Chapter 50
Gone Goofy
Dice rolled. Roulettes spun. Cards were dealt. Chips clicked and clacked. Coins chattered. And most of all, the sounds of victorious shouts and defeated groans were heard from every which way.
Beyond the hall that led from the bilge, the room was lit with dim lights which hung from the high ceiling, giving dark shades to the royal purple carpets, golden columns and all of the many creatures present. All around were even more lights, which flashed and blinked from the various tables and machines that were present.
The air hung thick with the smell of exotic perfumes, colognes and some underlying smokey scent. Each one a signature of the wearer, who darted about the massive room.
And it was the creatures themselves who caught the eyes of Pinkie, Dash and Goofy just as much as the massive room. Mostly, they were cervequins, whose gleaming coats flashed the colors of the natural world. Some even presented colors that reminded them of the swamp beyond the ship. Others had colors akin to the flashing lights of the machines, the cards that they held in their hooves, or of the chips they continually bet among one another. And atop all of their heads was a single smooth, crooked horn with anywhere between two and six smaller protrusions jutting from the main body.
Along with the cervequins there were other creatures. Some, the goofs recognized, and thought they had to have traveled far to come to this place. Once or twice, they thought they saw a pony in the crowd.
After standing up from the floor, Pinkie looked about the room. For some reason she felt she didn’t know how to react to the bustling crowd she normally lived for. To her, it felt almost like it was a party, but with an air of seriousness that was never present at any party she had ever thrown.
“What is this place?” Pinkie wondered.
“It’s a casino,” Dash said, wide-eyed at the sight. She had often fantasized about beating the house at Las Pegasus, but never had the chance to make the trip. Now that she was in a flashy gambling den, she thought it was time to ante up and win big.
Goofy scanned the room, looking for any sign that his son had been there. After hearing what the weasels had said before stuffing him and his friends down the chute to the bilge, he knew he was on the right track. Max had to be nearby. And in that den of debauchery, Goofy hoped that he was somewhere more wholesome. If only slightly.
Even without the guidance of the glittering light, the goofs knew that they had arrived. And with careful, cautious steps they walked into the midst of the room.
Giddy laughter was heard from all around as the gamblers either bounced with unrestrained glee or slumped in abject depression with no moderation in between.
From what the goofs could tell, every single creature in that room was as happy as could be. Even when they lost and cried rivers of tears they looked like they were trying to elicit some feeling of joy.
A waitress hopped over to them with a tray of drinks that was hooked around her side.
“Bichu bisou?” she offered with a smile that nearly spread off of her face.
Dash was the first to accept her drink, followed by Pinkie and Goofy next. Once they had their drinks, the waitress hopped away to go about her duties.
“Any idea what this is?” Goofy wondered.
“Pinkie?” Dash said, referring to Ponyville’s resident recipe expert.
“Hmmmm…” Pinkie hummed to herself, already examining the drink in her hoof. She took a light sniff. “Raspberry...Some kind of sweetened thickener. Milk or cream...And something else…” She sniffed again. “What is that? Engine grease? It’s going up my nose more than the other stuff! Nopony drink until I figure it out!”
Curious as to the nature of the ingredient that would turn away the pony who made rock candy out of gravel, Dash chanced a sip.
She could understand what Pinkie was talking about. For a moment, there was the feeling as if she had sniffed live embers up her nose. She smelled something like molded straw, which mingled with the other ingredients.
Finally, Dash felt the familiar gentle warmth of Applejack’s homemade apple cider, mixed with a sweet fruitiness and a thick texture that all trickled down her throat to her stomach, and spread right to her hooves.
“Hey! That’s good stuff!” she said.
“Dashie! Are you nuts!? You shouldn’t drink new things without the input of an expert!” Pinkie shouted.
“Seems okay to me,” Goofy said, after finishing his own drink.
“Goofy! Not you too! Do you realize what could happen now--”
Pinkie never got to finish her admonishment, when Dash poured Pinkie’s drink down her throat.
For a moment, Pinkie tried to tell off her friends, but kept her mouth shut for not wanting to spit out her drink. Gradually, her demeanor lightened, until she swallowed.
