The Perfect Little Village of Ponyville
Chapter 8: The Auto-Fetching Forehoof
Applejack raced ahead of the others to have a talk with Big Mac, who was standing outside the tree house. Piles of paper with Apple, Inc.’s letterhead had been stacked all around the tree’s trunk, and something was smoldering from behind Big Mac’s back.
If Apple, Inc. had made itself rich off of illegal slave labor from Ponyville, then the moment when a rescued Princess’ representative was about to spill the beans was the perfect time for an evidence-eliminating “accident”.
Pinkamena walked right up to Big Mac, then reached around him and knocked his torch to the ground, quickly stomping the embers into charcoal. She then walked back around and looked him in the eye for a few seconds before turning her attention to Applejack. “‘Too civilized to burn the books’, huh?” she asked, before walking into the tree house. Although she was doing her best to hide it, inside Pinkamena was trembling in fear at the thought of the tree house burning around her.
Crammed into the room at the top of the stairs were Applejack, Graphite, Vinyl Scratch, Pinkamena, Rarity, the two pegasus guards assigned to watch her, Soarin’, the Empress Rainbow Dash, and the Empress’ enormous ego. Big Mac was relegated to peering in from the top of the stairs. All of the remaining space in the room was taken up with hundreds, if not thousands of books. They had originally been stacked into precarious towers, but those towers had long since collapsed, leaving books shoved into the spaces between the furniture, and covering said furniture to the point where that furniture became completely unusable. Rather like sand dunes, the chance of a further collapse, a “book avalanche”, or “book-alanche”, was a near certainty the moment anypony was foolish enough to attempt to remove just one of the books within a hoof’s reach.
The lack of space reminded Vinyl rather strongly of Celestia’s teleportation room.
“I’m ready for your proof, Miss Scratch,” said Rainbow Dash, climbing up on the bed so she could be higher than everypony else.
Vinyl Scratch looked around her at the haphazard piles of books and scrolls. She noticed that Pinkamena was in a sense of awe—with her sheltered upbringing it was possible that this room contained more books than she had ever known had existed before. “OK, Exhibit A. Let’s see...what was the name of that book...Predictions and...no wait, my world, here it would be...” By this time she was mumbling to herself.
“Speak up!” exclaimed the Empress.
“Songs of Things to Come!” Vinyl exclaimed. “Which...I brought with me!” She retrieved the libretto from her saddlebag and placed it on the table in the center of the room. As she did so, the letter from the Princess to herself fell unnoticed to the floor. “Canzone 42,” she read. The page the book was opened to was covered with sheet music and lyrics. “The Maa-aa-aaaayaa-aaaa-aaaaare ii-iii-iiiiiiinnnnn...” she attempted to sing. “Attempted”, because Canzone 42 was a baritone solo, and therefore a bit of a stretch for her. She turned the page. “Thhheeeee-eee...”
“GET ON WITH IT!” screamed Rainbow Dash.
“Right, I’ll paraphrase,” Vinyl said, flipping through the yellowed pages of the libretto. “The Mare in the Moon was once a rival to Princess Celestia, but was then banished to the Moon for a thousand years. She had been so powerful in fact that only the artifacts known as the ‘Elements of Harmony’ were able to do even that much to her.”
Soarin’ leaned over the pages then flipped a few of them back and forth to scan the lyrics within. He then turned and nodded up at the Empress.
Vinyl put the libretto carefully back into her saddlebag, then searched them in hopes that she’d find the other book she needed there. No such luck.
“Exhibit B?” prompted Applejack.
Vinyl sighed. “There’s a book all about the Elements in this room, I’m sure of it.”
The ponies looked around them, several of them twisting their heads around to read the titles of upside-down books. However, most of the books were inaccessible to all but mountain climbers.
“Missy, it looks like you done run outa luck,” said Applejack.
Vinyl Scratch froze for a second, then suddenly relaxed. With a suspiciously casual tone, she addressed a distracted Pinkamena from over her shoulder while reaching a forehoof back towards her. “Pinkie Pie, could you please get me The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide?” she said quietly.
“Here you go,” Pinkamena said, balancing the book on a forehoof. She then did a double take as Vinyl took it. “OK, two things,” Pinkamena then said. “First, don’t ever call me by that name again. And second, what kind of freaky powers does this Pinkie friend of yours have, anyway?!”
As she looked around her, Pinkamena suddenly realized that she saw little labels floating in front of every book with their titles and possible uses. Next to each earth pony and unicorn was an information box with their birthdays, likes and dislikes. As far as she could tell, the only reason the pegasi in the room lacked these boxes was because they hadn’t been around Ponyville long enough for her to suck the information out of their skulls.
