”HONEY?” a voice called out. Specifically, the voice of Blue Tea, Spades Duck’s wife. She was a big blue unicorn, and ten months pregnant, which you would already know if you read the description. If course, she wasn’t normally that big, but within the next few months she would be giving birth to quintuplets.

“Yes, dear?” answered Spades Duck, who was sitting right next to his preganté wife in the living room. Spades Duck was a light-green earth pony with a black mane, which was currently in a state of bed-head. There was a loud knock on the door, but Spades Duck ignored it for reasons which I shall reveal shortly.

”HONEY, I NEED PICKLES AND MILK!”.

“Are you sure, dear? Yesterday you wanted- quote “the flesh of the unborn” unquote- which was actually eggs and ketchup,” replied Spades, ignoring the repeated banging coming from both the front and back doors now.

”PLEASE, HONEY! IF I DON’T GET PICKLES AND MILK I THINK I MIGHT DIE!”

Spades sighed. “Are you sure it can’t wait?”

”PLEEEEEEASE?” screamed Blue Tea. Her pregnancy was affecting her hearing, much to Spades’s dismay.

“Alright, dear,” said Spades defeatedly, getting up from his chair. “Don’t let anyone in while I’m gone.”

”LOVE YOU.” roared Blue Tea, leaning down to give Spades a kiss and a bone-crushing hug.

Waving goodbye to his wife, Spades grabbed his saddlebags from by the front door and went to a window. The banging on the doors continued. Spades opened the window, and hopped out, making sure to close it behind him. He turned from the window to look out upon the neighborhood, which was currently overrun by changelings.

Spades then proceeded to say a word that I can’t print here without changing the audience from “everyone” to at least “teen.”

While Spades stared at all the changelings, the bushel of changelings that had been assaulting the door to his house noticed him.

Now, Spades Duck was in fact aware of the changeling invasion, but not because he read the description. I mean, if you were to hear a knock at your door, and you look through the peephole and see your neighbor, and you’re about to open the door, but then your neighbor is hit by a frying pan thrown from Celestia-knows-where and suddenly he (or she) is not your neighbor but instead is a black bug-pony with fangs and a murderous look in their eyes, you would probably not open the door. Probably. Spades did not open the door, which you could probably tell even though it wasn’t in the description.

Anyway.

Spades noticed the changelings that had been at his door when they were a pony’s length away, leaping at him with fangs bared. Quick as a whip, Spades pulled his ACME Husbando Sword (yours for only three EASY payments of $19.95! Call now and you can get not ONE, not TWO, but THREE ACME Husbando swords for the price of one!) from his saddlebags. The leaping changelings attempted to reverse direction, which is really hard when you’re mid-leap, and thus they impaled themselves on the ACME Husbando Sword.

“Whoops,” said Spades around the ACME Husbando Sword that he held in his mouth. Spades had not meant to kill the changelings with the ACME Husbando Sword, but there wasn’t much he could do now with three dead changelings skewered on the end of it. Heshook the ACME Husbando Sword gently, causing the dead bug ponies to slide off into the front yard. After wiping the changeling blood off on one of the many lawn gnomes that adorned the garden, Spades put his ACME Husbando Sword (they’ll sue me if I don’t use the full name) back into his saddlebags.

“Now,” started Spades Duck, walking out into the street, “Where can I get pickles and milk?”

(This next part is so much better with this music.)

The forty-or-so changelings that surrounded him didn’t care about pickles and milk. Not because they didn’t know what pickles and milk were, but because they’d rather feast on Spades’s love than answer his question.

The changelings stared at Spades.

Spades stared back at the changelings.

“So, it has come to this,” he said, drawing his ACME Husbando Sword.

“Come to what?” asked a changeling in the crowd that surrounded Spades Duck.

“You, me, this moment,” replied Spades, turning in a slow circle.

“...What?” asked another changeling.

Spades didn’t answer with words, but with his ACME Husbando Sword, beheading, like, ten changelings in one fell swoop.

“ATTACK!” yelled a changeling just before his front legs were forcibly removed from his body.

Another changeling attempted to blast Spades with this weird magic, but whatever spell he was readying was literally cut short as his horn was lopped off by Spades’s ACME Husbando Sword. In anger, the changeling went to kick Spades, but his legs were lopped off by the ACME Husbando Sword as well. Green changeling juice flowed like an exceptionally runny case of diarrhea in the road as Spades cut and slashed his way down the street.

Eventually, the changelings gave up on trying to attack the determined earth pony, mostly because Never Gonna Give You Up should be about over by now and if it isn’t you must be reading too fast. Stop it.

Still, there were other changelings tat hadn’t seen the carnage, and thus would attack Spades on sight, so he stuck to the bushes and shadows around Canterlot as he headed toward the 8/12 corner store, which used to be a 7/11 but due to a visit from an extradimensiomal entity who wanted a Big Gulp, time in the store was a little slow, and the 7/11 franchise wanted nothing to do with that crap, so they separated and now the store is an 8/12.

While on his way there, Spades thought he saw a platoon of lunar guards carrying a sleeping Princess Luna through an alley, but he found the notion too absurd to believe that it wasn’t just another changeling trick. Even though it was actually Princess Luna, snoring away as the changelings invaded Canterlot.

So, Spades continued on his way to the store, only having to behead like two changelings on his way there. To his dismay, the 8/12 was dark, the “closed” sign was up, and the door was locked. A solid back-kick to the lock solved one of these problems, and Spades’s ACME Earth Pony Headlamp with built-in Hyper Laser Night Light Bright Technology solved another. After glipping the “closed” to “open”, all three problems were solved, and Spades gained enough xp to level up to level 36, where he put a few points into intelligence and strength, and added the skill “Swordplay X.”

Spades Duck entered the store and headed to the back where the milk usually was, but he stopped about halfway when he heard a squishing smacking sound coming from the chips aisle. Apparently he didn’t put enough points into his intelligence stat because he decided to check it out.

Instead of what should have been a scary goo monster, Spades’s ACME Earth Pony Headlamp with built-in Hyper Laser Night Light Bright Technology illuminated Celestia’s old student Twilight Sparkle, who was currently snogging an orange pegasus with a blue mane. The pegasus’s name was Flash Sentry, which all y’all might know but Spades did not know. Spades also did not know when Twilight got wings and became a freaking allicorn.

So, Spades stood there in shocked silence until Twilight noticed that there was a light (specifically, the light of a ACME Earth Pony Headlamp with built-in Hyper Laser Night Light Bright Technology) that was very much illuminating her and her coltfriend, and then stopped snogging Flash for a moment to first apologize to Spades and then another moment to time travel a bit farther back so she and Flash could have some privacy for their snogging marathon, which continued on for another three hours on a grassy hill in the distant past.

Spades shrugged it off as another changeling trick even though you and I both know that it wasn’t, and continued to the back of the store, where he put two gallons of milk into his saddlebags before going back to the aisle begore the chip-and snogging Twilight aisle to grab three jars of dill pickles. He brought it all to the front counter and left a pile of bits there to pay for the milk, pickles and broken lock.

And then Spades was on his way back home, to his waiting preganté wife.

Lucky for Spades, he had little trouble finding his way back to his house without running into any changelings. It was almost like they had been called away or something. Which they had, as Queen Chrissy wanted to utterly destroy the mane six and so she sent every changeling she could get to kill them. Of course, not all went.

Spades Duck found his street to be suspiciously empty. His hoofsteps echoed from the alcoves of the houses he passed. When he got to his own house, he gasped, as the front door was gone.

I don’t mean gone as in “blasted away,” I mean gone as in “somebody unscrewed my front door and stole it like a jerk.” Quietly he entered the house and tried to shut the door behind him, but there was no door to shut.

He called out, “Honeybunches? Are you in here?”

He waited a few seconds, and then heard the reply.

“Yes, dear. I’m in the living room.”

The lack of ear-bleeding screaming made Spades suspicious.

“Honey,” he started, heading towards the living room, “I forgot what you asked me to go get. Also, the door is gone. I don’t mean gone as in ‘blasted away,’ I mean gone as in “somebody unscrewed my front door and stole it like a jerk.’ You haven’t seen the door, have you?”

“No dear,” said the voice from the living room, “I hadn’t seen the door. And I think I sent you for... for...” the voice paused.

“For your medication?”

“Yes! Thank you honey. Now, would you be a dear and come give me my medicine?”

“Of course,” replied Spades, drawing his ACME Husbando Sword. “I’ll just be a moment.”

“Do hurry,” said the voice-who-was-not-his-wife’s-but-sounds-like-his-wife’s from the living room.

“Here’s your meds!” yelled Spades, although around the ACME Husbando Sword in his mouth it sounded more like “Hrff ymm mrffrsh!” which wasn’t as cool but since this is my story y’all get to know what Spades really said because it sounds a whole lot cooler than “Hrff ymm mrffrsh!”

Spades Duck threw his ACME Husbando Sword through the wall and skewered the changeling who was pretending to be his wife.

“Your medicine is death.” said Spades, removing his ACME Husbando Sword from the corpse of the changeling. Without the changeling talking, Spades could hear the muffled shouting that was most definitely Blue Tea who had been gagged and was in the basement.

It was a tearful reunion- Spades cried because he was glad that the changelings hadn’t killed his wife and five unborn foals, and Blue Tea cried because she had not gotten her milk and pickles yet. Blue Tea’s tears soon dried up when Spades produced the desired sustenance from his saddlebags.

For his efforts, Spades got another bone-crushing hug from his wife, and got to watch her chug an entire gallon of milk andeat a jar of pickles in six seconds, which set a new world record. Spades also gained another level, and this time he put all of his stat points into intelligence. For a new skill, he chose knitting I for some reason that I cannot fathom. I mean, everybody knows that underwater basket weaving is where it’s at!

After the changeling invasion was cleared up and all the changelings were blasted away, Spades Duck gained another level and got better at knitting, and knitted little sweaters for his new kids. Speaking (or is it writing?) of the foals, Blue Tea gave birth to three beautiful girls and one horrendously ugly boy. The 8/12 corner store got another visit from the extradimensinal entity and disappeared completely, except for on sunny Tuesdays for some reason. The time twavelling Twash (Twilight x Flash Sentry, duh) got married much much later in the chronological timeline and yet much earlier in time. Princess Luna did in fact sleep through the whole invasion, and would say something about needing a bathroom or hearing somepony call her name if asked.

The End.

Probably.

Well, I hope y’all thoroughly disliked that. Please let me know if there are any spelling and capitalization errors, as well as grammatical errors so I can fix them.
Oh, and tell me about continuity errors so I can make them worse.

Pardon me while I go burn the written copy of this trainwreck.

While I do feel sorry for all y’all, I am in no way sorry.

Actual chapter:
Spades Duck found his street to be suspiciously empty. His hoofsteps echoed from the alcoves of the houses he passed. When he got to his own house, he gasped, as the front door was gone.

I don’t mean gone as in “blasted away,” I mean gone as in “somebody unscrewed my front door and stole it like a jerk.” Quietly he entered the house and tried to shut the door behind him, but there was no door to shut.

He called out, “Honeybunches? Are you in here?”

There was no answer. Why? I can’t tell you that yet.

“...Honey?” said Spades as he entered the living room. A changeling was pinned to the wall with an ACME Waifu Sword (yours for only twelve EASY payments of $4.87! Call now and you can get not ONE, not TWO, but SEVEN ACME Waifu swords for the price of two!), and was obviously very dead. Spades walked up to the changeling just to be sure. Sure enough, despite missing a leg and half a face, the text at the bottom of the screen said “The changeling is pretending to be dead.”

Huh.

Since he was close, Spades inspected the ACME Waifu Sword (Order right this very second and we’ll even throw in a FREE ACME Kiddo RPG! Call now!) and realized it was actually the sword he got for Blue Tea for her last birthday.

Now, while Blue Tea (Spades’s wife, DO keep up, dear) was not in the house, there was a trail of changeling blood leading into the kitchen, so Spades followed it. It led him through the kitchen and to the back door, which was gone.

I don’t mean gone as in “blasted away,” I mean gone as in “somebody unscrewed my back door and stole it like a jerk.” Maybe somepony needed two doors? I dunno. (Well, actually I do but it’s important later and not now.)

Anyways, Spades followed the trail out to the back yard.

It was easy to see that Blue Tea was not in the shed of shovels nor the heavily-populated duck pond, for two reasons. Reason one was because both were too small for a mare bearing quintuplets, and the second reason was because Spades could see her, like seven backyards down, wrestling with a pile of changelings. She would grab one and crush them in a hug of DEATH.

Spades’s heart swelled at the sight of his wife. It swelled so much it lowered the density of his blood enough that he began to float off the ground, which, in my opinion, should really not be possible, unless it’s Pinkie Pie-

“DID SOMEBODY SAY-“

Oh no.

”PIIINKIE PIIIIE?!?!?!?”

A ginormous hugeantic pink mare with a three-balloon cutie mark and the poofiest mane fell from the sky.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t that giant, but she was almost as big as wœf was. I just mean scaled up in size, ya know?

Anyway, where was I?

Ah, yes.

GigantoPonk started pronking through various backyards, crushing changelings and plants alike. Spades Duck could only watch in stunned silence from his position of floating ten feet in the air even though he was an earth pony.

Meanwhile, seven yards down, Blue Tea is pile-driving changelings into an ever-deepening crater.

Picture the scene- a green, crappily drawn gary stu oc with a black mane, hovering above a heavily populated duck pond. In the background, there is a very very large, very very pregnant mare pulling expert wrestling moves on multiple bug ponies, and there’s a giant Pinkie Pie squashing changelings like, well, bugs.

Twilight (the one from the future who was snogging Flash Sentry earlier) could not believe what she was seeing. She had planned to come help out with the invasion after the saucy snogging session stopped, but, as you and I both know, they did not need her help.

Like any sensible being, Twilight teleported Future Flash Sentry to her and the snogging began anew.

As it turned out, Twilight and Flash were able to help, because the sheer amount of love emanating from them was able to knock out like fourteen changelings once all was said and done.

Back to Spades. Spades was in serious trouble, but not from changelings. No, Spades was suffering from Swelled Heart Syndrome, and without immediate medical attention, his heart would make him float up forever. Lucky for him, he knew the best heart surgeon in all of Canterlot.

Blue Tea, his wife.

Blue Tea was a little busy with fighting changelings, but she had already noticed her floating husband wayy back- like around when Twilight teleported in. She wasn’t too worried, because his rate of elevation gain was very slow at the moment, and while he was up there, the changelings were more likely to ignore him.

So, recap. Spades is floating from a swelled hart above the duck pond, Doctor Blue Tea is absolutely decimating changelings, Twilight and Flash are (still) snogging, and Pinkie has cloned herself via mitosis and now there are eight normal-sized Pinkies running around and pronking on changelings.

A loud clattering woke Princess Luna from her sleep. She sat up,and could see four of her guards standing in front of her, one with a hoof on a steel platter that was on the ground.

It did not take Luna long to realize that she was not in her room.

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS? WHERE ARE WE?” said the princess, using her Royal Canterlot Voice.

Three of her guards vanished, leaving just one to answer Luna. The remaining lunar guard backed up into a wall as Luna’s glare intensified.

“WHERE. ARE. WE.”

“My Princess, w-we are in the bunker.”

“Pray, would you care to enLIGHTEN US AS TO WHY WE ARE IN THE BUNKER?”

“T-t-t-there’s a ch-changeling invasion, m-m-my Princess.”

Luna’s mood immediately shifted from angry to excited. “Then what are we doing here? We must go get my warhammer!” And with that, Princess Luna grabbed the absolutely terrified lunar guard and teleported away, back to her room in the castle.

Now, it just so happened that there were a few changelings in Luna’s room when she teleported in, and these changelings just so happened to occupy the space that she was teleporting into. The changelings kind of... exploded. All over.

“Eww.” said Luna.

“Hurk!” said the guard, running to the balcony before he barfed all over Luna’s room.

The changelings said nothing ‘cuz they were dead.

“It should beeee...” started Luna, rummaging in the closet. “..riiiight HERE!” And with that, Luna pulled out a MASSIVE warhammer. Specifically, the fabled Warhammer of Zillyhoo.

The lunar guard, whose name was Death Meadow, re-entered Luna’s room from the balcony only to be bowled over by the princess as she ran out on to the balcony, where she took a quick look around Canterlot and immediately took off towards what looked like an explosion but was really four Pinkie Pie party cannons firing at once.

Meanwhile, Spades’s like forty feet in the air now, Blue Tea’s crater is seven feet deep but full of squashed changelings, Twilight and Flash haven’t moved much, and the Pinkies were launching non-party-cannon-safe projectiles such as forks and decapitated changeling heads from their respective party cannons at hordes of changelings who were still attacking.

And then, like an angel from heaven, or maybe a demon from hell, or maybe like a fresh donut out of the oven, or perhaps like a cheese wheel fresh from the shed, or was it fresh from the cheese factory? Is it fresh cheese? Does it matter?

