//------------------------------// // Better Shape // Story: Certamen // by DarkBunny91 //------------------------------// "Vinyl, you have been making incredible steps towards recovery," Lyra pointedly commented as she jogged with me through the woods, "it's almost like you're a new mare!" Silently I grimaced, the words hitting a nerve. I opted not to notice that as the week progressed, I had found myself perceiving things more clearly and my reflexes had almost doubled. This morning for instance, I had woken to the sound of a wasp buzzing near my ear and before my brain even registered the source it was already being propelled at supersonic speeds in a "not by me" direction. Lyra tapped me with her magic, catching my attention; before I even turned, her elevated heart rate and heavy breathing told me what she was going to ask. With an audible plop, I sat down onto my haunches. The sharp stabbing pain was an unwanted reminder of four nights ago. I stifled a groan of discomfort as I watched Lyra lean against a tree, catching her breath. The morning sun glistened off of her coat, catching in the sweat that pooled around her shoulders and the nape of her neck. I chewed on my lip to avoid saying anything as I watched her wipe away the sweat, a sudden wave of hunger shot through me and I realized that Trixie was probably busy cooking up our breakfast by now. "Lyra, as much as I need the exercise, I need to get some grub in me before I die. I swear dude, I feel like I haven't eaten in a week." "You've been eating every morning, right?" Lyra asked, a tinge of concern infecting her voice. "Yeah, and every night too." "What do you normally eat like?" "A lazy college student. Potato chips, cold pizza, warm beer, and leftover Chineighs food," I quipped sarcastically. "I... that's not what I meant and you know it." "Hey dude, I'm being serious right now, this is a high metabolism and needing to work in awkward places during a gig, not diet and exercise," I said patting my belly with satisfaction. "Some mares would kill for that." I waved her off dismissively, my stomach doing its best impersonation of a whale as I waited for Lyra to finish panting like a dog. With her breath back, she straightened herself out; taking on a more regal bearing, we both set the animal inside aside as we started back to camp at a brisk pace. As we reached the clearing, I could clearly hear Trixie arguing with somepony. Her laudy, self-important tone continuously cutting off whoever was her current victim. Breaking into the clearing, I could see the Jasmine-yellow pegasus from the other night, backed into a corner by Trixie who was currently violently brandishing a ladle in her magical pink glow of death. As soon as she saw me, any concern for Trixie faded and I promptly became reacquainted with the ground in a flurry of speed, yellow, and feathers. A light peck graced my cheek as Raindrops abashedly helped me back to my hooves. "Vinyl, oh my gosh. I am so glad you are okay. I went looking for you the other night and all I could find was blood! I didn't know what to do, but Thunderlane suggested I try here. He said your friend was here practicing some light spell in the middle of the night last night and I just had to see if you were okay and..." "Woah, dude slow down. Breathe, I mean really. I take ponies' breaths away all the time, but as you can see, all two meters of me are here and in one piece." Her nervous energy bubbled out in giggles as she nuzzled into me, a contented sigh escaping her lips. I had forgotten how heavenly she smelled, the scent taking me far away to a place with just her and I - my tail flicked happily as I pictured it, until a huffy "AHEM" broke into my fantasy. "And who, by the way, is this? You shouldn't be playing with other ponies you know, she's obviously just here to steal our secrets or something," Trixie angrily scolded me. "What secrets do we have? Huh Trixie?" I responded with a little more force than necessary. My ears flicked agitatedly as Lyra went to stand closer to the obnoxious blue mare. "She does have a point, we don't really know her. We are competitors," she reproachfully mentioned. I might have imagined the spike of jealousy in her eyes as she looked at my friend cautiously. That's a little odd, is she mad that I am siding against one of the team? "I realize that, dudes," I muttered, warmth pulsing my face. "She's... a friend." Swallowing my fear and aggravation, I grinned and introduced them. "Raindrops is her name." To my - for lack of a better term - mare-friend I added, "The one who attacked you is Trixie, and my other partner is Lyra Heartstrings. But... aw ponyfeathers, I'm going to kick myself for this later, but you probably should go back to your team. They probably noticed you've gone missing for a while and might be worried about you." Raindrops looked away, and nodded