Crossed Paths is a crossover Fan Fiction by The Rogue Wolf and can be found here
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What do a globetrotting archaeologist, a time-tossed samurai, and six magical multicolored ponies have in common? Not much! But when a magical gem and sheer coincidence throw them into a strange new place seemingly formed out of the worst aspects of each of their worlds, they're going to have to work together to get home - while they still have homes to get back to!
It has a sequel called Desperate Times, which has sadly been cancelled.
Sadly, the author has deleted all their stories, but Crossed Paths can be found on FiMFetch here.
Tropes present in this work:
- Adventure Archaeologist: Indy, of course.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite everything he's seen and having just been teleported to a weird cavern, Indy assumes Samurai Jack is crazy when he claims to actually be from Feudal Japan. Though after they run into the ponies, he quickly starts to leave his skepticism behind.
- Bittersweet Ending:
- In the recreation of Equestria, this happens for all four duos; they all manage to escape and reconcile with each other, but not without some sacrifices on their part. Twilight and Jack had to kill many corrupted innocent ponies and couldn't stop the Many; Dash and Indy were unable to save anypony from the haunted orphanage, aside from Scootaloo, who was already dead; Pinkie and Fluttershy had to leave Lyra and Trixie in their own story to fight the Taken themselves; and Applejack and Rarity had to kill Diamond Tiara in order to escape the hospital.
- The story itself; the group reasons with Fracture and assists it, allowing them to return to their homeworlds. Yet they never see each other again - at least not that we know of yet.
- Bonding over Missing Parents: Indy and Applejack get into a conversation with each other while the group is camping out in the recreation of his college, which turns into this, after Applejack comments on Indy's lighter, which was a gift from his now late father. Leading to them both opening up about their deceased parents. With Applejack commenting that she hadn't really talked about her parents to even the rest of the mane six, because she feels they couldn't relate.
- Book Ends: Upon returning to their own worlds, Indy and the mane six find themselves in the areas where they disappeared, and presumably Jack did as well (though his scene starts a while after he returns to his world, so we don't know for sure).
- Came Back Strong: Several of the group's old enemies are brought back tougher. The swordsman who Indy simply shot is now able to deflect bullets with his sword and can hold his own against Jack and Rainbow Dash at the same time. Demongo can now become his enslaved warriors and fight battles personally.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The chapters in the recreation of Indy's world and before it were pretty lighthearted, since the plot had yet to develop much past the basics. The recreation of Jack's world fleshed the plot out much more and helped to pile on the serious aspect of this story and cumulating with the party almost being wiped out by Demongo. Knowing how peaceful Equestria is, you'd expect it to be a lot more Lighter and Softer. It isn't.
- Chekhov's Gun: While finding a position in the upper level of a building in the recreation of Jack's world, Indy and Rarity find a large propaganda banner for Aku. Later, when a beetle drone smashes into their position, Rarity uses that banner to make a makeshift slide for her and Indy to escape. Then pulls it out from under the beetle drone when it attempts to follow.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The tiger Fluttershy befriends. With some shades of Back for the Dead, given how it dies shortly after returning.
- Combination Attack: The recreations of Aku's beetle drones turn out to be too hard for Rainbow Dash to damage with on her own and she winds up leaving herself more dazed by the attack than she does it. So Twilight comes up with the idea to surround Rainbow in a field of her magic, to protect her friend and give her the power she needs to bust the drones. And later, mixes in some of her teleporting with Rainbow's attacks.
- Continuity Nod: Several. One is the swap-the-macguffin-trick Indy used in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It still doesn't work.
- Cool Old Guy: Indy is pushing fifty-two during the story, and while him not being as spry as he used to be does come up (Rainbow Dash has to go back and help him catch up with the others when fleeing the collapsing recreation of his world), he can still hold his own in a scrap fine for the most part.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Fracture, the main villain and the cause of the alternate universes, is connected to each and every timeline to ever exist, and is pretty much a sentient universe. Yet even he can't stand up to Fluttershy's Stare.
