Dinky wakes up raring to go. There was a lot she didn't get done yesterday! She quickly grabs some muffins for her bag, and eats one on the go. She hurries through the road leading into town, and suddenly skids to a stop. With her magic she pulls out some 'Neigh!' bug spray and quietly trots around the bend peaking around the trees. She hears a sound from deeper into some brush move toward her.
"AH!- Ha!" Dinky nervously jumps back, and sprays in the direction of the sound close to the ground while backing up. A snake flies out from the brush getting a big huff of bug spray and missing its target, its glowing red eyes watering causing funky illumination effects.
"Hiya!" Dinky twists and bucks the side of its head. The snake having been rattled, veers into the trees on the other side of the road swerving wide with its slitherings. Dinky stands proudly and awesomely. Maybe she can still get the jump on the parasprites if they are back from yesterday! She continues ahead brimming with confidence. She notices some tiny specs of red just further ahead and a soft buzzing sound. Dinky decides to sneak up on them, and moves through some brush. When suddenly there is one right in front of her face less than a centimeter away!
"Ah oh my Luna, its a parasprite! Ah!" She tumbles back the way she came through the brush trying to escape it, her bat falling out of her bag and spray can getting dropped someplace near. It was a jumbo parasprite. Instead of the size of a baseball its about the size of a cabbage. Dinky finds herself on the other side of the road, and comes up with a plan to get her stuff back.
"I was wondering what that buzzing was! Alright I'm going to do something I never thought I was going to do. I'm going to perform a tactical roll cuz I need the 'Neigh!' here alright. I can't see- that's 'Neigh!'- I have detected 'Neigh!' in the bush. I'll have to roll underneath the branch where the jumbo parasprite is looking at me. I'm going to grab my 'Neigh!', jump over the bush, then return to where my bag is." She sets her bag down, half talking to herself half talking to the Luna stone, tho she doesn't know if it hears her or not.
"Here goes." Dinky turns and psyches herself up, lowering her center of gravity and scraping the ground with her hoof, then charges for her spray can! Dinky yells as she runs past the brush under the branch the huge parasprite is in, grabs the can. At this point the parasprite pushes past some branches and leaves bumbling toward Dinky with some awkward momentum. Dinky grabs her can lifting it within her telekinesis range, and dives past the bush almost tripping over her baseball bat, it rolls toward her bag Dinky dives for. The parasprite thankfully seems to be caught in some leaves, its tiny wings don't help with its momentum she guesses. Dinky stands up noticing she was victorious again!
"Ah ha! Got you now, you motherbuck! Ye-heh-eah~!." Dinky lifts up her bat with her telekinesis, noticing the branch is in the way of knocking it down so it can get a good spraying.
"I'm going to gently touch the branch." She swings at the branch smashing it down, and the fat parasprite makes its way back to her slowly gaining momentum. Dinky runs back to her spray bag, and turns facing it.
"There he is!" She fumbles for her spray accidentally knocking it under her bag, not seeing it.
"Where's my spray! Where'd I put the 'Neigh!'! Oh-oh there it is!" She panicked as its moving sorta fast now its momentum having caught up with its aggression.
"Ha! I gotchu now!" She jumps to the side, sidestepping it and it slides past her unable to turn quickly.
"Mother bucker you wanna come to me and buck with me!" Once its nearly stationary from redirecting its movement she pulls down on the spray and accidentally sprays it into the wind some getting into her face. She coughs briefly and quickly adjusts her spray angle and it gets a blast of it in the face and looks sickly and cries.
"Oh yeah! Yeah, baby! I gotchu now! Ah ha ha! I got the weapon, mare!" Dinky sprays it again.
"Yeahhhh!" It bumbles away, eyes still red as it flees back into the forest.
"Yeah you better leave! And don't come back!" Dinky makes her way back to the bag.
"Oh my Luna that was a bunch of buck. I didn't get him but I threatened him enough for him to leave." She puts her saddlebags back on, and pulls out some muffins.
"Oh, Luna, victory, baby~." Dinky noms some muffins. They are pretty good.
When she is done, the other parasprites she detected seem to have left for now.
Dinky makes her way past the town toward the lower forest where she heard the odd music coming from yesterday. Sure enough she heard an odd melody. Following the sound from the road so she doesn't get surprised in the tight passages of the woods just yet. She hears a digging sound and sees a pile of dirt open up before her.
"Heya, its Magneto again." He adjusts his helmet again.
"Hi." Dinky considers digging him up and taking his helmet. She is going to need all the stuff she can get if she needs to take on the world!
"Couldn't help but notice your little fiasco and talkin' to yourself earlier." Dinky blushes and acts insistent.
"I wasn't talking to myself!" Hmph!
"By now you probably realize some area is better to fight in than others. Trying to ambush them is good 'n' all, but freedom of mobility is important. You always need a place to escape to, or to have advantage in. A far simpler way of saying it than yesterday I do believe so myself." There's an awkward pause.