forlornly. Why do I get the feeling she was hiding something? Aw horse apples, I'm probably just being paranoid. But as I watched her stride away in abject defeat, my heart began to pitter-patter to the beat of a song I had never heard, and I've remixed almost any beat you could think of. With Raindrops gone Lyra and Trixie immediately confronted me, pelting me with a barrage of questions and complaints about my new pegasus cohort. Trying to catch anything over the din of their prodding, I grew more and more frustrated at the futility of it. "Shut up!" I screamed. A stunned silence filled the clearing as I pointedly stomped up to the two mares. My face inches from Trixie's I whispered softly, menacingly, "Trixie, shut the buck up. For they love of Celestia, I will bucking end you if so much as one more word comes out of your mouth right now." I leaned closer to Lyra and asked her simply, "How do you know if you're in love?" Dumbstruck and her mouth agape, Lyra just stood there blankly. Flapping her gums like a carp, for once the outspoken talkative bard was speechless. "Equestria to Lyra. Snap out of it." I waved my hoof in her face a few times before bopping her on the nose. A quick indignant yelp dragged her back to reality, and with a mild stutter she gave me a really long complicated answer that involved something called oxytocin and hormone levels. I would be lying if I said I understood a single bit of it. "Um... what?" "I'm not repeating myself," Lyra responded agitatedly. "Trixie doesn't understand what drugs have to do with real love. She knows that some allow you to bypass it into a bed, but..." In a metaphorical flash I found myself leaping at Trixie's throat, but a literal flash of gold held me suspended in mid air. Unable to so much as twitch my ears in irritation, I silently protested the abrupt interference by the green bard. My teeth bared in anger, my jaws spread at an unusual width quickly drew a gasp of astonishment from my captor. Walking in front of me Lyra stared into my mouth, eyes wide in horror. "Vinyl... your teeth... they uh... um... look." She deftly snatched a small mirror from Trixie's hat, much to the magician's chagrin as she realized that her personal space and possessions had just been violated. I looked into the mirror and gazed upon my wavering reflection, a pair of sharp fangs jutting down from my top row of teeth and a sickly pallor encompassed my coat. Shaken to my core, all sense of aggression faded immediately as I tried to absorb the gravity of my situation. Lyra slowly set me down, releasing me from the binding. I tossed my sunglasses to the ground and wrestled the mirror from Lyra. I stared at my eyes for a long time, the new red glow of my magic a perfect match for my luminescent eyes. Shrinking back, I dropped the mirror, horrified by my appearance. I looked like some sort of horror movie monster, a creature of nightmare straight from the stories my mother read to me as a foal. A tear slowly cascaded down the side of my face, my eyes wrenched shut as I began to cry in earnest. Sniveling I wiped my face only to be given an even more macabre vision: the smears on my foreleg glistened a deep crimson. Panicking I ran to the spring and began to wash my face. A river of red spread from where the water splashed back into the pool. I sat there, unable to take anymore, a loud shrill wail escaped my lips. I screamed for almost a minute before I could feel my vocal chords start to strain and my voice begin to crack. I flopped down sobbing silently, my ears drooping to either side and my face covered with my forelegs. A cold hoof on my back and a soft, warm voice pierced the veil of misery as Lyra sidled up next to me. "Vinyl, I can't even pretend to know what you must be feeling like right now, but you're my friend. If there is anything I can do to help you, please don't hesitate to ask." I nuzzled up next to her, staining her coat red, but the warmth of her body began to permeate my soul. Pulling away, I splashed water on my face again. Washing away the blood, I got another good look at myself. I was startled to find that my eyes were back to their normal shade. The only thing that made it clear the past few minutes were more than a dream was the slight red stain around my eyes. Relief mixed with confusion and terror as I didn't know what to make of my new situation. As I thought about it, a heavy numbness settled over my spirit and I stood up, shaking out my fur. "Lyra, dude, I need to eat." "Huh?" She questioned. "Breakfast, I'm shaking so bad right now, I need to distract myself." I slowly marched up towards the front of the cave, a slight pang of guilt eating away at me over my reactions towards my two friends. My only two real friends other than Octy, I realized, except for maybe Raindrops, and that just made the rancid acid eating at my gut all the