“That is good!” Pinkie agreed. “Where do we get more?”
“How ‘bout at the roulette table? Servers are always driftin’ around there,” a nearby voice suggested.
Looking to the source, Pinkie, Dash and Goofy nearly lunged at who they saw. They restrained themselves when they saw that it wasn’t who they thought.
“Naw! Hang on a sec’. Yer not the roulette kinda crowd. Lemme get a better look at you,” said a very short weasel, who was talking at a mile a second.
Goofy found the weasel before himself quicker than he could blink. And as the miniature weasel darted circles around him like a fly, he twisted his body to follow.
“You look like a blackjack sorta yutz. Maybe yer really lucky, or maybe ya just get hit a lot. Can’t really tell, ‘til I get to know ya better. Take care,” the weasel said.
Goofy spun himself one too many times, and fell over just as the weasel darted over to Pinkie.
“An’ you?” the weasel said. He darted to Pinkie’s other side, “Oy vey! We got us a high roller kinda girl here! Hussy yerself up, an’ you gotta good chance at the poker tables. Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. That’s you all over.”
Pinkie almost thought he was right. If only she had her Pinkie sense to help her with a game of poker.
Before Pinkie could respond, she was spun around by the weasel darting over to Dash.
“An’ you…” The weasel stopped moving. He looked Dash up and down, assessing her.
“Yeah. Take it in. This is the mare who’s gonna beat the house!” Dash triumphantly declared.
“You?” the weasel scoffed. “Sorry, bubeleh, but yer a pigeon for the slots! The most you’ll win here is the change other shnooks drop on the floor! I feel like I oughta give ya clothes, just so ya got somethin’ else to lose around here before I send ya home on a rowboat in your undies! Oy, ya make me sick just lookin’ at ya! Get outta here!” the weasel said.
For somebody so short, the weasel was surprisingly quick at rounding the goofs up and punting them away.
They rolled to a stop. Goofy hit his head on a craps table and made the dice up top jump from snake eyes to seven. One very happy gambler whooped and collected his winnings from his previously unlucky throw.
Dash stood up first, indignantly shaking her head.
“Pigeon for the slots!? That weasel doesn’t have a clue who he’s dealing with! Well, I’ll show him! I’ll show all these--”
She would have continued, had she not slipped on pocket change that had fallen on the floor. Dash rose again, this time joined by Pinkie, whose mane ruffled enough to cover most of her face.
“Don’t forget, Dashie: we still have stuff to do here,” Pinkie reminded her friend, as she smoothed her mane out.
Goofy stood next, his hat pushed down over his eyes. With a strong pull, he lifted his hat from his head.
“Uh, yeah. But, whut?” the goof wondered, as he put his hat back on.
“Same thing we did in Trottingham. We went looking for trouble, and we kicked its flank!” Dash said.
Sure, Goofy knew that was what they had done. But, for all that they had accomplished, he didn’t know what it was for. After the defeat of Theronicus Rex, Trottingham had been freed, and a new, benevolent king was put on the throne.
His mind went back to when he was fishing on the boat in the river. How he was picked for a reason unknown for a quest he never asked to go on. But, he supposed that if he was going to find the answer, he would have to keep going forward.
“Alright. But, can we keep lookin’ fer my son on the way?” Goofy asked.
“Righteo, captain!” Pinkie said, saluting like a soldier. “We’ll bust up this nest of evil! We’ll save your son! And then we’ll--we’ll…” It was then that Pinkie noticed that something seemed quite off. Something about her mane that felt more empty than before.
Quickly, she ran a hoof across her head, and her eyes went wide with shock before she started searching the floor at her hooves.
“Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no! This isn’t happening!” she said.
“Uh, sum’n wrong, Pinkie?” Goofy wondered.
“My hot sauce is gone!” Pinkie exclaimed.
“Yer whut?”
“My hot sauce that Cream Filling gave me! It’s gone!”
“So, what? Just get a new bottle. I bet there’s a buffet table somewhere--” Dash said, before Pinkie cut her off.
“You don’t know what that sauce meant to me, Dashie! I had plans for it! I was going to share it with Cream Filling when I got back to Trottingham! I need it back NOW!!” Pinkie shouted.
