A Fruity Adventure

by King Fruit II of Apland

Chapter 7 - Of Bananas and Trees

The Fruitlord reflexively swept up a broken branch from the forest floor and swung it with all his might up and across the creature’s malformed head. To even his surprise, the animal collapsed immediately, its head exploding and coating the nearby trees with sticky purplish-red fluid. The Fruitlord wiped up a small amount on a finger and dabbed it onto the end of his tongue. It was… grape juice?

He looked down at the animal’s corpse and, sure enough, it wasn’t just one piece, it was an entire bunch of dark purple grapes. He noticed that not all the grapes were the same however, some of them were different shapes, forming legs, feet and a recognisable torso. Before he could examine further, The Fruitlord was startled by the lifeless body suddenly twitching, and within a moment the grapes were on their feet and stumbling around stupidly. The lord watched in horror as a few of the torso grapes began to move independently from the rest, and started sprouting teeth and ears. He took a short moment to glance at the soft blue beam of light bobbing through the sky, then took off at a pace he was entirely unfamiliar with.

“I wonder where the Fruitlord has got to.” Rarity said to her companions only a few metres above her head. “He really doesn’t seem competent enough to manage on his own, if you ask me.”

“I hear that.” Rainbow Dash replied with a snort.

As if on cue, the undergrowth nearby burst apart and the fruitlord tumbled out into the dirt, covered in cuts and scrapes, and tightly pursued by a number of angry, snarling grape-beasts.

“Kill them Rarity! Quickly!” He yelled, as he went to cover his head with his pale, skinny arms.

Without speaking, the unicorn’s magic signal beam turned from blue to an alarming, burning red. She swept her head in an arc and the rigid beam followed, cutting through the trees as though they weren’t there and setting fire to the area immediately nearby. The fiery death laser quickly reached the grapes and sliced both creatures neatly in two. The individual grapes that had avoided the direct beam exploded from the heat and threw juice all over the nearby area. The job done, Rarity’s beam of ultimate destruction cooled down with a whine and the pony collapsed to the floor.

In the burning aftermath of the sulph-furious weapon, the trees above crackled softly as the flames died into embers that fluttered down. The huge black bounded tear in the canopy allowed a sliver of blue to be seen beyond. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had descended with Twilight to see what had occurred, and the group gathered around the exhausted Rarity.

“That was scary as shit” Rainbow Dash commented, “I didn’t even know you knew how to do stuff like that.”

“Well I don’t think it fits my character very well so I don’t bring it up.” Rarity replied from the floor, between breaths.

“Well it saved my skin.” The Fruitlord said, “So I should thank you for that. I hope it hasn’t taken too much out of you.”

“I’m alright.” The unicorn said, and rose shakily to her feet. “The side effects don’t last too long.”

Soon enough, the party were moving again, and the Fruitlord decided that he wouldn’t go off on any solo adventures again in the near future. They hadn’t made it too far, however, when Rainbow Dash shouted down from above the trees.

“Uh, guys, I don’t want to cause any panic but I think there’s something following you.” She said.

“How do you mean?” The Fruitlord responded, looking all around.

“The trees behind you, they keep moving. I think it must be something fairly big.” The pegasus replied. “Just keep an eye out, that’s all.”

Before the ground party had even made it 10 more feet, Rainbow yelled something unintelligible from above and the undergrowth to their rear burst open, and three more grape beasts sprinted out, snarling and drooling through their ill fitting grape jaws. Rarity and the Fruitlord screamed and ran as fast as they could in the other direction. They didn’t make it very far, however, before they were stopped dead in their tracks by an enormous clawed foot almost as big as one of the ponies. They looked up and took in the monstrosity before them, almost as tall as the trees themselves, this bunch of grapes must have been ten times the size of any of the others they’d seen.

“Well,” The Fruitlord shakily began, “Looks like we’re in the shit a bit here.”

“Yes, this large monster made of grapes is about to kill us.” Rarity said, seemingly unfazed by the perilous situation.