worse. Blissfully however, a cool breeze blowing into the front of the cave helped to soothe me a bit. I hadn't realized that Lyra was following me, being so sunk into my sullen hole, but I suppose that it was only logical. She spoke to Trixie, who had been sitting on the floor looking dazed and somewhat green, before I had a chance to - perhaps to save either of us from awkward embarrassment. "So, is the food ready yet?" Lyra inquired of her cheerfully. Trixie looked at me with something akin to fear before nodding her head towards the laid out bowls. "Of course the soup is ready, Trixie does keep up with her obligations," the mare snorted indignantly, trying desperately to get back to her old self. The klaxon call of the islands alarm system pierced the morning like a stiletto as we finished breakfast. The signal to gather for competition was met by universal groans from around our cave as Lyra finished tying her mane back into her bandana and Trixie clasped her cape shut. I continued scrubbing for a full minute, making sure every tarnish to my coat was washed away. Clean and refreshed from my earlier breakdown, I levitates my glasses into place and put my headphones around my neck to obscure some of the scarring. "Yes, Trixie gets it, you want to be presentable for televising, can we go now?" The conceited blue mare questioned. "Trixie, cool it, we have a bit of time, some of the other teams will undoubtedly take longer to reach the meeting spot, since we basically obtained the best real estate island wide," Lyra quickly put in. I waltzed out of the cave, my head held high, grey hoodie on and ready to face the world. I hit play on my mp3 player and let the music play softly into my neck, the vibrations setting a beat I quickly hastened to meet. Hoof after hoof, the cadence slowly reaching a crescendo as I picked up to a canter, Trixie and Lyra lagging behind by a few meters. Within a few minutes, the clearing came into view, one of the rather pony teams, apparently lead by a massive brute of a stallion with a mane of brown and short shaggy grey fur. A bear trap around a compass rose cutie mark rest upon his flank, indicating to some sort of talent in hunting. A little disturbed by the connotation, I shyed my eyes away and onto his two companions. The first was a purple on purple mare with a pair of gilded scissors emblazoned upon her flank, she was staring vacantly at the ground a veil of sleep over her eyes. The other, a small black maned stallion with dirty white fur, his cutie mark was a grave stone crossed with a pair of shovels, was nose deep in a book with a pair of headphones on. Something was vaguely familiar about the small stallion, so I trotted over to him and patted him on the back to grab his attention. He turned to look to me, pulling one earbud out as he set his book down. I recognized the track he was listening to as being one of my earlier songs. A big grin crossed his face as he eyed me down, "The names Shady Way, big fan miss Scratch." He held out a hoof, which I promptly bumped with mine. "Couldn't help myself," I confessed, "you looked like the most interesting member of your team. What brings you here?" "My label dropped my band after my brother quit, and I needed the bits. My older brother wanted me to strike it big on my own and unfortunately going back to the old family business isn't that good a pay, so he hooked me up with some bigwig executive connected to the studio and got me an in." "Really? What band were you in? What did you play?" "Oh, you probably haven't heard of us, My Toxic Affair, we had some radio play, but we never really went mainstream. I was the bass player." He shrugged off the last bit, seriously underselling himself. They were big when I was a younger filly, and I was really surprised that I didn't recognize him on sight. You're slipping Vinyl, music is your life because of guys like him. I facehoofed as I mentally scolded myself for being so stupidly forgetful. I actually learned bass before I started in the disk jockey business and recording techno, and this guy was my idol. Shady was only a few years older than me, and basically was why I even looked into making music as a foal. "You have grown up so much since I listened to you guys, I didn't even recognize you! Oh sweet Celestia I feel so dumb, you dudes were my favorite band all through high-school. I even saw you guys live a few times." With a quiet chuckle Shady said, "Wow, that's some sort of irony isn't it. My favorite musician is a fan of my old band." He quickly pulled out a small pad of paper and a pencil from a small space in the back of his book and jotted down a number. "Give me a call after this whole deal is over and I can introduce you to the guys. Hay, maybe we can even jam or something." "Dude, that would be so wicked. I'm totally holding you to it. Maybe you guys could come