"I see you're eyeing my helmet." Dinky turns away and blushes guiltily.
"M-maybe." She bats at the ground.
"I'll give you this helmet, on one condition." He holds a digit of his paw up.
"W-what is it? I'll do anything!" It would look so cool zooming around with this helmet, ha ha! Dinky thinks.
"Make some friends." She pauses her excitement and looks inquisitively.
"There's a treehouse just over there. There are some ponies there that would be glad to help you if they saw how cool and brave you are." Dinky blushes again.
"Your helmet is as good as mine!" Dinky excitedly makes her way in the direction the mole was pointing, forgetting her tasks temporarily again.
The filly walks through the woods following a path, looking up for the tree house and occasionally looking around to make sure nothing is headed for her. She spots a surprisingly slim subtle path ahead and approaches it. A figure emerges from the shadows blocking the path.
"What's the password?" The figure becomes visible as Dinky nears, a colt tall for his age, and older than Dinky.
"Uh, password?" Dinky asks.
"Correct." The colt gestures. Dinky facehooves.
"But I cannot let you in that easily. First you have to earn our respect. We don't know who you are. You could be incredibly lame." He continues gesturing. Dinky gets annoyed.
"I'm not lame! I can prove it!" Dinky stamps a hoof down.
"Then prove it you shall. The town has had a bit of commotion lately and we can't enjoy the arcade lately. You see, lately there have been a group of ponies who have been causing trouble... lately." Dinky grumbles at his word choices.
"Ok, whatever! I'll get that helmet! You'll see! Hah I'll take on the whole town if I have to!" Dinky's annoyance quickly becomes anticipation.
"Uhh, ok. Well, if you don't hurry it might just BE the whole town. Anyways can't have you loitering, bye bye now!" He gently and easily pushes Dinky out of the vicinity.
"Fine!" Dinky huffs, then smiles, and gallops into town to investigate. Trotting down the street she spots some ponies, then hides into a bush. She starts commenting to the Luna stone mutteringly.
"The commotion is a group, Luna. That group is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the ponies we are trying to save. But until we do, these ponies are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy." A woman carrying her groceries past the bush Dinky is in hears her and hurries along faster thinking she is crazy or perhaps, one of them Dinky thinks scratching her chin.
Dinky hides in a trash bucket, she sees a perfectly good half eaten piece of pie get tossed into, and eats it as she peaks out. And what she sees will shock you to your core!
Tiktokers! Memers! Ponies in Spandex! Ponies wearing pogger masks! They harass any normal pony trotting by then dab, dance the floss, or tip their fedoras.
"We can't stop here, this is bat country! And by that I mean these ponies are absolutely batty." One in a Batmare costume trots by and she hides further in the trash bin and quiets until they pass.
"I don't know what the source of this problem is, Luna, and I don't blend in. I'm going to need a disguise!" She says in a hushed voice. Then she gets an idea. She finds a paper trashbag in the trash, and pokes holes in it for her eyes, slips it over her head and her horn pokes through. Oh, a Morioh Katsu sandwich! Trash food for the win! Dinky bites into it, but theres something plastic in it. Its like a claw with five prongs. Maybe its some weird memorabilia. She casually exits the trash can, having painted in ketchup the abbreviation 'YOLO' across her 'mask'. From there she heads towards the source of the commotion.
Dinky spots the weird ponies entering and leaving the local arcade, but something else catches her eye. There's a flier up on the wall. She pulls it down to read it.
"'Trixie's terrifically tantalizing tales! Talks of tempests, terrors, travesties, travels. Tantamount to tragically tender touches. Tuesdays only.' But Tuesday is not tue-day! Hue." Luna would be sighing. Its Wednesday.
"Well, time to do the improbable." Dinky enters the arcade. The sound of many classic games can be heard, and many modern games. Bright flashing lights everywhere, different cool stuff to look at. Dinky looks at a game or two and heads to the counter once she remembers why she is here. Some green colt with purple short curly mane has his rear hooves up on the counter behind the glass, and is wearing a yellow poggers mask that is incredibly distracting.
"What can I do for you? We are all out of red poggers masks, we got fidget spinners, we got 'I love Trixie' pins, Trixie T-shirts, regular arcade stuff. Oh and we are all out of Hasbro Play Doh Slime, which was our best selling product, but we got in some My Little Human figurines. Based on a new show. Most of the ponies here only like it ironically, but I like it genuinely. Can you just imagine having hands?" He throws little bits of trash across his station to a trash bin but keeps missing.
"I got some questions! What's the deal with all the activity here lately? Its not even Tuesday!" He doesn't look particularly disruptive, and there is buck-proof glass between us so I think its safe to ask.
"Are you buying something or what, kid?"
"Will you answer me if I buy something?"
"Sure." She pulls her card out.
