13. Overchanneled and Under Suspicion
Being as unaffected by the sirens as she had been, Spike was at Lyra’s side before anypony else, but Trixie reacted faster, reaching out with telekinesis and hauling Lyra up and out of the river’s bank. The other unicorn was shivering and had her teeth chattering, and was now covered head to hoof in mud and freezing water as she was laid onto Carrot Top’s waiting back. Once she was firmly in place, the ponies, zebra, and baby dragon took off from the river at full-speed, Spike hopping once more onto Zecora’s back after grabbing Lyra’s fallen lyre.
“Anypony else having second thoughts about this?” Trixie asked as they galloped, before looking to Zecora. “And why weren’t you helping Lyra? Those sirens were gonna kill us!”
“Yeah!” Cheerilee joined in. “You just stood there talking to yourself!”
Zecora shot the two of them glares as they finally came to a stop in a clearing far from the river. Most of the snow in it had melted, leaving wet, dead grass and mud that reached up to their fetlocks. “I am not immune to the siren’s spell,” she said, “without my mantra, they would have enthralled me as well. This way she had only five to save from a watery grave, rather than six from the sirens’ tricks.”
Trixie shook her head. “The sirens said that they’d met you before, though. I didn’t think that Raindrops had to specify this, but you’re supposed to be guiding us safely to the Palace, not right past a bunch of sirens! If you knew they were going to be there – “
Zecora looked indignant. “That river is many miles long,” she interrupted, jabbing a hoof in the direction that they had galloped from. “I do not know the range of the siren’s song, nor could I know where they chose to lair. I did not intentionally bring us there!”
Trixie opened her mouth to raise another objection, when she heard Lyra cough from atop Carrot Top’s back. The zebra probably had some good points, but Trixie didn’t have to acknowledge that, and she had more immediate concerns anyway. Trixie trotted over to Carrot Top and Lyra, looking her fellow unicorn over. Lyra’s eyes were closed, and she was breathing in short, quick gasps and still shivering.
“Is she gonna be alright?” Carrot Top asked, craning her neck to look at the pony on her back. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s overchanneled,” Trixie said, shaking her head again as she stepped back a few feet and looked down to the ground, her own horn glowing as she singled out a large section of grass. “Hang on, let me try to dry this – ”
Her spell was interrupted by a burst of green flame across the grass. The other ponies backed away in fright, looking to the flame’s source and seeing Spike, atop Zecora’s back, exhaling as hard as he could. After a moment, he stopped, panting a little. The area of grass that Trixie had singled out was now blackened to a crisp, but thanks to the overall wetness of the clearing there was no danger of a fire. After a second, he made a curious gesture of extending a hand with fist clenched, except for his thumb, which pointed straight up.
“…thanks,” Trixie decided, as she removed her cape and lay it across the burned grass, the enchantments in it ensuring that it was in no danger of catching fire, at least from the few fuel-starved embers that remained. She then took Lyra from Carrot Top’s back and set her down on the ground.
“Overchanneled?” Ditzy Doo asked after she was done. “What is that? Like magically working yourself to exhaustion?”
“No,” Trixie said, as she took Lyra’s lyre from Spike and laid it down next to the prone unicorn, “it’s like having ninety percent of the blood in your body sucked right out while trying to run a marathon.” The others recoiled in shock at that, as Trixie continued. “She poured all the magic in her body into what she just did. She’s running on fumes right now, basically.”
“Will she be okay?” Cheerilee demanded, dropping to her knees next to her friend.
Trixie shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “She needs magic. If I had an ether she’d probably already be awake, but right now all she can do is sleep and recover her magic naturally. It might take hours or days or…longer.”
“I could fly back to Ponyville and get an ether,” Raindrops suggested. “The hospital would have a few, right?”
Trixie grimaced. “Or we could all go back – ” she began, but was interrupted by Carrot Top.
“Wait,” she said. “Ether? Like from an ether flower?”