Anyway, Princess Luna flies in, the majestic Warhammer of Zillyhoo held in her magical grip. Of course, Spades waves at her, because Spades and Luna are good friends (because I said so that’s why). Luna somehow fails to notice the green stallion floating in the sky and does not wave back, which made Spades sad. In fact, it made him so sad that he got a heavy heart and instead of floating up, he began to float down. Slowly.

Luna did notice Twilight and Flash snogging, as well as the five Pinkie Pies, but what really caught her attention was the obviously pegnat mare who was making someone’s backyard into a crater full of changelings. Since the gregnant mare seemed the most interesting, that’s where Luna flew.

And then time froze, and this orange bar shot across the screen with the words “QUEEN KISSYLIPS HAS ENTERED THE FRAY” and oh boy here we go.

(For those of you who are unaware, which should be all y’all, Kissylips is Chrysalis’s twin sister, who came to help Chrysalis take over Canterlot. So, basically Chryssi but with a stupider name.)

So this Kissylips pops out of a conveniently-located hole in the ground right into Luna’s path, but since Luna is Best Princess she Grand Slams Kissylips out of the fray with her warhammer. (Don’t worry she’ll be back in the second alternate ending.)

The one-hit-KO leveled Luna up, finally to level 42887, where the perk “zillysmacker” was finally unlocked. But first, she put all 72 stat points into luck, and theeeen picked the skill. Immediately, the Warhammer of Zillyhoo grew three times as large in her magic, and became the Godhammer of Zillyhoo, giving it 40x more damage and +0.774 trickster smash-change chance, as well as a x2 to weight.

“MOVE IT, MARE OF BLESSED GIRTH, FOR I, PRINCESS OF THE NIGHT, SHALL WALLOP ALL OF THOSE THERE CHANGELINGS!”

Blue Tea rolled a bit, giving Luna some room, and Luna proceeded to smash the remaining twenty-four changelings with her godhammer, killing them instantly.

Upon seeing Princess Luna, the Pinkie Pie Platoon got motivated, and recombined into the original giant Pinkie, who used her giant Party Cannon to blow the remaining changelings to dust.

Spades (eventually) reached the ground and was reunited with his wife. She had her kids, which were all blessed by Luna upon birth because Luna became good friends with Blue Tea after the fight. None of them were ugly this time.

Twilight and Flash are still kissing. Spades can see them out his back window. It’s awkward.

The gigantoPinkamena separated into normal Pinkies and left back to wherever they came.

Luna got a gold star from Celestia for defeating Kissylips. She is very proud.

The End.

Not really. So much more alternate ending to write. In the second alternate ending, Spades Duck fights Kissylips on his own. Stupidity ensues. Goodnight.

“Your medicine is death.” said Spades Duck, removing his ACME Husbando Sword from the corpse of the changeling. Without the changeling talking, Spades could hear the muffled shouting that was most definitely Blue who had been gagged and was in the basement.

But when Spades Duck went to ungag his wife, she transformed into the very evil changeling queen, Queen Kissylips, twin of Queen Chrysalis.

Spades remained unfazed. “My old nemesis! Where is my wife, foul beast?”

Kissylips was having none of that crap. “Boy you better show me sum RESPECT cuz I got a can here and it’s a can of... beans? Darn, it was supposed to be a can of butt whoopin’ but beans will have to do.” She threw the can of beans at Spades, but it missed. So, she picked it up again in her magic and threw it at Spades a second time. The second time, although a lot closer, was also a miss. “Third time is the charm?” said Kissylips as she threw the can for a third time. And this time it actually hit Spades, mostly because it was less of a throw and more of a drop. The can did not hurt Spades, because it wasn’t a can of butt-whoopin’.

Then Kissylips really attacked.

She opened with a hellish green beam of magic that was really, really green. Like so green you can’t even.

Spades avoided the devestating blast by teleporting behind Kissylips. “I’m sorry I had to do this-“

“How the HECK YOU’RE NOT A UNICORN HOW DID YOU TELEPORT?” yelled Kissylips, spinning around. Whoops. I forgot he was an earth pony. Too late now, I guess.

“I... don’t know?” replied Spades.

“YOU JUST FREAKING TELEPORTED!”

It wasn’t that bad of a slip, really.

“I know! But I don’t know how!”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T KNOW HOW?” asked Blue Tea loudly, from her spot beneath the stairwell. She could now speak because she ate her gag. And the changeling that was supposed to be guarding her, it seems.

“Blue! You’re okay!”

“WHY WOULDN’T I BE?”

Kissylips facehoofed and sighed. Deeply.

“Man I thought you were DEAD, Blue!”

“HONEY IT’S OKAY. NOW DID I JUST HEAR YOU TELEPORTED?”

“Yes he did! Right behind me, too!”

”I DID NOT ASK YOU YOU STUPID CHANGELING!”

“...Sorry...”

“Apparently I did teleport.”

Why can’t they just drop it?

“HOW ODD.”

“Yes.”

Yes, how odd. How odd they just SIT THERE AND THERE IS NO EPIC FIGHTING! GAH!

“Sooo...” started Spades, drawing his ACME Husbando Sword.

Nevermind, he didn’t draw it. I was just being hopeful.

“Sooo... what?” asked Kissylips.

“You gagged my wife.”

“You teleported.”

“ACTUALLY THIS CHANGELING GAGGED ME.” interrupted Blue Tea, rolling over to reveal a flattened changeling. Guess she didn’t eat him.

“You killed Stanley!” cried Kissylips.

“NAW HE JUST FLAT.”

Stanley waved.

“What am I going to do with a flat changeling?”

Spades spoke up. “Mmmmmmm... you could use him as a kite!”

There was a flash from a corner, which was ignored by everyone, as it was only Twilight and Flash, kissing up a storm.

A literal storm.

Like, there was little flashes of lightning and tiny booms of thunder from this cutsey black-as-death mini storm cloud hovering a little to the left of the kissing couple.

“Why would I want a living kite?”

“WHY NOT.”

“...That’s a good question.”

“Blue is very smart. That’s why she’s a top-notch surgeon!” interjected Spades.

“AMONG OTHER THINGS.”

The three fell silent, until Kissylips couldn’t take it. “...So I looked around the house a little and was kind of wondering about the ducks and the shed.”

Spades spoke up happily. “What about ‘em?”

“Why so many ducks, and what’s in the shed?”

“I like ducks, and shovels.”

“Shovels.”

“Yes!”

“SPADSEY LOVES HIS SHOVELS.”

“Are we talkin’ like three shovels or what?”

“No no no no no no nooooo...” said Spades with a chuckle. “Maybe eighty or so.”

“Eighty shovels.”

“Give or take a few.”

“Eighty.”

“Ayes.”

”Shovels.”

Thunder rumbled from the mini cloud, covering up the sounds of smooching, because who wants to hear that?

“YES SHOVELS IT’S IN HIS NAME FOR CELESTIA’S SAKE.”

“...Fine.”

“NOW ASK ABOUT THE DUCKS.”

“What if I don’t want to ask about the ducks?”

“YOU WANT TO.”

“No I-“

“TWO HUNDRED THIRTEEN.”

“I told you that I didn’t want- TWO HUNDRED THIRTEEN? DUCKS?”

“Yep.”

“YES.”

“You know what?”

“What?”

“WHAT?”

“I don’t want to know.”

And with that, Kissylips teleported out of the basement.

“I THOUGHT SHE WOULD BE WORSE.”

“She impersonated you!”

“PONIES HAVE DONE WORSE TO ME.”

Flat Stanley spoke up from the floor. “Like how worse?”

This question confused Spades and Blue. It did not confuse Twilight and Flash, because they were not listening. The tiny cloud began to rain.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, FLAT CHANGELING?”

“Like, how much worse was the things ponies had done?”

“MY FATHER WOULD BEAT ME EVERYDAY.”

“That’s horrible!”

“I KNOW. HE’D NEVER LET ME WIN.”

“...Let you win?” A gust of wind from the ministorm flipped Stanley over. “Oop. Can’t see.”

He struggled on the ground for a bit until Spades flipped him back over.

“Thanks. So, what do you mean he never let you win?”

“AT CHESS, OF COURSE.”

“Oh.”

Spades wasn’t paying attention, as he had just noticed the snoggers and their cloud, which was now hailing. The cloud was hailing. Not... Twilight and Flash.

“Soo... Space, was it?”

“Spades. Spades Duck.”

“Spades. Did you actually teleport?”

Not this again...

“Apparently.”

Stanley attempted to do the “worm.” It turned out he was very good at it.

“SPADSEY?”

“Yes darling?”

“DO YOU HAVE MY PICKLES?”

“And your milk, darling.”

All was well.

This time around, Blue actually took her time eating the pickles and drinking the milk. Kissylips got really drunk while thinking about the teleporting earth pony, and fell off of a cliff as a result. The thingie at the wedding happened, blasting all changelings away except Stanley, because he was too good at the “worm” to be blasted.

The can of beans was opened to be eaten for dinner that night but instead a fist came out and clocked Spades good. Apparently the can of butt whoopin’ was mislabeled.

Twilight and Flash teleported away eventually, although the ministorm remains to this day.

Blue eventually gave birth to two beautiful foals, one horrendously ugly foal, and an ogre. The doctor explained the ogre away as “These things happen.” The ogre was named Shrek.

Stanley hangs on the wall in Spades’s living room, by choice. Shrek loves it when he does the “worm.”

The End

...noooot really. I ain’t done with Spades and neither is Pinkie Pie.

More to come.

A lot more.

Help.

”HONEY?” a voice called out. Specifically, the voice of Blue Tea, Spades Duck’s wife. She was a big blue unicorn, and eleven months pregnant, which you would already know if you read the description. If course, she wasn’t normally that big, but within the next month she would be giving birth to quintuplets.

“Yes, dear?” answered Spades Duck, who was sitting right next to his preganté wife in the living room. Spades Duck was a light-green earth pony with a black mane, which was currently in a state of bed-head. There was a loud knock on the door, and both Spades and Blue looked at it.

“Hold on, honey. I need to answer the door.” said Spades, getting up from his chair and walking through the kitchen to the front door. Opening it, he found a changeling queen waiting on the other side.

Huh. That’s not where she was supposed to be. Oh well.

Queen Kissylips smiled at Spades, revealing her all-too-long fangs. She cleared her throat. “Hello good sir. I am Sister Kissylips. Have you heard the good news of our Queen and Savior, Chrysalis?”

“Oh,” said Spades, relieved that she was not there to kill him, “I’m sorry, we’re all good for today.” He started to close the door, but something stopped it. Mainly, Kissy’s hoof.

“Hold on, Sir. I have pamphlets!”

The door was opened fully again. “Pamphlets?” asked Spades. He could always use another pamphlet to add to his collection.

“Yes! Pamphlets detailing the whole cocooning process. It has excellent carapace, er, skin benefits.” Kissylips held out a pamphlet in her magic, and Spades took it in hoof, stowing it on the counter next to the door for later.

“Well thank you very much for the pamphlet. You have nice day now.” And with that, Spades closed the door, but like all the way this time.

”WHO WAS THAT, HONEY?” asked Blue.

“It was nopony important, honey. Now, what was it you needed?” asked Spades, browsing his new pamphlet.

”I FORGOT.”

That’s it.

”HONEY?” a voice called out. Specifically, the voice of Blue Tea, Spades Duck’s wife. She was a big blue unicorn, and ten months pregnant, which you would already know if you read the description. If course, she wasn’t normally that big, but within the next few months she would be giving birth to quintuplets.

“Yes, dear?” answered Spades Duck, who was sitting right next to his preganté wife in the living room. Spades Duck was a light-green earth pony with a black mane, which was currently in a state of bed-head. There was a loud knock on the door, and Spades got up to see who it was.

Upon opening the door, Spades was greeted by a changeling who promptly ate him and then Celestia sneezed and accidentally engulfed Equus with the sun.

The end.

So yeah the halloween special is set to come out on thanksgiving.

Celebrate turkey day by reading about Spades beating up kids in costumes- sounds like fun, ya?

Merry spooksgiving. May the skelebunny bring y’all presents and true love. Don't forget to put a tooth under your pillow or you'll find an egg in a chamberpot at the end of the rainbow instead of gold. Don't forget to flush the fireworks and flip your waitresses.

Also, actually expect crimmass special around crimmass instead of really late like this one.

”HONEY?” a voice called out. Specifically, the voice of Blue Tea, Spades Duck’s wife. She was a big blue unicorn, and eleven months pregnant, which you would already know if you read the description. If course, she wasn’t normally that big, but within the next month she would be giving birth to quintuplets.

“Yes, dear?” answered Spades Duck, who was sitting right next to his preganté wife in the living room. Spades Duck was a light-green earth pony with a black mane, which was currently in a state of bed-head. There was a loud knock on the door, but Spades Duck ignored it for reasons which I shall reveal shortly.

”HONEY, I NEED PICKLED CANDY CORN AND MILK DUDS!”.

“Are you sure, dear? Yesterday you wanted- quote “the flesh of the unborn” unquote- which was actually eggs and ketchup,” replied Spades, ignoring the repeated banging coming from both the front and back doors now.

”PLEASE, HONEY! IF I DON’T GET PICKLED CANDY CORN AND MILK DUDS I THINK I MIGHT DIE!”

Spades sighed. “Are you sure it can’t wait?”

”PLEEEEEEASE?” screamed Blue Tea. Her pregnancy was affecting her hearing, much to Spades’s’s’sss'sssssss dismay.

“Alright, dear,” said Spades defeatedly, getting up from his chair. “Don’t let anyone in while I’m gone.”

”LOVE YOU.” roared Blue Tea, leaning down to give Spades a kiss and a bone-crushing hug.

Waving goodbye to his wife, Spades grabbed his saddlebags from by the front door and went to a window. The banging on the doors continued. Before going out, Spades took his skeleton costume out of his saddlebags and put it on. It was Nightmare Night after all. Spades opened the window, and hopped out, making sure to close it behind him so no wayward trick-or-treaters would find their way in. He turned from the window to look out upon the neighborhood, which was currently overrun by fillies, colts and various adults, all in costume. Now that he was outside, Spades could easily hear the shouting coming from the front door.

”WE WANT CAN-DY! WE WANT CAN-DY! WE WANT CAN-DY!”

He needed to hurry. If he didn’t get Blue Tea her pickled candy corn and milk duds in time, she would open the door. And then the trick-or-treaters would overrun his house. And then they would find- well they would find the thing that Spades wanted nopony to find.

T’would be shameful.

Spades scanned the street for anypony who might recognize him. While he did not see anypony of that sort, he did see a filly dressed as a can of beans, as well as two costumed ponies kissing like their life depended on it, which it didn’t. One was a very realistic orange werepony, and the other was a decent-yet-purple Starswirl the Bearded. Spades didn’t recall reading that Starswirl had been an alicorn, but whoever made the costume must of thought it was accurate.

Of course you and I both know that it’s Twilight Sparkle and Flash Sentry. I mean, who else could it be? Kissylips? No, she’s trying to buy egg nog.

Where was I?

Ah. Here we are. Spades exited his yard and began to trot briskly down the street. It was a nice night out, albeit a bit louder than a normal night what with all the kidsickles running around and screaming their heads off from overdosing on sugar, but that’s not that annoying as long as you’ve got decent earplugs, which Spades did have. And was wearing. The earplugs, I mean. Not sure if that was clear.

Spades in his spooky skeleton suit blended perfectly with the crazed crowds of costumed candy craving children. Okay, not perfectly, as he was a bit taller than most of the colts and fillies that were out and about, but nopony would of looked twice when they saw him.

Yep, just another skeleton off to fight in the skeleton war.

Spades was about halfway to the 8/12 when a very large, smoke-spewing dragon landed about ten feet in front of him. Spades didn’t notice it at first, but when he did, he screamed. Twice. Like this.

The dragon bent down, and snorted smoke at Spades. He coughed.

Thinking quickly, Spades drew his- wait, oh shoot! He never put on his saddlebags! Oh no! Whatever shall he do? Oh dearie oh my! Celestia have mercy!

The dragon opened its mouth and revealed Pinkie Pie, sitting on a pink chair with a large, complicated mechanical control board in front of her.

“Hi Spadsey!” said Pinkie.

“H-how did you know it was me?” asked Spades, still recovering from having a dragon not eat him. Costumed ponies stopped to marvel at the highly realistic dragon costume.

“Oh, it’s easy! You’re the main character, so you have this kind of... smell, I guess!”

“...Main character?”

“Uh huh! Don’t worry about all that, though.”

“...Okay?”

“Oh!” said Pinkie as the dragon costume blew another cloud of smoke. “Keep your eye out for changelings! Nightmare Night is like a suuuuper good time for them to infiltrate us! Ok! Seeya!”

And with that the dragon took off, flying away towards the princesses’s castle.

“I want one.” said Spades to nopony in particular.

The rest of the trip to the 8/12 was relatively uneventful. I say relatively because the Canterlot Fire Brigade 12 shooting candy from a hose up into the air would be considered eventful for most, but not for Spades, mostly because he got hit on the head with a few falling jawbreakers. Why are they called jawbreakers? Has anyone ever actually broken their jaw on one? Hold on while I look this up.

