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Magic Comic Task Force!

by Eyeswirl the Weirded

Chapter 1: Issue #1: Exposition!

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Canterlot Castle

Standing by the front gates of the castle was by no means the usual way by which most would spend their mornings, even for the few who lived there. Still, this was where one would stand if they wished to be the first to pick up the day's mail, and the pony in the fully-obscuring Royal Guard armor, not a hair of the pony inside visible, had been waiting for something for a while now.

Tapping a metallic hoof against the cobblestone road by which he stood, the armored stallion pondered the existance of his current attire. Maybe it was just supposed to be decorative, he thought, the liberal use of golden coloring speaks for that much. It might even be real gold, foolish as that would be in terms of actual protectiveness, for how damnably heavy it is. Probably explains why I never see regular guards in it.

His waiting thankfully came to an end, however, as the ususal postal pony arrived, a small carriage of packages and post cards to be delivered to the palace trailing directly behind him.

The dull-blue earth pony smiled. "Mornin', deliveries fer the castle," he held out a clipboard with a wing, "needja t'ah sign here."

The armored unicorn, though difficult it may have been to tell he was one, floated the quill he'd had waiting up to sign for the day's mail, followed by a stamp of the royal seal.

"Hmm," the mail-pony muttered with a growing smirk, "Wuddn't yer name 'Gilded Hooves' last time, not 'Golden Hooves'?"

'Golden Hooves' only stood silent as the pony unloading the carriage chuckled.

"Well, nunna mah business anyhow, y'all have a nice day now!"

Gathering up the deliveries in his magic and taking them into the castle, the armored pony muttered to himself a minute after the postal worker moved on. "'Gilded is my twin brother', that's what I should have said. Would have been perfectly believable."

It was possible he'd been underestimating the delivery pony all this time, more suspicious of the ruse this heavy armor was meant to be than he might have seemed. Many months ago, he couldn't believe it had been one of those country-drawling sorts that got all of their mail where it needed to be, on time, every day, but he supposed that was all that was needed to prove whatever-his-name-is was qualified to do the task. Besides, even if he did suspect Golden Hooves, or Gilded Hooves, or whatever it might be next time, wasn't who he said he was, he'd never have proof of his true identity.

He quickly sorted the mail. "Bill, bill, proposal, bill, exotic statue thing, six notifications of high-society gatherings, proposal, bill, bill, bi-ah!" Finding what he had been looking for, 'Golden Hooves' set the rest of the deliveries down where the usual ponies who dealt with these things could find them, floating the thick envelope with him to his extravagent chambers. Closing and locking the door, he marched into the his study, setting the envelope on his desk before looking to the armor rack he swore he'd someday return to the barracks.

No more need for the disguise, I think. The armor was removed, starting with the helmet, revealing the long, golden mane of Prince Vladimir Blueblood the 52nd, along with the rest of his head. Carefully placing the glittering, heavy outfit on it's usual display in just such a way that it looked as though he was just keeping a possibly ceremonial suit of armor by his desk for decorative purposes, Blueblood once again pondered the necessity of the act.

I could just wait until it's given to me by the palace staff a few hours later, or even just picked it up without the armor, but what would ponies say if they saw their prince partaking of common peasant literature, for colts, no less?

Besides, there was something oddly enjoyable about donning a mask and costume, which seemed all the more fitting. Opening the envelope, however, the prince suspected he hadn't been quite secretive enough, as a letter addressed directly to him was included in with the newest issue of the comic series he'd been enjoying for a while now. He opened it.


Dear Nephew,

You might already have been aware of this, but there seems to be a certain issue with the Equestrian comic industry at time of writing; the books are enchanted.

Well, some of them are, at least, and I'm not yet sure how to combat it before anypony can be forcibly absorbed into the stories, but until then, please exercise caution.

Your loving Aunt,

Celestia

P.S. You don't have to hide in your room to read comic books, you know.

P.P.S. Have you met any nice fillies lately? Luna says she can't wait for more many-times great grand-foals!


Flushing with separate embarrassment at each post-script, Blueblood face-hoofed. He didn't care what Princess Twilight was content to be caught doing, it just wasn't proper for a pony of his position to be seen as anything less than the epitome of Canterlot sophistication. When in the public eye, he had an image to maintain, consequences be damned!

Do nothing for the charity event by not buying anything? His father had drilled him many times on what is and isn't acceptable for royals like themselves to have on display in their home.

Who needs a meter-high obsidian Tatzelwurm statue?