Trixie blinked. “Um…sort of?” she guessed. “Except no, ether flowers are too rare, so they’re really a mix of – ”
“They’re not rare,” Carrot Top interrupted, again. “I mean, not really rare. They’re just hard to get since they only grow in the Everfree and nopony wants to make a habit out of coming here. But they blossom year-round since they feed off of magic rather than sunlight! I could go looking for some.”
“A flower that restores lost magic power?” Zecora asked. “Tell me the appearance of your claim; I may know it by another name.”
“Blue, with red stripes,” Carrot Top provided. “The petals sort of look like small maple leaves. The stem is very toxic, but the petals aren’t. They grow low to the ground.”
“Ah, in my tongue this plant is uchawi maua, and I am familiar with its power. I know of a grove where we can find the flower; we could be there in half an hour.”
“And it’ll still be there?” Trixie asked, not wholly trusting Zecora’s sense of direction anymore. “Some animals won’t of come along and eaten them, will they?”
Carrot Top and Zecora both shook their heads, however. “Like I said,” the earth pony explained, “the stem is poisonous, so most animals stay away.”
“Alright,” Cheerilee said, pointing to herself and then Ditzy Doo. “Ditzy and I will stay with Lyra and keep an eye on her…I don’t want to move her more. Ditzy can take to the air in half an hour and provide a way for Raindrops to find us when you’re heading back.”
“Got it,” Raindrops said with a slight salute, while the rest of them turned and galloped off.
---
“You weren’t serious about giving up, were you?” Raindrops asked. Despite the initial speed of their pace, the ground of the Everfree – covered with overgrown roots, mud, and still-mounting mist that was now reaching their knees – had slowed their stride quickly. Zecora assured them, however, that they were making good time. Despite this, Spike and Zecora seemed to of taken up arguing with each other over something, though in low voices and not entirely in Equestrian. The three ponies chose not to intercede.
Trixie looked to Raindrops. “Lyra’s been hurt now. This is why I wanted to just come in here by myself.”
“You’d be siren food if you had come in alone,” Carrot Top pointed out. “Or worse. A lot of things that might attack a single pony would leave a group alone.”
Trixie shivered slightly as she dwelled on that, though also for more natural reasons. She hadn’t realize how much she had been relying on her cape to keep her warm; despite the sunlight being warm enough to melt snow and create fog and mist, it was still quite chilly in the Everfree, something that she wasn’t really used to dealing with for the past few years ever since she had first enchanted her cape. At least she still had her hat. It didn’t bear any elements-resisting enchantments of its own, but it was keeping her ears warm.
“So how do you know about ether flowers anyway?” Trixie asked, changing the subject.
“I tried to grow them once,” Carrot Top said, chuckling slightly at the thought. “I thought that maybe all they’d need is a little earth pony magic and care. But the seeds I’d managed to find never even budded until I dug them back up and put them back in the Ever – uh, Zecora, stop walking!”
The zebra froze, looking back to Carrot Top curiously, then down. Poking just up and out of the mist was a shoot covered with blue leaves. Zecora’s eyes widened and she said something else in her native language as she stepped backwards from it, Spike looking equally concerned atop her back, eyes very wide.
Carrot Top had stopped as well, as had Raindrops and Trixie. “What is it?” Trixie asked, eyes as wide as everypony else’s. Carrot Top was waving a hoof, trying to disperse the fog, but to no avail. “Raindrops?” she asked, “do you think you could maybe move some of this?”
Raindrops nodded, rearing up on her hind legs and beating her wings furiously several times in rapid succession. Her natural pegasus abilities made her far better at moving fog than the others, and in a few moments a large area of the muddy, root-choked ground was revealed. However, where Zecora had been about to step was covered in blue plants, most of them only fetlock-high but some growing much taller.
Carrot Top breathed out a sigh of relief, though Zecora’s own was larger. “Thank you, Carrot Top,” the zebra said. “I would not have wanted to walk through that foul crop.”
The earth pony nodded before looking to her companions. “Poison joke,” she explained. “Another magical flower, grows largest in the winter. Its effects are…less than fun…if it touches you.”
“No kidding,” Spike noted in a low voice. From the sound of it, he probably had some kind of personal experience with it.