"Gimme, uh.. Um, a green poggers mask!" Dinky pays for it, and gives the clerk her 'mask', which he proceeds to miss throwing it into the trash bin, while she puts on her new disguise.
"Well. Since last night's show, it seems like some ponies were behaving brashly. My manager says not to worry about it, cuz sales have gone up ridiculously. It was ever since police closed off that road up the hill past the woods to the north side of town. Speaking of the police they haven't done much of anything about it lately either." He pulls out a fidget spinner and starts spinning it absentmindedly without looking at it. Somehow it spinning makes it hard for Dinky to pay attention and honestly its kind of demotivating. Dinky has trouble putting her card away with telekinesis suddenly, then she realizes- the fidget spinner is impairing her magic! She puts it away with her hooves, getting a little worried, starting to sweat underneath her mask. Tho maybe that's because its a bit obstructive. Despite the mask having a large mouth, there aren't any breathing holes just holes for her eyes to see through.
"Um, thanks I gotta get going." Trying to remove herself from the vicinity of the fidget spinner as fast as she can. This place is dangerous. As she turns she bumps into a pony wearing a clumsy t-shirt. Yes the shirt is clumsy its not me.
"Oh, we are pushing each other, is that what we are doing? Or are you wondering where I got these guns." The colt has shades on, upon closer inspection the shirt says 'Trixie Simp' and he has cheap colorful bands all over his arms and a tattoo of a kiss of lipstick on his bicep, which he promptly flexes.
"This is where Trixie showed appreciation to my bicep. Haven't washed it since. These are great biceps. Only Trixie treats them right. Their names are Sharon and Chevron." Dinky behind her calm pogger exterior is having a dire crises, she has to eugh~, blend in. Dinky clears her throat, struggling but succeeding to produce sounds of speaking.
"Uh, yeah, radical uh, bro. Trixie Simp for life! L I E F. Heh." Dinky's mask slips a few times from the sweat, and she struggles to readjust it, leaning on the counter next to a slurpee machine to hold it up, then casually takes somepony else's slurpee and chugs it trying to cool off to not sweat, also to act cool. and ends up with brain freeze.
"Hey you just stole that colt's drink... Uncool." He lowers his shades, and the rest lower their masks. The pupils of their eyes glowing cyan, the irises glowing neon red. Dinky gulps, and immediately dumps the slurpee in the Simp pony's face blinding him, remembers Magneto's advice, and sprints upstairs. There are more outside than inside, and only one can chase me up the stairs at a time. Some of the closer ones give chase, the rest put their shades and masks back up. Upon reaching the top of the stairs Dinky turns around and immediately begins throwing stuff from her bag out at her pursuers. She tosses and telekinetically pushes her shovel at one pony climbing the steps, the sprint getting her some gusto and her magic warmed up. Dinky starts to shiver with adrenaline, and swings her bat straight down on anypony entering within pony-length of her at the top of the steps and they struggle to get past each other. Dinky breaths heavily, her chest heaving, then, it slowly turns into badassery. She bashes some more ponies over the head, one tackles her to the ground and tries to club against his head with a telekinetic grip on the bat.
"Its going to take more than that to take me down!" She notices some ponies standing up, Dinky tenses. But they look confused. Maybe I hit them too hard?
"Sorry, I don't know what came over me. I was acting very poorly. And honestly. I was cringe. I apologize." Dinky wonders.
"Its that mare! She bashed me over the head with a shovel, get her!" They tackle past the pony-turned-normal trampling him. Dinky continues thinking. She clobbers the pony again, but this time with the bat.
"Ughhhh my head..." The cyan and red lights fade from his eyes.
"Oh! My magic cures them?" Whenever a unicorn grips an object with magic it tends to be fully encompassed unless there's multiple holding the same object, then magic dispels other magic and it becomes polarized, one holding each end. It must be similar with these ponies.
"They are in the grasp of another's magic, and to loosen that grip.." She tightens her grip, and knocks some more skulls around. Her grip isn't deep enough to reach another pony's mind yet unless its accelerating with an object. Kind of like that fat parasprite from earlier overshooting with its momentum. They put up some resistance, and eventually help her fight off the trouble-makers as she normalizes more ponies who just want to get on with their lives.
Dinky slurps a juicy slurpee indubitably. She looks at the doors leading to the back end of the arcade, leading to Trixie's outdoor stage. She noms a muffin. She uses her healing magic to recover from bruises and sore muscles. Soon she will have to face the crux of cringe. The master of madness. The obfuscator of obtuse oddities.
"Trixie!" Dinky bucks the doors wide open. Ok that kinda hurt.
Nothing a little magic can't fix~. Trixie turns and looks at Dinky, hanging out on her stage, getting pedicures from Simps.
"On behalf of the moon! I shall right wrongs, and triumph over evil! And that means you!" Dinky poses enthusiastically, all the awesome going to her head because her willpower was weakened by the power of cringe, and the awesome force of adrenaline! Trixie is unamused.
To Be Continued.