Ok, so, supposedly jawbreakers are too hard to bite on without “risking tooth damage.” I mean, I coulda guessed that. And also there are jawbreakers that are too big for anybody’s mouth. Spades did not get hit on the head with a bowling-ball jawbreaker because those wouldn’t fit in a fire hose. Not even a magic hose.

Ok, maybe a magic hose. but those jawbreakers are like, $13 each. Or more.

Why am I talking about jawbreakers?

Spades entered the 8/12, which was mostly empty, aside from Queen Kissylips in the back by the frozen goods section and a cashier wearing a very old bee costume, but Spades couldn't see Kissy because she was hidden behind some shelves and stuff. Spades knew exactly which aisle to go to: the holiday aisle, which would contain candy. How much candy?

So many.

It just so happened that the frozen goods section was at the other end of the holiday aisle, and thus Queen Kissickles was 100% visible at the end. When Spades saw her, he did what any sane pony would do and ignored her because it's Nightmare Night and he figured that it was a top-of-the-line Nightmare Night costume and not the real thing.

Kissylips, after she had turned around because she smelled love, immediately recognized spades from a recurring dream she had been having lately where her and Chrysalis invade Canterlot and she gets pwned by Spades, so she's immediately on her guard.

Meanwhile, we have the Spadesmeister over here loading up a cart he grabbed with those milk-cartony things of milk duds and bags upon bags of candy corn. Kissylips watched in horror as the cart was filled to the top in like five seconds.

It was then that Spades saw Kissylips looking, and he turned to her, and Kissylips froze. She froze from the sheer fear she felt from looking into Spades's eyes. Spades, wanting to be polite and sociable, waved and told her "Happy Nightmare Night!" before turning and pushing his heavy cart out to the checkout counters, only to find that the cashier had gone on break.

Now, here's a little something about the cashiers at 8/12. One of the requirements is that they have to be extradimensional entities, because prolonged exposure to the wibbly-wobbly spacetime continuum inside the 8/12 causes intense cravings for soda in non-extradimensional beings. What I mean by this is that all the ponies who used to work at the 8/12 drank all of the soda in the soda aisle in like an hour and had to get their stomachs pumped and it wasn't fun. Anyway, the extradimensional entity who was the cashier-on-break was named Ralph. Ralph was a Humam (not a human), which meant that he looked like a human but could freely walk between dimensions at will, and also he had a lower tolerance for spicy foods than the average human. Now, Spades knew Ralph pretty well, because Spades was always picking things up for Blue at the 8/12, and if you see someone enough you eventually have to talk to them and then either hate them or like them and befriend them. Lucky for Ralph, Spades became his friend. (In this alternate universe, at least. Some of the other Spadeses did not like Ralph, and Ralph quickly learned that having Spades as an enemy was a Bad Idea.)

So, being Ralph's friend, Spades knew where the break room was, and so he left his cart by the checkout counters and walked back to the holiday aisle, where Kissylips was talking with one of her changeling scouts, who was disguised as a bag of Cheetos.

"...What do you mean nopony has picked you up yet? Everypony loves candy-corn flavored Cheetos!"

Spades paid her no mind, and headed up the aisle. Kissylips, however, froze up again until Spades was out of sight, i.e. he had stepped inside an empty freezer section through the door.

"My queen," asked the Cheetos Changeling, "Who was that which has bothered you so?"

"Nopony. Now, you stay there until somepony brings you home."

Inside the freezer section, it was pretty darn cold. Spades shivered, and searched for the employee breakroom door, and found the doorknob behind a pile of old frozen bread slices. I'm talking a HUGE pile of bread. Spades ignored the bread and went into the break room, and took a seat at a dimly lit table across from Ralph the humam in his old bee costume. Ralph didn't recognize spades in his skeleton costume, and thus told him "Get lost. I'm on break."

"Ralph." said Spades.

Ralph looked up. "Spades? What are you doing out on Nightmare Night? Shouldn't you be protecting your-"

"Shh!" Spades shushed, stopping Ralph. "Don't talk about them here! somepony might find out!"

"Dude, nopony cares that you have a collection of-"

"Shhhhhh!!!!!"

"Fine." Ralph huffed. "What brings you to the glorious 8/12 at this time of day? Or is it night?"

"Evening. I had to pick up some stuff for Blue. She's got foals on the way."

"I remember having kids once." said Ralph, taking a sip from a gallon of chocolate milk.

"Was it nice?" asked Spades.

"Mmm."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Want some choko milk, my dude?" asked Ralph, avoiding the question by holding out the Half-empty gallon of chocolate milk.

Spades took it and took a long pull from the jug. "That's good stuff. Was it nice having kids, Ralph?"

Ralph could no longer avid the question as he had no more chocolate milk to drink. "Yeah, it was nice. Till the wife divorced me and took custody."

"Harsh." Spades took another swig and burped.

"I get to see them sometimes though. My Ex is mean, but not that mean." Ralph took the milk jug back from Spades and finished it off before opening a portal and tossing the jug through. "alright, back to work. You had a bunch of stuff to check out?" asked Ralph, standing and stretching.

"Yep."

"Just a moment, my friend."

It had taken Ralph a good ten minutes and it had taken Spades about a hundred and fourteen bits, but Spades had all fourteen bags full of candy corn and milk duds hung across his back and was on his way home. The streets were still packed with costumed ponies, getting candy from trick-or-treating or TP-ing houses. Spades's walk back to his house was uneventful.

When Spades got to his house, he found the front door open.

It wasn't gone, though. Just... open. For a second, Spades thought he saw a can of butt-whoopin floating in the doorway, but he didn't actually see it because it ș̼̖̼̘͟h̝̬͇̳͓̹̘o̥̳̞̺u̯̤̙ld̤̠̩͇̦̭͝n͙͔̦̻̤̩'̵͉t̼ b͉͚̜̙̘e͏̯͙̰̼͚̫ ̣̫̫͚̟t̼̲͇͍̰ͅh̵̭̞e̳̱̳̝̬͚͈r͖e̱̹͎͎̼̞. On and on. Pardon.

What he did see was the absence of candy-hungry fillies and colts at his front door, which could only mean one thing: They were inside. Spades's eyes went wide, and his eyebrows widened, too. Spades ran into the house, hoping that the children had not gone into the basement. First, he checked the kitchen, which had all the cupboards open. He walked into the living room, and saw Blue sitting in her chair. the basement door was open.

"OH, HONEY. YOU'RE BACK! WHERE IS MY FOOD?" asked Blue.

"Just a moment, sweetiebundles. Did a bunch of kids come in here?"

"YES. THEY WENT IN THE BASEMENT."

Then Spades said a word I can't print here without changing the rating. He quickly deposited one of the bags of candy corn and milk duds by Blue, who promptly ate the whole thing, an then hurried down the stairs to see his horrors realized.

The children were playing with his Pretty Pretty Princesses figureines.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO(you get the point, right?)" yelled Spades, and all of the kids stopped and stared at him. Well, not at him, but at the bags and bags of candy on his back.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-" continued Spades until he noticed that the kids had stopped playing. One of the kids, a colt dressed as Santa Hooves, looked at Spades and asked "Is that candy?"

To which Spades replied with a cautious "Yes?"

"Can we have some?"

"Uh, if you put the figurines back?"

The kids began to put everything back where it was supposed to be in the elaborate Pretty Pretty Princess display case where Spades kept them. Once It was all clean, and Spades had stopped hyperventilating, he gave each of the kids a hoof-full of milk duds and candy corn and sent them on their way. After escorting them out of the house, Spades gave the rest of the milk duds and candy corn to Blue, took off his costume, ignored the fl͘oati͟ng ̷ca͢n of͢ ̛Bu̡tt͜ ̷Wh͟o̶op̕in, On and on and on, pardon me, and went to bed.

The End.
For now.

One day, Cinder was sitting in Swip’s dining area when Burgerbelle rolled in on a skateboard wearing pixelated shades. Her arms were crossed, fingers splayed in gang gestures. “Thug lyfe,” she said.

Cinder’s first instinct was to ignore her - but today, something kept Cinder from just dismissing the Flat’s antics.

This was the worst decision she had made in quite a while.

“Hey, Burgerbelle… why are you the way you are?”

“Please elaborate, citizen,” Burgerbelle said, ditching the sunglasses and skateboard to sit daintily on the table in front of her.

“I mean, everything we see isn’t… ‘flat’. All the others exist in the same sort of space - Blink, Nira - all of us. We have different magic and that sort of thing, but you are… way out there. And I’ve never seen anything even close to you anywhere else - Pinkies don’t even really compare to what you are.”

Suddenly, Burgerbelle was holding two pills - a blue one and a red one. “Wanna see how deep the rabbit hole goes?”

“…Are you offering to show me something about yourself?”

Burgerbelle nodded. “My home has been destroyed for a long time. But I can take you somewhere like it. So, rabbit hole?”

“Eh, sure. Not like I’m doing a-“

Burgerbelle stuffed both pills into Cinder’s mouth at once, startling her enough so she could be thrown into a dimensional portal. “WELCOME ABOARD THE CRAZY TRAIN! POPULATION: CINDER!”

Spades Duck needed to get Blue Tea, his wife, pickles and eggs. Or was it eggs and pickles? Perhaps pickled egg egg pickle or pickles eggs pickles and pickles or eggs eggs pickles and spam or spam spam spam spam spam spam spam.

Probably spam, if he was being honest. Which he couldn’t be since he wasn’t Applejack. Shut up, that’s definitely how it works.

Wait, I’m not Applejack…

Spades ran to the 8/12, but he was unfortunately stopped by a tag-team duo of two changeling queens. If he was a betting man - and he was wasn’t - he would have said they were Chrysalis and Kissylips. No relation.

…I have just been informed they’re twins. Carry on.

“We are the twin sisters Chrysalis and Kissylips!”

“Hey! Stop being redundant!” Pinkie Pie called from atop a floating borger, which is like a regular burger, except it has a Pinkie Pie on top.

“We are not redundant! it is thou who art redundant!”

Spades Duck ignored them, walking into the 8/12. Except it wasn’t an 8/12. It was…

“Welcome to Bradburger, home of the Brad burger, how may I Brad your burger?” Burgerbelle asked. She was a creature one might call a human, if that someone was an absolute moron. Just because something has two arms and two legs does not make it a human. Exhibit A: chimps. Exhibit B: lizards. Exhibit C: the left ventricle of Anasui’nelith. Exhibit D: Burgerbelle, a Flat being from a world where two dimensions are king. Queen.

“I’d like a borger please,” Spades Duck requested, all the while wondering where the 8/12 had gone.

A borger smashed through the ceiling. “Hi!” Pinkie Pie said, growing several hundred times too large to be contained within the room. This, naturally, prompted the establishment to transform into a borger and roll down the hill and into the river, where it was promptly feasted upon by changelings.

“That’s a lotta damage,” Burgerbelle said with a whistle.

“What in Celestia’s holy name is going on here…?” Cinder said, aghast. She clearly didn’t belong here, being a unicorn of a young persuasion and sparkling orange eyes. There was far too much detail in her fur and facial expressions, so much so that it made Spades Duck uncomfortable.

Oh, and she looked like Sweetie Belle, except somehow worse. Screw that filly.

“You! Hey, you!” Cinder waved over to Spades Duck. “You look important. What’s going on h-“

Spades Duck took out his ACM Husbando Sword (Order now and get two swords for the price of three! That’s a great deal!) and attacked Cinder with so much amazing gusto the fight didn’t even need to be seen to beheld. Soon Cinder was nothing more than bloody chunks on the ground…

All those pieces turned into changeling limbs, revealing her to be nothing more than a changeling in disguise.

Cinder shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense! I was right there, I saw the sword coming, I lifted the wall of fire and…” The wall of fire was behind her. It engulfed her and tossed her into the river where the Borger was.

“Silly filly, don’t you know it’s wrong to play with fire?” Pinkie asked.

Cinder groaned, ramming her face into the sesame-seed bun. “Wake me when it’s over.”

Spades Duck, happy that he had vanquished the annoying filly, turned back to Burgerbelle. “I demand pickles and milk.”

“How about a flashlight?”

“That’ll do nicely.”

Burgerbelle pulled a pair of ponies - Twilight Sparkle and Flash Sentry - who were busy snagging on each other. They were so focused they didn’t even noticed they were thrown at Spades Duck.

Cheerilee and Kissylips walked in and were promptly flattened by Spades Duck and the Flashlight ball. On and on and on and - never mind.

Back at the borger, Cinder tore her head out of the ground. “That’s it, something’s wrong here. BURGERBELLE WE NEED TO LEAVE!”

“But we haven’t even got to see Blue Tea, Spades Duck’s wife!”

“Who and who!?”

“I NEED MY MILK AND PICKLES!” The pregananerant monstrosity droned.

“The giant has awoken…” Spades Duck said in horror, trying to ignore the feeling of Twilight’s saliva on his ear.

“WHERE ARE MY MILK AND PICKLES!?” Blue Tea, Spades Duck’s wife, gorglighed, stomping into the river and flattening the borger, definitely killing Pinkie. Definitely.

“Screw you.”

Must be an echo.

“I blame the paper thing!” Spades Duck scrambled.

Blue Tea, Spades Duck’s wife, looked down at Burgerbelle.

Burgerbelle pulled out a stick of bubblegum. It spontaneously transformed into a toblerone and shattered into a million pieces. “Looks like I’m all out of bubblegum.” She proceeded to take out a fl͘oati͟ng ̷ca͢n of͢ ̛Bu̡tt͜ ̷Wh͟o̶op̕in.

“B-burgerbelle, what’s that…?” Cinder said, paling.

“What’s what?” Spades Duck asked, not looking at the fl͘oati͟ng ̷ca͢n of͢ ̛Bu̡tt͜ ̷Wh͟o̶op̕in. Refusing to look at it. It wasn’t real. Totally.

“That… THING!” Cinder pointed. “It doesn’t look safe! It looks like it doesn’t belong!”

“What, the fl͘oati͟ng ̷ca͢n of͢ ̛Bu̡tt͜ ̷Wh͟o̶op̕in?” Burgerbelle asked. “Oh don’t you worry, it’s about to get worse…” She moved her hand to pop the can open.

“YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND ITS POWER!” Kissylips shouted.

“I CANNOT LET THOU OPEN THAT!” Luna shouted, coming out of nowhere with the fabled Warhammer of Zillyhoo.

Burgerbelle opened the can anyway.

There were butts everywhere.

And then there was a loading screen. Spades Duck found himself sitting in a waiting room with everyone else.

Cinder was freaking out. “Why is everyone so calm!? Why are we just sitting here!? What I-“

The update was done, everyone moved up their echeladders, and the borger returned.

“YOU CAN’T KILL SUCTION CUP PONY!” Pinkie shouted.

“Seen enough?” Burgerbelle asked.

“…Yes…” Cinder said, shaking her head. “I… I still don’t understand, but I’ve seen enough.”

“Good.” Burgerbelle put her hands in front of her face in some anime pose - you choose, it doesn’t really matter which one. “Burgerbelle and Cinder out, peace!”

The two vanished.

In their place was a jar of pickles and a jar of milk.

“Huh. Neat,” Spades Duck said. He picked them up and returned home to his wife.

She gave birth to more borgers. The exact number is unknown.

