Hold the Press

by Bunnybooze79

Chapter 12

Ponies nearly choked on their meals as two ponies ran through the outside area of the local restaurant.

The outfits caused a few ponies to blush and cover up any nearby foals eyes. Without a word the duo ran by. The masked pony dressed up as Mare-Do-Well snatched two tomatoes from a plate while the other scandalously dressed mare snatched a bottle of ketchup from a table. A moment later a bunch of reporters rushed by in hot pursuit of the pair.

“Quick!” Lyra led the way into the labyrinth of alleyways behind a few blocks of houses. “I have a plan!”

Vinyl obediently followed her friend. The use of her magic on top of running would sap the last bit of her pitiful remaining strength very quickly. Luckily Lyra knew that and decided they would have to end the chase now.

After a few quick turns they had put a good amount of distance between themselves and the reporters. The pair came to a sudden stop as they turned into a dead end.

“Take a swig of the ketchup!” Lyra commanded and looked around for any possible escape options if they needed any.

Vinyl didn’t have any gas left in her tank to object and did as she was told. After taking a good amount of the ketchup in her mouth she swallowed it with some difficulty.

“Now what?” Vinyl coughed once.

“Don’t swallow it!” Lyra flopped on the ground and smushed the two tomatoes she had liberated from being eaten against the top of her head. “Just take a mouthful of it in your mouth and dribble it out.”

“What?”

“Do it!” Lyra snagged the sunglasses from Vinyl’s face with a squelching sound. The doughy substance had framed the sunglasses nicely. Now it seemed as if Vinyl’s bright red eyes were sunken deeply within the sockets. “Perfect!”

Vinyl dribbled the ketchup back out of her mouth and resisted the urge to wipe her face. Lyra snagged the bottle away from her and dumped some of the ketchup on the squashed tomatoes on her head. Then she flung the bottle to the side out of sight.

“What is going on?” Vinyl didn’t follow what Lyra was planning.

“You’re a zombie!”

“Huh?”

“Don’t tell me Octavia never showed you one of her zombie movies.” Lyra heard numerous hoofsteps growing louder. “You are a zombie and have just eaten my brain. Get in character….fast!”

“What?”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” Lyra yelled out in mock pain and laid still on the ground.

For a brief moment everything was quiet. Then the hoofsteps grew quickly louder as the reporters homed in on the yell. All of them suddenly rounded the corner and came face to face with a scene straight from a horror movie.

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Rapid Flash’s eyes nearly bulged out of her sockets as she saw the scene in front of her.

Lying on the floor was the masked pony with a large bloody mess on top of her head. Slowly the photographer cast her eyes over to the pony standing beside the seemingly dead pony. The mare in the raunchy outfit seemed slightly lost for the moment, but it went unnoticed by the reporters. All they could see for the moment was the mare’s bloody mouth. Blood red eyes stared wide eyed at the shock-frozen paparazzi.

“Uh…” The voice was raspy and sounded slightly confused. “Brains?”

Dirt Sheet suddenly jabbed his hoof into Rapid Flash’s side causing her to jump in terror.

“Pictures! Quick!” He ordered her while also slowly moving backwards towards the exit.

With jittering hooves Rapid Flash readied her camera and took a blurry picture of the scene in front of her. A few other photographers followed her lead. Then the mare in front of them took a step forwards. A collective gasp went through the reporters as they froze in place again.

“Brrraaaaaaiiiiinnnnssss….” Vinyl had trouble talking. The running had made her throat hurt and her voice was even more raspy than usual. She took another step forwards and watched with some amount of relief that the gullible reporters were genuinely freaked out by her appearance. “Tiiiinyyy diiirttyyyy brrraaaaiiiiinnnsssss….”

The mare suddenly jumped towards them. The reporters yelled out in terror and turned around to flee the scene while taking a few pictures as long as they could.

“What was that?” Rapid Flash asked after they had left the maze of alleyways and were back on one of the main roads through Ponyville.

“That was out story!” Dirt Sheet didn’t stop and kept running towards the train station.

“What about Fleur?” The pegasus ran alongside her partner and looked back only to see the other paparazzi following them.

“Forget her for the time being!” Dirt Sheet had his hooves on some gold right now and he would have to work fast to publish it before his competitors. “We’ll come back for her later.”

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Neither Vinyl or Lyra moved for a few minutes.

Only once they were sure to be alone did they both let out a sigh of relief.

“Nice work, Spanky.” Lyra said as she got up from the ground and removed her now soiled mask.

“Don’t ever call me that again.” Vinyl growled and sat down on her flank. The DJ was thankful for finally having a moments rest.

Her legs hurt and she really could do with something to drink to quench her thirst. It slightly annoyed her that Lyra seemed to still be full of energy and not even breathing very heavily. Vinyl decided that it had been enough exercise for one day, or week, or month…no…enough exercise for the rest of the year for her. The rest of the year would be spent lying on the couch and not moving unless absolutely necessary.

“That should have given Fleur enough time to get away I reckon.” Lyra began stripping out of the rest of her costume. After a moment Vinyl decided it was time to shed her current garments as well.

“Ahem.”

Both mares jumped at the sudden sound. Standing only a few paces away was Spooky Noodles. Instead of taking a picture he just gave each mare a rather creepy smile.

“I just want to say that I am impressed at what you just pulled off.” Spooky Noodles slowly trotted towards the surprised duo. “If you feel like getting together to….discuss….it in some more detail, here’s my address.”

The grubby stallion slid a equally grubby looking piece of paper over to them with his address written in barely readable letters. Neither Vinyl nor Lyra were to keen to even touch it.

“Yeah….that won’t happen.” Lyra just stared at the stallion and shook her head.

“Why not?” Spooky Noodles gave them a slimy grin.