Tick off the visiting zebra shaman by refusing to imbibe whatever she'd mixed up in a hollowed-out bone? Nobleponies drank out of clean, sparkling glass, no less.

He didn't want to know what that fizzy, bubbling liquid had been, anyway...

Earn the ire of everypony, particularly mares seeking courtship, that doesn't behave perfectly within the lines of tradition in his presence? Nopony in their right mind wants to be in a relationship with a national heroine, the danger of their adventures alone would ensure it's swift end.

Discord's rampage not even a week later only served to drive that point home, he felt.

He really wasn't interested in a marefriend anyway, he'd heard enough older stallions compare their 'beloved' wives to ball-and-chains, anchors, and bottomless pits for bits enough times, heard enough complaints from both sides, to know marriage just wasn't in the cards for him.

That he would, consequently, be the last of the Blueblood line, felt like something of a problem, however.

There were no siblings to carry on the lineage, his parents had passed a few years ago, but what did it matter, really? Celestia and Luna, from whom he was supposedly descended, both lived, could both presumeably still sire new foals, as he suspected had been the case more than once.

Fifty-two generations and I'm the first not to take an interest in shackling myself to another pony for life? Rubbish.

Paying no further thoughts to his bloodline, Blueblood turned to the comic he'd woken up early this morning to retrieve. Taking a seat at his desk to read, taking solace in the fact that there was at least one other being in Equestria that understood his hobby. This person, apparently a resident of a local farming community, had been his pen pal for around a year, and convinced him quite a while back to give graphic novels a try -that he worded it "graphic novel" instead of "comic book" certainly swayed the prince's judgement, in hindsight- and he had enjoyed quite a few since then.

"Now, what do we have this week...? Ooh, 'Return of the Under-Dog', now there's a fun villain! Always burrowing into-" He caught sight of something, a fine print on the corner of the page. No stranger to tiny text, he cast the magnifying glass spell he'd mastered a few weeks after picking up this hobby and muttered the writing to himself.

"You can return to the place you started when the Under-Dog is defeated... Take a closer look, to join the adventure in this book." He sat back a little, somewhat flummoxed. "What the hay does that mea-"

He was interrupted by bright, blinding light from the book on his desk lighting at roughly the same time as comprehension of his Aunt's letter. Enchanted comic! Pulling ponies in! Hindsight was indeed 20-20, he probably should have checked out the issue first or something, but couldn't begin to guess how one might even do that. He desperately flailed his hooves toward the letter, trying to catch a glimpse of what, if anything, it had said to do if this happened, but it was too late, the prince vanished in a flash.

---

The first thing he noticed was an all-encompassing feeling of compression, everything but the fur around his mouth being squeezed lightly, just enough to be felt. Attempting to take stock of his royal person, Blueblood found himself to be engulfed in shiny blackness.

Familiar shiny blackness.

He was also wearing a cape, a cowl obscuring most of his face, little points at the end of the ears, constantly stuck straight up like a bat's, a long cape with more points at the end, and a golden, plated belt of pouches. He knew this suit.

I'm dressed like Batmane!! While a private part of him was dancing giddily at the idea, the rest was more than a little concerned. I'm inside a comic book, dressed as the hero, and I have the combat prowess of a wet sponge!

What sort of noblepony goes around getting into scraps, after all? He honestly hadn't even been tempted for that one, but it did seem to leave him in a bit of a predicament at the moment.

Alright, he thought with more than a hint of panic, it said 'When the Under-Dog is defeated', I'll be free to go, right? Perhaps he won't resort to trying to smash me with his massive paws, slash me with his massive claws, or dig a hole and burrow under me to try it again if that doesn't work? His usual M.O. in these stories?

Regardless, a prince does not simply stand about hoping a problem will go away on it's own, he stands very close to the problem and does his best to sort it out! Thus, Bluebl-No-Batmane took a good look around, saw a massive hole in the wall of the Bank of Maretropolis, as almost always seems to be the case, he noted, and began to march in that direction.

He made it about four steps before a noise sounded from his utility belt.

Bwoo-deep-bdeep-bdeep!

Jumping with a start, he fumbed for the offending device. It was a small box of some sort with a little screen and a few buttons, which he'd read enough sci-fi comics to recognize as a communicator. Pressing a button with a hoof, the screen lit up, showing the face of the very person that got Blueblood interested in comic books some months prior.

"Spike?!"

The little dragon's face smiled at him through the little screen. "Yo Blue, 'sup?"