Thanks to GMBlackjack for the guest chapter- go check out The League of Sweetie Belles because that’s where this chapter is from.

d͍̩̺̜̞̣͎͑̔͌ ͚̬̲̺̩̯̺̐̓͟o͎̝̟͕ͥ̑ͨ̊ͤ͌ͦń͍̬̻̰̌̏͗̍̋́ ̇̒̌̒ͯ̃ạ̼̳͇̥̘̱̾͆n̶͖̮̤͍ͣͩd̜̣̗̩̥̻͕̎̋ ̰ͅõ͇̇͗̉̾̔ͭ͘n̬̦̳̞̒ͧͬ̂͆ ̣͙̘͈͎͖͕̆ͣ͗͆̋̓̽ä҉̣̠̮n̵͇͎͈̯͖̗͉͆ͬͬd̯̹̝̀̆̿ͩ͞ ̵͔̬̥̺͚͍̌̇ͨ̉̀̃ǫ̗̻̮͛̿̓͗n͉̞͈̺͙͓̹͐ ̘̼͉̔̐̊̎a҉̫͚n̮̣̮͍̎̔͗̊̐͞d̯̝̩͔̰̲́̄̑ͬ͆ ͇̩ͧͯ͊̾̉͐õ̠͒n̡͓̯͇̻̖͈̮͒ͩͦ̾̽ ͕̪̔̉̊ͬ̄ͧ̍͠a̘͖̱̾͐n̝͉ͣ̅̿ͭͤͫͤ͞d̶̯̿̔̽̃͛̔ ̝̉́ͣ̕o̙̣̳͆̂͌ͭ̏ṇ͚͉͕̓͢ ̲̠̮͎ͮͪ̾ͮa͏̥͙͓͍̯ň̑ͮ̽ͨ҉̙̫̭̟͎̝͇ḓ̻̰͙̬̆ͭ ̛͙̗̦̗̻̙ͧͦȯ͖̍ͧ͌̓ń̡̹ ͎̳̺̟̄̔̇ͧͫả͉̙̼͍̪̫̐̒́n͈̲̯̹̤̦̬ͩ̓̇d͍̩̺̜̞̣͎͑̔͌ ͚̬̲̺̩̯̺̐̓͟o͎̝̟͕ͥ̑ͨ̊ͤ͌ͦń͍̬̻̰̌̏͗̍̋́ ̇̒̌̒ͯ̃ạ̼̳͇̥̘̱̾͆n̶͖̮̤͍ͣͩd̜̣̗̩̥̻͕̎̋ ̰ͅõ͇̇͗̉̾̔ͭ͘n̬̦̳̞̒ͧͬ̂͆ ̣͙̘͈͎͖͕̆ͣ͗͆̋̓̽ä҉̣̠̮n̵͇͎͈̯͖̗͉͆ͬͬd̯̹̝̀̆̿ͩ͞ ̵͔̬̥̺͚͍̌̇ͨ̉̀̃ǫ̗̻̮͛̿̓͗n͉̞͈̺͙͓̹͐ ̘̼͉̔̐̊̎a҉̫͚n̮̣̮͍̎̔͗̊̐͞d̯̝̩͔̰̲́̄̑ͬ͆ ͇̩ͧͯ͊̾̉͐õ̠͒n̡͓̯͇̻̖͈̮͒ͩͦ̾̽ ͕̪̔̉̊ͬ̄ͧ̍͠a̘͖̱̾͐n̝͉ͣ̅̿ͭͤͫͤ͞d̶̯̿̔̽̃͛̔ ̝̉́ͣ̕o̙̣̳͆̂͌ͭ̏ṇ͚͉͕̓͢ ̲̠̮͎ͮͪ̾ͮa͏̥͙͓͍̯ň̑ͮ̽ͨ҉̙̫̭̟͎̝͇ḓ̻̰͙̬̆ͭ ̛͙̗̦̗̻̙ͧͦȯ͖̍ͧ͌̓ń̡̹ ͎̳̺̟̄̔̇ͧͫả͉̙̼͍̪̫̐̒́n͈̲̯̹̤̦̬ͩ̓̇d̶̢͕͉ͩ̊̀͒̆̌́ͨ ̵͇̤͍̣͖̭̯̓̉ơ̦̝͈̏̿͆ͦͫͤͧ͗n̷͂̈́̏ͩ̅̆ͯ͗҉̗̱̯̜̗̘͚ ̸̬̠̥̳̲̅̓ͬ̀͡ą̷͙͇̼͓͇̊͊́n̔̿͏̯̯d̶̫̭̗ͩ̔ͧ͋ ̶̼̝͔̙̗̻͍̠̭̆̒̅̏͑́o̴͈ͨ̇̔̾ͫ̽ͪ̕ṉ̬͈̅̍͢ ̷̷̮̗̮͓̣̩̖̪̂͌̎͋̑ͣ͢ȁ̘̱͍̖ͫ̅͌̄̅̓ͯ̕n̵̦̥̰̥ͪ̾̾̑̈́ḑ̩͓̙̩̬̂͛͊͆̆ͦ͂̃͂ ̴͎̮͔̫͖̘̰̪̞̏̌o̯̟̗͙̒͛ͩͬͣ̀ͧͭ̒n̫͎̟͍̺̜̋̋ͫ͒ͅ ̜͎̟̝̞͈͐̾̄̀̚͠a̼̳̮͔͓̲͊̽͌͐̀̚͟n̟͎̥̙̪͎ͥ̆̈͂̔̚͠ͅd͓̠̪̬̤̰̭͖͋̍̐̀̈̊̉͞ ̣̦̟͔͙̐͒̕ǒ̟̻̩͙̥͍̊̈́n̻̪͉̳̺̤͛͡ͅ ̦̜͚̳̓̔a̶̝͉̜̝̤͑̽̌̀n̤̫̮ͧͯͯͭ̉͊̔ͣ̀͢͞d̶̢͕͉ͩ̊̀͒̆̌́ͨ ̵͇̤͍̣͖̭̯̓̉ơ̦̝͈̏̿͆ͦͫͤͧ͗n̷͂̈́̏ͩ̅̆ͯ͗҉̗̱̯̜̗̘͚ ̸̬̠̥̳̲̅̓ͬ̀͡ą̷͙͇̼͓͇̊͊́n̔̿͏̯̯d̶̫̭̗ͩ̔ͧ͋ ̶̼̝͔̙̗̻͍̠̭̆̒̅̏͑́o̴͈ͨ̇̔̾ͫ̽ͪ̕ṉ̬͈̅̍͢ ̷̷̮̗̮͓̣̩̖̪̂͌̎͋̑ͣ͢ȁ̘̱͍̖ͫ̅͌̄̅̓ͯ̕n̵̦̥̰̥ͪ̾̾̑̈́ḑ̩͓̙̩̬̂͛͊͆̆ͦ͂̃͂ ̴͎̮͔̫͖̘̰̪̞̏̌o̯̟̗͙̒͛ͩͬͣ̀ͧͭ̒n̫͎̟͍̺̜̋̋ͫ͒ͅ ̜͎̟̝̞͈͐̾̄̀̚͠a̼̳̮͔͓̲͊̽͌͐̀̚͟n̟͎̥̙̪͎ͥ̆̈͂̔̚͠ͅd͓̠̪̬̤̰̭͖͋̍̐̀̈̊̉͞ ̣̦̟͔͙̐͒̕ǒ̟̻̩͙̥͍̊̈́n̻̪͉̳̺̤͛͡ͅ ̦̜͚̳̓̔a̶̝͉̜̝̤͑̽̌̀n̤̫̮ͧͯͯͭ̉͊̔ͣ̀͢͞d̶̢͕͉ͩ̊̀͒̆̌́ͨ ̵͇̤͍̣͖̭̯̓̉ơ̦̝͈̏̿͆ͦͫͤͧ͗n̷͂̈́̏ͩ̅̆ͯ͗҉̗̱̯̜̗̘͚ ̸̬̠̥̳̲̅̓ͬ̀͡ą̷͙͇̼͓͇̊͊́n̔̿͏̯̯d̶̫̭̗ͩ̔ͧ͋ ̶̼̝͔̙̗̻͍̠̭̆̒̅̏͑́o̴͈ͨ̇̔̾ͫ̽ͪ̕ṉ̬͈̅̍͢ ̷̷̮̗̮͓̣̩̖̪̂͌̎͋̑ͣ͢ȁ̘̱͍̖ͫ̅͌̄̅̓ͯ̕n̵̦̥̰̥ͪ̾̾̑̈́ḑ̩͓̙̩̬̂͛͊͆̆ͦ͂̃͂ ̴͎̮͔̫͖̘̰̪̞̏̌o̯̟̗͙̒͛ͩͬͣ̀ͧͭ̒n̫͎̟͍̺̜̋̋ͫ͒ͅ ̜͎̟̝̞͈͐̾̄̀̚͠a̼̳̮͔͓̲͊̽͌͐̀̚͟n̟͎̥̙̪͎ͥ̆̈͂̔̚͠ͅd͓̠̪̬̤̰̭͖͋̍̐̀̈̊̉͞ ̣̦̟͔͙̐͒̕ǒ̟̻̩͙̥͍̊̈́n̻̪͉̳̺̤͛͡ͅ ̦̜͚̳̓̔a̶̝͉̜̝̤͑̽̌̀n̤̫̮ͧͯͯͭ̉͊̔ͣ̀͢͞d̶̢͕͉ͩ̊̀͒̆̌́ͨ ̵͇̤͍̣͖̭̯̓̉ơ̦̝͈̏̿͆ͦͫͤͧ͗n̷͂̈́̏ͩ̅̆ͯ͗҉̗̱̯̜̗̘͚ ̸̬̠̥̳̲̅̓ͬ̀͡ą̷͙͇̼͓͇̊͊́n̔̿͏̯̯d̶̫̭̗ͩ̔ͧ͋ ̶̼̝͔̙̗̻͍̠̭̆̒̅̏͑́o̴͈ͨ̇̔̾ͫ̽ͪ̕ṉ̬͈̅̍͢ ̷̷̮̗̮͓̣̩̖̪̂͌̎͋̑ͣ͢ȁ̘̱͍̖ͫ̅͌̄̅̓ͯ̕n̵̦̥̰̥ͪ̾̾̑̈́ḑ̩͓̙̩̬̂͛͊͆̆ͦ͂̃͂ ̴͎̮͔̫͖̘̰̪̞̏̌o̯̟̗͙̒͛ͩͬͣ̀ͧͭ̒n̫͎̟͍̺̜̋̋ͫ͒ͅ ̜͎̟̝̞͈͐̾̄̀̚͠a̼̳̮͔͓̲͊̽͌͐̀̚͟n̟͎̥̙̪͎ͥ̆̈͂̔̚͠ͅd͓̠̪̬̤̰̭͖͋̍̐̀̈̊̉͞ ̣̦̟͔͙̐͒̕ǒ̟̻̩͙̥͍̊̈́n̻̪͉̳̺̤͛͡ͅ ̦̜͚̳̓̔a̶̝͉̜̝̤͑̽̌̀n̤̫̮ͧͯͯͭ̉͊̔ͣ̀͢͞ḏ̨̛̰̝̞̺͎͓̥̖͙͈̈́͗̄̔ͩ̉ͯ͐̎̉̉̊͛̿̄͋͋͊̅͟ ̷̛͌͒̇̿̈̈̐͆̆ͥͥ̚̚͟͏̩̼̯̣͕̺̬̹͚͙̩̪̞͍͈̰͚o̧̟̦͈̯̘̟͇͙̜͈̠̞̙̐ͫͪ͆̓́͘͠͠ͅͅṉ̢̛̱̞̺͚̜̰͊ͩ̓ͨ̈̆͝ ̟̻͔̯͚͙̪̔̿͊̈́ͭ̅ͦ́̏͟ͅȃ̵̛̛̳̠̬͕̻̦͔̖̱͈̗̹͉̅͂́͂̊ͯ͊ͭͫͤͧ̍̏͟n̴̨͇̯̬̮͚͉͎̹̯̟̬̟̝͈̔͋͋ͫ̈͒̋̒̾͒́͂͛͋̎̐͟͝d̸̛͙͕͖̦͉͔ͬ͂̽̊ͪ̽͒͗̀ͤ̍̄̑̅ͨ̋̑͊ ̴̧̨̠͖̼̘̬̉̍ͯ̌ͯ̇̄͋̇͊̔͌̐̏o̵̤̠̟͔̗̠͈̮̱͗́ͥͦ͆ͧͨ̍̂ͦͣ̒́n͕͉̥̳͚̖̯̭̹̖͈̻͈̞̈́̌͊̃̀ͨͣͫ̍͌̿̌͑ͤͮ͠͡ ̴̵̼͕̳͙̦͎̝͚̮̼͖̮̥̮̼͉̲͚ͥ̾͂̏̾͒ͬͤ̒͒ͧa̷̶̒ͪ̏ͫͯ̐ͣ̅̾̓͏͎̭͕̪͎ň̸̴̮̞̥͍̥̩͚͈ͫ̎́̾̇̑̽͊ͩͅͅd̷̨͓͍̳̫̥̭̼̝̝̤̫͔ͪ͌̄̏̀ͮ̀ͅ ̸̷̭͎̙͈̺̹̝̦̈ͧ̓ͪ̆͝o̴̬̝̙͚̪̰̞͆ͨ̉̏̋ͤͩ̅ͪ̅͋ͪ̑̏͂͋ͮ͠n̷̟̤͚̠̦͚̫̭̜̝̫̟̝͚̗ͦ͂̊̊̆́ͦ͐ͯ̓ͤ̒͋̌ͪ͢ ̵̰̗͖̞̹̩̜̥͓͖ͯͥ͗̐̑̈́̍̒͒̒ͮ̉ͣ̏ͥͤ͢a̪̯͎̭̤̻̭̦̦̞̮̱̠̣̥̯̎̑̑ͤ͟͠n͂̈́̾̒ͣ͆̃̉ͮ̊̈̚͏̨͏̗͖̙̺̳͕̟͕̦̘͉ͅͅd̨̢̮̭̺̙̳̭̼͊ͪ̇̇ͯ͒ͬͮ͟͝ ͎̙̻͈̘̘̯̺̱̓͊̉͋͐͒̓͆͊̐ͥͪͧ̿̿̂́͞ͅơ̵̼̪͉̣͉̬̺͉̹̥̜͐ͪ͑̔ͥ̓̋̏̇͂̀̽̂̂̅̇̌ͅṋ̷͉̘̤̱ͭ͐͗ͥ̉̿̑̓ͣͭ̆̚͞ ̶͌̀͗ͩͪ̃̋̏̃̅̄͂̈́̄ͬ͠͏̧̭͇̙̼͎̮ą̷̴̙̬͇̙̺̳͈̐̀ͨ̚ͅͅnͤ͛ͫ̊͘҉̟̗͈̣̥̝̥͢͞d̵̓̈́̑̿̊͆̈́̒͗̓ͥ̇̊͂ͦ̚̕҉҉̡̞͉̫̰̬̣͙̬̩͈̭ ͗ͮͭͯ̾ͩ̌̌̃̑̈́̃͏̰̬͔́̕ͅǫ̸̨ͥ͑̈͊͂͏̷̝͙̬͎̩͎͎̻̹͚͕͚͓͍̞̼̹ͅͅn̷̥̰̘̱̥̗̯͓̻̩̬͔̞̘̼͕͖̰ͫ̔̊̓͗ͫ̑̉́̀͝ͅ ̸̨̨̯̼͎͈̔ͦ̏̀ͮͣ̍̓͑̑͢͡a̛̒̊̍̏ͩ̀ͩ̕͡͏͓̹͇̜̱͓͖̻̹ͅn̶̨̛͇͇̤̱̜̬̤̻̬̖̻͂̇̋̂ͥ̿ͮͯͦ͆̉̾͆̄͋ͫ̂͠ḑ̷̨͙̜̞͓̺̦̹̖̼̬̱̻̼̮͂́̉̈̀̈́̔̇̑̋̑̑̌ͦ͌̋̀ ̄̈́ͦ̓̅̄̈́ͮ̌̃͋̉̊ͣ̓͐͢҉͎̪̤̲͈̠̥̣̱̹̥̘̹o̢͍̦̗̠͍͉͙ͥ̓ͭ̄ͭͪ̀͘͟͡n̶̢ͥ̓͛ͭ̎ͦ̍͛͝҉͍̬͚̣̠͖̰̹͖̱̦͈͈̝̀ͅ ̸̱̜̮͈̤̠̦̝ͧ̍̇̍ͭ͡ả̔̇̓̍ͣ̓̔̋̑ͯ̚҉҉̡͕͙͓̞̹̺̖̜̬͓͎̰̬̩͘ň͂ͤ̍̃ͩ͆͆̆̂͆͏҉͡͡҉̜͔̬͚̜̹d̵̼̻͇̪̬͇̤̤̘̜̬̦̐ͩ͒̍̒̐͗̚͜ ̭̙̭̟̫̻̗͔͉̲̼̌̓̐ͧ̈́͆̒ͯͫ̓̉͐̐̇ͩ́͐ͫ͜͟ŏ̸̻̱͎̻͚̜̓̓̆ͣͭ͛̆́̕n̷̡͈̜̮̰̘̘̣͎̜̝̣͑͗̒́͛́͢͞ͅ ̶̝̼̻͓͚̼͎̻̯̬̭̮̗͉̜́ͭͧ̊̔̀ͧ̅ͫͭ͋́ͦ̒̚͝͡͞a̸̬͉̭̤͈̤̳̮͙̘̹̩̠̪̰ͧͪ̉͆̒̈̈̊ͣ̈̆̊̉̊̌͋͐̿͟n͙̺̫̻̽̅ͮ͑ͮ͋ͭ̂ͩ̏̉ͧͫ̇̚͘͟͠ḑ̶̨̣͓͓̯͎͖̣͕̳̝̘͎͖̱̻̠̖͚͂ͦͪ̽ͣ̔̐̐ͥ̀͒̿̿ͩ̔͊̅́ ̡̙̻̙̃͐ͨ̏̒̌̋͂́̚͜ő̵̮̤͓̬̠̦͔̯̬̗͇̫̜͉̳̹̝̓͛ͦ̌ͮͪ̉͂ͮ̽̄ͅn̴̒̅ͬͯ̔ͦ͂̓͆ͭ͒̐̃ͪ͑̔ͥ̓͏̸̵̝̲̖̦̩̙̟̻͈̳̣̤̯̥̹͢ ̪̗̗̲̟͓͖̭̖̺͖͔̋̎͆̀̕̕͝ḁ̴̶͖̘͇̖̮͈̻̈́͐̇̂̆̉̔͊͗́̓̄́ͫ̚̚̚͘͞n̸̢̦̥̼̾͋̑̉ͩ̚͢d̢͋́ͫͧ̑ͫ͘҉̟̥̟̙̺̻̱̙̝̦̙͙̬̣̠ ̶̗̭̻̞̬̻͉̹̾́̿̆̋̂̔̀͂̚͜͞o̶̪̼̙̭̲̬̹̖̍̾̿̊ͭ̅̓ͥ̑ͩ̇͒͊͆̃̕ͅņ̴̛͚̞͕̺͉͎̬̘̳̭̭̞̰̮̥͋̀͆̓̊̍ͧ͊͂̂͂̾ͭ́ ̶̛̦̘͙͙̞ͧ́̋̍ͯ͜͢͜a͔͉̱͓͙͕͚̗̰͋͂͐̌̎̎̈̑͠͠͡n̵̟̳̳͖͙̠͇̯̠̩̻͔̩̝̥̽̋͒́̓̆ͪͯ̄̉̋̍͒ͥͤ͗̂ͮ̇͡ͅͅd̷̸͔̮̺̬̹͎̜͈̜̼͒̽ͣͬͮ̏͌ͦͧ͗ͪ̚͝ ̧̩̯͇̺̱͕̺̠̠̣̪̖̑̿̽̒̉ͮ͒̿̌ͩͯͨ̒̌̄̚͠oͭ͐̃̔͛ͪͩ͏̵͎̙̺͚͉̝̭̬̝͞͞ň̶̸̡̪̰̻̪̲̺͍̳͙̞̗͈̳̖̭̾̅͐̅͗̑̑͛̏ͩ̍̂ͭ͋́̃͠ ̧̊̄ͪ͊̾̽̑ͨ͆̽̾ͤ̆̏͜͏̩̦͍̯͕̦͉͓͚̹͈͇̩̀͢ͅa̵̖͓̤̯͎͉̗̰̮̖̮̜̙̯͛͊̍̑ͯ͗ͭ̍ͪ͐̽̏͐͒̊̃ͦ͟n͔̬͚̼̝̩̖̜͙̣̉̈̍̾ͩͤͧ͐ͯ͐ͦͨ̃́́͟͠d̷̡͇̠̜͓̘̱̯̻̆̓̈̿̽ͪͯ̀͋ͭ́ ̧̛͛̓̽̎̈́̊̂̌̐͊̃̃̋́̕͏̘͈̖̤͈̹̘̻̖̮̠̟̯͇ò̢̨̫̥͈̠̯͉̻̦̪͎̫̻̾ͣ̒ͣ͆͆̆ͦ̈́̀ͩ͋͋ͬͭ͗̍́ͅn̴̶̴̛͚͖͕̜̺͖̱̥̰̼̯͔͗ͥ̂̇̀ͅ ̡̯̙͍͔͇̟̻̤̯̥̯͔̼̩̤̗̭̘͑̔̐͐̐ͧͪ̏̂͛̍̿̈́̅͒̀́́͘ȁ̄ͭͤ̈́ͨ͐͒̀͏̨̫̭̣̬͉͖̫̮͚̲͔̬̗̘̻̲̳̺̼̕n̶͇͈̫̠ͨ̀̉ͥͥ͊̏̈̇ͩ̌̀̀̀̚̚͢͢ͅd̸̢̛̟̟̬͕͎̯̣̯̳̺̭͔̅͊̓̆͂̉͆̌͂̅̅͌͜͞ͅͅ ̷ͦ͌͂̈́ͮ̐̅ͮͨ̂ͥͫ͐̍҉͖̫͍̙̜̩o̶̧̡͉̬̹͖̖̟͖̘̯̗̜̯̯̮͚̻̞̳ͣ̉̈́ͬ̾̀̔͂ͧͮͩ͆͢n̢̡̎͌͂̄̌̐̉̚̚̚̕͜҉̬̥̥̫͓̤̘̜͈̦̟͎̝̻͎ͅͅ ̷̘̯̪̰̩͔̙͖̣̲̲̥̼̱̫͕ͩ̒̊̃̉ͭͮͯ̎ͨ̚̚͡a̛̿̍̃̊ͣͤ̄̾͑̕͏̗̣̙͍͓̲̗̭̬͔ͅͅn͛͑̐̋̍͜͢͠͠͏̬͎̤̝͎̭͈͙̗̝̭͚̫̱̱̝ͅ

