Archive of Our Own ^beta

In Ponyville, on a normal summer day, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were reading a human history book. How they got said book, no one knows. They were reading through the Cold War, specifically the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“Man, I wish I could see that,” Scootaloo said, without thinking about her words. Discord teleported in out of nowhere.

“Your wish is granted!” he exclaimed.

“Wait I didn’t mean-” Scootaloo’s words fell on deaf ears as Discord snapped his fingers. A burst of white light washed over the Crusaders.

As they were disappearing, Discord told them, “Remember to grab the nuke buttons!”

“What the hell is this thing?” a strange accent said. Scootaloo couldn’t tell who it was, because a bright light shone into her eyes.

“I think the Americans sent this creature to spy on us!” another voice said.

“We’ll teach them how a true spy operates!” said yet another voice, this time more determined.

“Gentlemen, calm down. This probably is just an alien who got lost.” Scootaloo’s eyes adjusted, and saw the face of Nikita Khrushchev, whom she only recognized because of photos, and some other communists staring down at her.

“What does that word mean?” Scootaloo asked.

“SHE SPEAKS!” one of the men panickedly screamed. “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! IT’S GONNA KILL US ALL!”

“Where am I?” Scootaloo asked.

“We are in the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic,” Khrushchev explained. “The year is 1962.”

“Oh no.”

“Khrushchev is talking with the American spy pony! He’s an American spy!”

Scootaloo was completely confused by the shouting. However, she recognized the year as the year of the... something about CMC.

“Why in Lenin’s name would I be an American spy?” Khrushchev countered.

“Your mom is an American spy!”

“Our mother, comrade!”

“Why are we screaming?”

“My dad left me at the age of three!”

“Our father, comrade!”

“The pony is literally Hitler!”

“Stalin is literally Hitler! He has the moustache and everything!”

“Hitler is literally Hitler!”

“Enough!” Khrushchev’s voice penetrated the screaming from everyone. “Stop screaming about American spies, people’s parents, and Herr Hitler!”

“He spoke German! He’s a Nazi spy!”

“Your mom is a Nazi spy!”

“Our mother, comrade!”

“Jesus Motherfucking Christ!”

“Oh my God he just mentioned Jesus! He’s not an atheist!”

“You said God!”

“For the love of Marx will you all shut the fuck up!” Khrushchev shouted, all pretenses dropped. Once everyone was silent, he continued, “Thank you. You are dismissed.” Everyone, including Scootaloo, shuffled to leave. Khrushchev grabbed Scootaloo by the tail. “Not you. You stay.

Sweetie Belle came to in a strange hallway. She heard voices coming from down the hall. She followed the voices and came upon a doorway.

Sweetie Belle entered the room and was immediately surrounded by President John Fitzgerald “Jack” Kennedy, Attorney General Robert “Bobby” Kennedy, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Secretary of Treasury Douglas Dillon, General William “Bill” Kilgore, Colonel Phillip Dugan, and a few other less plot relevant people eyed her.

“Those damn Soviets sent a mutant horse to the White House,” General Kilgore said. “We’d better nuke ‘em before they can send their entire army to our doorstep. We gotta go to DEFCON 3.”

“What? Soviet- where am I?” Sweetie Belle looked around frantically.

“If the Soviets can teleport this thing into the White House, imagine what they could do if we let them continue,” General Kilgore pointed out.

“I don’t know any Soviets,” Sweetie tried to say, but at this point, everyone in the room was arguing about if the Soviets did this or if an alien invasion was about to happen.

“That’s exactly what a Soviet spy would say!” General Kilgore shouted, pointing a finger at Sweetie Belle. “Soviet spy!”

“What the hay is a Soviet?” Sweetie Bell shouted back.

“She’s a fucking Soviet Spy, Jack!” Colonel Dugan slammed his fists onto JFK’s desk.

“I don’t even know what that word means!” Sweetie Belle defended.