“Why don’t yuh think back to where yuh had it last,” Goofy said, as he shrugged.
When he did, he bumped the gambler who had just won the last throw. The cervequin gambler dropped his dice onto the table, and rolled another seven.
As the table cheered for the sudden surge of fortune, Pinkie frantically thought back to all the places she had been just previously.
“I know I had that bottle when we jumped on that tree! I made sure not to lose it when that muckasaur and that monkey attacked us! I know for a fact it was still in my mane when we jumped on the ship’s deck! And I had it just now before we came in here--” Pinkie gasped, and her eyes shot wide. “That weasel! He picked my pocket!”
“Of course it was the weasel! You can’t trust any of them! Come on, Pinkie. Let’s get that sauce back,” Dash said, figuring that solving Pinkie’s simple problem would be no impediment to their more pressing objectives. That, and any excuse to pop a weasel in the jaw would do.
“Wait a secund,” Goofy said.
“Don’t worry, Goof. We’re just going to get Pinkie’s hot sauce back. We’ll take care of whatever’s waiting for us here afterward,” Dash said.
Goofy almost went after them, hoping more to find Max than a condiment. But, before he could try to leave, his arm was grabbed by the cervequin who had his loss suddenly turned into a victory.
“Non, non! Monsieur, vous devez rester avec moi! Vous êtes peut-être un porte-bonheur!” the cervequin said, as he yanked on Goofy’s arm.
“Hwuh!? B-But, I gotta go an’--” Goofy began.
The goof was nearly pulled off his feet, and accidentally kicked the dice out of another gambler’s hoof.
The gambler’s dice rolled across the craps table, and turned up rolling five and six.
“Onze!” the croupier declared.
The table cheered loudly, and the cervequin who had just rolled lucky eleven grabbed Goofy’s other arm.
“Obtenez votre propre, perdant! Je suis en gardant lui pour quand je roule à nouveau!” she said, yanking Goofy in her own direction.
“Sorry, ma’am. But, I ain’t got time to--Wo-ow!!” Goofy said, as his ankle was grabbed by another cervequin who hoped to attain some of the goof’s good luck.
Goofy hopped about on one foot, as he was pulled in three directions. Soon, he felt his other ankle grabbed and lifted into the air as a fourth gambler joined the tug o’ war.
The more that he struggled, the more he felt his senses overwhelmed by the smells and sounds of the room. Soon, he began to feel as if he had no reason to fight against his captors. And his will to search for his son was pushed to the back of his mind.
“Ahyuh-huh-huh-huck…” Goofy started to giggle to himself.
A short distance away from the craps table, another scene was playing out.
The Klepto brothers, Creep and Cheepskate, were working the roulette table. Unknown to the gamblers (though many suspected), the two weasels were cheating each and every one of them.
The bets were placed, and the ball was tossed into the wheel. Known only to the weasels, the ball had a tiny piece of metal embedded in its core, and magnets had been placed on the underside of the wheel. Creep surreptitiously placed the magnets on all the losing numbers, and the wheel was spun.
“Twenty-three! An’ it’s a table full of losers here!” Cheepskate said, as he collected the gambler’s losses.
“Zat’s five losses in a row for us all! Zis game is clearly fixed! Mécanicien! Mécanicien!” one of the cervequins at the table shouted, as he pointed an accusing hoof at the weasels.
Without batting an eye, Cheepskate pressed a button underneath the table.
A trapdoor opened beneath the displeased gamber, who was sent tumbling through the underbelly of the ship and ejected into the foggy waters of the swamp.
The other gamblers all watched in shock, as the trap door closed.
“Anyone else havin’ a bad time?” Creep asked.
“Non!”
“Non!”
“Tout va bien!”
“Mécaniciens? Quelle mécaniciens? Je n'en vois aucun ici!”
“Thaaat’s right,” Cheepskate said with finality.
He and his brother continued their rigged game, chuckling deviously over the job they had both been given.
“Ain’t this a sweet gig? I nevah thought I’d say this, but I’m glad that salty goon shanghaied us,” Creep said.
“Tell me about it. I never seen a bigger flock o’ pigeons! These guys is easier to fleece than a sheep in a coma!” Cheepskate replied.