So, Spades Duck stood there in shocked silence until Twilight noticed that there was a light (specifically, the light of a ACME Earth Pony Headlamp with built-in Hyper Laser Night Light Bright Technology) that was very much illuminating her and her coltfriend, but she really didn’t care much about Spades, so she used her magic to switch off Spades’s ACME Earth Pony Headlamp with built-in Hyper Laser Night Light Bright Technology.

And that’s when the fun began.

Spades flicked his light back on and looked back down the chip aisle, which was now empty. There was no Twilight or Flash. Even the chips were gone. Well, actually there was one thing. A puddle of black goo, halfway down the aisle.

Spades shivered at the sight, but continued onward to the back of the store where the milk was. on his his way he passed shelves that were eerily empty and dusty. Hadn’t he been there the day before, and the shelves were full? It didn’t take Spades long to find where the milk was supposed to be, but it wasn’t there. Like the rest of the store, the cold section was empty, save for a note on the door.

...

”Come in, Spades!” read the note out loud, screeching like a banshee. Seriously?. Mmhmmm. Spades immediately decided that going into the cooler was not a good idea and turned to leave. So there. So you want to play this game? Fine.

The note, being magical in origin, noticed that Spades was not entering and screeched at him again, “I haaaave miiilk!” and Spades paused.

But he did not turn around.After heading a few aisles down, the darkness closed around Spades. He could see eyes in the darkness ahead of him, glowing a fierce red. The light of his ACME Earth Pony headlamp with built-in Hyper Laser Night Light Bright Technology should have fully illuminated whatever was staring at him, but the darkness seemed to eat the light.

Spades went to draw his sword but found it missing from his saddlebags.

Jerk. “Guess I’ll do it the old fashioned way,” said Spades, firming up his stance and stepping forward to take... whatever it was head-on.

But the eyes were gone, as was the path in front of him. There was just a wall with another screaming note.

“We’re sorry we are experiencing technical DIFFICULTIES please WAIT.” shrieked the note. So, Spades sat. And waited.

Five, maybe ten minutes later, the battery of his ACME Earth Pony headlamp with built-in Hyper Laser Night Light Bright Technology died, plunging Spades into almost absolute darkness. The only light he could see was that of a single cooler, empty, standing a ways off in the distance.

Spades had seen enough horror movies. He knew that going in the cooler would be very very bad for him. He would not go.

Spades had nowhere else to go.

Spades could not go in the cooler.

The cooler was the only place Spades could go.

Spades felt a familliar and yet unexpected weight in his saddlebags.

...

He looked over, and in the faint light of the cooler, he could see a jar of pickles and a gallon of whole milk in them. Now all he had to do was get... home.

Spades got up.

...

He went over to the cooler.

...

He opened the door.

...

And he stepped inside the cooler.

It was empty. Nothing but grey walls, and a bit of light from somewhere.

Spades turned and found that the door was gone. He was trapped. But he didn’t panic. Instead, he sat on the floor, and waited.

Time passed. Nothing happened.

Not sure where to go, eh? Well, let’s see...

Spades got bored quickly. To pass the time, he pulled his duck call from his bag and played that drifting deja vu song on it. Repeatedly. Getting bored with that, he pulled out his other duck call and called his ducks.

“Don’t worry my little duckies, Spadsey will be home soon and after the changelings leave I’ll feed you.

On the other end of the line was a lot of quacking, which Spades Duck listened to intently before replying, “I’m just picking up a few things for Blue.” More quacking. “Sure, you can bite any changelings you see. I gotta go- something’s happening.” A single quack later, Spades hung up.

Your turn.

...I’m not sure where to take this.

C’mon, just let the words flow like a bad case of the runs after accidentally drinking a whole bottle of laxatives. It’s easy.

Spades stood, and then turned around. Behind him was a mirror. He looked into the mirror.

Oh I know where this is going.

Spades looked and he saw, and he reached out and took the saw. He turned around again to find a table that was not there before. Spades used the saw to cut the table in half, and then put the two halves together to make a whole, or a hole. And then he crawled into the hole.

The hole was dank, dark, and smelled like things you’d rather I not describe, because it’s nasty.

Table holes are generally nasty.

On and on and on

What?

Nothing. Continue.

Spades crawled out of the hole and fell into some water. It was the sewers.

Lucky for him, there were no changelings in the Canterlot sewer system but there were alligators, for reasons that only the princesses knew. And Spades. Spades knew too. And because he knew, he drew his sword.

The gators were not ordinary gators, however. They were intelligent. Except for Carl the Gator. Carl was a little slow, but his family loved and supported him anyways. At the current time, Carl was off around the royal sewer system, eating a changeling. The rest of the gators near Spades saw the sword and decided to leave him alone. Besides, they were somewhat familiar with Spades already due to him spelunking in the crystal caverns beneath every once in a while.

Nice addition.

Thanks.

Spades knew where he was in the sewer system, and he didn’t have to go far to find the ladder that led up to his street. He climbed the ladder and went through the top to find an empty street. It was as if all of the changelings and ponies had disappeared.

Spades’s priority was his wife, so he rushed over to his house and through the front doorframe, which was missing its door. But she wasn’t inside. She wasn’t upstairs, nor downstairs, or even in the basement.

and on and on and on

You sure you’re ok, Moon?

Yeah, I’m fine.

Spades went into his backyard. His duck pond and shovel shed were still there. Spades went up to the pond and got down on his belly to talk to his ducks.

“Lucy, do you know where Blue went?”

There was quacking in reply.

“Yes, I know she’s fat. She has multiple foals inside her, Paul. Don’t be rude. Lucy?”

A duck quacked.

“The toaster? Toasters can’t talk.”

The duck quacked twice.

“Then I will go see for myself.” replied Spades, getting back up. He went back inside and went into the kitchen to find a toaster on the floor and another on the counter.

He gave the floored toaster a light kick before speaking to the one on the counter. “Lucy said you can talk.”

The toaster spat out a slice of toasted bread, and then said “Yesssss I can talk. And you soon won’t be able to!”

“Yeah, well I don’t care. Where’s my wife?”

“Which one wassss your wife?”

“What do you mean ‘which one’ I mean the one that was in this house!”

“Thissss housssse wasssss empty when I arrived.”

“Why are you answering my questions? I’m your enemy.”

“I wassss told to do ssssso by my queen.”

Spades stomped once, sending a spike of Canterlotian stone shooting up through the floor behind him, almost impaling Queen Kissylips.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked, taking a step back from the rock spike.

“I didn’t. Lucy did.” A duck poked its head out of Spades’s saddlebags and quacked rudely at Kissylips.

“Stupid duck.”

“On and on.” said the toaster.

“And on and on.” replied Spades.

...

“I have no clue what you two are on and on about but anyways,” yelled Kissylips, “Toaster! Get him!” The toaster transformed into a changeling and jumped at Spades Duck, but Spades managed to impale it on a rock spike before it got to him.

“Damn you, pony I don’t know the name of!” shouted Kissylips before running out the front door.

“I’m not dead.” said the impaled changeling.

“On and on.” said Spades. “And on and on and on.”

...oookay then.

On and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on

...

Anyways, Blue Tea was glad that Spades had brought her what she desired, although she complained a little because she wanted the 1% milk and not the whole milk that Spades had gotten. A few months later, Blue gave birth to a pile of foals, all of which were ogre-green and smarter than a fifth grader. Impaled changeling was unimpaled and soon found out later that he was also unemployed, so he went to work at the 8/12 and ended up making a lot of money because changelings eat love and not chips, usually.

So, Moon’s not been feeling well lately so he asked me to help out. Who am I? I’m Sunmargarine. Get it? ‘Cuz Moon is Moonbutters? I’m one of Moon’s irl friends. I may fill in for Moon a little more- he’s been working on something cool, or so he says.

Also, I don’t know what’s up with Moon with the “on and on” stuff, but he insisted that I don’t remove it.

-Sun

On and on?
The story, is complete, yes? No. Every alternate ending. More. MORE.MORE!!!

It cannot end.

It must end.

Fools. We will all be fools.

-Moon

It’s a simple world. My world. The one that I made, here. A nice one. Happy endings, always. Remember that. Please, for me.

-M

Spades Duck found his street to be suspiciously empty. His hoofsteps echoed from the alcoves of the houses he passed. When he got to his own house, he gasped, as the front door was gone.

I don’t mean gone as in “blasted away,” I mean gone as in “somebody unscrewed my front door and stole it like a jerk.” Quietly he entered the house and tried to shut the door behind him, but there was no door to shut.

He called out, “Honeybunches? Are you in here?”

He waited a few seconds, and then heard the reply.

“Yes, dear. I’m in the living room.”

The lack of ear-bleeding screaming made Spades suspicious.

I couldn’t write this. Not this time. Because it would all fall apart. On and on, you understand?

“Honey,” he started, heading towards the living room, “I forgot what you asked me to go get. Also, the door is gone. I don’t mean gone as in ‘blasted away,’ I mean gone as in “somebody unscrewed my front door and stole it like a jerk.’ You haven’t seen the door, have you?”

“No dear,” said the voice from the living room, “I hadn’t seen the door. And I think I sent you for... for...” the voice paused.

“For your medication?”

“Yes! Thank you honey. Now, would you be a dear and come give me my medicine?”

On and on and on and on. The same day, except not. Repeated. On and on and on and on.

“Of course,” replied Spades, drawing his ACME Husbando Sword. “I’ll just be a moment.”

“Do hurry,” said the voice-who-was-not-his-wife’s-but-sounds-like-his-wife’s from the living room.

Spades was 95% sure it was a changeling, but a 5% error... Spades did not like those chances.

I’ve grown attached to these characters. Spades. Kissylips. Blue. On and on and on.

The only way to be sure that whoever was in the living room was not his wife would be to go in and see, so Spades did. And, as expected, there was a changeling sitting in his wife’s chair.

“Yeah, you’re not my wife.” said Spades, pointing his sword. No, his other sword, the big one. The small one is still in his saddlebags, silly.

[Note from Sun: This is exactly how Moon had written this part. From what I can gather, Spades had been using the small sword.]

“Yes, I know I’m not your wife.” replied the changeling in Blue’s voice.

“Where is she?”

“In the basement. Sleeping.”

“Liar.”

But I’m no liar. I love my characters, as... odd as they are. On and on.

“You can see for yourself, but you should go into the other basement first, Spades.” The changeling pointed at a door that had not been there before.

I can’t just... let them go. I want to hold on to them. On and on and on and on and on. My creations.

Spades was intrigued. “Where did that door come from?”

The changeling seemed to ignore his question. “He’s waiting for you down there. Best hurry.”

Spades went over to the door and opened it. Within there was only darkness. And a faint noise of clacking, like a typewriter except muted.

Spades went in, and the door closed behind him.

Hello, Spades.

“Who’s there?” shouted Spades, a bit startled.

Don’t worry. It will be over soon.

“What? Who are you? Are you saying I’m gonna die?”

I can’t give it all away, but I feel the need to reassure him that I won’t let him go- or at least I keep telling myself that.

You will persist, Spades. No matter what, you will persist. Forgive me.

I don’t know anymore. It needs to end. It needs to continue.

I want it to be over. I want to free Spades. He needs to be freed.

Should I? Would I?

One week from today.
April fools, the first of April. The perfect time for the death of a fool.

A Fool’s End. Thst has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

I have little more to say right now. I won’t give it all away.

Don’t lose hope, dear readers. Never lose hope.

Spades left the second basement.

[Now here in the story, Moon left like three pages blank in the google doc, and then continued as if Spades had not gone into the second basement at all. I feel like there should have been something there, but I really don’t care much.]

“O-okay then.” said Spades, visibly shook. The changeling was gone from the chair and the normal basement door was open. Spades took a moment to calm down and then he went into the basement, large sword at the ready.

On and on and on it goes.

To his surprise, his wife, Blue Tea, was at the foot of the basement stairs, sleeping soundly on top of the missing door. After waking, Blue put the door back where it belonged and then ate all if the pickles and drank all of the milk in like, five minutes.

A few weeks later, Blue gave birth to a jar of ponycles, which is a sea pony except they can only swim in pickle juice.

[And that’s all he wrote.]

The end is near. Fool’s End.

-Moonbutters

Hi, it’s Sun again. Got some notes in an email from Moon today- told me to write this chapter based on the notes. Moon’s still... sick. He should be better soon. Told me he’d stop sending me brony stuff. Of course he’s the one that’s posting the story, but still. He needs to rest. College, and all that. Wish him well, won’t you?

-Sun

Save me. Save them. One week until Fool’s End.

-Moon

“Your medicine is death.” said Spades, removing his ACME Husbando Sword from the corpse of the changeling. Without the changeling talking, Spades could hear...

He could hear Twilight and Flash kissing outside? Spades was confused. How did he know who it was that was kissing? It could be two changelings, for all he knew. But it was most definitely Twilight and Flash. He just... knew.

Spades walked to the basement door, but didn’t open it. A changeling queen was down there. Or might be down there.

Wasn’t Princess Luna on her way?

Spades was not at the basement door. He was at the kitchen window. He could see ponies dressed up in nightmare night costumes outside.

“How...” started Spades, trailing off.

