The Only Thing They Fear Is (You)
“Boop!”
CRASH
The doors to Canterlot Castle fly open with incredible force under the sovereign might of Sir Boopsalot, Knight of the Snoot Table. The exalted finger of pony appreciation doesn’t recoil in the slightest as the doors impact the walls inside the palace hard enough to pull the hinges partially out of the wall, leaving the doors dangling by a thread. Indeed, the digit is joined by it’s brothers and sisters on the rest of the hand along with it’s cousins on the other hand, all wiggling in barely contained excitement as an assembly of heavily armed and armoured guard ponies come flooding in from every beautiful passageway within the immaculate palace of the biggest and most powerful pony princess in all the lands.
You had long since abandoned any semblance of restraint back when you began your booping crusade back in the quaint town of Ponyville, and the squeal of delight you gave at the assembled army of sublime cutie pies reflected that lacking restraint. For their part, they were torn between looking at you with barely restrained hostility or looking on in horror behind you at the smouldering ruins of Canterlot behind you, complete with ponies of all kinds languishing on the ground and displaying their distress by clutching their snoots in horror, rocking back and forth, crying loudly, remarking on the horror and humanity of their fate, having a thousand yard stare, gazing longingly at you for more, or any combination thereof.
You had already sprung into action, preempting the guards and moving with a zeal unmatched by even the great pony warriors of legend. A simple, highly excited statement of “boop” is all the warning your adorable victims get before your finger connects with their impossibly adorable snouts, their eyes widening with horror in time with the reflexive scrunch at the contact. They don’t even have a chance to cry out or collapse before you move on to the next set of cuties, grinning like a madman and giggling like a little girl. Blades and speartips crafted of the finest metals are unable to find purchase on you as you effortlessly dodge out of their path, the only reward they get for their efforts being a higher priority for booping. Even those among their number who thought to wear snoot armour found their additional preparation for nothing, with Sir Boopsalot and his fellow knights effortlessly shattering the metal with the lightest of touches and caressing the softest of pony noses underneath all the same.
In the end, their valiant defence of their goddess lasted only a few seconds beyond a minute, leaving a mass of groaning, distraught, and languishing guardsponies in your wake. A very small portion of them looked on with hidden desire and envy as you hopped, skipped, and jumped your way towards the pearly doors of the throne room.
“Boop!”
CRACK
Enormous spiderweb cracks radiate out from where you made contact with the doors, but still they held for the moment.
“Boop!”
CRACK
The tippity tip top of Sir Boopsalot punches through. One more should do it!
“Boop!”
SMASH
The entire gate shatters like glass before the might of your digits, and blessed golden light from the other side bathes your entire body as you step within and move up towards it’s source, seated atop the throne before you. As your eyes adjust to the light and confirm the identity of it’s source, your smile grows three sizes and you begin to squeal and happy dance in place.
“Mister Anonymous, I presume?” the figure inquires, raising an eyebrow and continuing to write on the parchment held aloft in her soft golden magic.
Princess Celestia was every bit as beautiful as you had heard: pure white with wavy prismatic hair, pretty golden pony regalia, adorable magenta eyes that regarded you with amusement more than anything else, and on sweet beautiful Lord above, that snoot! That snoot!
“Princess Celestia!” you declare, finally composing yourself. “I have crossed oceans, braved Tartarus, and even taken a brief detour to pony heaven to get to this point! The snootles of stallion and mare, of earth pony, pegasus, and unicorn, have all felt the caress of Sir Boopsalot! And now, I have come to boop you!”
“Have you, now?” she titters, rolling up and tucking away her parchment and quill as she gives you her undivided attention. “Interesting. Why me, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Because snoot!” you intelligently bellow. “Alicorn snoot! Not so complex! Need it! Want it! Need it have to have it! Hnnnnnng! Snooty snoot snoot snoot!“
“My, somepony likes snouts, don’t they?”
“Missus goddess, I live for snoots!” you gush, stars in your eyes. “I need the snoots, I pray to the snoots, I’m gay for the snoots! They’re my favouritest thing in the whole widest world, even more favouriter then cuddles and pizza! The feeling of soft pony snootle coat against my little fingeridoos is almost eeeeeee~ I just love love love love love love them! They way they look, they way they feel, the way they go scrunch whenever I touch them, they’re the best!”
Sir Boopsalot extends out to point her way, and you can see the faintest trace of nervousness cross the alicorn’s face at the gesture, especially when your smile becomes more pointed.
“And there’s only one kind of snoot left to boop, your holiness!” you bellow, a menacing red glint to your eyes. “And come hell or high water, it will be mine!”
She sighs, horn alight with magic. “Well, I’m afraid this is a bad time. You’ll have to schedule something with my secretary before--”
“Nope!” you chirp. “It’s snooting time!”
You launch towards her, sailing through the air and poised to deliver a powerful mid-air boop. But as your finger gets within tantalizing inches of the snoot to end all snoots, it suddenly rockets back and away from you, forcing you to roll out along the ground to avoid faceplanting. When you look up, you see that not only had both her and the throne moved far back along, but the grand hallway itself seemed to have moved back along with it.
