Fanfic / The Last Crusade

I consider myself a lucky guy. Good job, good family, and best of all, really, really good friends. We call ourselves MMPD, and together we've had tons of crazy adventures, helped one another discover ourselves, and always have had a good time. It's a shame we've drifted apart since high school, but at least we get to see each other once a year on our shared birthdays.

That tradition turned out to be a lifesaver, because as my friends and I just found out… well, let’s just say we’ve known each other a lot longer than we thought. Now we’ve gotta find a way back home, and hopefully we won't drive each other nuts along the way. We know we’re not the big heroes, and we’re all in WAY over our heads, but hopefully we can do enough to make a difference in the end. If we can do that, then I know we’ll have made our families proud.

I just wish we still had our capes.

The Last Crusade is a side-story to Five Score, Divided by Four, a My Little Pony fan-fiction written by TwistedSpectrum (NOTE: this synopsis and trope list may therefore contain Late Arrival Spoilers for FSDbF, so if you plan to read that you should do so before continuing, though otherwise TLC can stand on its own). TLC follows the Cutie Mark Crusaders (from Sweetie Belle's perspective) as they come to terms with their transformation back into ponies and efforts to reunite with their families.

Five Score's TV Tropes page can be found here.

The following are examples of tropes from this story:

• Big Bad: Discord.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick
  Angie: My BFF gets stranded in the middle of the city, my senior salesperson up and quits on me out of the blue, and now my brother and his friends discover that they’re actually the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
• Cool Big Sis: In spades. Jack for Apple Bloom, Dash for Scootaloo, Angie and Rarity for Sweetie Belle. Babs gets screwed.
• Childhood Friends: Miraculously, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were all banished to the same local area (save for Dylan/Scootaloo, who later moved there) and became instant friends upon meeting in grade school.
• The Chosen One: Everyone thinks Twilight is this. She isn't.
• Eldritch Location: Ponyville, (and possibly all of Equestria) after Discord moves in.
• Emotional Regression: Played with. As the story goes on, Sweetie notices that she's become more spontaneous and prone to emotional outburst, which were both qualities she had when she was younger.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The Cutie Mark Crusaders start out as this, but then later become a Five-Man Band upon going to Angie for help.
  • They also later add a Sixth Ranger in the form of Daring Do.
• Hypocrite: Dash. One of the first things she tells the Cutie Mark Crusaders is that they shouldn't tell Twilight about Sweetie's memory restoring ability. She then proceeds to go and talk about it right in front of her later on. To be totally fair, though, there were extenuating circumstances.
• In Spite of a Nail: Sweetie and the other Crusaders may have lived for twenty-five years as clueless humans, but many of their personality traits, interests, and life choices have remained the same.
• Love Triangle: Sweetie is afraid that Rarity, Shining, and Cadance will get caught in one of these if/when she restores their memories.
• Million to One Chance: The coincidence of the portal back to Equestria being less than an hour away from the farm is so unlikely that Sweetie doubts it's a coincidence at all. Rather, she suspects it's the multiverse's way of trying to return all the banished ponies back to their home dimension.
• The Migration: All of the banished ponies undergo one upon seeing Dash's Sonic Rainboom.
• Noodle Incident: An incident involving an energy drink binge, duct tape, and a water tower is referenced multiple times, but the details are never revealed.
  Mage: "All you need to know is that we were each grounded for three months, no charges were filed, and we made the front page of the local paper."
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Scootaloo occasionally does this in jest.
• Psychic Nosebleed: Sweetie gets one while trying to hold open a security door.
• Race Against the Clock: A minor example. With hundreds of ponies coming to the farm, it's only a matter of time before their supplies run out. Sweetie and the others have to quickly come up with a plan before that happens.
• Science Hero: Sweetie Belle.
• Split-Personality Merge: What occurs when Sweetie breaks the curse on somepony.
• The Team Benefactor: Each member of the group takes a turn being this at some point in the story.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 4. Upon regaining her horn, Sweetie regains the memories from her life as a pony and discovers she can do the same for others by being in contact with them. She then does this for the other Cutie Mark Crusaders.
• You Are Too Late: Version 5. Rarity attempts to save Sweetie from being cursed and banished by Discord, but also winds up being cursed and banished. However, her efforts weaken the curse on Sweetie so that she's later able to break it by herself.