Here is the disclaimer: I don’t own MLP: FiM, aside from my Pinkie, Rainbow, and Applejack figures. Oh, oops! I don’t own the RIGHTS to MLP: FiM. That belongs to Lauren Faust and Hasbro.
You Wouldn’t Believe Me if I Told You
Chapter 8: Let the Game Begin... With a Wardrobe Malfunction
“-ther.”
When he had started his sentence, he had been surrounded by his beloved little pony pals, but now he was all by himself in the midst of a deep, dark wood. And he could not see or hear anypony.
Classic move, Discord! Teleport a pony in the middle of his sentence! Should have seen that one coming.
Steve, not knowing exactly what to do first, began walking in an arbitrary direction, hoping to Celestia that he would find Twilight, or Rainbow Dash, or really anypony that did not wish to hurt anypony else.
If it comes down to it, I will have to defend myself, no matter how much it pains me to admit it.
He suddenly realized that since the game had started, he was finally able to check out the contents of his bags. He had originally set all curiosity aside when the threat of death loomed over him, but now that he could look freely, the desire to rummage through them burned brightly in his mind.
As if it were a pre-planned, cruel joke, Steve, not yet used to his ponified body and its limitations, was at first wholly unable to get it off. He grunted and twisted, rolled on his side, and even tried bucking it off. It was then that he realized, to his embarrassment, that it was cinched together around his body. Sitting on his rump, he first attempted to use his teeth. But teeth are not meant for the kind of precision he needed to get the little metal tab through the belt to undo it.
His hooves proved just as useless, leaving him to wonder just how regular ponies managed to do anything at all, especially non-unicorns.
Suddenly remembering an episode of MLP involving saddlebags, he realized that it was wholly unnecessary to take them off. All he needed to do was twist his neck and stick his head in the bags. He attempted to do so, but could not quite reach them. He assumed that he must stretch his neck muscles out, as he had never tried this particular movement before, and the ponies in the show had been doing it all their lives.
A good set of pushing his limits from left to right, and left again, proved highly useful, limbering up his neck and twisting further around with each consecutive try.
After a good couple minutes of this, he was finally able to stick his muzzle into the left bag. A sense of vast achievement washed through him as he did so. He grasped whatever it was between his teeth and pulled it out for examination. It was a small bundle made with a sheet, containing some gray tensor bandages, a canteen full of water, and a map of the area. Figuring he might need the bandages at any moment, he decided to wrap them, with some difficulty, around his forelegs for easy access.
Not only that, but it will protect my forelegs from scrapes from this underbrush! I am a genius.
Hastily wrapping his meagre but precious possessions up in the sheet and replacing them in the bag, he whipped his head around to his right saddlebag. Inside it was a package labelled ‘rations’ with a picture of a carrot on it, and what looked like a high-tech wrist watch at first, until he remembered one of his favourite video games.
“Dude!” he called aloud, “I got a freakin’ Pipboy!”
This was only partially true, as he realized that it only had the map function, but that isn’t what held his attention at that moment. It was the 20 dots adorning the map, spread out across it.
“It’s a collar tracker!”
And it appeared as if a few dots had already found other ones.
* * * * *
Berry Punch, a plum coloured pony with a mulberry mane, lay next to a large tree, not far from where she had been teleported to. Wholly unable to comprehend what was going on, coupled with the threat of death and being alone in the woods, she had broken down in tears and collapsed beneath said tree.
She was not sure how long she had been laying there, but she really didn’t care. Suddenly, from the bushes off to her left, she heard a frantic rustling and the snap of branches, coupled with a loud cry. Forgetting her fear and concern for her own well-being, she bolted towards the noise.
As she neared the site, she heard soft groaning and curses from a familiar voice. As she burst through the foliage, she encountered a misty-eyed Rainbow Dash, who had twigs sticking out of her mane, cuts and scrapes on her body, and a wing hanging at an odd angle.
“Oh, Rainbow!” Berry exclaimed, rushing over to help the distraught and injured pegasus. “Are you OK?” she asked habitually and, as she realized, stupidly. So she followed up with, “What have you done to yourself?”
As she whipped out her bandages to bind up the wing for proper setting, Rainbow sobbed, “I tried taking off from ground level... (sniff)... and even with a OW! ... running start I just couldn’t take off!... so I thought OOOWW! That hurts, you know!... (sigh) ... I figured if I started from a tree, then...” she trailed off, leaving her current condition to tell the rest of the story.
Berry, who was trained in first aid as a necessity for her daycare business, was finishing up her handiwork on the pained pony. She bound the wrapped wing to Rainbow’s side to hold it in place for proper healing.
“That should do it,” she said with satisfaction. “Regularly, I'd say to get a doctor to look at it, or get some bed rest, but I suppose neither are really an option.” She smiled weakly.
Rainbow gave a pained smile in return. “Thank you, Berry! Thanks alot. I don’t know what I’d have done if you weren’t such a nice pony.”
Berry, now filling with a sense of purpose and usefulness, shoved all fatalistic thoughts from her mind. She was ready to see this thing through. She even had a strong and loyal Element of Harmony at her side! She decided to take control of the situation.
“So, Dash, we should probably check what other kind of stuff we have in these bags.” She twisted around and checked both bags. “I still have a sheet, canteen, map in this bag, and... what is this thing?!”
Rainbow watched as she withdrew her head from the saddlebag holding a wooden handle with a vicious, curved blade on it. Rainbow knew what it was.
“That’s a sickle,” she explained, “I’ve seen Zecora use one to harvest herbs and ingredients for her potions to sell at her alchemist shop in Ponyville.”
Berry continued to hold it in her mouth, tilting her head in confusion. “Buh wha yo we nee ahemy inhe-eins ou heea?”
