//------------------------------// // The competition is met // Story: Princess Flurry Heart Versus the Mud Monsters // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// Little Princess Flurry Heart found it funny that nopony was trying to stop them. It had to be that kind of crisis. She did find all of the running away and screaming to be a bit over dramatic though. Parts of Twilight’s castle were under siege and quite filthy. Some of the ponies, the earth ponies, they wandered around in a daze, something felt off about them, but there wasn’t anything she could do. When the alchemy supply pantry came into view, Flurry paused and said, “Here we go, Professor Egghead.” “Might take me a while.” Sumac looked at the door. “She changes the wards each time as a test.” “We don’t have time for a test.” Grimacing, Flurry eyed the door and her horn began to glow. Reaching out with her mind, she grabbed the door in her telekinesis, it resisted a bit, but the door was only really warded against conjuration spells. Gritting her teeth, she ripped the door from its hinges and tossed it aside. It clattered to the floor with a terrific crash and she pranced in place in triumph. “Tada!” “Twilight is gonna kill me!” Sumac whined. “No she won’t.” Flurry Heart gave Sumac a royal, regal nod. “I will protect you.” “Twilight is gonna go right through you and kill me,” Sumac insisted. “I’ll demand that she punish me.” Flurry made a gesture at the supply closet. “Get those zap apple lozenges you need, because I need a supercharged sorcerer.” “I’m s’posed to work through the wards as a puzzle… the lesson… the lesson… Twilight is gonna be super-duper angry that I didn’t learn the lesson… she won’t care about the door, but she is gonna be all kinds of alicorn-angry that I didn’t learn the lesson!” Sumac, close to panicking, began to gulp in great lungfuls of air and he sat down on the floor while almost wheezing. “I will protect you, my friend,” Flurry Heart promised. She glanced at Megara, seeking help or reassurance, she didn’t know what she needed at the moment, and then at Boomer. Neither seemed to know how to fix this. “Sumac?” “Twilight is more than my teacher, she’s my friend and my aunt! I don’t want to let her down! The lessons are what matters!” Sensing Sumac’s distress, Flurry Heart went to him, sat down beside him, and wrapped one of her ginormous wings around him. She pulled him close, hugging him, trying to reassure him, knowing that they had to get moving, but also knowing that one of her little ponies was suffering. “When this is all over, I’ll apologise to Twilight to help smooth things over, then we’ll have Twilight fix the door, and when the door is fixed, you and I will sit down and work through the lesson together. Okay? It’ll be a great lesson, because we’ll do it together.” “Okay.” Sumac let out a shudder and looked at the torn away door laying on the ground. “I don’t mind getting in trouble, but Twilight gets peculiar about her lessons. That’s the only time she really ever seems disappointed in me and I hate it. It hurts more than anything. I don’t mind getting in trouble, but there is a line I just don’t cross.” Flurry understood. Having Sunburst, her tutor, angry with her was bad enough, but having him disappointed with her—UGH—that was the worst. Leaning over, she kissed Sumac on the cheek to cheer him up, then she adjusted his glasses, which had gone lopsided at some point. Giving him another squeeze, she gestured at the alchemy supply pantry. “We have ponies to save,” Flurry said to her downcast companion, friend, and penpal. Their first look at Ponyville was a dreadful one. Things had gone downhill fast. The sky overhead was filled with thick, gritty dust. Smoke rose from burning buildings. The sounds of mayhem were all around them. The tinkle of shattering glass, the splintering of wood, the earthy thud of bricks being broken. Flurry took it all in with her now sorcerer-charged senses and felt rage. Her little ponies were in such terrible danger. Looking up, she saw a pegasus pony plummeting from the sky, his wings coated in a thick layer of goopy mud. With an eerie calm, she gave Megara a command. “Meg! Save!” This time, there was no hesitation, as there had been when Flurry had commanded, “Meg! Kill!” Megara spread her oversized bat-like wings, her membranes and tendons creaking. With an effortless leap, she launched herself up into the air and flew in a way that only cats could. Then, when she had her prey targeted, Megara went shooting off with a shocking burst of speed to intercept. Flurry gave a nod when the pegasus pony was caught mid-air, and she watched Meg bring him down, unharmed. Already, she was starting to assess the situation, it seemed that the mud monsters had some effect on earth ponies, and could rob pegasus ponies of their flight somehow. More would need to be learned, but with Professor Egghead’s supercharging, learning would be easy. The pegasus pony was laid out on the steps of Twilight’s castle, which had been badly damaged in the fighting so far. There were cracks and broken off places. Flurry wasn’t worried, like the living crystal structures of her home, the castle would repair itself in time, so long as it had love and friendship to draw from. The downed pegasus was hauled away by a unicorn mare, who pulled him into Twilight’s castle. Megara lept down the stairs and glided on her wings. She landed where Flurry stood, and then loomed over her much smaller friends, hoping to protect them. In the distance, there was a loud crash followed by the unmistakable sound of a building collapsing. “I pity the foal that hurts ponies when I’m around!” Megara growled. “Right.” Flurry spread her wings and struck a noble pose. “Wipe-Outs, let’s go find trouble!” Trouble was in no short supply and easy to find. Rounding a corner, Flurry found herself staring up at a pair of ten foot tall mud monsters. Making a dainty dodge, she sidestepped a stream of mud being squirted at her and then raised a shield to be safe. The second stream of mud hit her shield and made it go blinky. It flickered, crackled, and threatened to drop. Something in the mud was shorting out her magic, and she knew that Professor Egghead’s sorcery worked both ways. She was made stronger, but so were her enemies. Nearby, a unicorn was encased in mud and frozen in place somehow. Some earth ponies were wandering around in a daze, their eyes filled with a strange green glow. As they shuffled around, their hooves kicked up more dust. Flurry didn’t