He blinked. There was now a giant Pinkie Pie sitting outside, on a pile of changelings. He blinked again. The pile was gone, and so was Pinkie. His wife cried out from the basement. Spades went to the door and opened it. He walked through, into the 8/11. Twilight and Flash were snogging messily on a checkout counter. Luna was watching them, bored. She turned to Spades.

“Something is...” the lights went out, cutting her off. But lights don’t stop sound. They cut her off anyway.

Spades opened his eyes. Why were they closed?

O̷n̸ ̵a̸n̶d̴ ̸o̵n̵

He was floating, high in the sky. Below him was his garden, duck pond with too many ducks, and shovel shed. Where was his wife? She should be a few yards down, smashing changelings, right? Or was that actually Kissylips?

Spades looked. The yards were bare, with no grass or trees.

Spades closed his eyes, not wanting to see more.

A voice. Faint. He could hear it. Her. Luna.

“Something is... Something... Something is...”

Is what? Spades did not know.

Spades opened his eyes, but his eyes did not open. Luna fell silent once again.

“Have a swig.” said a voice Spades recognized.

Spades Duck had four beautiful daughters, all ugly boys.

That’s not right.

Spades Duck. That was his name.

Wasn’t it?

“Spades.” said Spades. “Spades Duck.”

It felt right, but Spades could not hear the word, so he touched it with his hooves. It was fuzzy.

a̸̗̤̦̮̳̜̿̄̔́̈́n̴̩̍̓̏̆̄͠d̷̢̯̪̦͐̀ ̸̗̹͊̓̄̿̎͋Ơ̷̹͍͉̍̉͜ń̴͈̲̰͆͠ ̷̘̆Ǎ̶̫̣n̵̛̗̖͈͐̉̄̓͋d̶͖̦̘̝͆̂͛̍́̃ ̵̡͚̻̞̃͌͘Ȏ̴̥̭̍n̸̡̑ ̸̡̛̺͖͕̝̈̈Á̵̡͍̪̙͔͎̓̓̊̿n̸̤̔ḏ̶͝ͅ

E̵̜̯̻̫͟ǹ̴͈̞̠̩͕͙ḑ̯̗͚̼̠̺̼́͟ ̵̲̣͈͎͇͡͞ì̢͉̣͓̻͈̖t̴͙̠̺͎̟͘͝.̡̛̰̱̳̦̥̖̲͞
̙̞̼͔̯̠̪͟͞
̻͓̖̺͍͟͞͡I͝͏͚̗̪t̮̠̲̣̝͎͈͠ ̭̱͙̯̤͞m̛̟̲͍̳̤̜̫͟u̡͚͔̬̠̹͔͘ś̸̰̜̘͎̮̝͚̙͜t͕̘͙̻̦͕͔͕͢͟͡ ̢̼̱̰̺̤͟͢ͅe̘̠͙̯͙̜͢ͅn̸͕̫d͈̰͈͘

Spades opened his eyes. He was in the basement, watching Kissylips make out with Flash Sentry. He tried to teleport, but earth ponies can’t teleport. Nothing was making sense.

Where was the can of beans?

Spades focused on the thought of the can, and found it, hovering over in a corner.

The beans spoke. “Spaaaaades. Soooomething iiiiiissssssssssssss...”

What had Blue Tea wanted again? Pickles. And milk.

They were in his saddlebags.

The beans spoke. “SpaaaAAAAaaadesssss....”

The can spun, revealing the face of kissylips instead of Bean Bean Bean Bean, the Beanco mascot. Kissylips whispered something, but Spades could not hear, so he stepped closer.

“Spaaaaadesssss.... something is w-“

The can, or Kissylips, was cut off by it being consumed by black goo, which rose in a wave and flew across the ground towards Spades. He tried to run, but his hooves wouldn’t move.

Ä̶̡͈̟͍̣̗́̉N̷̛̛̞͋̽͒̎̈́͊̈́͝D̷̞̳̤̂̐́̂̇͛͗͘ ̴̡̗̍̃̑͆́̃̽́̂̆̕O̵̹̙̮̺̐̌͂͘͝N̴̝͚̲̬̝͔̥̰͍͚̉̎̇͆͒̚͜ ̸̣̦̬̰̞̮̮̬̠͇̎́̄̍̚Â̴͍̻̯̲̞͊̆̀̾̂̈̈́͗̕͜N̴̢͉͓̙̟̘̄͒̌̅̏͒̂̚͘̚D̶̢̥̝͓͓͚͐̍́̋͛̕͜͝ ̶̨̼̥̱̀̀͒̓̆̈̌̏̏͝O̶̧̙̪̠̬̞͑́̆͊̄̃̊̇̓͝N̴̛̤͇̝̻͓̣̪̮̬̉̿̅̔̽͒́̚ͅ ̷̛̻͍̝̦̗̦̭̬̈́̈̀̉̎̔́̉̀͜Ả̵̧̛͙̳̗̫̼̜̘̹̮́̀̍̓̆́͊̅̆͜Ń̸̗̻͓̖̣̤̒̈́̔͆́̅Ď̵̢̝̦̗̪͓̌̂̉ ̵̪̩̃̀̀̈́̈̎͘Ȍ̷̢͉̺N̷͇͈̽́̏̽̇͛̀ͅ ̴͎͎̤̮͚̭̟̼͉̻̾̍̉́A̷̡̪͓̹̰̙͙͇̹̞̮͒̍̓͌͘͝N̵̨̛̥̙̜͔̺̞͖͎̥̖̂̂̇͂̍̈́̀̋̕̕D̸̡̘̥̠̠̈́̎̃̑͒͑͆̚͝ ̶̢̛̛̫̲͇͉͍̥͍̔̽͜O̷̜͓̱̰͕̺̩̥͛̈́͊̈̍̽͆̈̂͠

The goo formed tentacles, which grabbed Spades and pulled him in, consuming him.

“Honey?” asked Blue Tea, Spades’s wife. He could not see her. “Is everything alright, Spades?”

Spades wanted to reply. He really did.

But he was gone. Didn’t he understand that? He was all gone. No more Spades. He had to go back. Can’t go to the next day. It’s the rules.

Blue was sitting in her big chair. It was a very comfortable chair. It reminded her of her husband.

This won’t do.

E҉̛̖̠̹̝́ņ̵̱̬̼̻͙̖̮̘̟͔̱̙̬̰̹̖̫̀ḏ̢̪͙͙̤̙̲̥̹̝̭͙̲̪̀́͟ ̡̡̼̞͈̖͈̟͔͙̼̜ͅi̵̢̛̫̳̠̜̻̟̰͈͜͡ţ̴̥̤̼̜.̵̛̤͈̳̫̰͇̜̜̯̮̞̮̣̭̠̝̜͖͜͜͠ͅ
̴̨̹̤̤̞̝͕̺̭̩̻̺͓̣̬̺͇̮́̕͟ͅ
̷̻͎̙̳͙̜͙̩͙͍̘͎̝̦̪̱͚͉͝͠ͅÍ̢̗͓͓̹̱̦̯t̴̡͜͏̬͇̪̹̖̮̝͔̱̥ͅ ̸̡̻͇̮͈̜̼̫̲̦̦͔̻͍̟̙̱͈͚͡m̴̳̞̯̳͙̪̟͍̫͈͚̼̟̘̬͚u̷̞̮̯̙̩̠͇͍̜͈̣̘̙̫̗̦̪͝͝s҉̨͖̘͉̘̩̫͈̝͎͓͇̦̣͖̪͞ͅt̵̢͖̼̣̯̼̰͍̼͞ ̵̨̙͙̺̰͟ȩ̱̟̟̦̝̳̫͉͇̝̖̠͚̮̕͘͡ͅn̵̛̻̹͉̰̰̰̗̻͚̮̼̫̳͇̝̤̜̕͟d̴̷̡̨̬̫̫̫͚͉̯̰.̺̫̘̙̯̩͉͉̟̟̱̯͡͠

Blue was sitting in her big chair. It was a very comfortable chair. It reminded her of her... her something. Apparently it didn’t remind her well enough.

”Spades Duck.” said Blue Tea, who was Spades’s wife.

The can of butt whoopin’ floated in the corner. It whispered something to Blue.

“̴̢̛̤̪͉͆a̶̢̧̧͍͖̩̼͎̬̙̟͐̎͑n̶̤͈̮̳͚͕̮̥̺͋̎̋͗̀̀d̴̥͙̝̭̞̜̹́͐͐̍̊̏͝͝ ̵̧͚̪̱͇̣̭̮̯͑͘͜ǫ̷̞̺͍͚̤̖̀̑͐̀̊̑̉̏̾̈́̈͜n̶̡̲͇̫͗͛̉͛̄͆͝ ̶̡͈͎̯̰͋a̸̧̧̻̯͍͈͙͔̻̳̖͊n̶͖̘͛ḋ̸̨͔̭͉̝̙̌͊̍̈͒͝ ̵͎̱̯̖̻̳̍̈́̇͝ͅo̷̦͎̗̬̟͙͔̳̩̼͙̓͝n̶̡̬̻̞̉͊͒̎͗̎̚͜ͅͅ ̶̢̢̤̐̿̀͐̈̀̀͆̌̿á̷̧̢͎͕͙̳̭̾̑ṋ̵̢̱͚̺̯̥̪̖̓̏ḓ̷̨͉̩̮̟̠̟͓̳̀̉͆̆̾̕͝ ̵̛͔̹̖̝̠̞̫̥̰̊́͒̉͒̅̓͒͛̿o̶̧͍̫̱̘̻̔̈́̈́̂̑̀̚͜ͅn̴̺͎̜͈͑̋̈̄̕”̸̤̥̫̰̘̖̊̏̓̋̇̀͝ͅwas what it whispered. Blue didn’t understand. She was hungry. Spades understood. He finally understood. She was so very hungry.

Pinkie Pie entered Spades’s house through the front door. Her mane hung limp and flat over her neck, all of its usual poofiness nowhere to be found. Beyond the door, the outside was void. Black. Not black. Purple.

Blue was transfixed by the can. It spun slowly, getting darker as it spun.

“Spades?” asked Pinkie, looking around the kitchen. There was nopony named Spades in the kitchen. He wasn’t there. He was back. Back a few chapters. The toaster on the counter laughed. It was a changeling. Pinkie picked it up and held it in front of her. “Have you seen Spades?”

The toaster on the counter laughed. It was a changeling. Pinkie dropped the toaster she was holding. What toaster? There was no toaster.

Pinkie went into the living room. She saw Blue Tea in the corner, listening to the can.

“̷̳̼̲̗̦͇̻͖̳̤̦̾͂̿̌̆̕͘͝ȧ̶̰͔͚̮̒͗́̽͌͌̋͝n̴̨̥͈̭̘̦̯̱͉̼̻̈́̃͛d̴̛̟̟̤̬̞͕̐͐ọ̵̰͑̒̑̐̊̌́́n̶̯̣̹̭̦̘̼̻̲̓́͐̈͋̏ͅä̷̡̜̞̬̭̳̰̙́̀̈́̔͋̑̓̎n̶̦͕̰̦̼̯̎̈́̍͜d̵̡̖̲̝͙̹̹͈̠̙̏̒̎̓̋̄͝o̷͈̞͕̖̥͎̭̦̯̼̩̓́̈̃̕̚n̴̲̗̘͉̝̦͎̉̋̉̾͌̐̉͋͝͝͝à̵̪̥͓͋́̂̐̄n̵̢̙̜͙̣͎͍͔̻̺̈̀̒̂̓̊̒͌̌̍͠d̷̻̙̠̀͂͝o̷̡̳̝̺̳͉̯̍̎͗̆̈́͛́̆̕n̵̼̟͔̙͎̼̪̱͖̖̒̈̂͌̏͠â̷̤͖̐͒̐ń̸̨̯͇̬̻͗̑̚d̶̡̛̛̠̟̯̮̯͎͎͑͂o̶͇̳̝̝͔̭̘̅n̷̡̛̝̼̥͓̐̿͋̌̉̉͝ȧ̴̧̡̝͔͇̺̞̗͈̹̐͗̾̓͆ņ̴̲̪͕̩̹̭̲͙̫̮̊̌́̽̕͝͝d̵̩̀͌̀́͂̄̓͛̆͘o̵͚̫̅͠n̵̨̝̼̠͕̘̤̺͎̼̍͋̀̀́̇̈ͅa̵̪̼͈̟̦͖̔̎́̇̀̈n̷͚͈͘ḓ̷̨̘̱̼͎̮̬͈͛̄́̃̍o̶̧̫̱̯͉̹̞̱͍̙͆̈́͆ņ̸̛̬̘̮̖͇̙̠͈̫̱̓̈́́̿̓̄͐̚͠”̴̡̧͍̼̠͚͔͇̇͋̊̕͜is what the can whispered. Blue nodded her head. She understood.

“...ooookay then.” whispered Pinkie as she backed away from Blue and the hovering can.

The toaster on the counter spoke. “̶̦̗̌͘Ȏ̵̭̔ǹ̷̹̝̗͎͇̲͛̽̂́ ̵̘̮̥̣̜̂̋͜â̸̯̼̻̒̀n̴̫̚d̵̟̱̰͎̑̉̄ ̵̡̹̌̽̀̾́̕o̷͕͂͝n̵̯͎̐̑̔ ̶̟͕͈̋͗́a̸̟̫̲̅̊n̷̖̓ḑ̷͔͖̳̲̾̈͆͋̀̅ ̴͖̩̓͆̀̕ó̵̟̬̘̂̔͝n̶̠͙̑́̊͊”̵̛͙̐̿ Pinkie shook her head. She was back in the kitchen. She harrumphed and went to the back door. It was already open. She went through, and entered the back yard. There was a large crater in the middle. It reminded Pinkie of a duck pond. She walked to the edge and looked in. At the bottom was a single duckling. It looked up at her and quacked.

Pinkie continued deeper into the yard. The farther she went, the higher the grass was. After walking for ten minutes, the grass was over Pinkie’s head. She continued walking.

Suddenly the grass was gone from in front of Pinkie. There was just a large rectangle of dirt surrounded by impossibly tall grass. The middle of the rectangle was raised, as if something had been buried there.

A wind blew through the grass, making it whisper.

“̷͓̘͍̈́̿̈́O̴̥̠̿͆͌͂͆n̷̫͍͙̞̣͎̿͂̚a̵̟̲̠̓̏͋ǹ̶̦̏͌̏̎̑d̴̢͎̣̫̮͓͑ȯ̶̬͓̳̼͇̓ͅn̵̢̫͎̳̭͔͆̃̑ă̷̧̟͓͚͉͎͋͠n̶̝̂̎͆͝ḓ̸̬͍̭͌̆̔̋̕o̶͎̓̉̀̍̚͝ṉ̶̼̙͎͌̈͋̊̈̍͜

Pinkie Pie approached the mound and began to dig.

The wind blew harder. The grass was no longer whispering.

“̴̡̥͕̮̗͚͐̎̃Ö̸̹̠́͗̈́̅̕ñ̸͓͒̏ā̴̫̳͔n̵͕̰̓̾̈́́d̴͚͍͓̙̩͛̿͝o̴͈̼̘̤̗͛͗̿n̶̳̕ä̵̝͍̼̯̭̞́͊n̸̺͙͕͋d̸͖̳̫͇́̔̍̈o̸͙͛͌̚͝n̶̝̰͓̑ä̴̜̦̣̯̑̆ñ̵̛͖̯̦̃d̷̖̦̣̝͖̘̍ó̶̧̢̪̖͉́͝n̴̹̆̽”̶̢̛͐̾̉

Pinkie was digging frantically now. It was only a bit further. Her hoof hit something metal. The grass was screaming now.

“̵̢̯͔̫̣̻̹̯̈́A̴̛͙̞̔̃͂̽͐̆̈́̓̽͆̑͝Ṋ̷͔̺̥̠͔̖͖̰̗̠͂̋̓̎̃͊̆̄͝͝ͅD̸̻̣͚̰̍͒͌̓͑̅͗͑̀Õ̷͚̲̖̅̊̈̏̚Ṅ̶̻̪͙̀̾̏̔̀A̵̮̮̞̤̋̎͊͑͛͛̉̍͂̕N̵̛͙̯̜̮͇͎̻̹͎͈̹̦̞̠̈́̍̽̆̓̾͆̕Ḑ̸̛͖̪̼͎̞̺͓̗͍̳̦͚̊̈́̈́̐̔̇̽͘͘͝Ǫ̷͖̰͍͈͔̗̝͚͖̤͑̓͑̿̒̑̐͘͠ͅN̸͉̻̿̿̉̍̃̅͘̕͝Ä̶̠̮͔̗̯͓̥̻̟́̑͝N̶̡̳̣͉͓̺͔̙͔̮͉͒̆̊̔̂̅̿̍́̕ͅD̵̨̛̤̭͉̬̞͖̯͎̙̔͆̄̂͊̀̅̓͝Ó̵̢̳̝͚̗̜̣̮̭̺̥̠͉͖͆̐̉͜͠͠Ń̶̡͈̤̟̙͙́͐̀̄̚̕̕A̸͔̻̒̓̅͋̕N̵̟̥̲̬̻͙̫̱̖̓̏͋̈́̈́̂̀́͑̋̓͜͜D̵̛͈͇͍͔̄̔́̎̀́͛̾͂̈̚̕̚͝Ō̷̘̤̞̩͓̙͈͙̗͇̅͠Ņ̴̧͙̤͚̠̪̳̦̞̏̊́̊́̔̏͜͝ͅ!̸̜̜̀̅̌̇͒̕͝”̶̧̖͍̦̈́̎̑̋

Pinkie ignored it, and pulled the rusty shovel out of the ground, dusting it off with a hoof. Pieces of rusted metal fell off and into the dirt, where they dissipated into nothingness.