to my studio in Canterlot? We could set up my equipment and record something." "That sounds awesome, but uh Vinyl, the announcer guy just got here, so maybe we pick this back up later?" "Yeah, def." Slowly, the rest of the contestants filled into the clearing and gathered around the host. He was holding a map and tapping his hoof impatiently as we crowded around. "Fillies and gentlecolts, the day of the first challenge is here, and wouldn't you know it? We are going to start off with a little detective work. Somewhere on this island, a pirate and a magi fought one another for days, in the wake of the battle the wizard hid the magical amulet the pirate was seeking in an underground cave. Now, this amulet is a powerful talisman, bringing about luck to its bearer. The team who finds it will get to feel that luck right away, since their team will be immune to being disqualified or voted off for the duration of this week. We will begin after breakfast, so make plans with your teams and get ready to start looking." I turned towards Lyra and Trixie, "So gals, what do you think. We got this?" _____________ As a bard, I have many skill sets. Cooking, music, cartography, story telling, but never have I been a skilled finder of things. For the sake of my bandana and the two utterly city mares in my company however, I just became our tracker. Yay - wait, how the hay does Trixie not have any survival skills? "Are you sure you can't just locate it with magic?" Trixie asked me for what I swear was the seventeenth time. "No Trixie, whoever hid the amulet cast obfuscating spells over it. I have already tried to scry it but to no avail, and I swear if you ask me one more time..." "You will what?" "I won't stop Vinyl next time you piss her off." Trixie paused, her mouth hanging slack. The utter silence was refreshing. I took the moment to recompose myself. Where would I bury treasure if I wanted to be able to retrieve it but prevent a non-unicorn from reaching it. Somewhere with natural obstacles that would prevent an earth pony from easily traversing the terrain and without enough room for a pegasus to easily maneuver, like underwater, in a cave. There was a resounding smack as I realized we had probably been sleeping right next to some Cel-Luna damned magic artifact. "Girls... I think I know where it is." "Yeah?" Vinyl inquired, perking her ears up ever so slightly. "In our cave... under the spring." "What? Are you bucking kidding me?" Trixie shouted, "We have just spent two hours searching through the hills and you mean we could have accidentally choked on it in our morning soup?!" "I... no. It is probably buried under the water. I was unable to detect anything in the water, but if there are several layers of magic protecting it, that would make sense." "Trixie is going to buck you into next week." "Sorry, I prefer beige." "That's not what I meant." Trixie grumbled. "Dude, Lyra, you just broke Trixie. She said 'I'." Vinyl managed between snickering and snorting. "Sh-shut up. Trixie doesn't find this to be funny. She only has eyes for one." "Yeah," I countered, "Yourself." Trixie looked away, blushing a deep purple and digging into her hat for something. Ignoring her, I started galloping back towards our base camp at full speed, my tail waving wildly in the wind with reckless abandon. Our camp was virtually unmolested, only hoofprints and a blue mare with an hourglass cutiemark standing over our fire pit intruding on the otherwise sanctified resting spot. Moreover it was a mare I knew. "Colgate, what are you doing here? I mean here at my camp, not here as in on the island, because I saw you at the opening ceremony cussing out The Great and Powerful Windbag." "Just looking for the amulet," she looked around with a bemused expression, "and your magician." There was a ruckus behind me as Trixie and Vinyl burst into the clearing. Colgate stormed over to Trixie with purpose and conjured a small glove from the æther. I knew what was about to happen, but that amulet was so close if I was right. I grabbed Vinyl by the tail and dragged her into the cave. I cast a basic light spell forming a glowing ball of light overhead since our fire had reduced to smoldering embers after we left. The pale bluish light glowed eerily off the walls making our camp seem ominously foreboding. We made our way over to the spring, the placid water having become a daunting obstacle. "Hey Vinyl, do you have a water breathing spell?" "No dude, why would I?" "Polymorph it is." I muttered. "Huh?" "I'm going to be changing my form to allow me to navigate underwater, can you stand guard and make sure nopony interrupts me while I am down there? No idea what could be waiting for me." "Um, yeah I guess, what do you want me to do about Trixie?" "Eh, she is probably getting her flank kicked, just make sure it doesn't spill into here." "Oookay?" I turned