“No!” Pinkamena exclaimed, slamming her head sideways into a nearby pillar. When her vision cleared, she nodded at what she was no longer seeing. “Much better.”
“Oo, I wanna try!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash, hopping down from the bed to stand beside Pinkamena. “Pinkie Pie, could you please get me The Great Big Pop-Up Book of the Pony Mind?”
“Here you go,” Pinkamena said automatically, then stared goggle-eyed at the book the Empress then took from her.
“Neat!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash, putting the book down on the table and starting to flip through it. “I’m gonna look up exactly what kind of ‘crazy’ you are!”
“Oh yeah?!” exclaimed Pinkamena. “Pinkie Pie,” she ordered herself, “could-you-please-get-me Bigby’s Book of Non-Unicorn Mental Magic?” As she said this, she stared at her left forehoof. She saw it flick, so fast as to be nearly imperceptible, and come back into focus with a book balanced upon it. She couldn’t be sure, but in that split second she also thought she saw her foreleg stretch far more than should be physically possible. “Gah!!” she shouted, nearly dropping the book. Shaking her head to recover, she then slammed it down on the table and started looking for something nasty to do to the Empress.
Vinyl used her magic to pull both books roughly away from the two readers. “Ladies, ladies!” she pleaded. “We’re here for the Elements. Remember?”
“Fine!” the pink and blue ponies said in unison.
Vinyl glanced down at the reference book open before her to be sure it said what she already knew that it would say, and then recited the text from memory: “There are six Elements of Harmony, but only five are known: Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty and Loyalty. The sixth is a complete mystery. It is said the last known location of the five elements was in the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters.”
“But that’s in the Fluttershy Forest!” exclaimed Rarity.
“Exactly,” said Vinyl, before doing a double-take. “Wait, the Fluttershy Forest?”
“It used to be known as the Everfree Forest,” said Applejack, “until a day...”
“Wait, let me guess,” said Vinyl, putting a forehoof to her eyes in exasperation. “It was on Skybreak, wasn’t it?”
Applejack blinked in surprise. “As a matter of fact, yes, it was on that day.”
Pinkamena caught Rainbow Dash turning her head away in shame during this discussion.
Vinyl Scratch looked around the room. “I am going into that forest to get those Elements, all six of them.”
Rainbow Dash looked her in the eyes then walked over to stand beside her. “As am I,” she stated confidently.
Pinkamena took a deep breath, glanced briefly at her “auto-fetching forehoof”, and joined the other two. “I’m in,” she said quietly.
Vinyl looked her up and down. “Do you still need to wear the mask?” she asked.
“Oh, right,” replied Pinkamena. “‘My quest is at an end,’ and all of that. Here goes nothing...” She removed her mask, to absolutely no reaction from the others. “Well...that was disappointing. Of course, if I actually had a secret identity, the big reveal might have meant a bit more.”
Vinyl looked back and forth between the two ponies committed to this quest.
According to the script on her world, there should have been at least two more volunteers from among the ponies in this room.
“What are you looking at me for?” Applejack said in response to Vinyl’s baleful look. “I’m a rich businesspony. I pay other ponies to do the physical work.” She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I suppose you need brains as well as brawn. Very well.”
Rainbow Dash looked back and forth between Vinyl and the last pony she was looking at. “What are you looking at her for?” she asked. “She’s a suspected felon!”
Vinyl nodded. “You’re right—we should do something about that.”
Vinyl led the others back to City Hall, along the way spotting Spike watching their progress from a second-story shop window. Surrounding the building when they got there were several panicked unicorns and earth ponies, frozen in the act of fleeing for their lives; the hall itself contained dozens more.
Vinyl turned around and confronted Rarity at the entrance of the hall. The former Mistress of Ponyville looked awful. Her mane hung over her face like a tattered mop, and her tail resembled a rough purple rope. “Release them,” Vinyl ordered her. “I’m going to get us through this in one piece, but if I don’t, you owe it to them to release them before we go.”
Rarity nodded nervously, and then closed her eyes. As her horn started glowing, a single sweet-sounding note started building in volume around them, like each of the frozen ponies was blowing on identical flutes. As the volume swelled, the note developed into two notes an octave apart, then into a major chord, then a minor, then a minor seventh, then a diminished seventh, the sound becoming more and more discordant. As a music student, Vinyl could barely stand to listen to it, while Rarity was visibly gritting her teeth. Finally the sound broke into pure noise, and then faded away.
All of the frozen ponies swayed for a moment before collapsing to the ground. Rarity herself nearly lost her balance as her horn’s light went out, but was able to catch herself in time. Inside the hall, the sound of the Mayor crying uncontrollably could be heard.
