The Forgotten Chaos

by V1saCard

Prologue

Hasbro Corporate Building – 9:00 AM Monday, 5 November 2012

Chatter filling the room, middle aged and relatively young men begin filing into a large meeting room. The day is just beginning, as the sun has only recently poked its gleaming face over the eastern horizon. The sunlight fills the room through its large ten feet high by sixteen feet wide windows. The room was placed perfectly to overlook the entire eastern seaboard of the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

The carpet had been freshly pressed and steamed by the janitors’ weekend work. It gives off a refreshing scent to the tired members; after all, it IS a Monday. The large elliptical meeting table catches the sun’s glare on its glossy walnut surface. At the table, eight cushy, ergonomic office-chairs stand pushed under the lip of the polished laminate. At both apogees of the table lay a leather-bound office chair, signifying the spot for the CEO and the chairperson.

The board members file in on their own time. Since the board meeting was called at the last minute, the chairperson has allowed everyone to arrive at an indefinite, yet reasonable, time. Despite this ambiguous freedom, most of them arrive at their usual time. They arrive in their normal business attire which consists of white collared-shirt, slacks, and matching jacket. Most appear to be wearing black with the exception of a few in a greyish-blue theme. One even dares to enter the room with a plaid and green setup.

“Seriously Johnson; you came to this meeting wearing THAT?!”

“Shut up, Patrick! It was the only suit I had clean this morning.”

On that note, the CEO and chairman walk into the room. They immediately take their respective seats, influencing the others to take their seats as well. One however, pulls out a typical black office telephone and places it near the center of the table. No one but the CEO and the chairman knew why the meeting was called and it was even more surprising when a member pulled out the office phone.

As the board member began connecting extension cords into the wall, the CEO spoke up, “I’d like to thank everyone for coming to this meeting on a somewhat short notice. I’d also like to thank Johnson for adding some color to this meeting with his lime-green plaid.”

“My favorite color, Sir,” Johnson said while grinning at his office friend, Patrick.

“Anyways,” the CEO continued, “I’m sure everyone who has been on the internet in the past two months has noticed the constant complaining from the Brony Community.” Everyone nodded in agreement followed by a symphony of hums that filled the room. “Frankly, I can’t blame them. First, we allow the release of the fact that only 13 episodes are being aired for Season Three, and then we wait forever to tell them that the release date is this weekend.”

The room falls silent, as the board members look around to their peers in guilt. They all knew they had a part in this so-called “marketing strategy.” The Chairman pipes in, “This is why I’ve called you all here and why we’ll have the phone ready to call Lauren Faust in a few minutes. We need to have all of this sorted out so we don’t screw with the largest and most unexpected following we’ve ever had for any of our toy-inspired shows again.”

“It’s ready,” chimes the board member as he just finishes the setup of the office phone.

“Excellent, get Ms. Faust on speaker, please,” commands the CEO.

As the member dials the number, the rest of the room grows tense. They were running out of ideas and weren’t sure if they could come up with any more.

The room is silent again as the only sound heard is the tone of the speaker dialing the other end…

“Is this Hasbro?”

The chairman starts, “Yes, hello Miss Faust. We would like to first thank you for agreeing to take our call this morning.”
Faust adds, “Oh, it’s no problem; what do you gentlemen need? I assume it has to do with a new season for Friendship is Magic?”

The CEO then speaks, “Yes, indeed. We’ll talk about the contract at a later date, but we wanted to discuss ideas for season four. So now, I would just like everyone to brainstorm any ideas they have for a new season. And Miss Faust, we would very much appreciate any and all commentary from you on these ideas.”

Once again, the room falls silent. Just as everyone expected; no one had any bright ideas. One member opened his mouth and motioned as though he would have something useful to say. Everyone turned their attention to him. However, he slid back into his chair and began contemplating again like the rest.

Lauren Faust broke the silence, “Hello? Guys? Is there anyone there? This is an empty-room prank isn’t?”

“No, no, we’re still thinking. We almost had an idea until SOMEONE decided to keep their mouth shut,” uttered the chairman.

And just like that, the room was silent again. Members slouched in their seats. Faces were distorted in an odd way which signified thought. No one had any idea on what to do.

Then, like a rocket, Johnson shot up and exclaimed, “I HAVE AN IDEA!”

His outburst was so loud and surprising that a majority of the now daydreaming board members fell out of their chairs. Lauren Faust was even startled by it on the phone.

“For the love of God, man, don’t startle us like that!” The CEO was irritated but more interested in what Johnson had to say. Even he was lost and was willing to listen to any idea that somebody had. “Please, share with us. You are the only one who ever had any idea in the whole twenty minutes we’ve been at this.”

“Okay, hear me out,” Johnson began to explain, “We merge MLP with Nerf! We’ve yet to do anything with the Nerf franchise besides a Wii game that didn’t do as well as we expected.”

“That is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard from you, Johnson. How would that even work?”

Patrick, like the rest, questioned this rather obscure idea of merging a friendly, but violent series of toys with a show that promotes the magic of friendship.

“Like you’ve ever contributed to this whole,” Johnson makes the quotation marks with his hands, “discussion. As Mr. CEO said, I’m the only one with any ideas here, and all I’m looking for right now is an audience so that we can have at least something on the table.”

Embarrassed, Patrick recedes into his chair. He sunk so far into himself; he could almost be described as a human-turtle.

With that, Johnson continued his convoluted plan, “Moving on, this could be an opportunity to expand with a franchise we never went too far with. It would also appeal to more males and I’m sure the Brony Community would love it. As for how it would work,” Johnson motions in Patrick’s direction, “They are cartoon characters. In the show, we’ve had many ponies hold things with just their hooves. The Bronies even seem to have fun with that fact as well as the animators’ mistake with the way Lyra Heartstrings sits.”

“Frankly, I’m willing to see how this would turn out myself,” piped the chairman. He looks at the CEO, who was simply fishing for anything at that point in time, and nods in approval. “Miss Faust, can you maybe do something with this whole idea of merging darts with ponies? This won’t be permanent and we’ll happily pay any expenses this idea might use.”

Unnerved, Lauren Faust comments, “I have to say, this is very unusual. I don’t know if I’ll even be able to keep consistent with the main theme of the show. I’ll do it, but I seriously doubt that this will work. Goodbye gentlemen, it’s been… awkward speaking with you today.”

The “click” of Lauren Faust’s phone hanging up seems to relieve some of the tension in the room. All of the members begin their departure from the meeting room with worried looks on their faces. What had they just done? Nerf with ponies?! They would just have to wait and see the uncertain creation that would emanate.

Meanwhile, in Ponyville…