“These were not here when last I went this way,” Zecora said. “Its presence my cause significant delay…”
Trixie decided not to raise a point about this being the second time Zecora had managed to nearly lead them to disaster, though not out of a sense of altruism. Trixie may not have been an official part of the Night Court until a few days ago, but she had certainly had ample opportunity to experience it. Amongst the Night Court, there was a saying: once was coincidence, but twice was conspiracy.
On the other hoof, Zecora had nearly walked into the poison joke herself, and her ‘plan,’ if it had been one, seemed poorly thought out. One used a poison because it could be done discretely, with little evidence leading back to the poisoner. One did not simply lead the hapless victims to a grove of poisonous plants and invite them to frolic.
Nevertheless, Trixie filed away her suspicions into her ‘interesting’ mental folder.
Raindrops trotted closer to the poison joke, rearing up and beating her wings once more and clearing more fog. The blue patch was large, stretching in the direction they had to go further than Raindrop’s wings could clear, while also stretching a long ways to the left and right, even as the pegasus moved to clear as much ground as possible. “Nuts,” Raindrops proclaimed as she settling back on her hooves, as Carrot Top and Trixie joined her. “This could take a while…”
“Time we don’t really have,” Trixie pointed out. “Leaving Lyra, Cheerilee, and Ditzy Doo by themselves, never mind whatever Corona is up to…”
“What does poison joke even do?” Raindrops asked.
“Depends on the pony,” Carrot Top noted. “It basically takes whatever you’re proudest of or something you really want and inverts it somehow, like some kind of cruel joke. It’s not poisonous, exactly, it won’t kill you or really harm you, and it takes hours to set in, but its effects can only be stopped by a special brew, which we can’t make this time of year; or really, really powerful magic, which we don’t have; or by just wearing off, which takes weeks.”
“We’ll have to find another patch of ether flowers,” Spike said, looking to Zecora. Nopony noticed the slight smile on his face. “There’s another one somewhere, right?”
“Indeed, that is true, one that is hopefully not obstructed by leaves of blue,” Zecora responded with a nod as she looked back to the group. “But it is several hours from here. We will have to hurry, else – have you gone mad?”
Carrot Top had taken in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and before Trixie or Raindrops could stop her, leapt forward, into the poison joke. A part of Trixie’s mind had registered that Zecora’s rhyming habit had been broken in shock, but most of her was focused on what Carrot Top had done.
The earth pony opened her eyes, then let out a long sigh as she turned around. “We need those ether flowers as soon as possible,” she stated in a determined voice. “Like I said, poison joke takes hours to set in. Zecora, just give me directions, I’ll get them myself, and we can deal with me later, after we’ve saved the world.”
Zecora blinked a few times. “Merely travel ten minutes that way,” she said after a moment, still fighting shock from her voice as she pointed straight ahead. “After that time, you should be able to gather away.”
“Alright, thanks.” Carrot Top said as she turned around and began trotting off.
Raindrops and Trixie looked to each other, then the poison joke and Carrot Top, then back to each other. With a nearly simultaneous sigh, both started after Carrot Top, eliciting a gasp of surprise from Zecora and Spike and prompting Carrot Top to turn around, eyes wide. “What are you – ?” she began to demand.
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Raindrops interrupted. “You said that the ether flower grows close to the ground, right? Might need my wings to clear the fog away.”
“And you might need my spells for…stuff. Or junk,” Trixie said, waving a hoof. “We’re already on a time limit, think of this as extra motivation. Besides, we can’t have you going off by yourself all martyr-like and making us look bad.”
“Uh, for the record?” Spike called from atop Zecora’s back, the zebra having not moved an inch as she was still trying to take in the insanity of the three ponies. “I’m perfectly okay with you going off by yourself all martyr-like. Me and Zecora will just stay right here.”
“Understood,” Raindrops responded, using a wing to give a lazy salute before turning back to Carrot Top. “Come on, let’s get going,” she said, trotting away. The unicorn and earth pony soon joined her.