Fourteen different questions fought and died for the right to fling themselves from Bluebl-Batmane's tongue at that moment, none being crowned king of the hill before Spike spoke again.

"Well, I guess the comic thing's 'up', huh?" He gave a short laugh. "Anyway, I told Princess Celestia about my run-in with a magic comic book, and since then she's apparently done some digging. I won't go into detail, but it looks like there were more of them. Are more." He scratched his head with a claw. "Will be more? I'm not entirely sure about the tense, Twilight'd probably get on me about tha-"

"HOWDOIGETOUT?!"

Spike offered no immediate solutions, only an apologetic grin. "Relax, all you have to do is go beat the villain, Under-Dog's not even that tough. Remember the Daring Do crossover, Issue #3?"

He did. Banana peel. Classic! Still... "How are you...?"

Spike blinked. "What? Using this communicator?" He chuckled, looking faintly proud. "As the most comic-knowledgeable person she knows, Princess Celestia appointed me as Commissioner of the MCTF, inn't that cool?"

"Emm-See-Tee-Eff...?"

A purple claw waved dismissively. "I'll explain later, we've wasted enough pages on exposition as it is!"

Blink.

"Now go get that bad guy! And remember, you're the Batmane!" The communicator shut off by itself, leaving Caped Crusader to ponder his next move. He quickly settled on charging straight into the gaping hole in the bank and figuring things out from there.

---

The Under-Dog was bigger in person, moreso when he was shaking a pony upside down over a bag of presumeably stolen money, adding to the sack's contents with each frightened cry of alarm from the pony in his grasp.

He stood about a meter higher than the top of Batmane's horn, a huge, grey, thick-coated diamond dog with rusty armor and a helmet that obscured beady little eyes, but not his large, pointy teeth.

Blu-Batmane didn't even entertain the idea of trying to fight him head-on, instead he remembered another tactic the hero he was to emulate often employed: Talking the villain into submission!

More than once Batmane, the real one, real within the context of this world, at least, had subdued his foes by exploiting some psychological imbalance, getting into their heads to stop them in their tracks, and all without psychic powers. The current Batmane would just have to do this himself.

He cleared his throat. "Pardon me, good sir!"

Under-dog turned to look at him, appearing faintly shocked as he dropped the pony he'd been shaking down. "Batmane!!" His voice was higher and nasallier than the speech bubbles had ever suggested. "You no stop me this time! This time I take ALL the gems!"

Paying no mind to his opponent's breath, posture, or the fact that he was stealing bits, not gemstones, Batmane offered a calm retort. "Mr. Dog, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to stop what you're doing, you're making an awful mess of-"

"SHUT UP!!" Under-Dog made a wide, sweeping gesture with one arm. "ALL these gems are mine now, so SCRAAAAM!!"

Batmane kept as even a tone as he could manage, diplomacy his best shot here. "Sir, I must insist that you stop this immediately, taking what one wants may seem a fine enough solution in the short-term, but I assure the economic consequences are-"

Under-Dog sent him flying with a single swipe of a massive paw, Batmane crashing against a far wall, knocking the wind out of him as the canine criminal laughed. "HA! Under-Dog not care for consequences, or what they do to pompous ponies!"

Pompous...?

Prince Blueblood had seen pompous, heard pompous, smelled pompous, he'd learned the names of more pompous ponies in his life than most could claim to meet, and one thing he was certain of was that he was not one of them. Not even my most dramatic moments compare to some of what I've seen, he thought, and this wretched WELP think's I'M pompous?!

He rose to his hooves, struggling to breathe steadily. "You have... NO idea... What pretentiousness really is!" He was sure there was irony in there somewhere, but his head was still lightly spinning.

Under-Dog, now trying to stuff one of the bank's velvet ropes used to form waiting lines into his bag, blew a raspberry at him. "Puh-leeze! Pompous pony thinks it's so fancy with it's shiny suit and golden belt! Well UNDER-DOG will be fancy one when all the gems belong to ME!"

Batmane took a few steps toward the criminal, talking through gritted teeth. "I. Am. Not. Pompous. Now I will kindly ask you one more time to-"

"Bllleegh!" Under-Dog waggled his massive tongue in disgust. "Pompous pony even TALKS pompous all the time! Always with the-HRK!!"

The spiked collar around his neck seemed to jerk forward of it's own accord, throwing Under-Dog to the floor as Batmane approached, horn glowing, his face inches from the criminal's.

"I am not being pompous, I'm being polite. Do you want to hear pompous?"