“We gotta nuke ‘em before they can send an entire dragon into the White House!” General Kilgore demanded. “Not because it would burn down the White House or anything, but because it wouldn’t fit!”

“I happen to know a dragon and he’s small!” Sweetie said.

“SHE KNOWS COMMUNIST DRAGONS! COMMIE!” Colonel Dugan pulled out a pistol and aimed it at the small defenseless unicorn.

“Oh for fucks sake...” President Kennedy got up, walked towards Sweetie Belle, and picked her up. As he was in the process of returning to his desk, Sweetie bucked him in the stomach.

“She just assaulted the president!” General Kilgore drew his own pistol. “FIRE AT WILL!”

“What did I do wrong?”

“Not you, Will!”

A man wearing glasses rushed into the room, and said, “Mr. President, sir! The Cubans have their own pony! This proves that this is a Soviet trick!”

“Shoot the damn thing to Kingdom Come!”

“YAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!”

“Guys, calm down!” one of the less plot relevant people said.

“Yeah, back to business,” Bobby agreed.

Apple Bloom awoke on the side of a road. She heard the sound of trucks in the distance. Deciding she didn’t want to be lost, she followed the sound of the trucks along the road.

She eventually came to what appeared to be a camp. Two hairless monkeys dressed in strange clothes pointed bent sticks at her when she got close.

“Halt!” one of them shouted.

“Dude, that’s a pony,” the other one said, totally not high on weed, “I don’t think it can understand you, man.”

“The CIA sent a pony to assassinate Castro?”

“Damn, that kinda sounds dumb, man.” The second guy looked Apple Bloom in the face. “Hey, are you a Communist?”

“Well, my sister’s rival’s adventure buddy’s second biggest fan’s student is Communist,” Apple Bloom replied.

“Dude, like, that sounds good to me, man,” he said. He put his stick down and tried to pick up Apple Bloom like a cat.

“No.” Apple Bloom cutely glared into the guy’s eyes.

“Aww man.”

“Dude, are you high right now?” the first guy asked the second guy.

“Nah, man. Yo, dude, you think we should bring this to Comandante Castro?”

The first guy sighed. “You really need to stop smoking everything you see. Last night I swear I saw you smoking your own goddamn underwear.”

“Yo, I think we should call this thing weed,” Stoner said, still completely stoned.

“What in God’s ever loving fuck- nevermind.” The Sane Guy, let’s call him Fernando, poked Apple Bloom with his stick. “Come on, we’re taking you to the bossman.” Apple Bloom complied.

Soon, they arrived in the office of Fidel Castro. “Yo, boss man guy,” the Stoner said, “I found this weird pony thing the Americans sent to assassinate you.”

“Why did you bring it to me then?” Castro shooed Stoner out of the room. “Get out of my sight and never come back.”

“Hey, dude-man, isn’t that, like, kinda harsh?” Stoner remained in the room.

“I have more important things to attend to.”

“Like what, man?”

“The Americans are trying to nuke the Russians, which means we can take control of the world once the dust settles. No one will be strong enough to stop us!” Apple Bloom didn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘nuke’ but she assumed it wasn’t good. “Khrushchev just told me that everyone thinks he’s a Nazi spy.”

“Dude, that, like, doesn’t make any sense.”

“Oh and there’s a tiny horse pony from the Americans trying to kill him.”

“That sounds like what we have,” Fernando said, pointing his bent stick to Apple Bloom. “The Americans sent a miniature horse to kill you.”

“And so, when a Soviet missile came into my grasp, I knew what I had to do. We are going to blow Washington to kingdom come!”

A knock on the door quickly silenced the three people. Two men were now in the doorway. “Comandante!” one of them announced, “look who’s here! It's your old friend Che!”

“Wait, you think I’m Che Guevara?” the other one said, slightly confused.

“Then who are you?”

“His cousin, Jay- wait a second is that a pony?”

“Uhh, neigh?” Apple Bloom said, not at all sounding like an actual pony.