“We don’t. That one isn’t made for herbs.”
Berry, in sudden realization, dropped it immediately in revulsion. “Get it away from me! I’d never use it to... to...” she let it hang at that, shaking her head and shuddering slightly. “I’d never hurt anypony...” she whispered.
“We should probably take it with us, anyhow,” Rainbow suggested and shrugged. “If we don’t have it, then we won’t have anything to defend ourselves, and whoever finds it may not be as level-headed as we are, and somepony could get hurt. Could you check what’s in my bag for a sec?”
Berry Punch nodded, and carefully picked up the cruel utensil and hooked it onto a metal ring on the side of her bag, which she swore was not there before. She walked over behind Rainbow, who was still seated in the same spot as where she had found her, and gingerly reached into the saddlebags so as to avoid disturbing her sensitive wing. Aside from the standard survival equipment was a bundle of sharp sticks and a thick, odd wooden shaft with a bent stick on the end and a taut string between the ends of the bent stick. Berry voiced her confusion.
Rainbow turned and immediately perked up. “Oh. My. Gosh.” She grabbed the instrument from the plum pony. “This is exactly like the one on the cover of the newest Daring Do book! I’ll look just like her with my very own crossbow!” She held it in an outstretched hoof and struck a heroic pose, aiming her new weapon in the distance.
“Daring Do uses a crossbow?” Berry asked. “You read violent books!”
“She doesn’t use it on anypony, duh!” Rainbow snorted. “She uses it mostly to make rope swings and bridges by tying a rope to the end. I bet you I am a wicked shot with this, what with me being so naturally talented and awesome! Hand me a bolt and watch me hit that tree way over there.”
* * * * *
Far away, another pony was practicing with her new weapon. But she had a darker intent.
She swung her pickaxe with all her might, keeping her jaws tightly clenched on the handle and allowing herself to spin in place to absorb some of the force. She was not sure exactly how it fit in her bag in the first place, she just knew it would not go back in. Being a powerful magician, Trixie knew that such a feat of putting a large object in a small bag was nearly impossible, so she had held it either in the metal loop on her bag, or as she had it now in her mouth. With every swing, she envisioned it embedding itself into the cocky little head of the one who had ruined her career. She never thought of her or called her by name, as she did not wish to ever hear that name again. She would not speak that name until she read it in the obituaries.
She had heard that regular ponies almost never held such grudges or vendettas for so long, but then again, the Great and Powerful Trixie was no normal pony. She was better than all of them, she knew they were all jealous of her powers. And that purple upstart of a ‘prodigy’ had stolen her titles and pride that night so many years ago. She would show them all; she would survive this contest in first place. There was no top three in her mind. It was one or none. Up until recently she had managed to keep some semblance of sanity about her, but the current circumstances pushed her over the edge. She was out for blood, and when a pony goes looking for blood, they often find it.
BANG!
“EEEKK! Now what is a lady like me supposed to do with this horrid little machine!”
Trixie froze briefly at the shriek, but by the end of the outburst she had already hit the ground, pickaxe in mouth, and crawled towards the source. She KNEW that voice!
She gingerly peered through the bushes, taking care to be silent. There she saw a light tan pony with a sapphire mane standing with a white unicorn with an impressively maintained purple mane.
That white one is one of HER friends! She thought evilly.
“Sapphire Shores, if I had any sense at all, I would simply throw this abominable little pistol into the bushes right now!” She appeared very ready to do so.
“But Rarity, please!” Sapphire countered, “I’ve been your friend for some time now, and I know that in your boutique you never throw away anything if you can manage to use it somehow! Like that one time you made that ground-breaking dress set for my tour, and it was made out of bits and pieces you had been refusing to throw away, and that any other pony would have!”
Trixie, impatient of waiting, was about to lung into the clearing, when a small metal 6 chambered revolver landed in the bush squarely in front of her face. For me? You shouldn’t have!
“I’ll hear no more of it.” Rarity said, satisfied with her decision. “You can hang onto that nasty machete of yours, but I am perfectly happy to be rid of that evil thing, thank you VERY much!” she ended with emphasis.
No, Rarity... thank YOU!
With an abrupt about-face turn, Rarity began marching in the other direction. Sapphire followed closely behind, not wanting to be left alone. Just as Rarity was nearing the path out of the clearing, Sapphire shot a fleeting glance back to where the pistol had landed. What she saw was a light blue maned blue unicorn levelling the pistol at them. She never had the chance to warn her seamstress friend, and Rarity never had the chance to react to the first shot.
Trixie lowered the smoking gun cooly. She popped it into the holster on her bag, mysteriously present and well-fitted for her new toy. Retrieving another 6 rounds from Rarity’s bag and the machete from near Sapphire’s blood-dripping mouth, Trixie surveyed her handiwork. Double kill with headshots is an impressive feat, but her mind, or what was left of it, was not focussed on that. She was, rather, transfixed by the stark contrast of the deep red blood spattered on that impeccably groomed pure white coat. It seemed to her... strangely beautiful, in a twisted kind of way.
She stood there, staring for several minutes, transfixed by the sight. Suddenly, she remembered about the stars she needed so desperately, and reached out for the one embedded in Sapphire’s collar. On contact with the red-flecked golden metal, the tan pony dissolved into a cloud of brightly glowing red flakes, evaporating almost instantly. in the reflection from the machete held in her hoof, she saw that a new star gleamed on her own collar, this one with an engraved seashell in its center; a seashell that matched the cutie mark of the recently deceased pop star.
“Can’t wait for one with diamonds on it.” Her face twisted into a pleased sneer.
* * * * *
Steve heard the sound of distant gunshots, and his eyes shot to his wrist, counting carefully. A tear dribbled down his steel blue face.
Only 18...