“You two are idiots,” Carrot Top proclaimed as the blue leaves of the poison joke brushed against their fetlocks, their knees, and occasionally their barrels.
“Yeah. Yeah we are,” Trixie assured the earth pony. “Not that you’re much better. What if I have a spell that could have gotten us through this without having to touch it?”
“Or I have, uh, these?” Raindrops reminded Carrot Top as she flapped her wings several times. “I could have gone after the ether flowers.”
Carrot Top looked between Trixie and Raindrops, then hung her head. “I didn’t think of that,” she said morosely. “I was just thinking about Lyra.”
“Yes, yes, yes, you’re a giving mare to the point of being willing to walk through poison joke for somepony you don’t even know all that well,” Trixie said in a dry voice, though a smile appeared on her face as she said it. “And we’re the stupid mares who followed you ‘cause you’re rubbing off on us.”
“And making us look bad,” Raindrops reminded Trixie.
“Yeah, that too. Plus, you’re the one who pointed out how dangerous it is for a single pony in here, rather than a group.”
Carrot Top let out a long sigh at that, before raising her head. “Okay,” she said, forcing herself to smile.
The trio continued in relative silence at that point, soon finding themselves free from the poison joke that had dominated that part of the Everfree Forest. Raindrops beat her wings at regular intervals to dispel the fog, then the three of them would begin searching the ground for signs of the red-and-blue flower they were looking for. At length, they actually managed to find the grove Zecora had spoken of, set in the shadow of a cliff face where the sunlight probably rarely touched, even when it moved across the sky. The petals of the flowers did indeed look like maple leaves individually, though clustered together in bloom the appearance was more like a twelve-pointed, mostly blue star, with red lines running from the tips of the petals down the stem. The grove was large, at least as large as the poison joke grove, though compacted together rather than spread out.
“How many do we need?” Raindrops asked as she gingerly poked a few of the flowers.
“I don’t know, exactly,” Carrot Top admitted as she began using her teeth to tear off flower petals, carefully avoided the toxic stem. Trixie offered her hat to carry them. “I guess just fill up Trixie’s hat?”
The unicorn took an experimental sniff as Carrot Top, Raindrops, and herself began gathering petals. The flowers smelled a bit like dandelions – not an unpleasant smell, so she wasn’t going to regret this, at least, though a rumbling in her stomach suggested that she was going to be hungry from the experience of smelling something normally not available in winter. After several minutes, Trixie’s hat was brimming, and the three ponies looked to each other.
“This was…anticlimactic,” Trixie said, as the three began trotting back the way they had come from, Trixie using telekinesis to hold her hat aloft. As they reached the edge of the poison joke patch, Trixie continued. “I was expecting something more…well…more.”
“Things can’t be trying to eat us all the time,” Carrot Top pointed out. “Besides, we’ll be getting all the more we could want once the poison joke sets in.”
Trixie winced at that. Took something she was good at and twisted it, huh? Probably every spell she’d try to cast would be a fireball or something, then. Either that or she’d become so clumsy as to trip over her own hooves.
It didn’t take the three of them long to find Spike and Zecora again, the two of them being heard before they were seen – once again the two seemed to be arguing over something, though their argument quickly died when they spotted the returning three. “That was fast,” Spike noted.
“I know, made for a nice change,” Raindrops noted, as she beat her wings and climbed into the air so as to get a bead on Ditzy Doo.
Zecora looked over their haul of ether flowers. “With the power these petals can invoke,” she noted, looking to Trixie, “you could perhaps cure yourself of the poison joke. It would be wise to do so soon, lest the plant’s joke seal your doom.”
“Doom?” Trixie asked, raising an eyebrow.
“That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?” Carrot Top asked. She looked to Trixie. “Like I said, whatever it does to you, it won’t be dangerous. I mean, you might shrink down to half your height, or your voice might change, or something. But it won’t be innately harmful.”
Trixie blinked a few times as she considered. “We’ll see how much Lyra needs first,” Trixie decided. “Then see what we can do with the rest.”
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wat. Zecora's last line isn't a rhyme.