Most of the ponies recovered rapidly, with Rainbow Dash’s guards helping the rest. The Empress made a speech about putting aside her differences with the ground-dwellers for the extent of the emergency, and extending all the resources of Cloudsdale to assist in their recovery. She then sent a guard back to her capital to make good on her word.
An earth stallion, faded scarlet in color, spotted Rarity and made his way straight to her. “You!” he exclaimed, pointing. “You ruined all our lives!”
“I only did what I thought was best!” Rarity pleaded.
“You made me break up with my fillyfriend!” he shouted.
“She was no good for you, I assure you!”
“But who gave you the right?”
This question was taken up by the others: “Who gave you the right? Who gave you the right?!”
Rarity hid her head under her forelegs and trembled.
The stallion stepped forward until he was towering over her. “Something needs to be done,” he proclaimed somberly.
The others nodded grimly to each other.
Vinyl Scratch shoved her way between them. “She’s coming with us,” she told the crowd defiantly.
“There’s more of us then there are of you!” the stallion shouted. “How are you going to prevent us giving her what she deserves?”
The ponies in the crowd murmured among themselves, trying to come up with an appropriately gruesome punishment.
The Empress, watching the confrontation, decided to stand back and see how this pony who had assumed a position of authority over her would handle this situation.
“I’m going to give you a choice!” Vinyl said loud enough for all to hear. “Either you can ‘give her what she deserves’, now in this square without a shred of legal authority to hide behind, or you can watch the sun come up tomorrow morning. Your call.” She then turned and walked away.
The self-appointed leader of the mob looked around him warily. “How do we know you’ll bring her back?” he asked at last.
“Cuff her,” Applejack told Rainbow Dash. After a moment’s thought, the Empress nodded, and Rarity was chained and shackled by the pegasus guards.
Rarity raised her head to look in the eyes of her accusers, her former victims. “I will return and do penance for what I have done. This I swear. Please don’t hurt the Mayor; she had no idea what she was doing.” Then she turned and shuffled her way out of town behind the departing group.
The Fluttershy forest. Sounds absolutely foreboding.
I am really enjoying this story. I'm bereft of useful feedback at this time; all I can say is please keep up the good work.
Things are coming together now. I await the next chapter eagerly.
This story melted a hole in my mind long before I even began reading it.
Now I look like this: cdn.broni.es/images/emotes/mlp-pgrin.png
The Auto-Fetching Hoof, priceless!
Mucho points for the Auto-fetching hoof working evne when PINKAMINA invoked it.
My thoughts on Pinkie exactly.
1311831 It does indeed sound very foreboding. You don't change the name of a place without a very good reason.
I'm not quite sure how, but this chapter made Pinkie make slightly more sense.
My guess?
When Flutters landed in the Everfree forest she gave the "All shall love me and Despair!" speech and every creature in the Everfree promptly declared loyalty to Fluttershy and made her their Queen.
hmmmm ...
I wonder if they are taking in immigrants?
You're updating fast!
Awesome this is going to get good.
I bow down to Fluttershy the empress of the forest cause we all know that she can do the Canterlot Voice
I actually went through the previous chapters mindfuck free...
that ended at the Fluttershy Forest.
Well played, sir. Well played
Fluttershy Forest... Why do I wanna see her swinging through the forest on a vine, doing the Tarzan yell?
Shouldn't Vinyl know that the sixth element is magic?
Also: "Pinkie Pie, could you please fetch Nightmare Moon?"
Pinkie Pie, be a dear and get me the ninth chapter of McPoodle's "The Perfect Little Village of Ponyville".
...
Darn it!
The first few chapters of this story were great. While the audience didn't know everything that was going on, it wasn't disorienting. I liked this story and I thought it would be interesting to see what happens.
See, for me, the story went downhill around Chapter 4. I was very confused as to what was going on. Spike was in a prison cell, I got that. Then apparently there are some other prisoners in there, who had just been perfectly quiet for the past half hour. Then they escape somehow, and I have no idea what Pinky is doing. I still can't nail down her personality.
Then I got to Chapter 6. In this chapter, I learned that the mane six went to "a very strange place", which is unnecessarily vague. You do not describe this place at all. Then I learn that the Mane Six got a bunch of vaguely described gifts, one of which can destroy the world. Then I learn that these ancient guys that gave the mane six the gifts were probably humans, though once again this is not described further for unknown reasons. All of this comes out of nowhere. Really, you just derailed the story, pull not one, but TWO world-shaking revelations out of your ass, and, to top off the tower of suck, you describe them as vaguely as possible. This plot contrivance was in no way relevant and only served to derail the story and confuse me further.
Now Vinyl apparently doesn't remember that Twilight was the element of magic. I have no idea why. The plot is now moving at a hundred miles per hour and the story no longer has anything resembling a 'reasonable pace'.