have time to study everything though, because two ten foot tall mud mooks were farting mud at her while slapping their big flabby butt cheeks. “Oh, that’s just yucko!” Boomer shouted as she pressed up against Flurry’s side. Flurry opened fire, not knowing what else to do, and each of her shots caused the mud mooks to boil in the spot where they were struck. Now, they were steaming mud mooks, which Flurry thought was rather more dangerous. With her tongue sticking out, she let rip, giving one all she had. It exploded, sending bubbling mud spattering all around them in a wide radius. Professor Egghead joined in and was firing blasts at the other one, but it wasn’t doing much good. Flurry admired him for trying though. His real strength wasn’t in the spells he could cast, but rather in how he made others stronger. He was the sorcerer, the all powerful and almighty sorcerer, the prize of every princess. Flurry Heart felt accomplished that he was hers. The blasted apart mud monster was already reforming and dozens of little ten inch tall miniature mud mooks were now running around, slapping their bellies together, farting, spraying mud everywhere. Some of the little ones were merging together, forming larger mud mooks. Oh, this was bad and Flurry knew it. Some of the mud monsters were pulling up soil and digging into the ground. “We need a plan, Professor Egghead!” Flurry commanded while trying very hard to not sound panicked. “If you don’t think of something, we’re going to be up to our wingpits in mud monsters!” “I don’t have wingpits,” Sumac replied. “Don’t tempt me! I’ll figure out a way to make you an alicorn!” Flurry began taking potshots at the smaller mud mooks, hoping to slow down their reformation into something larger. “No!” Sumac whined, looking and sounding stricken by the very idea. There was something that was almost like a supersonic crack and it made Flurry’s ears ring as the shockwave enveloped her. Her alicorn eyes allowed her to see with some detail as Pebble Pie went flying overhead, one front hoof held forwards in front of her, one front hoof held back in a punchy-punchy position. All around her, buildings and glassed rattled, and Flurry’s heightened, sorcerer-boosted alicorn intelligence informed her that Pebble was travelling at approximately three-hundred metres per second. There was going to be an epic collision and the resulting energy release would be a mathematical equation that she didn’t understand. Grabbing all three of her friends, Flurry pulled them close and then threw everything she had into her shields, all of this taking place in less than an eyeblink. Pebble collided with the ten foot tall mud monster and the resulting shockwave blinded Flurry Heart, who was unable to see what dreadful mayhem had been released. Pebble, spattered in mud, stood on three legs, and she was flexing the leg she had struck the mud mook with. The mud mook was gone, just gone, all that was left was mud droplets and splatters that covered every available surface for yards and yards around them. Flurry was impressed. “Hello, Professor Egghead,” Pebble deadpanned as she slung mud from her foreleg. “Hi, Pebble!” With a goofy grin on his face, Sumac waved. As the two special someponies exchanged a friendly hello, another pony joined them. Olive, streaked with mud, trotted up to Pebble and then looked around, wary for danger. Flurry waved, glad to see another friend and fellow superhero. The Bashers were always a welcome sight, even if they were competition and Professor Egghead was sweet on both of them. The Bashers weren’t much on creativity or nuance, they just hit things really hard, that was their superpower. Sometimes, hitting things really hard was enough. ‘Cause when love was gone, there was always justice. When justice was gone, there was force. And when force was gone, or wasn’t enough, there was always Mom. Mom, in turn, would go through the various levels of escalation, love, justice, force, and then there was Auntie. “I see the Wipe-Outs have escaped.” Olive smirked and gave Flurry a nod of sarcasm-laced respect. “No prison will ever hold us,” Megara said to Olive. Lifting a paw, she waved at Pebble. “Hiya, Sis!” “What’s the situation?” Flurry felt that more information was in order, and Pebble was a smart, smart pony, just like her mother. She was an excellent resource, and kinda cute, though Flurry would never say it aloud. That would be embarrassing and weird. “The mud monsters are nasty and won’t stay down,” Pebble replied as she gave her sister Megara a wave. “The dust and mud interferes with the flight abilities of pegasus ponies. The same dust and mud has a nullifying effect on weaker unicorns, robbing them of their magic. Weak minded earth ponies fall under the control of the mud monsters and they run around in circles, generating more dust that goes up into the air, messing with the pegasus ponies and making more mud monsters.” “Sounds messy.” Flurry didn’t like what she was hearing at all. Nope. Not one bit. As words were being exchanged, the little mud mooks around them were growing into bigger mud mooks. Olive blasted one back into mud droplets while keeping an eye on the crowd, looking and waiting for an actual threat. The air was filled with flatulent squishes and disgusting squelches. The ground began to tremble and Flurry Heart let slip a squeaky, “Meep!” Olive dropped into a defensive crouch, and Pebble pressed up against Olive’s side. Megara spread her wings while flexing her retractable claws. Sumac’s ears perked while he listened for trouble, and Boomer’s spines stood out. Something was happening, but none of the gathered heroes knew what. With a startling suddenness, the ground ripped open and the air filled with the fragrant stink of sewage. There was a gross squish, a sloshing sound, and more of the earth erupted upwards as the ground trembled. Something horrendous climbed up out of the freshly torn open septic tank, something awful, the stuff of nightmares. It was no common mud mook. Flurry’s mouth fell open and she gazed up at the massive monster as it was still growing, horrified by the sight and nauseated by the smell. This was a foe beyond any of them, yet Flurry knew that she would fight it. She would fight it because she was an alicorn, and this was an abomination against harmony. It was also full of corn and the sight of all that yellow made Flurry feel weak in the knees for reasons she could not explain. “EXCREMENTAL!” Professor Egghead hollered at the top of his lungs. “OH SHIT!”