Not to be deterred by something as simple as reality manipulation, you rocket forward in a dead sprint with the zeal of a holy crusader and the force of a thousand suns, the carpet beneath your feet shredding to pieces and catching fire from pure friction alone as you zoom towards the solar princess. But no matter how fast you go, she remains at the same safe distance each time, kept safe from your booping hands by this infinite hallway.
“Mister Anonymous, I think you have a problem,” she states plainly.
“Yes I do!” you cackle back. “And that problem is a terminal lack of snoots!”
“See? That’s precisely the problem.”
You give a shrill gasp at her words, skidding to a stop for almost a minute straight.
“I-I don’t understand,” you utter in abject shock, looking wide-eyed at the goddess. “What are you saying? A-are you saying that snoots -” you gulp “- aren’t the most important thing in the world?”
Her small solemn nod brings a choked sob out of you as you collapse to your knees, tears streaming down your face like small rivers.
“Don’t you see, Anonymous?” she says sadly and with a motherly tone, “Don’t you realize what this pursuit of snouts has done to you? Just look behind you at what you’ve done. Is it really worth all of that destruction? All of that--”
“Heresy...”
She recoils slightly at your harsh tone. “I’m sorry?”
“Heresy!”
Your body snaps upright in a split second under the force of your awesome power, feet hovering slightly above the ground with an ominous droning hum as a menacing red glow emanates from your eyes, fixed upon the heretical goddess before you.
“There is no greater calling in life than the pursuit of snootles,” you speak with absolute, immovable conviction, your voice echoing with other smaller voices as if giving voice to more individuals than just yourself. Sir Boopsalot Requiem rises again, pointing towards Princess Celestia in a declaration that is soon given flesh with words. “We cannot abide such heresy. The snootles have opened our eyes. Let us help you to see, your highness.”
FWOOSH
The power of your conviction, of your pursuit of snoots, grants you the power to rocket forth through the air at extreme speeds towards the heretical goddess in dire need of enlightenment to the way of the boop. Yet no matter how much speed you attained, she remained at the same equidistance she did from before your faith had been tested.
“Please, there’s no need for this!” she calls out, clearly upset.
“Surrender thy snoot to us,” you declare, the multitudinous voices in harmony with yours almost overpoweringly loud by this point. “Or we will be forced to unleash our ultimate power.”
“You can’t break this spell, Anonymous! Now please, put a stop to this before you get hurt!”
“You were warned.”
You snap to a stop on a dime, slowly and ominously floating higher into the air until you were a solid yard off of the ground. Said ground vibrates with such might that the endless string of glass windows begin to crack, and the goddess herself can do little else but look on in concern as the invisible power builds within you.
“Tremble pony, and despair. Boops have come to thine snootle.”
What happened next confused her as much as it terrified her.
The mortal vessel of Anonymous adopted a strange pose, legs and back set perfectly ramrod straight as his arms extended out and to his side, his pose like that of the letter T. His expression went completely blank, and indeed, not a single muscle of his seemed to move at all, locked into place as if set into stone.
His body began to float ever so slowly towards Princess Celestia, but something was different this time. The infinite hallway spell she had woven to keep him at bay was no longer working. Blinking to check that what she was seeing was correct, she scrambled to check and recast the spell to prevent his looming advance, but to no avail.
“Wh-what is this?” she blurts, now suddenly very afraid. “What are you doing?!”
No answer was forthcoming as the human vessel continued to float through the air, bearing straight towards her. In her panic, she attempted many things to halt his advance: blasting him with giant laser beams, using an eldritch tome to try and write him out of the narrative itself, and even throwing a tea set at him, to name but a few methodologies. But nothing worked. Objects and magic impacted against him harmlessly without so much as an indication of slowing or damaging him, and his body was like that of an immovable object in the fabric of reality, refusing to conform to whatever was imposed on him.
In all her time, she had never witnessed something so intimidating. So bizarre. So dominant.
“Stay back!” she yelped. “Back!”
Even her pleas had no effect. The vessel continued it’s advance, inch by ever-so-slow inch, until it’s glowing red-eyed and unmoving visage was barely a yard away from her face. She had long since backed up against her throne, pressing herself as flat as possible in a vain attempt to escape him.
“Wai-wai-wai-wai-wait,” she tries, “We can talk about this! Come to some sort of compromis--”
squeak
The vessel’s own nose pressed up against her snout.
She froze, snout scrunching up as it gently pressed further against it. Until finally, her utter shock passed her by and she fainted on the spot, collapsing into a heap atop her throne.
“It is done,” the avatar of boops declares, it’s mouth not moving at all.
After many moments of silently regarding the unconscious goddess, the power of the primordial booping gods finally vacated poor Anonymous’s body, the man floating back down to the ground and onto his feet as he cradled his head with a slight groan.
“Oh man,” you mumble, “I haven’t gotten like that since I tried to boop Twilight...”
Blinking, you look down at the fitfully resting form of Celestia, smiling a little as you pet her cute little noggin.
“Well!” you announce, lifting the sleeping princess into your arms. “This calls for some post-booping cuddles! Let’s roll!”
And as you hum a merry tune, hopping, skipping, and jumping your way to the royal living room and past all of the scattering and terrified maids and other servants, you knew one thing for absolute certain.
Life is good.