Oh, and minor grammar complaint since I'm on the subject of that line already: It should end with a period rather than a comma since there's no text after it.
I wonder what Spike's smile was all about.
Okay, something is definitely up here. Also loved the banter between Carrot Top, Raindrops and Trixie there. They're becoming friends already!
And I hope Lyra gets better soon!
495015
Oops, that's a little mistake on my part. The line was cut.
495123
Wouldn't you like to know.
...well, actually, I suppose you would. That's why you asked.
Well...you can't! Take that.
495225
No need to fret! Zecora is no threat!
495253
I am all about the knowledge.
Will... will you tell us in a later chapter? Please? I know I'm supposed to be patient and wait, but AH WANT IT NAOW!
495277
Yes, I'll tell you in a later chapter...
Oh man. I can't wait to see that joke set in. I predict much hilarity.
495253 So it's just Spike? Argh, you make it so hard to wait for more excellent chapters!
Overchanneling, huh? I wonder what it would take for somepony like Twilight Sparkle to get to that state. Hey! I can rhyme, too!
Anyway, it's pleasing to see that you are coming up with so many variations on how to show each pony's element. Who wants to read how somepony had to give up a piece of clothing or their mane to show generosity?
The only complaint is that these smaller chapters just want me to have more!
495336
I actually feel bad about the word count in each chapter going generally down. A mixture of work getting in the way and wanting this to be done so that I can get back to writing shorter stories is probably to blame.
Suffice to say I did not intend to write ~51,000 words when this began, however; and I had intended to do it in just two parts, like the actual pilot. It's weird - the chapters are shorter than I would like but overall this has gone on for longer.
oh good, i was hoping you'd let them channel thier life force through magic
it takes a hell of a lot of energy to sustain life in any meaningful manner, and that's an excellent explanation for where that giant surge of magic came from
495400
Magic is what gives ponies their power. It's an energy field created by all living things; it surrounds us and penetrate us and it binds the Galaxy together.
ALTERNATE ENDING
Heh. Good to see another chapter.
496128
FINALLY! I've actually been waiting for someone to call me out on that. Yes, the letter is a lightly reworded of the Vice Presidenctial Introduction letter from America: the Book. I knew that I was going to write a letter more-or-less like it and figured that as long as someone else had done the heavy lifting, I may as well slide it in as an easter egg and see who amongst my readers reads the same things I do.
Basically the same idea as Trixie Mollari from Chapter 4.
Woo Poison Joke Trixie. So hyped.
496585
i think for solidarity's sake. since her friend had already run through it, she might as well do the same.
even if they're not entirely past the friendship threshold yet
495336 "Overchanneling, huh? I wonder what it would take for somepony like Twilight Sparkle to get to that state."
Probably trying to raise the Sun on her own, or doing a rapid series of long-distance teleports, or something similarly outrageous.
Walking straight into a patch of poison joke to get a cure for a new friend? Very impressive, Carrot Top. Can't fault your courage or generosity here.
496705
This. Raindrops wouldn't think it right to fly over the poison joke when Carrot Top is already wandering through it, and Trixie, we'll, her heart has grown three sizes this day.
497789
What you did there. I see it.
Is there a Trial of the Elements that isn't going to be far more difficult than what the Mane Six had to contend with? I mean, when the two groups do get together and compare notes, I can think of six ponies that are going to be singing in the key of WTF when hearing about what Trixie and the others had to go through.
499541
Not all of them have been more difficult...
502754
I don't know, Pinkie Pie handled those SCARY TREES pretty well...
In a few chapters from now, things are going to suck.
Hehehe! It wouldn't be a Zecora meeting without poison joke involved. Makes sense Carrot Top would have some knowledge about them as most of the Mane 6 aren't gardeners (well maybe Fluttershy).
I wonder did she discover it by accident or those she own a copy of Super Naturals or are you saving that for a later tale.
Also nice Star Wars joke.
506456
Not very scary. Did you see the ents in LotR?
Lending more fuel to the 'Luna really wanted to be saved" headcanon right there.