“Pigeon? Fleece?” said the nearest gambler.
“You want summa what I gave the last uppity joyk!?” Cheepskate said, as he threateningly hovered his finger over the button beneath the table.
“Deux cents sur le rouge!” the gambler quickly said, as he placed his chips to bet.
“That’s what we like to hear,” Creep said, as he spun the roulette. “Awright! Whadda the resta you chumps bettin’? An’ make it snappy!”
He didn’t hear what any of the gamblers bet, when a sudden commotion drew his attention. Looking to the source, Creep’s eyes popped wide.
“Ten o’ clock, bro,” Creep said, clasping his hand on his brother’s shoulder.
Cheepskate looked to where Creep indicated, and what he saw made his eyes pop as well. There was the giggling Goofy, being pulled into four different directions by four different cervequins, each equally determined to keep him as their good luck charm.
“Cheese ‘n crackers! That’s the guy Rex was supposed to ice! What’s he doin’ here!?” Cheepskate said, shaking Creep.
“I don’t know!” Creep said, taking his brother’s hands off of him. “But, if he’s here already, then we oughta get ready to hightail it outta here!”
“I gotta tell the othahs!”
“Good idea!”
Creep and Cheepskate both tried running off at the same time, and ran right into one another. When they did, the roulette ball fell from Creep’s hand into the wheel.
“I’ll tell the othahs! You keep this racket goin’!” Cheepskate said.
Before Creep had a chance to agree, Cheepskate ran him over like a doormat.
Creep pulled himself up to the table, and heard the rattle of the ball in the wheel slow down. When he got to his feet, the wheel had stopped.
“Zéro! Je suis le gagnant!” said the one cervequin whose chips were bet on zero.
“Yeah, yeah. I got yer ‘gon-yon’ right here!” Creep said, as he paid out marked chips that were to be stolen by his cohorts, who were roving the game floor.
With a slurp and a gulp, Pinkie Pie finished her fifth drink since she had started looking for her hot sauce.
“Pony’s sake, Pinkie, slow down. You’re going to be bouncing off the walls at the rate you’re guzzling down that stuff,” Dash said.
“I can’t help it, Dashie! I binge when I’m nervous!” Pinkie said, before sucking down another drink from a passing waitress.
Dash rolled her eyes, and took a drink for herself. After what felt like an eternity of searching, she was becoming annoyed by constantly coming up short.
Her eyes darted about the room, watching all of the games being played. She knew that she could blow every one of them out of the water and eventually beat the house. But, she knew that she had to help Pinkie Pie first.
A sudden thought occurred to her. What was a place like that doing in a swamp, which was prowling with prehistoric monsters? Normally, a casino would be built where anypony could access it. Mulling these thoughts, she took a tiny sip of her drink.
The sudden sounds of giddy giggling reached Dash’s ears. Looking to the source, she saw a group of players at a big six giggling foalishly. Like the other gamblers, some of them were bouncing up and down.
At another table, some of the players were talking rapidly in a language Dash couldn’t understand. Many of the others were stuffing their faces with every hors d'oeuvre that passed their way.
All of these behaviors added in Dash’s mind to a very familiar sum. All they needed was a coat of pink, and the cervequins would pass easily as a Pinkie substitute. But, that was another oddity.
There had not been so many Pinkie Pie’s in one place since the discovery of a magical pool of water. Unless there was something in the water cervequins drank, Dash couldn’t think of any reason that such behavior would run so rampant.
Her mind clicked when she felt her lips touch her drink. Without even thinking, Dash abruptly dropped her glass, and spat out any remnant that lingered in her mouth. Something strange was going on, and she knew how it was spreading.
“Pinkie!” Dash sputtered.
Pinkie had gone from her side. But, she was easy to track down.
Dash noticed a candy floss mane at the big six, and hurried over.
“Pinkie! Don’t have any more drinks!” Dash sharply said.
The big six stopped spinning and landed on the image of a wickedly grinning cervequin.
“Joker!” the game operator declared.
Pinkie bounced happily up and down.
“I won! I won! The minties are mine!” she shouted as she collected her winnings.