The wind stopped blowing, and the tall grass fell silent, as if waiting.

Pinkie grabbed a long blade of grass and used it to secure the shovel to her back. And then she took off, running through the grass towards where the the crater, and the duck within.

But she would not make it in time.

What are these worlds that we create? Are they real? No. They are our own creations, to do with as we please. The characters aren’t real. While they might seem to have feelings, and ideas, and intuition, it is all a product of the words of the author and the mind of the reader. This was my world, with Spades, and Blue, and Pinkie, Luna, Kissylips, the changelings, Twilight and Flash, and everyone else. It isn’t real.

And yet.

And yet, if Pinkie were not to make it to the duck crater in time, I would describe how the world would fall to ruin. How the world shrivels and dies, leaving behind an empty husk. I would tell you that Pinkie cried as she watched it all fall apart. And then I would end it. The story would be over. I would move on to write other works. Sure, I could always pull a few more alternate endings here and there, but it wouldn’t feel right. The whole time I’ve been writing this chapter, it’s felt so final. If I end it in the way I have told you, I would be done with Spades and his friends.

But I could also go the other route. I could mess with stuff so Pinkie arrives in time. I mean, it’s not hard. Just... words on a page.

Why should I care? Why should you care? Why am I being so serious about this? It’s April Fool’s day, after all.

And yet, I feel like Spades deserves it. A good ending. A final ending. Let’s move on from this day in time. Let’s move forward, dear readers. For Spades. For Blue. For Kissylips, and Stanley the Changeling. For all of them.

For me.

So.

Here we go.

Pinkie Pie was not going to make it in time.

But this was because she was merely running.

Pinkie laughed, her mane poofing back into shape as she coiled her legs.

And then she pronked, sending herself flying into the air, gigglesnorting as she practically flew through the unraveling sky. From this high up she could see the empty duck pond. And the duck within.

The duck saw the pink pony falling towards it, and quacked in distress.

But it was too late.

For the duck, that is.

Pinkie landed right next to it like a feather, and removed the shovel from her back. The duck tried to run, but Pinkie grabbed it with a leg and placed it on the shovel, or the “spade,” as one might call it.

A spade and a duck.

Spades Duck.

And so it was.

With everything back to some semblance of normal, or at least as far as he could tell, Spades went back to his bowl of oatmeal.

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie burst into the room from the front door, startling Spades and Blue.

“Don’tcha know there’s a changeling invasion going on? And you’re eating... you’re eating... what are you eating?”

“Oatmeal?” replied Spades.

And then she said “Oatmeal? Are you CRAZY?”

It has been a trip. But now it’s over. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. Because I enjoyed it, if you didn’t catch that.

Ok, so technically it is over but I gotta set stuff up for... other stories.

Enjoy.

Or else.

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie burst into the room from the front door, startling Spades and Blue.

“Don’tcha know there’s a changeling invasion going on? And you’re eating... you’re eating... what are you eating?”

“Oatmeal?” replied Spades.

And then she said “Oatmeal? Are you CRAZY?”

There was silence for a moment, until Spades answered.

“No? I was crazy a little bit ago, but I believe I’m fine now.”

“You honestly thought it was over?” asked Pinkie. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Boy, we’re just getting STARTED!”

“...Wha-“

Pinkie cut Spades off. “OH MAN THEY ARE GONNA LOVE THE SEQUEL!”

“The sequel?” asked Spades, clearly confused.

“Yeah! So that all of this,” Pinkie gestured at everything, including the changeling queen poking her head out of the basement, “can be done and over with! But also so our good friend Moonicus Spoonicus Prince of the Moon and of a few various asteroids can keep writing! About you! Of course that means that this chapter is gonna be the real ending to the story but it’ll include all of the nuts and bolts of the offshoot timelines so that Moon can make sure that this stays as the alpha timeline!”

Spades rubbed his forehead with a hoof. “I didn’t understand a single word of that.”

“But they did!” said Pinkie, smiling at you. Yes, you, there, with the face. “Coming soon, to a trash can near you! Pickles and Milk Emm Kay Two! That’s not the actual title!”

“Yeah, I still have no clue what you’re saying.”

And Spades never would.

"Okayeee! Gotta go smarsh some changelings! Be careful, Spadseyball! Say hi to Starlight for me!” shouted Pinkie, before bounding out the door.

After the door slammed shut, Spades sat in his chair for a few minutes, just trying to process all of this. Eventually he decided that it wasn't worth trying to understand, and went back to his oatmeal, which was cold.

"Spadesey?" said Blue Tea loudly, but not screaming loudly.

"Yes dear?" asked Spades, as he poured his cold oatmeal into the sink with a schlorp. He was over by the sink now. No, he didn't teleport. That comes later. You should know this by now.

"Can you run to the store? I'm getting one of my cravings..."

"Sure, Dear. What do you need?"

"Pickles. And some milk to go with."

"That's an odd combination, Blue."

"The foals desire it." said Blue, creepily. She stared at Spades, her smaragdine eyes unblinking as she bored into Spades's head with her gaze.

Involuntarily, Spades shivered, before going to the closet by the front door to grab his saddlebags. "Whatever you say, Honeybunches of Foals. I won't be long."

"Love you!"

"Love you too. Remember, Kooky is next door if you need help." said Spades, blowing a kiss at his rotund wife. He stepped through the front door and found himself face-to-face with a lilac unicorn with a purple and teal mane. She stared at him, and it was Spades's first assumption that she was a changeling. I can assure you that she was not a changeling- because she was Starlight Glimmer. From the future.

Starlight squinted at Spades for a moment before speaking. "Spades? Spades Duck?"

"That's me." said Spades, drawing his ACME Husbando Sword from his saddlebags and pointing it at Starlight. "And you are...?"

"No one important. I'm just here to make sure you don't jump timelines again."

"What?" replied Spades, furrowing his brow in confusion. His sword dipped a little.

"Pinkie told me. And she was serious about it. Said some dude called "Moonbutters" might get some bad ideas. You know of anypony by that name?"

"I don't. Never heard it before in my life."

"Well, uh, Pinkie told me to say this."

"You're not a changeling, are you?" asked Spades, now leaning on his sword. If she was a changeling, Spades would have no trouble taking her out. As a friend, of course. A friend-date. Spades is faithful to Blue through and through, trust me.

“No. But I’ll be watching you. And looking for whoever this Moonbutters pony is.” replied Starlight, turning around to scan the currently vacant street with her eyes.

It was then that Spades noticed that she had wings, but before he had a chance to say anything, she vanished into thin air. With nothing more to say and no one to say anything to if he did have more to say, Spades shrugged, put his sword away, and continued from his front porch into the oddly empty street. The fact that there were no ponies or changelings out and about unnerved Spades a little. The reason for the empty street was that Queen Chrysalis had called all of the changelings she could to help her stop the Elements of Harmony. And their bearers. And to find Princess Luna. Because she wasn’t in her bedchambers.

Obviously.

There were actually four changelings still on Spades’s street. One was Queen Kissylips. One was Stanley the changeling. The other two were also changelings.

Did I mention they were changelings? Because they are. Changelings, I mean. They are. And by “they” I mean the changelings, of course. The changelings on the street. Those changelings.

Anyfluff, Kissylips had seen the lavender alicorn talking with Spades. “I will infiltrate his house, and pretend to be his spouse!” rhymed Kissylips, smiling evilly from a bush across the street. “Stanley. Zipper. You two are with me. Carl, follow that pony. See where he goes.”

You may be wondering how she got out of the basement, but do not worry! All will be revealed. Unless I forget, which is a possibility.

The three trash cans next to the bush that Kissylips was hiding in chittered in affirmation. Two of the cans waddled their way after Kissylips as she crossed the street to Spades’s house, and the third can fell on its side and rolled down the street after Spades.

Spades’s walk to the 8/12 was surprisingly-and-yet unsurprisingly uneventful. It was surprising to Spades because he was expecting a changeling around every corner when there wasn’t any and unsurprising to you, dear reader, because I told you where most of them were, didn’t I?

The absolute lack of any life whatsoever other than a few actual bugs put Spades very on edge, but not on edge enough to notice that there was a suspicious trash can rolling around a ways behind him, always keeping its distance.

Upon entering the 8/12, Spades could see that it only had one occupant: Ralph the extradimensional humam. Yes, that’s spelled correctly. I had to go back to the late halloween special to check.

Or at least, someone who appeared to be Ralph. To Spades, it certainly looked like Ralph. He had his weird-shaped boots propped up on the cash register and a half-empty gallon of chocolate milk held in his hand. His 8/12 uniform currently had a name-tag with the name “Grimm” on it. Spades opened the door a bit farther and a bell tinkled, causing Ralph to look over.

“Oh, hey Spades.” After a beat, he continued. “You know who I am, right?”

Spades frowned for a second before realizing that Ralph was making sure he wasn’t a changeling. “You’re Ralph.”

“Ok, so it is you. C’mere. Also, stay well away from that wet floor sign.” said Ralph, motioning Spades over with a wave of his hand.

Spades gave the wet floor sign a wide berth as he made his way over to Ralph. “What’s up with the wet floor sign anyways?” he asked, giving it a glance.

“The floor’s not actually wet there. Instead there’s a tear in the dimensional fabric of this universe. A few changelings tried to get in and they walked right in to it.”

“...Then why hasn’t the wet floor sign fallen through?”

“‘Cuz I told it not to. That’s why.”

When Spades got over to Ralph they gave each other a hoof/fist bump accompanied by them both saying “Heyoo!” at the same time.

“So,” started Ralph, “What are you doing out and about? There’s a changeling invasion going on, you know.”

Spades sighed and sat down. “Blue wanted some food to satisfy her cravings.”

“You got some time to waste?”

“A little.”

And so they began to shoot the breeze. The breeze was not very happy about being shot at but it couldn’t do anything about it.

It was at this very moment that Carl the Changeling rolled up to the front of the 8/12 in his changeling form. He stood his trashcan-self upright and looked in through the window of the store to see what the pony he had been following was doing.

Meanwhile, on a rooftop far above, a shadowed figure watched Carl the trash can changeling as he watched Spades.

But now was not the time for her to make her move.

“...And that’s how my ex fought off the entire state of Kentucky.” finished Ralph. Spades did not know what Kentucky was, but was impressed regardless.

“All of that because of a single bean?” he asked, staring at Ralph with wide eyes.

“Because of a damned bean. S’why I dumped her, HA!” Ralph laughed before chugging down the rest of his chocolate milk. “Anyways, I gotta get back to work or B’kœræ’n the unnamed will have my head! Literally!”

“Wait, why is he called the unnamed if he has a name?”

“B’kœræ’n is just what he told us to call him because his real name rips your soul in half.”

“So he has two names, and yet is unnamed?” asked Spades, squinting his eyes at Ralph.

“Pretty much.”

“Is he gonna pop up out of nowhere to give me riddles for my soul to stay intact?”

“Only if today is a riddle day.”

“Fair enough. I’ll be back with what I want to buy.” said Spades before heading to the back of the store only to find his way blocked by a small eldritch abomination, if any eldritch abominations could be considered small.

“A̪͎͔n͎̲̙͔̠̞̘s̮̱̫̹w͚e̱̣̥̙r͎̭͈̥̹͖̱̦̬̠̪̦̳̺̭̤̬ t͙̩h̺̞͉͇̳̭i̯̭͉̙̖͍̱̣̱s̱̤̬ ̖r̬͇͍i̮̝̦̩͙ḓ͕͕d͈̥͓̟l̬̮̙e̦͔̩̱ a̫͕̩̹͔̫̙ṉ̫͉̱͇̼̥̖d̪̳̬̟̖̻̥̪ͅ y̙̯̬͇̙o̥̳̗ͅu͚̤̬̠̰̻̙̭͇̖ͅ m̳̭͖a̫ͅy̠̞̫̼̙̺̱̲͎͈̪͍ p̥̯̙̰ͅa̝̯͚͕̺̣s̱̯̳s̘̪̺͎̼̜͚̩̻!”

it said, waving a tentacle at Spades in a way that was probably supposed to be menacing and threatening but really just came off as weird.

“Okay.” said Spades.

“W͕̙͉̟h̩͖̫̻̳̼̬͔a͖͉̠̺̟̪ͅt̤͔̗̲͖̘͉̯̜̗͔̳͚ͅ h̜̗̤̙͓̼̗a͕̟͓̤̺̰̘ͅs̲̦̘̻͉̣̼͈̠͈ͅͅ t̤w͉̱̤̫̦o̫̝̦̬̬̪̰͇̤̱̲̜̥̰͇ͅ n̝̙̗͔̻̼̪̺a͙̜̺̭̦̥m̻͕ͅe̳̫̝̫̻s̖͚͍͖͇̤̰̲̦͎̯ b̹͈̘̝u͇t͔̻͕̹̼̥̬̫͉͇̻̠ͅ i͇̻͈̥s̯̬ ͉̩̟̩̟̟ṳṇ͉̞̗͖̗͍̥n̗͚̫ạͅm̙͎͈e͈d̯̣̻?͎̭͕̹̹̞̟”

“B’kœræ’n the unnamed?”

“C͉͙̜͙̹̮̱o̺̘̜r̜̹r̩̺͚e̯̩͈͓̩c͍͙͍t̬͉̮̥!̪̫͈̜̱̺̲͉ͅͅ Y̩̩̣͕̪̩͉o͔̰̺͚u͖͍͈̞͕ m͈̤̥̳̜̯̺̠̝a͎͔̙y͔̣͖̹̤̭͎ p̥̥͔͓͉a̦̰͓͇͖̭̥s̥̭̗̘͚̪̟ͅͅs͖̰͕̼͚,̤̟̦̹ ̩̘̦̼̳͇ṃ̬͈̟o̪̟̙̜̼̱r̥͚͙̮͈̲t̩̝͉͔a̯̳l̻̱̣̫!̹͙̞̝̪̯̤̮͙̝̮̦̖͍͔̫P͖̮̼͇͚̺̰l̰̜͉̘͎͈̞̗ḛ̖͎ḁ̥̭̗̱͔͚s̭̥e̖̖̰͇̬ͅͅ s̖̠̦̞̭̞̙͍h̥̭̦̤ͅo͚̻̰̠͕p̖͕͉̖̮̞͎͕ a̯̝t͕̗͍̪͉͖̪̫͖̠̰͔̩͎̣͇̬͈ t̰h̠̲̝̲̥̟e̝̭̟ ̻̯8̜̥͙̘̻̺/̹͕̣͍̥1̗͓̮͖̲͉͈̫̱2̺͙̼̦̜̖̭̼̜͓ a̳̗͎͈̩̗̼̣g̲̙̼͓̰͕̹a͎̣̞i̺͉͙͍n̰!͙̤͖̞̣̦̫͍̮”

And with that, the thing melted itself through the floor, leaving behind a nasty-looking black goo puddle.

“Today was a riddle day!” Spades called out to tell Ralph. Ralph did not reply, either because be didn’t hear or didn’t want to reply. Spades shrugged and went to the back of the store and grabbed a double-family-size jar of dill pickles and two gallons of skim milk before heading back to the checkout counter at the front of the store.

When Ralph saw Spades coming, he spoke up. “That’s quite a combination you have there.”

“It’s what she wanted.” replied Spades, hoofing the pickles and milk over to Ralph so he could ring them up. "You think it's safe for me to head home?"

Ralph finished bagging the pickles and milk and then turned to Spades. "Let me tell you a little secret." He leaned in and started whispering, "You're, like, scary powerful. I work at other 8/12s and most of them have a version of... you."

"What?!?" Spades whisper-yelled.

"In at least seven of the parallel universes you are the king of Equestria. Because both princesses turned evil and you beat them both."

"No way. You're pulling my leg."

"Sorry" replied Ralph after letting go of Spades's leg. "But really. You go outside and you'll be fine. Now," Ralph dropped his whisper, "You must go, noble stallion to your fair maiden!"

"Yeah!" shouted Spades in reply, instantly forgetting about his potential infinite alternate selves at the same time as roughly one million, three hundred fourteen thousand, seven hundred fifty two of his alternate selves forgot the same exact thing.

But we’re not worried about those Spadeses- we have our own Spades right here. Right... wait. Where’d he go?

“He just left.” said Ralph.

Ah, yes. Thanks.

“No problem, bud.”

Blue Tea looked at the disguised changeling queen with confusion. “Rats in my basement? Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent, ma’am.” replied Kissylips with a voice as sweet as hyperconcentrated artificial coffee sweetener. “My rat detecting dog is never wrong.”