“Well…” Lyra bit her tongue to not tell him to stick the paper where the sun doesn’t shine. He knew who they were and that might lead to problems along the way. Lyra chose to take the more diplomatic route instead. “You see we are both comfy on our side of the stable….if you know what I mean.”

“No problem.” The stallions grin turned even slimier. “I don’t mind just watching.”

He turned around and left the two mares staring after him. A few seconds later Lyra picked up the piece of paper with her magic ripping it into small pieces and scattering them on the ground.

“I need a shower.” Vinyl said after removing the last pieces of clothing she had been wearing.

“I think I need one now too.” Lyra shook her head to rid her memory of the strange stallion. “But I think we should head back to the castle first. See if Twilight has come up with anything useful.”

Vinyl grunted in response. Lyra gave the DJ a quick look once over and hid her grin. The flour covering her had turned into a beige dough apart from the places where Vinyl had been wearing the risqué outfit. It was fairly obvious that the DJ had been wearing a very interesting set of garments and Lyra was curious to see the effect it would have on the others.

“That’s too far.” Vinyl got up on all of her hooves with some effort. “Let’s go to Rarity’s instead. Tavi and Bon Bon are there and I don’t think Rarity would mind if I used her shower.”

“We can sneak through these back alleys.” Lyra agreed after a moment of thought. “Ok then. Let’s go.”

“Can you carry me?” Vinyl wasn’t too keen on going anywhere on hoof.

“We’ll walk slowly.” Lyra replied as she took their costumes in her magical grasp and bunched them up into a nice little ball.

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“I made a couple of pictures like you asked.” Spooky Noodles informed his silent partner waiting for him near the main road.

Slandermane only nodded once ever so slightly in response.

“Do you think they’ll come by my place?” Spooky Noodles looked back towards the alley where that strange little showdown had taken place.

Slandermane chose not to reply and merely got slowly moving towards Sweet Apple Acres.

“Yeah….I thought not.” The strange stallion shrugged and followed the tall pony towards their new destination.

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“Stop! STOP!” Rainbow Dash yelled out in a futile effort to avoid the immediate accident.

Her pleading fell on deaf ears. Pinkie had joined the constant involuntary laughing from Derpy and kept giggling along very much to the annoyance of Rainbow Dash. The copious amounts of hairspray had given up the battle to keep Pinkie’s hair down causing her mane and tail to revert back to their poofy appearance. The result was that Derpy’s belly was being tickled even more. With tears in her eyes and short on breath the pegasus did her best to help get them towards Twilight’s castle.

It had been going rather well up until this point. Using a few narrow back alleys they had managed to avoid being seen despite the constant laughter. And it was here at the end of the alleyway that their progress would be halted.

A pony appeared at the end. Curious about the laughter the mare with the light blue coat and distinct colors of her mane had stopped to see what was going on. She then had frozen at the sight of three clumped together ponies approaching her very fast.

“Move!” Rainbow Dash’s order was ignored or overheard by the mare.

Pinkie Pie had used her front hooves to hop along to the best of her ability. Summoning all her strength she hopped as high as possible to try and avoid the pony in her way. It was barely enough to clear the back of the mare. With a thump she landed with her forelegs resting on the mare’s back. Derpy felt her efforts being halted for the moment and gladly gave her wings a rest, but kept chuckling from being tickled.

“Do you mind?” Colgate asked in a sharp tone addressing Pinkie Pie.

“Great….just pony-flipping great….” Rainbow Dash murmured more to herself.

“I don’t mind at all.” Pinkie happily replied.

“I meant would you please get off my back?”

“I can’t do that, silly.” Pinkie giggled.

“Why?” Colgate turned to the grey pegasus. “And why are you laughing?”

“I can’t help it…” Derpy burst out laughing again.

“We are stuck on you.” Pinkie answered.

“Stuck? What? Why? How?” Colgate turned her attention back to Pinkie Pie.

“Because I am coated in sugar and am now stuck to your back.” Pinkie happily explained. “Just like Rainbow and Ditzy are stuck to me.”

“WHAT!?” Colgate scrunched up her face in disgust. “SUGAR?!”

“Oh great…” Rainbow Dash knew what was about to happen.

“I just spent the entire day trying to fix the damage done by sugar and now you tell me that you are stuck to me with that infernal stuff!” Ponyville’s resident dentist was about to go into a rant. “Today I had six patients with massive….”

“Give it a rest Colgate!” Rainbow Dash wasn’t in the mood for hearing any kind of rant right now.

“My name is Minuette!” The mare didn’t really mind being called by her nickname when her mood was good. After more than ten hours fixing pony’s dental problems her mood was not classifiable as good. “Sugar is evil! I have been saying constantly, but none of you ever listen!”

“Fine, fine, FINE!” Rainbow Dash raised her voice until Colgate went silent and just glared at the pegasus. “Do you have any water with you?”

“No.”

“Then you are stuck here with us and the next possible option for us to get free is in Twilight’s castle!” Rainbow Dash snapped at the dentist. “Get moving!”

“Excuse me?” Colgate had no intentions to move anywhere but home. “There is bound to be somepony close by that can help us.”

“Yeah, that’ll look good won’t it?” Having no control over her limbs to force Colgate to move Rainbow had to resort to verbal methods instead. “Ponyville’s dentist stuck here thanks to sugar.”

It didn’t take long for Colgate to see how it would look to others. She would no doubt never hear the end of it if word got out of her sudden predicament.

“Where were you planning to go?” Colgate finally asked with a sigh of defeat.

“Like I said!” Rainbow’s patience had run out long ago. Evident in the way she snapped her answer to the dentist. “The castle! Move!”

Colgate managed to crabwalk her way towards their destination while Derpy did her best to keep Pinkie’s back hooves off the ground and still laughing uncontrollably.