“Ahh, Jay Guevara.” Castro walked over to “Jay”. “Just as your cousin and I fought Batista and his men, you and I shall fight the CIA’s mutant army! They sent a mutant squid after me and now they have this pony!” As he said the last few words, he gestured to Apple Bloom. The tiny earth pony tried to hide.

“Mutant squid- ooh, you mean the alien.”

“Man, there’s aliens now?” Stoner was extremely confused.

“Both sent to kill me, no doubt. Come, sit down, all of you.” Castro pulled up a few chairs for Stoner, Fernando, Jay, and himself. “It’s like the Bay of Pigs all over again, but with interdimensional space squids and pastel ponies.” Apple Bloom noticed a device on the wall with a big red button. She darted over to the device, removed it from the wall, placed it on her back, and bolted.

“Hey, wait, she can’t do that!” Stoner stumbled after Apple Bloom, tripping on Jay Guevara’s outstretched leg.

Back in the Oval Office, the situation had not calmed itself down. The phone rang. President Kennedy picked up the phone.

“Ambassador Popov, what a pleasant surprise,” he said, greeting the other person. “Wait, attack? What attack?” The next few words were whispered, “You lost a nuclear missile? What do you mean, “stolen”? It sounds like It sounds like you've been drinking, so, uh, call me when you've sobered up.”

“What did he say?” Bobby asked his brother.

“You’ll never believe it. The Russian ambassador just accused us of attacking Cuba with a-”

“Steel man,” someone else finished. General Kilgore showed everyone a few pictures.

General Kilgore pulled out a briefcase. “Mr. President, you gotta blow these guys to Kingdom Come! We didn't attack them.”

The moment Sweetie Belle’s eyes saw the briefcase, she grabbed it in her magic and ran away.

“Hey wait! GET BACK HERE YOU SOVIET PONY CRETIN!”

Khrushchev and Scootaloo eyed each other, investigating each others’ weaknesses. They were interrupted by someone pounding on the door. “Nikita Khrushchev, you are under arrest for being a Nazi spy!”

“God damnit.”

“And for not being an atheist!” The door flew open. Sixteen KGB agents charged in, guns raised.

“You KGB agents should be working on being spies, not arresting me,” Khrushchev told them. Scootaloo inched towards the door. A KGB agent stopped her with his foot.

“Your little Nazi pony thing won’t stop us,” another KGB agent said with complete confidence.

“The Americans are using metal men to attack Cuba! This is not the time to arrest me on the ground of being a Nazi!”

“We have it on good authority that there is a spy in our midst.” A KGB agent, designated Joe (Joe Mama!), put his gun to Khrushchev’s head. “You’re the only possible answer.”

“He could be any one of us!” Khrushchev countered. “He could be any of you! He could even be-”

The sound of a body hitting the floor interrupted the standoff. A man in a suit and ski mask brandished a knife and gun. “I am de Spi,” he said in a French accent.

“Well, if you’re the spy, you’re under arrest.” Joe turned his gun on the Spy. Spy pulled out a second gun and pointed it at Joe.

“Wait, you’re a spy? So am I!” One of the other KGB agents, designated Vlad (imir Putin deez nuts in yo mouth!), pulled two guns, one for Joe, and one for Spy. Spy turned his first gun to Vlad, and Joe pulled out a second gun just for Vlad.

“Well, it seems we have a good old fashioned Mexican standoff.” They stood there for a solid two minutes before someone shot. Spy and Joe both shot Vlad. Vlad dropped his gun, which fired upon landing. “My favorite Pokemon is Slugma,” Vlad said as he was dying.

“Slugma?” Khrushchev wondered.

“Slugma balls.” Vlad chuckled, then died.

“Damn, he went out perfectly,” said one of the unnamed KGB agents, designated Kenya (Kenya fit deez nuts in your mouth?).

“I know, right?” the ghost of Vlad said.