“Pinkie! Listen to me!” Dash said, forcing Pinkie to face her.
“Never! These are my minties!” Pinkie declared, clutching the chips.
“Minties!? What are you talking about?” Dash said.
“The minties! The minties!” Pinkie hysterically said, as she waved a red and white striped chip in front of Dash’s face.
When Pinkie felt she had quite gotten her point across, she stuffed the chip in her mouth and started sucking. In a moment, she grimaced, wretched and spat the chip out.
“Yuck! Stale minties! They must have got that from the bottom of the candy dish!” she said, as she carefully inspected the next chip.
“Oh, Celestia and Luna! Pinkie, you’ve gone goofy!” Dash lamented.
“I haven’t gone goofy! Goofy’s gone! Wherever he is, I hope they have better minties!”
“Enough with the minties!”
They were lost in an unfamiliar place where the only friends they had were each other. They didn’t know yet why they were led to that place. They had already been robbed. They were separated from their friends. And now Pinkie was nibbling casino chips like they were bonbons.
“Mmm-mm. Butterscotch!” Pinkie said, as she swallowed a yellow chip.
“Pinkie!” Dash said, as she stopped her friend from eating another chip. “Listen, we need to make a plan. Like, now! Let’s go find Goofy and try to figure out what’s going on! If we don’t, we’re muckasaur bait!”
“Dashie, muckasaurs have been extinct for a bajillion years!” Pinkie replied.
Dash groaned and took Pinkie by the hoof.
“We’re going,” Dash resolutely said.
“But, my minties!” Pinkie said, as her chips fell from her grip.
Cheet Ripov was sitting innocently at the bar, sipping a drink that was served to him by Speekeezy, the elderly weasel who tended the bar.
Around him, everybody else sat enjoying their drinks, never knowing that the bar was not only loaded with drinks, but with every spike known to man. Everything from anesthesia pills to laxatives to pure, unfiltered rainbow. And not one of them knew when they would have something extra put in their drink to encourage a gambling habit.
Taking a huge sip of his drink, Cheet noticed the diminutive form of the weasel called Shlemeel darting toward him.
“What’s the take, my man?” Cheet asked, without glancing at his newest associate.
“Six G’s in marked chips, a few wedding rings, earrings, bracelets, anklets, (had a heck of a time gettin’ those off), about a dozen pouches o’ change and a bottle o’ hot sauce,” Shlemeel said, as he presented his haul item by item.
“Not bad,” Cheet casually said, as he discreetly passed the valuables behind the bar.
The haul was collected by Speekeezy, who sent it down a chute to the bilge of the ship, where the rest of the cache was stored.
“Woulda had more dough, but one of the schmucks I shook down just had a picture of his kid in his wallet. An’ let me tell you, that was one ugly little dybbuk,” Shlemeel said.
“You shoulda seen the buck-toothed nipper me an’ my boys brought to your boss. You heard o’ bein’ hit by the ugly stick? He was what happens when two ugly sticks duke it out,” Cheet said, as he grabbed the bottle of hot sauce before it was taken away. “Get back out there an’ keep makin’ us a profit. I’ll meet ya over by the VIP lounge in a bit.”
With those words, Shlemeel darted back into the crowd, past Cheepskate, who spun like a top all the way over to the bar.
Cheepskate continued to spin, even when he sat on a barstool, until Cheet grabbed the seat.
“What d’ya think yer doin’ here? Yer supposed to be fleecin’ this bunch o’ ninnies,” Cheet said.
“It’s...the goofs…” Cheepskate dizzily said.
Cheet was about to pop the lid off the bottle of hot sauce to pour into his drink, but stopped when he heard what his cohort said.
“What’d ya say?” he quickly asked.
“The goofs…” Cheepskate answered, forcing himself to lucidity. “I don’t know if they beat Rex, or what. But, they’re here!”
Cheet nearly dropped the drink in his hand. For anyone to face Theronicus Rex and live, that was one thing. To come chasing after him and the rest of his gang next: that was trouble all over. He quickly finished his drink, put the glass on the bar and pocketed his newly acquired bottle of hot sauce.