As the alpha beast began to close in, it let out a horrifying, and eerily human scream, like a woman getting raped in an echoey alleyway. It was about to lunge when the gigantic monster inexplicably crunched into the ground with a yelp. The three creatures behind turned tail and ran away in panicked fear, only to be speared through their backs and simultaneously pinned to the floor, whining. At a second look, the largest animal was trapped under a mesh of sinewy ropes, weighted around the edge with rocks.

With a burst of frenzied hollering and shouting, a large group of bananas jumped down from the treetops and began to loudly dismember the creatures they had trapped grape by grape. The monsters howled in pain as each of their body segments was wrenched off and carried away by a member of the banana tribe, who seemed totally comfortable with it, laughing and joking with each other. Two of them had shoved their grapes onto their elongated heads and were charging and headbutting each other in front of a small cheering crowd, before they were scolded and broken up by an older fruit.

Soon enough, all that was left of the grape-beasts were twitching woody skeletons, and the Fruitlord thought that the bananas had gone their own way and totally ignored the strange foreign trespassers. Alas, it was only a moment before the two pegasus ponies and the stretcher tumbled through the tree canopy with a shout and thudded into the ground under a weighted net of their own. Immediately afterwards a circle of bananas somersaulted from the bushes in every direction and shoved spears in the faces of the party, shouting unintelligibly.

Unable to resist, all of the ponies and the fruitlord were tied with ropes and forced to march back to the banana village fairly close by. As Twilight was still unconscious, The Fruitlord carried her on his shoulders, clearly an extremely difficult task for him as evidenced by his naturally pustulating red face getting even redder and even greasier.

The banana village, when they got there, was actually strangely tranquil. the cleared trees meant that the entire settlement was illuminated and the little painted mud huts looked quite comfy with the little trails of smoke curling from holes in the roofs. Young bananas ran around in the empty spaces between the huts and adults talked and laughed around the currently smouldering bonfire in the centre. All activity ceased as the captives were walked through the huts and to a wooden cage at the far side. Rainbow Dash felt uneasy as the dozens of eyes bored into her, clearly so alien in this place. She feared that with Twilight unconscious and Rarity too weak to use magic, they might not be able to escape in time.

The bananas themselves seemed less horrendously inept than the pears the ponies had come across at the beginning of their travels. These fruits had very rudimentary stringy arms with two claw like fingers on the end of each. They moved themselves around with these arms, using their pointed torsos as a third support. The inside of the banana curve was the front of the creatures, with one eye in the centre and a circular, lamprey like mouth. The eyes of the bananas were very much the same as those of the pears, with bulging blood vessels and a complete lack of eyelids.

The travellers were thrown into the muddy cage and remained there until nightfall, when their yellow hosts grew irritable and rowdy. Rainbow Dash watched as they all began to gravitate towards the now raging central bonfire. Each fruit grabbed a grape from the enormous pile and used their unusual mouths to suck out the pulp of the grape, before throwing the remains onto the fire.

The bananas then broke out into a frenzy of dancing and singing around the fire, their undulating voices drowning out the gentle ambience of the jungle night. The chanting became louder and louder as time went on, and the dancing ever more wild and uncontrolled. Eventually, the festivities reached a crescendo and the bananas went totally crazy, tearing into each other and throwing flaming pieces of wood in all directions.

“What the fuck are those things doing?” Rainbow Dash yelled over the cacophony of screams and crashes.

“Killing each other and throwing burning stuff around.” Rarity replied, watching the spectacle vacantly, the flames reflected in her enormous pupils.

“Yes but why?” Rainbow frustratedly snapped back.

Rarity shrugged, “For a good time?”

Not knowing how to respond, Rainbow Dash turned her attention to the Fruitlord sitting in the corner of the cage, Twilight draped limply over his lap.

“Could you stop touching her for one minute?” She said between gritted teeth. The Fruitlord self-consciously retracted his spidery hand from the pony’s tangled mane and muttered an apology under his breath.

A heavily intoxicated banana broke away from pummeling another in the face with a large charred rock and instead chose to stagger drunkenly towards the cage in which the captives were being held. a whole portion of the fruit’s thick skin had been peeled away and was dragging behind it, revealing the soft, pale innards. Its bulging eye had also sustained some damage, with a light yellow fluid slowly leaking out of it.