“Exquizzle me but how the fuck are you alive?” Joe pointed his gun at the ghost of Vlad.

“I have no idea!” Vlad’s ghost tried to punch Khrushchev, but his fist harmlessly passed through Khrushchev’s bald head. (If you’re wondering, the sixteen agents are named Joe, Vlad, Kenya, Ligma, Updog, Sugma the Sugondese, Surgical, King Josh MDXLVIII, Sir Stuffycheeks III the Skwovet, Nikolai, Georgy, Sergei, Alexei, Mikhail, Yuri, and Steve)

Sir Stuffycheeks III used Acorn Toss!

It’s not very effective...

“What was that supposed to do?” Vlad’s ghost said calmly as the acorn passed through him. He moved in to possess Khrushchev. His ghost passed through Khrushchev without any effect.

Scootaloo used Lick!

It’s super effective!

Khrushchev used Bite!

It’s super effective!

A look of shock spread over Vlad’s face as Khrushchev bit him. Scootaloo continued licking his face like a dog.

Sir Stuffycheeks III used Crunch!

It’s a One Hit KO!

Vlad’s ghost faded from existence. “Ouch,” he said as he was completely erased, “I’m not gonna have feeling in my everything for the next few forever.”

“So, do we just launch nukes at France since they sent a spy here?” someone asked. Khrushchev pulled out a big red button. Scootaloo darted forward, grabbed the button, and bolted out the door. Spy, Sergei, King Josh MDXLVIII, Sir Stuffycheeks, Joe, Kenya, Ligma, Updog, Sugma, Georgy, Alexei, Mikhail, Yuri, Steve, Surgical, and Nikolai chased after her.

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo now all had nuclear launch buttons, and were all being chased by people. It appeared as if they were all in different nations, but as they all turned corners, they stopped in front of each other.

“Wait, I thought you were in Cuba,” Sweetie Belle said to Apple Bloom.

“Ah don’t think this is right,” Apple Bloom replied.

“Wait, this isn’t the Soviet Union?” Scootaloo asked.

“HALT!” shouted General Kilgore, Joe, and Fernando simultaneously. “Wait, who are you? Stop copying me! No, you’re copying me!” They all pulled guns on each other. The remaining fourteen KGB agents, Spy, Colonel Dugan, Stoner, and Jay Guevara soon arrived as well. Everyone pulled guns on each other.

“This is exactly two more Mexican standoffs than I expected to be in today,” Joe complained, gun trained on Spy.

“We outnumber you fifteen to one!” said Sugma (sugma balls!) the Sugondese (Sugondese nuts!).

“There’s three of us, idiot!” Fernando countered.

“Not really,” Jay said, turning his gun on Fernando. Sir Stuffycheeks III responded by aiming his acorn at Jay Guevara. Spy turned his gun to Sir Stuffycheeks III. Joe kept his gun trained on Spy. Colonel Dugan aimed his gun at Joe. Stoner tried and failed to aim his gun at Colonel Dugan. General Kilgore pointed his gun at Stoner. King Josh MDXLVIII responded by turning his gun on General Kilgore. Surgical grabbed King Josh MDXLVIII and put a scalpel to his neck. Steve pulled out an entire pickaxe and prepared to jam it into Surgical. Nikolai, Georgy, Alexei, Mikhail, Yuri, and Sergei all aimed their guns at Steve. Fernando pointed his gun at Nikolai.

“So, who’s gonna shoot first?” King Josh MDXLVIII jokingly said. Steve swung his pickaxe into Surgical’s head, and then immediately got five bullets to the head. Nikolai fell over, Fernando dropped dead, Jay got an acorn to the head, Sir Stuffycheeks III tripped over Spy’s shoes, which caused Joe’s gun to go off, shooting Georgy. King Josh MDXLVIII panicked and shot General Kilgore in the leg. Colonel Dugan turned his gun around and shot Stoner in the foot. Stoner’s gun went off and hit Joe in the face. Mikhail, Alexei, Yuri, and Sergei slipped on Steve. Their guns all went off, shooting Mikhail four times.