Angry MOBILE trees can really mess the hay out of everything!
Minor niggle that I've realised while reading this fic. Applejack should have hunted down the rest on her own, and figured out they were going to Carrot's due to Trixie's relationship with her. Yes, only 6 elements of harmony, but I can't believe she would pass up the chance for a daring Applebloom rescue. Nopony ever said the only ponies allowed to engage mad tyrants had to be the elements..
Similarly Rainbow Dash would probably have shown up to help them eventually. Neither of them seem the type to stay out of the way when the world's in danger, no matter whose team they'd have to join. Just a little something to think about when you feel like bringing Corona back or breaking out Discord. They could make for a nice distraction at a pivotal moment since neither one of them would expect non-magical ponies to assault them directly. So I hope when Corona swings back around more Ponyvillians and maybe even some Canterlot tagalongs will join the fight.
Hark, what is this I see? Is Zecora's name for the plant rooted in Swahili?
Hmm, you make a good point there, Trixie. I was happy to accept that zebras do not have cutie marks, they have something largely unrelated on their flanks. But if the different universe has not lead her to have a different mark, then she could very well be working for Corona. Or Corona in disguise, except that hardly seems Corona's style.
Leading them into a patch of poison joke seems an odd betrayal, though; if you can delay them long enough for the effects to kick in, you've probably done something effective enough that the poison joke becomes unnecessary.
Raindrops doesn't seem the sort to walk through the poison joke when she could easily fly over it; she's more sensible than that. I've got my eye on you, RainbowDoubleDash. Don't think I won't call bullshit if necessary.
And it occurs to me that, if we assume Spike has a fair amount of inexplicable power to reshape the Everfree, him being the traitor would make a lot of sense. Maybe he's using freaky dragon voodoo.
>Some animals won’t of come along and eaten them
>Spike and Zecora seemed to of taken up arguing
Again, "of" should be "have"
2310006
We're I grew up, southern Georgia, "of" can and is used in that sense, so I think it's on purpose, not a mistake, considering it's happened nearly every chapter.
I think this is the clue to generosity, a lot less obivious than Rarity's but its there right now. Yeah, I admit to missing this when I first read it, but after SEVERAL fics and one really good one (FOE) I think I got it. Rarity was generous to giving up her tail and Carrot's is her own safety for somepony else. (Again, the elements all seem to have double meanings- Magic=friendship, Honesty=trust, Generosity=sacrifice, Laughter=hope-this needs to be discussed) Though again, we have an interesting change. Here, Carrot's about sacrificing something that really wasn't important to her, her own safety, while Rarity was sacrficing her own beauty, something that meant everything to her. I say its interesting because we know that our lady would do the same in a heartbeat. I also like the fact that its the farmer that is generous this time and not the fashiionista, almost kind of an obivious thing really. Farmers are always ready to share and give of their crops, just like Carrot. I also like her insider knowledge of the whole thing, how she knew what these plants can do.
The dreaded poison joke. The plant of your personal nightmares.
Just make sure not to ingest that stuff.
m.quickmeme.com/img/fd/fdffe1c84ef58b31466dd4fe4572a549e17288926cafc5f4445bcbc479dc9067.jpg
Once is strange, twice is coincidence, three times is a conspiracy.
You idiot, you have 2 functional pegasi a walking flamethrower and a unicorn that can probably act as a flamethrower.
5529821
I open my computer, and this is what i see??!
Typo: "animals won’t of come" - "won't have come". Please.
If nothing else, correct the three uses of this "of" in this story and don't use "of" like "have" anymore. I really enjoy this story, but every time I read this mistake, my good mood vaporizes. No sarcasm.
Please.
Also: "Its presence my cause significant delay" - "might cause"
Hey everyone! I finally finished riffing this story. Thanks to RainbowDoubleDash for letting me riff this story! This should be the end of riffing the Lunaverse for now. But I would do one if requested.
Chapter 13 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 -
Epilogue 1 - Epilogue 2
He, maybe?
*might
7473492 No, not "might." Just add an a in the middle. May.