to face the water, focusing my mind on the polymorph spell. The change began slowly, I could feel my bones and organs slowly reshaping themselves for aquatic survival. My hindlegs melding together with my tail, the bones fusing and cartilage forming in places not natural for a pony. My forelegs melting down into flippers, the bones essentially disappearing. Finally, the flesh along my neck severed, a pair of gills opening and new membranes forming to allow me to breath in the water. "Woah, what the hay are you?" Vinyl asked. "Just something I saw in an old tome. I think it's called a kelpie." I pulled myself towards the water, inching slowly until at last my flippers hit water. Taking the plunge, I took a deep breath, the sensation of water filling my mouth almost caused me to panic, but slowly I acclimated myself to breathing in the water. The inky murky blackness of the underwater cave was obscuring my vision so I quickly recast my light spell startling several small fish. I swam down to the bed and started poking around with a stick held in my magic before striking on something wooden. I cleared the sediment off of what appeared to be a door of sorts. I blinked a few times and tried to lift it, but it appeared to be stationary. I tried the handle and the door appeared to be unlocked so I slowly opened it. Much to my surprise, the other side was not just more sediment, but an apparently endless void of water. A large patch of sargasso floating in the void drew my attention so I pushed my head through the door. Looking either way all I saw was water. No apparent boundaries of any kind, somepony could get lost in here and never find their way back if they weren't careful. I pushed myself through the door observing that I could in fact still see my way through into the other side. Slowly and cautiously I swam towards the giant floating mass of kelp, looking it over carefully to make sure I wasn't going to be swimming into a shark or something. A slight glint in the seaweed caught my attention, I swam closer and upon inspection I found a treasure chest. It was an old falling apart box about a meter square, algae formed along the outside and there was corrosion upon the hinges and latch. I grasped the box in my telekinesis and pulled it from the sea grass. Disturbed by the sudden displacement in the water a skeleton lurched forward. I screamed but when the bones didn't move I calmed down. It was a little disturbing, but it didn't appear to be unread. But the old bones still reminded me what would happen to a pony who couldn't breath under water. I started to leave the sargasso when motion out of the corner of my eye quickly startled me. Swimming in my direction was the largest shark I have ever seen. Its mouth was easily large enough to swallow me whole and each of it's eyes were the size of my head. I looked back to the door swimming at a breakneck pace. I made the mistake of looking back for the giant tooth filled maw opened, revealing what must have been one of the most horrible deaths I could imagine. The mouth was almost upon me as I broke through the door. I turned back and I could see the inside of the mouth of doom, my light reflecting through the door and off of the creatures throat. Horrified I slammed the door shut and swam to the surface, box in tow. Breaching the surface I dispelled my kelpie form, my body reverted to its natural shape. Panting and sputtering, coughing up little globs of water, I dragged myself onto the shore with my prize. _____________ “Trixie’s victory shall taste sweet when the bard and the DJ hear of how Trixie bested you,” I said, standing happily over the unconscious light blue mare. “Hopefully Trixie can think of a good way to describe the battle to the other two that sounds convincing, Trixie does not want to appear weak, after all, knocking over a rock while running and throwing illusions around is not a very compelling story,” I thought aloud, suddenly aware of the fact that I cared what the other two thought. I must not repeat that. I kicked the mare with my back hoof as I walked over her, a loud crunching noise originated from underneath her. I painstakingly put all my weight into rolling her over a little to examine what the noise had been. I had to stifle a series of profanities when I saw the small gold, and more importantly, broken compass. I looked through the small saddlebag on my flank and found that my worst fear had been realized, the broken and slightly bloodied compass was mine. “How could Trixie have been so stupid as to lose her compass,” I whined out loud, not caring who heard me at this point, though the only one around I noticed was, at the moment, lying in dreamland. “And break it, Putain de merde!” Frustrated, I tried desperately turning around to see if I could find which way was north on my own, as the bard had at the beginning of