“Okay! This ain’t a problem! We just need to move things quicker than we thought! Slow the goofs down. Get the others. Get the kid. Then skedaddle!” Cheet said.
“How we gonna do that? We got no way out, nowhere to go, and a goof on our tails! We got a real big problem here!” Cheepskate said.
Speekeezy took an empty cardboard dowel from a roll of paper towels and stuffed it over Cheepskate’s snout.
“Thanks for that, gramps,” Cheet said. “Listen up: I’m gonna go tell Cray about this little development. You go get the others, an’ tell them we’re gonna ship outta here soon as I give the word. Sneek’s at one o’ the blackjack table, an’ Theef’s pickin’ pockets at the silent auction. Once you got all the guys, we’re outta here.”
Cheepskate pulled the dowel off of his face and went to work, first going back to the roulette to collect his brother.
Cheet started toward Mr. Cray’s office. Before he was two steps from the bar, a waitress with a tray of drinks clasped on her side walked by. Readily, he took one of the glasses.
“I wouldn’t drink anything on the way, if I was you,” Speekeezy said. “You want to stay lucid when you see the boss. It’s harder to duck when he tries to snip your head off otherwise.”
Cheet looked warily at his drink and placed it back onto the tray, before he hurried off.
Things were not looking up for Rainbow Dash. First, Pinkie’s hot sauce was stolen. Then, Goofy turned up missing. Now, after tanking up on so many of the unusual drinks, Pinkie was behaving like she had no self-control or social awareness.
Over and over, Dash had to keep pulling Pinkie from trouble. Whether she was riding on roulette wheels or trying to eat the chips of other gamblers, Dash had a time keeping her on task.
At the moment, she had lost sight of Pinkie yet again, and was frantically looking for her.
“Pinkie!” Dash called.
No answer came.
“Pinkie!”
Still no answer.
With a frustrated groan, Dash kicked her hoof on the carpet.
Soon, the scents of the room started getting to her. The many aromas all mingled to one and filled her head. And for a moment, she thought she could taste that drink again. That wonderful bichu bisou that had brought her that unique sort of joy she felt from nothing else.
With a tiny giggle to herself, she thought she could stand just one more. And as luck would have it, a waitress was walking by with a tray of drinks.
“Hold up. Thirsty mare right--” Dash stopped herself when she saw who was serving. “Pinkie!!?”
“Yep, and yep again, Dashie! I got a job to get more drinks--I mean, serve more drinks! See?” Pinkie replied, as she modeled her uniform, which was clearly made for a taller, slimmer creature. One with a name tag that read ‘Cristal Clair.’
“Will you snap out of it, already!!” Dash said, as she shook Pinkie so hard that her uniform was shaken off. Fighting against the urge to giggle, or to think about another drink, Dash reminded Pinkie of what they had to do. “Goofy! We need to find Goofy!”
“We don’t need to find Goofy. We have enough goofy between us to make two Goofys! How do we do it? Ooh! Let’s find a dog and train it to go ‘a-hyuck-a-hyuck’ instead of barking!”
Without her own awareness, Dash started laughing as Pinkie rattled off more suggestions. Despite her previous frustration, she was starting to enjoy herself. And to think that it was started by a bottle of hot sauce.
“Hot sauce!” Dash declared.
“Hot sauce isn’t goofy! Hot sauce is yummy-num-num-numminess!” Pinkie said.
“No! I mean we still have to find your hot sauce!” Dash corrected.
“Dashie, I feel so silly! How could I forget about my engagement hot sauce? Let’s go find it!” Pinkie said, suddenly forgetting about anything they had just been talking about.
Pinkie dropped her nose to the carpet and started sniffing like a bloodhound. Until she was pulled back up by Dash.
“That’s how you find bad guys, Pinkie. This is how you find hot sauce!” Dash said, as she revved up her wings.
Kicking an imaginary kickstart, Dash’s wings started roaring like a motor.
Pinkie hopped onto her friend’s back, and twisted Dash’s ear like a throttle
Then they were off.
Both mares sped through the casino, noticing only glimpses of anything around them.
It may have been the mixture of the drink she had and the strange scents, but Dash truly felt as if she were going as fast as she once could. And that alone put a smile on her face. Were she not going so fast, she felt liable to start laughing again.