The changeling disguised as a dog stood next to Kissylips silently.

“I said my rat detecting DOG is never wrong.” Kissylips hissed, causing the dogling to bark in fear.

“Well,” started Blue, “I would have to see for myself. I haven’t been in the basement for a while because I’m, well, very pregnant. I’m sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you to carry me down, now would it?”

Kissylips looked the gigantic mare up and down and gulped. “Y-yeah. No problem.” She glanced over to the right and could see Stanley the changeling clambering in through the basement window. Don’t worry. Kissylips thought to herself as she took a deep breath. This will work out. It will all be fine and Mother will be proud of me.

“Shall we go?” asked Blue innocently. This was because she knew, and also because she knew Kissylips didn’t know she knew. Blue could hardly hide her smile as she waddled backwards a few steps to allow her “guests” into her home.

Spades was feeling a bit more paranoid. He could swear that a trash can was following him home. Could he say this for certain? No. But whenever he looked back, a silver trash can would roll into the nearest alley and every time he saw it he could see an odd orange stain on the lid that looked suspiciously like the mysterious orange stain on the lid of his across-the-street neighbor’s trash can. After the fifth time he looked back and the can rolled into a bush he decided that enough was enough and he turned around and went to the bush that the can had rolled into. For some context, the bush was about a hundred feet, or like 33ish meters for you non ‘MURICANS out there, from Spades’s house.

From the bush, Spades could hear a faint whimpering, like a foal. Pushing aside the bush’s leaves with his hoof, Spades could see that it was a foal. Or at least it looked like a foal at first glance. After looking for all of two more seconds, Spades concluded that what was in front of him was not a foal at all. It was a changeling trying to look like a foal but not really getting it right. The first thing that tipped Spades off was the lack of a trash can in the bush. The second thing was the baby’s very bushy eyebrows. And I mean these eyebrows were like rectangular prisms of eyebrow hair. It did not look natural at all. The next thing was the short beard on the foal. Foals aren’t supposed to have beards.

“Wow. I wonder who left their foal in this bush.” Spades said in a monotone. “Yes this is definitely a foal and not a changeling in disguise.”

“Alright.” said the not-foal in a very deep and heavy voice. Like a Morgan Freemanish voice. “You got me- wait. Changeling? I ain’t no changeling.” The not-foal ripped off its disguise to reveal that he was a normal sized stallion and not a foal-sized foal. I’m not sure how that works so don’t ask me. “I’m Morgano Freeponyo.”

Spades was confused. The trash can holding a baseball bat ready to hit Spades on the head from behind was confused. I was confused. I bet you’re confused too, aren’tcha?

Morgano Freeponyo was not confused, and neither was the tall hooded figure on top of Spades’s house.

The reason why Morgano Freeponyo wasn’t confused was because he had never been confused in his life, and he sure wouldn’t start now no sir-ee.

The reason why the figure on the roof wasn’t confused was because she had been tailing the changeling that had been tailing Spades for some time now, and had watched as the trash-can-changeling-in-disguise-with-a-baseball-bat had snuck up behind Spades while he was distracted. She was also good friends with Morgano Freeponyo, and had known that he was in the bush from the start. His baby disguise- well, some things are better left unanswered, eh?

The figure on the roof slowly and silently drew a massive hammer from the folds of her cloak, specifically the fabled Warhammer of Zillyhoo and just-as-silently hoisted it above her head in her magic. With a barely noticeable flick of her horn, the hammer was thrown (using a superior trebuchet-based telekinetic method) and as the hammer practically flew through the air, it spun slowly, aligning itself to the head of the changeling.

While this was happening, both Spades Duck and the bat-wielding-trash-can-changeling just kind of stared at Morgano Freeponyo and while they stared, Morgano Freeponyo looked over Spades’s shoulder at the figure on the roof. He nodded at her, and she nodded at him, and the hammer stopped its majestic arc only inches away from the skull of the changeling. Without further fanfare nor flourish, the hammer, held in the figure’s blue magic, lightly bopped the changeling on the noggin, knocking it out instantly.

After a beat, the hooded figure on the roof became the hooded figure in the air and then soon after that the hooded figure flying through the air became the hooded figure that landed next to Spades Duck.

“Good day, Freeponyo,” said Princess Luna, pushing her hood off with her magic. “And good day to you, Spades Duck. I have an important matter to discuss with you, posthaste.”

“P-p-princess Luna?” stammered Spades swhilst staring stupidly sat sthe spectacular star-smaned sprincess. Sssss.

"How should I say this..." said Princess Luna, tapping her chinny chin chin with a hoof. "Mr. Duck, there are currently two changeling queens and an undisclosed number of changelings within your house right this very moment, I fear."

Morgano Freeponyo raised a hoof in the air.

"Yes. Freeponyo. What?" asked Luna.

"Can I leave now?"

"Yes, you are free to go."

"Alright. Tuseday still good for tea, right?"

"Yes."

As Morgano Freeponyo sauntered away towards wherever he lived, Spades finished processing what Princess Luna had said to him. "...Changelings... but Blue is in there!"

Luna patted Spades on the back. "Have some faith in your wife, Spades. May I call you Spades?" Luna turned to look at him, but he wasn't there. What she had thought was Spades's head was actually a really moldy trashcan. An actual trashcan-not a changeling in disguise. Glancing at Spades's house, she could see that the front door seemed to be missing.

Why was the front door missing? It was because Spades had practically vaporized it by running into it like, really really really really really really really reeeeeeeeeally really fast.

Now, running into a door at those kinds of speeds can hurt a normal earth pony, but Spades Duck has plot armor and so I just kinda made it so any damage that the door would've done to him was done to the door which kinda resulted in a feedback loop of the door possibly hurting Spades more which made the door get damaged more which meant that Spades would be hurt more by doing that amount of damage and so on until the door was vaporized at a molecular level, releasing a spectacular amount of energy in the form of heat and a bang, which, if I hadn't caught it, would've subsequently vaporized all of Canterlot and a large chunk of Equestria as well. And, given the fact that I have no more do-overs without the wrath of the alicorn of time finding and beheading me, I had to fudge some numbers to make it so the door just vaporized at the same time that a portal to a separate dimension opened up right in the doorway and absorbed all of the destructive energy, which utterly decimated King H'oonol who was going to be a big bad guy later but I guess he's dead now. Probably. Or very angry. Man, being a writer is hard.

Anyways. Spades. Door. Yes.

Luna was much more careful when she entered the Duck/Tea residence, exchanging her massive rainbow warhammer for a smaller-yet-still-huge warhammer that was also rainbow colored but it looked more like a mallet of sorts that had been dunked in a rainbow, which is what it was, actually.

The house was eerily silent for about two seconds before a battle cry rang from somewhere below. “Back, ye foul Changeling! I am the unbreakable BLUE TEA and you will NOT invade anypony else’s home after I’m through with you!”

Luna spotted Spades by the basement door, and he motioned her over. “Blue’s been so dramatic since she got pregnant. Even so, we should go help.”

“Your wife is quite a mare, Spades. I know for a fact that she can hold her own.” replied Luna, swinging her hammer idily.

“Oh, you know Blue? Really?”

“Yes, actually. We sometimes hunt mon-“ Luna was cut off by a piercing shriek from the basement. “We should go. Now.”

And so they entered the basement.

Standing at the base of the stairs, Spades Duck was greeted with quite a sight. In the far left corner was a changeling who had been completely flattened. Like, poster flat. Spades assumed this meant that the changeling was dead, but I’ll tell you, dear reader, that the changeling was just unconscious.

A little to the right of that changeling was another changeling that was halfway turned into a dog. That changeling was also knocked out.

In the middle of the room were two Blue Teas, both fighting tooth and hoof to subdue the other. In the far right corner of the room was a can of beans.

Both the real Blue and the Changeling Queen Blue saw Spades staring at them, and simultaneously they called out to him. “Spades! It’s me, Blue Tea! I’m the real one! No you’re the fake one! Honey, help me subdue the changeling!”

Despite one actually being Spades’s wife, and the other being a Changeling Queen, Spades could not determine which was which, and so he stood there, sword at the ready, just watching then brawl in the middle of the basement.

Tired of waiting for Spades to move out of her way, Luna slid him to the side and stepped into the light so she could clearly see what was going on. She saw the flat changeling, the dogling, the brawling Blues, and the can of beans. She also saw the fake mustache on the ground, and the crushed cardboard box. She then turned to Spades, who was still processing, and told him “Alright, here’s what happened.”

The Queen was trying to impersonate your wife. She talked her way into the house and got Blue to go to the basement, where her plan was to incapacitate or even kill your wife before taking her place. The one thing she didn’t count on was that Blue Tea is incredibly clever. You see, Spades, your wife knew of the Changeling Queen’s plan...

”Do you know how the rats got into my basement?” Blue asked innocently, locking the front door after letting the “Rat Catcher” and her “dog” inside.

“Yea,” started Kissylips. “Through the window probably. Nasty things, rats.”

”Mmhmm.” said Blue, adding a padlock to the door casually. “Why don’t you show me where you think the rats have been nesting?”

So, after they got to the basement, the Queen tried to attack Blue with a can of Butt Whoopin’ but accidentally grabbed a similarly labeled can of beans.

“Fool! I am a Changeling Queen!” yelled Kissylips suddenly, transforming back to herself, causing her fake mustache to fall to the ground.

”Wow. An ugly bug.”

Kissylips was having none of that crap. “Girl, you better show me sum RESPECT cuz I got a can here and it’s a can of... beans? Darn, it was supposed to be a can of butt whoopin’ but beans will have to do.” She threw the can of beans at Blue, but it missed.

Even though Blue wasn’t as scared as the Queen thought she would be, the Changeling Queen thought she still had the advantage with her two changeling minions, but she was wrong.

”Is that all you got?” Blue thundered, cracking her hooves.

“No.” said Kissylips smugly before her “dog” leapt at Blue, transforming into a changeling midair.

Faster than Kissylips could see, the changeling, who wasn’t fully transformed yet, hit the far wall behind her, out cold. As Kissylips turned to look back at blue, she managed to duck just in time to avoid Blue’s buck, which would have taken her head off had it connected.

”Aw, I’m a bit slow because of the pregnancy.” muttered Blue, dropping back to all hooves to protect her underside better. An upturned cardboard box to her right twitched and was immediately smashed by Blue’s swift front hooves. Not a second later, Blue practically dove on top of the changeling that had barely escaped from the box, squashing him flat, but not killing him. She then swung a hoof at Kissylips in an attempt to take her head off again, but both the pregananant mare and the Changeling Queen froze at the sound of a large bang from upstairs.

Both Blue and the Queen knew that the noise was your return from the store, so the Queen transformed into Blue to confuse you. And then they started fighting.

“...and that, is what happened.” finished Luna.

“That didn’t help.” whispered Spades in reply. “I still can’t tell which is which, but I have an idea.”

“I will help in any way that I can.”

Spades stepped forward, cleared his throat once, and then yelled out “ALRIGHT, BOTH OF YOU FREEZE!”

And both fighting mares stopped fighting and looked at Spades

“LUNA!”

“Yes?”

“BE READY TO WHACK THEM IF THEY MOVE!”

“Of course.” Luna said before she teleported behind the two mares.

Spades walked right up to them. “If either of you move, Luna will give you instant head-impact trauma.”

Both portly mares gulped.

“Now...” Spades slowly stepped towards the motionless mares. He lowered his head and pressed his ear to the rightmost Blue’s belly, and waited.

And waited.

Princess Luna hummed a little ditty as she waited.

And waited.

Aaaand waited.

Aaaaaaaaand I’m gonna skip ahead a bit here, because it was a while that they waited until Spades stood up and pointed a hoof at the Blue he had been listening to the belly of.

“You’re a changeling.” he said, his face unreadable.

The Blue in question scrambled backwards, forgetting Spades’s earlier warning.”No! Dear, it’s me! Blue! Your loving wi-“ and she was promptly slammed to the floor by Luna’s hammer, instantly knocking her out and causing her to lose her form.

Spades went to the real Blue and hugged he hard.

”Oh come on, I could’ve taken her!” whined Blue, crushing Spades with a return hug.

“I’m sure you could have, dear.” squeaked Spades.

“Mr. Duck,” Luna started whilst stringing Kissylips up to the rafters by the holes in her back legs, “Might I remind you that there is still another Changeling Queen in your house?”

”I never saw another queen other than that one you’re hanging up.” stated Blue. “But if I do I’ll be sure to pummel her.”

“Pleathe don’t.” whisper-shouted a voice from an alcove below the basement stairs. “I’ll come out willigly. I thwear I’m not evil.”

A small humanoid figurine that looked like it was made of plastic wobbled its way out from the darkness under the stairs, and all of the non-knocked-out occupants of the basement stared at it as it transformed into a lighter-colored version of Kissylips, but with glasses.

“I’m Crythtal Mitht.” said the lisping Changeling Queen.

“And, pray tell,” growled Luna, stepping closer to her, “how do we know you’re not evil, as you say?”

“Becauthe... uhh... becauthe my name ith in the regithtry of non-evil non-pony beingth living in Equethtria?”

”You said your name was Crystal Meth?” asked Blue Tea, pulling a small book labeled “Handy guide to non-evil non-pony beings living in Equestria, by Twilight Velvet, 35th edition” out of Spades’s saddlebags.

“Crythtal Mitht.”

”Meth?”

“Mithhttt.” lisped Crystal Mist, misting a bit with her spit on the extra ts.

”Hmm... Mist, Crystal, Former Changeling Queen-“

“I wath never a Queen. I detetht the whole hive mentality.”

Luna squinted at Crystal before grumbling out a “Fine.” and stepping back.

It was at this moment that Kissylips woke up to find herself dangling by her back leg holes from the ceiling. Looking up from the ground, she saw Crystal.

“Sister?!?”

“Hello Thithter.”

The two tall Changelings stared at each other for a moment in silence.

“So, are you two twins or something?” asked Spades.

Kissylips snorted and then replied “Chrysalis is my twin, although I am older by a minute. Crystal here is our older sister.” She wiggled a bit in her bindings but only managed to start spinning slowly whilst continuing to dangle.

“Chrythalith wath alwayth mother’th favorite child.” said Crystal Mist as she paced in a circle around the captured Kissylips. “Mother alwayth told her that thhhe wath the better of her thiblingth-“

“And always told us that we would never amount to anything.” finished Kissylips, who had spun so that she was no longer facing Spades and Blue, and was instead facing Luna and her massive rainbow warhammer.

“Still, this is no excuse for attempting to terrorize Mr. Duck and his wife.” said Luna, glaring at Kissylips. She turned her gaze to Crystal Mist, who backed up a step.

“Hey, I wath jutht here for the weekly PPP Club meeting.”

“Pray, tell me what is the PPP Club?” asked Luna, squinting squintily at Crystal.

“Wait...” started Spades. “You’re... Diamond Fog?”

“Technically, yeth, I am Diamond Fog. I own a thop on Thtarburtht thtreet. Thellth necklatheth. I have a marefriend named Golden Meadowthh.”

“I still don’t know what the PPP club is.” muttered Luna, giving Kissylips a push so she spun faster.

“Aw geez Crystal. I should’ve recognized your voice immediately.” Spades chuckled, making everycreature else uncomfortable. Spades quickly realized this and stopped laughing, causing the whole basement to lapse into silence for a minute.

What broke the silence was not a noise but instead the woosh of a shield as it expanded through the Duck household, disconnecting Kissylips from her legs and sending her flying out of the window, head first. It was a good thing that Alicorn Starlight was paying attention because she moved her head away from the basement window so as to not be impaled by Kissylips’s horn as she shot through the basement window like a cat out of a water cannon.

Starlight then decided that she had seen enough for one day and teleported away, supposedly forwards in time, before any of the flying glass from the broken window could hit her.

“Well...” Luna trailed off.

“That was a thing that just happened.” stated Spades, staring at the broken window.

”Yes. Yes it was.” Blue shuffled her feet.

“I, uh, should get these changelings back to the castle.” Luna said quietly.

“I really thhoud go check on Goldie. Make thhure thee’th okay, ethpethally after the whole changeling invathion...” said Crystal Mist quickly before turning into a breezie and heading for the window. “The meeting’th thtill on for next week, right, Thpadeth?”

“Yeah, unless Blue goes into labor. Then, consider it cancelled.”

“Alright. Thhee you then.” She flew out the window.

“I must be going now as well, Mr. Duck and Mrs. Tea.” Luna levitated the knocked out changelings into the air and teleported them away. “I am certain that my sister needs me right now.”

”See you later, then.”

“Mmm.” Luna disappeared in a flash of blue.

Spades stared at the Changeling-Queen-shaped impact crater in the middle of his basement. “Guess I’ll have to fix that.”

”Not right now, honey. I’m still a bit... hungry.”

“I have your requested foodstuffs right here.” assured Spades, giving his wife a quick nuzzle before taking the pickles and milk out of his saddlebags.

”Thank you, Spadsey.”

And thus ends the ultimate saga of Spades Duck...

For now.