this stupid show, but no. I've camped in the woods before, but never very far off the road, consequently being as skilled in the outdoors as Lyra is was simply a pipe dream. I plopped my hindquarters on the ground irate and seething. “The bucking fight turned Trixie all around, she is just glad she knows up from down, time and space getting distorted ruined me.” My head throbbed but I didn’t try to comfort my head with a hoof, afraid I would realize how tired I was from blasting ineffective spell after spell at the fat flank chronomancer. Knowing how lost I was, I decided against my better judgement, to saunter forward into the woods, picking a direction with little certainty that I would be right, and sticking to it. “If Trixie is going to be wrong, she is going to at least be persistent.” Hopefully I don’t get too lost, anyway it is an island so worst case scenario I will hit water. If the shadows were anything to run by, it must have been getting late. The late evening dew was starting to cling to my coat in sheets, my cape was soaked and I still hadn't found the camp, miserable would be a light description for my current state. Even with my poor survival skills I knew that I would need to get into shelter. The wind was picking up and the humidity, while already sweltering, was also increasing. A storm had to be on the horizon and if the conditions were anything to go by, it would be a doozy. I hastened my gait to a canter looking every which way for some sanctuary from the oncoming rain. A small cave looking crevice on my right loomed in the distance, so putting hooves to dirt as quickly as I could I galloped forth. On approach I noticed a few hoofprints near the cavern as well as signs of recent activity. This must be the campsite of one of the other teams, so I might even be able to find some solace with the company of other ponies. Dark would have been a mild understatement for the interior, even my daylight spell seemed only to slightly push back the darkness, though that may have just been a result of my diminished power from my earlier duel. I progressed deeper in, all trepidation lost as I heard the rain begin to fall torrentially just outside, some of it even splashing into the cave and splattering against my fur. I started into the old cavern, ducking under some bats that had taken up residency on the ceiling. Pushing deeper I noticed a gradual upward slope and the ground seemed to smooth out as if the stone was worked. I continued on until I hit a dead end, a large cul du sac with the remains of a fire pit and some fire wood. Using the little bit of magic I had left I sparked a small pyrotechnic spell into the tinder I arranged. I laid out my hat and cape to dry by the fire and leaned against the far wall with my flask. I took a firm swig feeling the warmth flow through me, revitalizing my reserves a little bit. With a yawn I leaned against the cave wall, the crackling of the the wood slowly eased me off to sleep. Crash I awoke with a start, the resounding echo of a thunderbolt lingered in the cave causing my ears to ring for a minute. Quickly catching my bearings, I quickly noted to my dismay that the path I had used to get in had flooded over during my nap, but part of the wall had collapsed and some sort of glow emanated from the other side. Curiosity getting the best of me I climbed up and tossed my cape and hat on. Fatigue still clung to my bones but the adrenaline fueling my body pushed me past it. The hole was small, barely large enough for me to squeeze through comfortably with only a few scrapes. Upon entering the room I was astonished, covering the walls were runes. Some I recognized from tomes of ancient arcane lore I had studied in the Canterlot Archives, this had to be some sort of summoning room. I walked around trying to read every rune I was able to, to make heads or tails of the situation. I paused on one, it was similar to the rune for Nightmare Moon, but altered slightly, the second half was replaced with the sigil for lands or realm. I cast my Magic Sight and the effects were almost blinding. There was so much ambient magic I was flabbergasted that I couldn't simply sense its presence, somepony must have cast one of the obacur-whatever-ing spells Lyra was talking about before because the matricies here were spectacular. It was almost as if somepony were trying to cast a major calling spell to pull in an extradimensional creature. Take that Lyra, see I learned stuff on my own. "You know, you have to be one of the most unlucky mares alive." A deep voice behind me said. I whipped around at a breakneck pace, almost losing my balance in my haste. Before me stood an extremely tall skeletal creature with bat wings and a pair of fangs like Vinyl. This must have been her assailant, a thestral, an ancient one at that. "Who are you?" I asked, stumbling back. "Surprise."