Originally I was excited and wanted to read more. Now I just have no idea what is going on. You know, confusion can be good when used correctly. Maybe the perspective character doesn't know everything that's going on, and the reader tries to piece together the mystery as the character finds out more clues. The reader mostly knows what is happening, they just don't know why it is happening. Finding out is the fun part. An example of this good kind of confusion is with the diamond dust mind control that Rarity uses. The reveal is an exciting twist.
When you try to confuse the reader through vague narration, plot contrivance, and extremely fast pacing, you turn your story into a trainwreck. Confusion for its own sake is a horrible idea. Confusion is not inherently good. If you use it well, it can make a good story great, but lately you have not been using it well. Of course, it probably didn't help that half the comments blindly clamored for more confusion.
This current story lacks the appeal of the first three chapters. I am only reading this in the hope that it will eventually get better. I really did like it at first, I really did. It seemed like a wonderful idea with a lot of potential. I wanted to see how Vinyl would come out of her shell and make friends She was formerly blind, too, and I was interested in seeing how she would react to gaining sight and just why she could see again.
The fact that this story started out so wonderfully just makes the letdown even worse.
To quote a fellow Spacebattler: "Certain styles of story are supposed to be confusing because they're complex, multi-layered, interwoven - *Not* because the author is making you do the mental equivalent of pickup-sticks with spaghetti noodles."
1315417
You are pretty-much 100 % justified in your complaints.
I have only the feeblest of excuses for the "Gifts of the Ancients" section: this story is the sequel of six other stories (that few have read), and all of that vague exposition (other than the CDs) are plot points from that series that I plan to use two or three sequels down the line, that I didn't want any long-term readers to forget. I was trying to keep my "plot balls" in the air, and did a piss-poor juggling job at doing it.
Vinyl knows that Twilight was the Element of Magic. But Vinyl has taken Twilight's place as Celestia's student in this world, and so thinks that makes her the Element of Magic (the fact that this Twilight is a traitor to Equestria also decreases the chances that she would lift a hoof to save it). Vinyl is trying as much as possible to follow the way the Nightmare Moon story went originally. Twilight didn't know what the last element was until the confrontation with Nightmare Moon, so to play it safe, Vinyl's keeping that knowledge to herself for now.
In addition, Vinyl never had a shell that she needed to come out of--that was the original Vinyl Scratch of this alternate universe (let's call her "Vinyl B"), the one that our heroine ("Vinyl A") replaced. It was the befuddled narrator who thought that Vinyl was the shy and withdrawn one. Vinyl A has some self-esteem issues, but doesn't really have problems interacting with others.
The timing of the story sort of ruined the handling of Vinyl suddenly seeing: just as she starts trying to get a handle on it, she's mesmerized by Rarity, and as soon as she regains control of herself, she dives right into the Nightmare Moon plot. That explains it, but it certainly doesn't excuse it.
I am most disappointed that the character of Pinkamena is not clear to you, as she's my favorite character in the whole story. Pinkamena is a stern avenger of justice, vaguely in the Batman or V for Vendetta style, totally unaware of the fact that's she's also Pinkie Pie. She can tell that Vinyl is treating this whole Nightmare Moon business like a game, and is trying to be her voice of reason. If none of this is evident in what I have written, then I have failed as an author.
1317155
For what it's worth, I disagree with this assessment entirely. Our main character is Vinyl Scratch; clearly we were never going to follow canon very closely. We started the story in an alternate history version of the canon universe, and have since realized that Vinyl hails from another place, which characterizes itself as more of a possible future. These characterizations are clear and obvious from the descriptions of each reality. Whether you've read any previous stories or not, it's entirely reasonable to state that the blue-text Elements of Harmony, in addition to being embroiled in a war with the Dragon Emperor and having overcome and befriended Waking Terror, have gone to strange places, met strange people and received strange gifts. It's true that we don't know what most of these items are or what they're capable of, which might hamper readers' ability to predict how events might proceed- but handily enough, they're not present in the alternate history where we find our protagonist, so they're not even relevant to current events. Personally I thought they were an interesting bit of worldbuilding and a handy way to help Vinyl recover from brainwashing (which, frankly, everyone needs to be able to do once in a while), and little more.
Pinkie Pie, get me a clopfic that dosent involve rainbow dash. Oh? There isn't one?
oh, now i get it!
in this world, they use music to work magic...
elements of Harmony
That makes so much sense it's scary.
the Fluttershy Forest? Dread
PiratePDP being weirded out by her own powers?I love it!
This makes Kingdom Hearts seem sensible. At least there there's a coherent, sort of, narrative and it's hard to get because of how much is going on and how time travel and a LOT of really weird crap. This is just confusing.
Now I'm beginning to despair that this is just turning into the familiar story. :/