The survivors, King Josh MDXLVIII, Jay Guevara, Sir Stuffycheeks III, Colonel Dugan, General Kilgore, Stoner, Spy, Alexei, Yuri, and Sergei got up and took aim again. Colonel Dugan aimed at Stoner. Stoner held his gun towards General Kilgore. General Kilgore trained his gun on Alexei. Alexei pointed his gun at Jay Guevara. Jay Guevara prepared to shoot Yuri. Yuri and Sergei pointed their guns towards General Kilgore and Colonel Dugan. Sir Stuffycheeks III and King Josh MDXLVIII took aim at Jay Guevara.

“Who’s gonna shoot this time?” King Josh MDXLVIII joked, yet again. General Kilgore, now annoyed, shot King Josh MDXLVIII in the knee. King Josh MDXLVIII stumbled towards Stoner, whose gun went off, shooting the ceiling tiles, which sent one of them careening into Colonel Dugan’s head. Jay Guevara ran away, which allowed Yuri to open fire. However, Spy shanked Yuri. Sergei turned his gun to Spy, but he tripped over Sir Stuffycheeks III. His gun went off into Alexei. Alexei instinctively shot Sergei.

Stoner, General Kilgore, King Josh MDXLVIII, Sir Stuffycheeks III, and Spy got up again, dusted themselves off, and aimed again. Stoner aimed his gun at himself, General Kilgore aimed at Spy, Spy aimed at King Josh MDXLVIII, Sir Stuffycheeks aimed at Stoner, and Sweetie Belle aimed at the window. Sir Stuffycheeks fired, hitting the trigger, which sent Stoner’s body into General Kilgore. General Kilgore’s gun went off into the hallway, shattering a vase. Spy was distracted by what just happened and shot the floor.

Sweetie Belle broke the window and chucked Scootaloo out of the window. Scootaloo screamed on the way out. Before either of the other Crusaders could follow, a monstrous bipedal mutant alien squid creature came crashing down the hall. Apple Bloom chucked Sweetie Belle out the window. Unfortunately, Sweetie Belle landed on Scootaloo’s nuclear button. In their panic to stop the launch, the entire American nuclear stockpile was launched at the Soviet Union. Apple Bloom backed up and accidentally launched Cuba’s single nuclear missile towards DC.

Khrushchev, Kennedy, Castro, Other Kennedy, Che Guevara, and a couple of other people screamed internally. The Soviet politicians started arguing again. It seemed as if the world was going to end.

Then suddenly Discord popped in, stopped the nukes, wiped everyone's memories of the event, and brought the Crusaders home.

“So, what have we learned?” Discord asked the Crusaders once they were back in Ponyvillle.

“Never trust Discord and keep your thoughts to yourself,” Scootaloo said.

“Well, it was supposed to be ‘be careful what you wish for’ but that works too I guess.” Discord teleported himself away.

The Crusaders decided to burn the book and never speak of it ever again.

Somehow, Discord missed Khrushchev and the Soviet politicians. They were now gathered in a room to discuss recent events.

“The world almost ended. We, alongside America and Cuba launched every nuke in our stockpile, yet we’re still here, and the nukes are back. Except for Cuba. They launched their nuke and it crushed some guy named ‘General Kilgore’.” Khrushchev paced around the room.

“From what I can tell, you’re a Russian spy!” one of the politicians accused.

“Russian spy? We’re in Soviet Russia!” Khrushchev defended.

“Your mom is Soviet Russia!” another politician shouted.

“Our mother, comrade!” said yet another politician.

The surviving KGB agents from the ‘incident’, King Josh MDLXVIII and Sir Stuffycheeks III, were also in the room. King Josh MDLXVIII pulled a gun on Khrushchev. “We still have orders to arrest you for being a Nazi spy.”

“Well, fuck.”