“oh Jesus Christ, what does this thing want?” Rainbow Dash complained, slouching onto her haunches.

“Don’t worry.” Rarity said, rising to her feet. “I’ve got this.” She swaggered over to the bars of the cage and leant against them.

“hey guurl” The banana slurred, collapsing onto the wooden bars.

“Hello mr banana.” Rarity replied. “Can’t help but notice you’ve got a fair few grapes over there.”

“you bet we’ve got lots of fuckin' grapes.” The banana boasted, “The grapes in our land are the greatest in the forest!”

“And you expect me to take your word for that?” Rarity asked incredulously, looking down her snout at the disgusting, oozing fruit before her.

“Ey you don’t need to believe me, you can try for yourself.” The banana wobbled back over to the grape pile, fighting off attackers and dodging flaming projectiles all the way. He grabbed a purple ball and ducked and dived his way back to the cage.

“Here you go girl, eat up.” He handed the fruit through the bars and Rarity grabbed it in her telekinesis, wincing slightly at the use of magic so soon after a death beam. She took a big bit out of the grape, spraying juice onto her face, neck and chest.

“Hm, you’re right.” she said with a mouth full of pulp, swaying slightly on her feet. “This is really good shit. I can’t just take this from you without giving anything in return, here, have some of this.”

A blue line sliced through the air in front of the unicorn’s face and two baggies fell out of it. She picked them up with magic and hovered them through the cage to the banana. “Here,” she said, “try some of this.”

The banana tipped the entire bag into its unusual sucker mouth, eliciting a gasp from Rarity. Its already enormous pupil swelled up even further and the fruit began to shake violently.

“holy fuuuck” It shouted “This is unbelievableeeee! Do you have any more of this shit?”

“Oh yes.” Rarity smirked. “lots more. Even better, I can show you how to make your own, if you’ll let us out of this cage.”

Rainbow Dash immediately caught onto the plan and stared at Rarity in disbelief.

“Ey you just let me go and tell the others, we’ll get you out of there.” The banana said, lurching back over to the fire. Everyone stopped murdering each other and looked at their coked up friend, before moving their eyes over to the captives. Before long, the crowd of grievously wounded fruit hobbled their way over to the cage and unlocked it.

Rainbow Dash sat curled up in the outskirts of the village, looking in at the crowd in the centre, Rarity giggling in their midst and producing more and more narcotics from thin air, each more unusual and exotic than the last. The bananas were fascinated by the plethora of substances, not used to anything beyond their grapes. They smoked, ate and huffed their way through the selection of powders and pills until they could barely stand up.

The Fruitlord wandered over and sat down cross legged next to the pegasus, resting his chin on top of his hands. “Twilight still isn’t coming around.” He said sadly.

“Well I hope she gets better soon.” Rainbow replied, “I don’t want to spend any more time with these weirdos than I have to.” She glanced over at the dancing fruits, covered in fine white dust. “I’m also sick of having so much dialogue, I was pretty happy as a side-character.”

The fruitlord chuckled slightly uncomfortably at this outburst and looked away to see an old-looking, slightly more sober banana hopping in his direction.

“Your friend has bestowed a wealth of new information on us, including the ancient knowledge of growing our own mind bending substances. We no longer have to rely on the grape migrations for sustenance.” The banana said, addressing Rainbow Dash. “You must be proud of her.”

“I guess.” Rainbow shrugged in reply.

“In return, our tribe will release you from captivity and find other fitting sacrifices for the sky god.” The old fruit announced happily, “We cannot thank you enough. Consider us bananas to be forever indebted to you, and if any one of you are ever in our land, never worry, as we will be sure to keep you safe.”

The banana turned to go back to the group, but quickly changed his mind. “And one more thing,” He said, “Rarity tells us your friend is unwell. Please, bring her to my hut and I will try my best to repair any damage.”

“That sounds great.” Rainbow Dash said, standing up. “Fruitlord, go and bring her over.”

In the crude mud hut, the elder banana erected a cooking pot half filled with grape juice and threw in a few assorted leaves in a cliche mysterious witch doctor kind of a way. He then heated the mixture and stirred it with a large stick for a few minutes. Once the herbal potion had cooled down to a reasonable temperature, he poured a fairly large amount down the unconscious pony’s mouth, a lot of liquid escaping and dribbling down the sides of her muzzle.