Under-Dog blinked twice, hard as it might have been to see through his rusty helmet. "Um-"

Batmane drew himself up, making emphatic hoof gestures as he spoke, nose high in the air. "THIIIS is pooompous! Ugh, you positively reek of filth, don't you ever bathe? Oh wait, disgusting mongrels wash with their tongues, like dirty savages! I stay clean with only the finest imported bathwater and scented cleansers from the most exotic ports and harbors in all the world!"

Under-Dog tried to cover his ears, but found the Dark Knight's magic holding him firmly against the floor.

Batmane drew a forehoof to his chest, snout pointed directly at the ceiling, voice dripping with conceit. "Do you know how hard it is for one of my unparalleled sophistication seeing so many lowly commoners without even the good sense to scrub themselves properly?! It's as though peasants simply delight in making themselves a nuisan-"

Under-Dog was visibly cringing. "Stop, STOP!! I give up, I go to jail, just no more!!"

Dropping the Patented Pretentious Pony Poseā„¢, Batmane smirked. "Thank you, kind sir." He drew bat-cuffs from his belt that fit around the bank robber's large wrists. Somehow.

A moment later, a familiar blinding light pulled him in again.

---

Safely back at his desk, Blueblood quickly slid the comic he'd just escaped into a desk drawer, wary of repeating what he'd just been through. He noticed he wasn't the only thing that came out of the comic, the communicator he'd talked to Spike through was now sitting on his desk.

Before he could examine it, a puff of green fire manifested in front of him, producing a letter from the young dragon.

Hey, Blue!

Glad you made it out of the comic, I know what it's like getting trapped in there. Anyway, if you're getting this, I-

His reading was cut off by a noise.

Bwoo-deep-bdeep-bdeep!

He answered the communicator much faster this time. "Hello?"

Spike's face once again appeared on the little screen. "Hey! I figured if the comm got through, it made more sense to just call. You probably have questions?"

Blueblood nodded. "How did this device get here?"

Spike smiled. "Princess Celestia sent Twilight a few spells. Complicated stuff, but nothing she couldn't handle." The grin grew nostalgic. "Looked like she was having a blast, actually. I figure the Princess probably cast the same spell for you and sent me a letter explaining what to do."

"About the MCTF? Which is a...?"

"Magic Comic Task Force," the little dragon answered proudly, "we're the ones who'll be dealing with these enchanted comics every time they come up, before they trap more ponies."

"Others are getting absorbed into these things as well?!"

Spike shook his head a little. "Not yet. Y'see, the copy you picked up was part of an exclusive early-access deal as usual, right?"

Blueblood nodded, distantly ashamed. It wasn't that he wanted to read them before anypony else, he just couldn't wait as long and had more than enough money to get a copy before official distribution began.

"Well," Spike continued, "it looks like the rest of the comics are enchanted the same way, and nopony knows why. If no one does anything about it, lots of ponies, and me, could get sucked into the pages again, but as long as we sort them out before they're all over the place, the day is saved!"

"And what's this about you being Commissioner?"

"I keep in the loop about what's coming out each week enough to know what's going on in the story, who the bad guys are, what they're up to, that kinda thing, but we need somepony to go in and stop them." He looked away. "I, uh... I'd go in myself, but you know..."

Blueblood raised a princely eyebrow.

Spike shook his little head. "D-don't worry about it. We'll probably be doing this until somepony figures out what's up with the comics. Seeya next week!" He waved a claw as the feed cut off, leaving Blueblood alone in his chamber again.

...This won't end well.

Author's Notes:

Howdy, reader! Ah'm gonna be tryin' these here author's notes in Applejack's country twang fer practice, hope that don't bother ya none.
Fer starters, sarry iffin' the first chapter 'r two ain't quite as excitin' as ya might like, but'cha know how it goes establishin' things. Gotta kick before ya can buck a tree, gotta buck a tree before ya can kick holes in time an' space, grab the sun by burnin' reigns, and ride it into the next life!
Yeeee-haw!
'Nother thing, y'all might be wonderin'; "is this here tale based a'tall on that story, Dark Knight of Canterlot?" An' Ah say "not really, but that IS where the idea fer Blueblood playin' the part'a Batman came from. Rest is purdy much silly gibberish, is mah goal."
Ah'll be updatin' this whenever somethin' comes t'a mind, not editin' an' refinin' near as much, but the rest'a what Ah'm workin' on should be higher quality.

Next Chapter: Issue #2: The Wall-Eyed Wonder! Estimated time remaining: 58 Minutes
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