the sun was in chaos. The castle was on fire. Chunks of ceiling and wall rained down on the battlefield. Guards panicked and ran, or flew, for their lives. The situation was excellent for PonyRunner. “Time is coming up soon”. Daybreaker fired a lance of flame at the unicorn, who simply shielded and rolled right through. She teleported to the centre of the room before he could blast her with magic. But she was now in the perfect position… The unicorn snapped his head up and fired. The chandelier, which had been hanging there in every season of the show, just slightly off camera, was severed from its mount and came crashing down. “3… 2… 1…” “And…” Author's Note Double update because the final chapter is tiny (because of the split gimmick I used for the chapter titles).
Time! (45:58.95)PonyRunner pushed himself back from the computer, laid back his head, and covered his face with his hands. He was shaking from the adrenaline and stress. But it was over. He’d done it. That had to have been close. “Was that damageless?!” said the Dash guy. He really should learn that guy’s name. “I think so…” he said. His voice came muffled through his hands. Gage brought his lapel mic closer to his mouth. “Can someone on the tech bench tell us what time that was?” PonyRunner almost didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t manage more stress. With Celestia defeated – load bearing boss that she was – the castle began to crumble around a. The unicorn turned from the rubble and slowly trotted away, out of the demolished throne room, out of the castle, out of Equestria, and into the credits. “The time was…” said the announcer, “45 minutes, 58.95 seconds”. “Well, that’s definitely a PB…” he said. There was some applause, and a little chat spam. “It’s also world record by 6 seconds.” Everyone went wild. He collapsed in his chair. Gage grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him gently. “Congrats, dude. That was a perfect run”. “Well, I wouldn’t say perfect…” The Dash Guy was standing beside him too. The premonitions of a frown graced PonyRunner’s forehead. “But pretty damn close”, he smiled. “Better practice that drop clip for next run”. PonyRunner was smiling too. He stood up. One guy at the back yelled “Speech!” After that run, a speech seemed like the easiest thing in the world. “Thank you to everyone who watched and donated. I’m so happy I got the chance to show off this run live and support this great cause. Shoutouts to the couch, the HiE Discord. I know we make fun of this game and rag on it a lot… but I wouldn’t keep coming back to it unless there was something really… special about it. I dunno what it is, but it’s pretty magical. “I think everyone should give it a shot, even if it’s just once. Even if it’s just a quick run, a full playthrough, whatever, give it a try. And if you want to start running the game, there’s plenty of tutorials out there. We have side categories, like Larson% where you just rush the alicorn quest. And Smile% is exactly like this run but shorter; you get to Pinkie, you clip inside her hitbox, and that kills you somehow.” There was laughter and cheering. He put his arms over the shoulders of his two couch commentators (with, admittedly, a little hover-handing). “That’s everything. Thanks for having us! You can cut us off now.” And they did. “Thanks to PonyRunner and crew for the great run, and congrats on the world record!” said the announcer, cueing the OC remix playlist, “coming up next we have a run of Prey 2020 by Kkat. That’s going to be a very interesting run…“ Somewhere, buried beneath the rubble, a small part of Celestia wondered whether he should really be celebrating, considering she wasn’t actually dead yet. A much larger, louder part of her told her to shut up and let him have this, unless she wanted him to finish the job. ~The End~ Author's Note The end! Thanks for reading! (Run invalid, but I won’t tell if you won’t ) This fic was burning a hole in by brain and I had to get rid of it as soon as possible. I’m honestly amazed at the positive reaction its gotten. Thanks so much! If this is the only fic I ever write, I’ll be happy... but I still have few stupid ideas I want to try. Maybe some day