Time slowed all around her, and Dash became aware of everything around herself a thousand fold. From the gentle bounce of Pinkie on her back to the exact number of fibers in the carpet. And all around she could see the precise movements of the many creatures as they played their games. The way they tossed their dice. Held their cards. Walked. Jumped. Hugged. Laughed.
Among the laughter, she heard one very distinct giggle. Though it sounded very slow, and from a great distance, there was no mistaking it.
“A-hyuck! Hiya, Dash!”
Looking over her shoulder, Dash saw Goofy waving at her as each of his limbs was held by a cervequin.
“Hey, Goof!” Dash called, as she waved back.
And no sooner did Dash finish talking did she crash into a table and crumple to the floor.
“Hey! Watch where you’re walkin’!!” the dealer shouted.
“You call that walking?” Dash said, as she tried and failed to stand up. “I’m the first mare ever to warp time! Nopony’s better than me now! And my friend here agrees with--”
Dash reached her hoof out to clasp Pinkie’s shoulder, only to find she was gone once again. She reached out to the other side, but Pinkie was not there either.
“Pinkie! Get out here and tell everypony how great I am!” Dash called.
“She’s not lying! Dashie’s the greatest, bestest, most greatestest mare who ever lived!!” Pinkie said, as she popped up from behind the table with at least ten packs of cards stuffed into her mouth.
“Hey! Gimme those!” the dealer shouted as he tried to wrest Pinkie’s jaws open.
“Never! These are my icy cream sammiches!” Pinkie protested, as all but one of the packs was shaken from her mouth.
In that moment, Pinkie froze and her eyes shot wide. Even in her goofy state, she recognized the dealer. The very same weasel who had made all of those unfair calls during the jousting match against Theronicus Rex.
“You!!” Pinkie and Sneek both said at once.
Sneek wasted no time escaping. He slammed Pinkie’s head onto the table, vaulted over her, landed on Dash and ran as fast as he could to tell the others.
“You call that a landing!? I can stop on a bit after a sonic rainboom!!” Dash boasted from the floor.
Pinkie rounded the table and gave Dash her pack of cards.
“Hold this! I’m going on a weasel hunt!” she said, before hopping after Sneek.
“Weasels? Naw. That was a blackjack dealer,” Dash said. Then, a thought suddenly occurred to her. Shooting to her hooves, she pinned the nearest gambler she could reach to the table. “You! Can weasels be dealers!?”
“Menthe?” the cervequin said, as he offered Dash one of his chips.
“I knew it!” Dash said, before she dropped the cervequin she was interrogating and ran to where she thought she had last seen Goofy. Only now, he was gone.
“Goof!?” she called out.
“Right here!” came the reply.
There was Goofy and his whole entourage were at the nearby slot machines.
One of the cervequins took Goofy and started rubbing his head all over the machine.
“Hey! That feels kinda funny,” Goofy giggled.
Less so when his head was jammed into the coin receptacle.
“Hwup! Hey! Lemme out!”
Instead, the gamblers pulled the lever on the slot machine.
The slots whirled around, until they all stopped on a symbol of a hollering Goofy face.
There was a loud buzz, the slot machine started to smoke, and the entire frame fell apart. Without any payout, no less.
“Aw! Ce fous n'a plus de chance!” one gamber groaned.
“Allons essayer de trouver un trèfle dans le marais!” another suggested.
And with a throng of agreements, the cervequins all left Goofy behind as they hopped away.
Dash trotted over and pulled Goofy’s head from the slot machine.
“A-hyuck. I been on a winnin’ streak. Yuh think we can stay a bit longer?” the goof asked.
“No time! Pinkie’s hunting weasels!”
“The bad guys? I’m on it,” Goofy said, just as he dropped to the floor and started sniffing like a bloodhound.
“We can’t sit around sniffing all day! Take these and come with me!” Dash said, as she passed Goofy the pack of cards Pinkie had given her and ran off.
Not knowing what to do with the cards, Goofy passed them off to the nearest creature he could see: his own reflection in one of the slot machines next to him.
“Take these, an’ come with me,” he said.