- Empathic Weapon: When Jack is incapacitated at one point, Rarity picks up his sword with her telekinesis and wields it. When she does this, she actually senses the sword judging her. Fortunately, it found her worthy.
- Gladiator Games: In the recreation of Jack's world, the group gets trapped in the Dome of Doom and forced to face several of their old enemies.
- Hope Spot: The group finally meet back up with each other after two long chapters of danger and fear, and it looks like they're doing alright now, back to joking around...then they get attacked by members of the Thuggee cult from Indy's world.
- Improvised Weapon:
- While Indy is shooting it out with Nazi Zombies, Twilight gets the idea of using her magic to blast out his spent casings. Essentially doubling the amount of lead they're throwing out. Rarity later uses the same trick while fighting the beetle drone recreations.
- Twilight later uses a similar trick with shards of broken crystal on the recreation of the Egyptian swordsman, but her deflects them with his sword. So she takes the now even more numerous and tiny shards, packs them tightly in her magic, before releasing them. Basically creating an improvised shotgun shell, which is enough to finally overwhelm the swordsman's defenses.
- Knight of Cerebus: The stories turn towards the more dark and serious during the excursion into the recreation of Jack's world, is arguably solidified when the returning Demongo returns as the final boss of the Gladiator Games and nearly wipes out the entire party, leaving them all battered, physically and emotionally exhausted, and stomps the snake Fluttershy had befriended earlier to death.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: Indy, Jack, and the mane six try to avoid this, but it gets invoked against them sometimes. First in the recreation of Jack's world, where they have to split up in order to fight a group of robots. Then again in the recreation of Equestria, when they are split into duos and sent into different parts of an alternate timeline by Discord.
- Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie get stuck in what appears to be a pony version of Alan Wake, Twilight and Jack go through a Canterlot that has gone through its own version of System Shock 2, Applejack and Rarity are trapped in an Equestrian version of the popular Game Mod Nightmare House 2, and Indy and Dash have to navigate through an Equestrian version of the Shalebridge Cradle from Thief: Deadly Shadows.
- Mood Whiplash: The suspenseful arena battle in the recreation of Jack's world is often broken up by the Large Ham announcer. The group usually snarks that they wish he'd shut up. At one point, Pinkie even finds a way into his booth and starts irritating him, making this even better.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Fracture. Subverted in that he's not exactly evil; he was just doing what he believed would protect him. He is reasoned with rather easily once he sees how much pain the others - particularly Fluttershy - have felt.
- Nazi Zombies: The first enemies the group come across are near mindless creatures with rock skin, shaped after Nazi soldiers Indy fought in his past adventures, armed St G 44 assault rifles.
- Parrying Bullets: One of the heroes' past enemies brought back, is the Egyptian swordsman Indy shot down in Raiders of the Lost Ark. This time fast enough parry bullets.
- Sequel Hook: The fic has a chapter called "Desperate Times", which leads into the sequel Desperate Times.
- Snakes Are Sinister: Played with. The group gets the first piece of the gem, after solving a puzzle that causes the cave floor to open up to reveal a pit with a black mass of snake constructs swarming inside it, like venomous sea. But within it, Fluttershy manages to a find a single real snake, a brown asp, that had been taken from its borrow and is just as scared and confused as them. She manages to befriend and rescue the poor creature, and allows the team to find the first gem piece lounged in its throat. Before they leave with the snake wrapped around her neck and Indy making the obligatory Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? remark. The asp later dies trying to protect an unconscious Fluttershy during battle with Demongo. And it's treated as a genuine tear jerker by the rest of the party when she finds out.
- Tragic Keepsake: Indy has a lighter belonging to his father. He ends up losing it after using it to light up some kerosene barrels to keep off some enemies behind them. Applejack expressed apology in him having to lose it, only to find him grinning and saying that his dad would've been furious if he somehow hadn't.'Junior, you should know that some little bauble is hardly as important as the lives of innocents!'
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- It seems we'll never really find out if Princess Luna could stop the Many, or if Trixie and Lyra defeated the Taken.
- Or really what part Discord played in all of this...unless he was just a recreation by Fracture.