Twilight suddenly awoke with a start, gasping for air and breathing unhealthily fast. Her pupils filled up almost her entire eyes and she began to quake violently for a few seconds before calming back down.

“What the fuck just happened?” She blearily asked, looking at Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Fluttershy by the wall of the hut. “Oh hey guys, you know I just woke up from the weirdest dream. We were all in a weird fruit world and had to help some lanky ginger fuckwit save the world or something.”

The Fruitlord looked hurt and timidly cleared his throat, prompting Twilight to look over in his direction. She cried out in shock at the sight of him, then several times immediately following as she took in her surroundings and the fruit creatures all around.

She took a moment to compose herself. “well.” She said, “as it unfortunately happens, this situation is not just a nightmare, and is something we need to deal with. So what happens now?”

***

The party said their goodbyes and were escorted from the village by a banana guide. Rarity lagged behind, giving last little tips and bidding farewell to her new friends. Once they were on the trail, Twilight began to wonder what had occurred while she was out cold.

“What actually happened while I was out cold?” Twilight asked while they were traversing an overgrown trail, following their guide.

Rainbow Dash spoke up from the back of the line. “The long and short of it is that we stretchered you through this forest, Rarity fought off some angry grape monsters with a death laser, some bananas killed yet more grape monsters and kidnapped us, Rarity saved us once again by bargaining her way out of captivity with narcotics and we woke you up with the help of an old guy.”

“I didn’t miss anything interesting then.” Twilight replied.

“The Fruitlord also touched you up loads while you were out, in case you wanted to know.” Rainbow added. The alicorn didn’t reply.

After many more hours of stumbling over tree roots and hacking through plant life, the endless jungle finally started to break up, with trees becoming more sparse and more sunlight breaking through, shooting down in shafts onto the mulchy ground.

“I cannot accompany you any further.” The banana guide said solemnly, “I must return to my village now, you can see the way out of the forest yourselves.”

“Why can’t you leave the forest?” Twilight asked, “does sunlight fuck you up or something?”

“No. Our people have not left this forest for hundreds of years. Legends tell that we were first driven here by a formidable beast, and that any banana who leaves will be cursed by it, and bring death and famine to his village. This monster lives in the mountains to the south, do not venture there if you value your lives. I must go now, travel safely.” And with that, the banana ran back off into the thick darkness of the trees, leaving the party alone once more.

“I think I know what he was talking about.” Rainbow Dash said once the guide had gone.

“What do you mean? You believe his silly superstitious fairy tales?” Twilight replied incredulously.

“Yesterday morning, while everyone was still asleep, I looked out above the trees.” Rainbow said. “I saw some sort of enormous flame to the south. Maybe that’s what that guy was on about.”

The Fruitlord spoke up, “Perhaps, Dash. But for the time being lets just keep heading for New Stalk City, and see where we can go from there.”

The ponies and the man continued out to the edge of the forest until they finally broke out of the last scrubs and saplings and got a good view of the next step of their journey.

Laid out before them was a vast grassy plain. It was unlike the neon green fields surrounding St Peartersburg however, as the ground was uneven and wild, and the grass was long, marshy and brown. These weren’t cultivated plains, they were untouched by man or fruit. Deep gorges cut through the land, and craggy rocks poked out from it, making jagged cliffs and crumbling slopes. A number of streams cut through the grass, feeding into a large river running down from the mountainous southern border and towards the west where the party were heading.

And there, on the horizon directly ahead, an enormous structure towered over the landscape, poking into my butts and out of sight. The lower parts of the thing were covered in stone and wood, and loomed over the surroundings like a fortress, although the upper parts were still bare and brown, with a rickety scaffolding skeleton separating the two distinct layers.

“Behold,” The Fruitlord announced, with his arms stretched in front of him, “New Stalk City.”

Comments

[Pearple Prose]

well meme'd my friend ;)

[PenileCorrectionSurgery]

"Like Lord of the Rings, but with fruit. 10/10"

-Patrick Stewart, IGN