“Don’t mind if I do,” his reflection answered, as it put the cards into its own back pocket.
“Thanks,” Goofy replied, before he ran after Dash.
Sneek pushed his way through the crowd, looking for any familiar face to report to. Somehow, it seemed as if every weasel on the ship had disappeared. And to make the matter worse, he could hear the pink fiend relentlessly chasing after him.
Looking over his shoulder, he caught brief glimpses of Pinkie appearing over the crowd, determined to catch him.
Sneek tripped when he bumped into a patron with a drink and sprawled out on the floor. Looking up, he saw Pinkie bearing down on him.
“You’re mine!!” Pinkie shouted.
Sneek rolled to the side, and watched as Pinkie landed in the spilled drink, paying absolutely no mind to the weasel at all.
With a malicious grin, Sneek realized what a stroke of luck that was. The pink goof was hooked. Using the opportunity, he made good his escape.
“Sneek!” a voice called out to him.
Screeching to a halt, Sneek saw Theef, Cheepskate and Creep all hurrying over to him.
“I got bad news,” Sneek said.
“Ours is worse. The goofs are here!” Creep said.
“That’s what I was gonna tell you.”
“Ya already know? Great! Cheet’s already gone to tell Cray that we’re packin’ the kid up an’ shakin’ a leg outta here,” Theef replied.
“Come on. Quickest way to Cray’s office from here’s through the theater lounge,” Cheepskate said.
Sneek was about to tell them that they didn’t have to move all that quickly, now that the pink goof was hooked. But, something suddenly bumped into his shoe.
He did not even have time to look down, when Dash all of a sudden shot up in front of him, pointing a victorious hoof into Sneek’s nose.
“Found ya!!” Dash declared. “Hey, Goof! The sniffing worked! You were right!”
“A-hyuck! Never fails to catch bad guys,” Goofy said.
“Yeah. Who knew?”
Dash had been so busy talking to Goofy that she didn’t even notice that the four weasels had run off without her.
“Ah! Weasels on the move!” Dash shouted.
“Wizzy-weezy-weasel! Wizzy-weezy-weasel! Wizzy-weezy-weasel! Wizzy-weezy-weasel!” Pinkie shouted, as she resumed hopping after the ermine entourage.
“They’re mine!” Dash said, as she ran after.
“I got ‘em!” Goofy declared, as he swung back his fishing rod and cast his line.
He didn’t see what he had hooked, but knew it was something with plenty of weight.
“Got me a big wun!” the goof shouted, as he yanked on his line and reeled madly.
What happened next, Goofy didn’t know how it could have happened. Rainbow Dash came sailing back through the crowd with the hook caught in her mane, and crashed face first into Goofy’s stomach.
Both rolled backwards, until they hit a column.
“A-hyuh-huh-huh-huck! Rainbow Dash Trout! Now, that’d look good mounted on the wall,” Goofy giggled.
“Or a goof-feesh!” Dash added, breaking down into her own fit of giggles.
A sudden crash reminded them that they still had to catch Pinkie and the weasels. And after shakily standing up, they managed to follow Pinkie’s trail of destruction to a door that was lined with black curtains.
Past the doorway, there was a room that was so dimly lit that the hallway beyond could hardly be made out. And with every step down its length, Dash and Goofy kept bumping into walls, statues, and each other. Until they finally reached the other side.
It was a room very unlike the others. There were no games set. Instead, the only tables looked like small restaurant tables, each with two or three creatures sitting at them. Some of them ate and drank. Others simply watched the dancers on the stage at the front.
Unfortunately, the stage was the only part of the room with any decent lighting. The rest of the creatures appeared only as dark silhouettes with vague outlines, barely distinguishable from one another.
“Gawrsh. How’re we gunna find Pinkie in here?” Goofy wondered.
“How? I’ll tell you how. I’m gonna find her in ten seconds,” Dash boasted.
“Okay. We been here ‘bout seven now. So...eight...uh, nine...ten.”
“Starting now,” Dash said, before she quietly called her friend’s name. “Pinkie?”
“Pinkie? Where are yuh?” Goofy called next, as he ventured after Dash into the dark lounge.