//------------------------------// // It's a what? // Story: Soundwaves // by Kiper //------------------------------// "Twilight! It's not working!" a familiar cyan pegasus called down to her friend. "Keep trying Rainbow!" the purple alicorn responded from the ground, firing a beam of light from her horn at the monster before them. A fifth shot that hit and still did no more damage than the previous four. "Fluttershy! Any luck yet?" The yellow pegasus had flown down from higher up to give her report. "I am so sorry Twilight. I've been trying, but I don't speak Goop. I can't even see where its mouth might be to get a response." "This feels like buckin' a sackful of mud. Nothin' is stoppin' it, Twi." The orange earth pony ran up to the group, panting with exertion. "At least its still not movin' fast." Applejack gave the creature a scornful look. "Probly slowed down from eatin' all the trees." A shout from above turned into a grunt as they watched Rainbow Dash attempt a dive bomb before bouncing off and coming to hover near the group. "What do we do? It's like hitting a rubber cloud. I don't think it even felt that one." Twilight Sparkle gazed upon the impervious object before them. The house-sized, slowly moving pile of goo had continued to resist their combined assault upon it. Which wasn't entirely surprising. I know the book said these things were tough. But I had thought we'd make some kind of scratch on it. She noted with growing concern how the creature's skin continued to darken. Where could Rarity and Pinkie Pie be? They should have been back by now... Two hours earlier "Wait. What do you mean you're 'apples are being eaten by the mud'?" Twilight tilted her head and looked at the farm pony quizzically. "Just what Ah said. There's a... somethin' in the old Apple orchard. Looks like a pile of bright green mud. It's eatin' the wild apple trees and makin' a straight shot from the forest to town." Applejack replied, having finally caught her breath from the run to the library. "I aint never seen anythin' like it." Twilight looked around the room to her friends who seemed equally baffled. "Well. Let's all go take a look at it then." The alicorn pulled a worn copy of Equestrian Field Guide to Rare Creatures from the shelf with her magic and put it in her saddlebags before trotting out the door as her friends followed behind. "Uh, Twilight? We need to head west. Towards Everfree." Applejack said. Pointing towards the dense forest distance. "I thought you said it was at the Apple orchard?" Twilight halted her march towards the Northeast farm. "Oh. This is in the old orchard. Back when my great-grandpappy started the farm. They built it up on the outskirts of the forest. The magic of Everfree forest let the trees grow bigger, faster." Applejack led the way outside of town. "Once we got settled, we moved to the other side of town. We still maintain the old orchard, but it's mostly left alone to grow as it will. The apples there are wilder than what we grow and harvest now. Taste different too." Now farther outside town, and getting closer than preferred to the magical forest, all of them kept an eye out for the dangerous mud. "The upside of bein' on the North end is a much quicker walk through town to get anythin' too." "I don't sense anything nearby" Twilight said, as they entered the overgrown orchard. "Rainbow Dash. Think you can fly reconnaissance? We'll head towards where Applejack saw it last." "Finally. I could have been there and back three times now at the speeds you trot." Rainbow flew over the treeline and began flying in widening circles, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Seeing a trail of missing trees on the far side of the orchard, she flew in for a closer inspection. Below her was a pile of greenish mud. Hovering for a moment allowed her to watch as it moved forward, two tendrils coming out of the side of the mud, and casually grab and rip a tree out of the ground. The creature suspended the tree over itself before allowing the tree to smash down violently upon it. Rather than fall over however, the tree remained standing upright on top of the goo. Rainbow watched in amazement as the tree grew shorter as it was apparently consumed by the creature. Within a minute, the entire 20 foot tree had disappeared. The creature paused a moment, then moved to the next nearest tree in the line. "That is creepy and awesome." With that, she turned and flew back to find the group continuing slowly through the orchard. "Half a mile more. It's... seriously a pile of green mud eating the trees." Rainbow shrugged at the group. "You just gotta see it." The others picked up the pace and made it to the clearing in time to watch as the creature pulled another large tree out of the ground and began to eat it. "See? It's like watching Pinkie eat a cake. If the cake was a full grown 20 foot tall apple tree." Applejack looked the large creature over from a safe distance. "It's not the same as before. It was a brighter green. And it's gotten bigger. It was only pony sized then." Twilight pulled the large tome out of her saddlebags and flipped through it frantically. "No. It's not a mud monster. Or a animation spell on dirt and algae. Although the color is close...." She glanced at it again before flipping to the end of the book. "And it isn't a transformation spell on some poor creature from the forest." She glanced nervously towards the others. "I have no idea what it is. Only that it's not natural to anything around Ponyville." A pink hoof suddenly flew up in front of Twilight's face. "Ooh! I know, I know! Pick me!" Pinkie Pie started bouncing up and down in order to get everyone's attention. "It's a Prismatic Ooze!" She stopped bouncing and beamed at everyone with a huge smile. "Um. A what?" Twilight stared blankly at Pinkie Pie. "An ooze silly. Specifically, a prismatic one. They are the second most dangerous kind." Pinkie reached into her mane and dug around before coming out with a red and black book. "Here you go! Page 54." She resumed bouncing as she handed Twilight the book. Twilight looked at the page in question. "Prismatic Ooze. Neutral... large ooze... CR 17? What the..." Twilight looked at the cover of the book. Ogres and Oubliettes: Monster Manual 3rd ed "Pinkie! This is one of Spike's game books!" The pink pony continued bouncing happily. "Yep! Last night was the weekly O&O meeting. Since it was so much fun last time, Spike invited Discord back to help make it even more fun! It was the best game ever! But, when we were cleaning up, we lost the final boss. It must have been hiding over here all day!" Pinkie stopped in mid-air and rushed to the confused alicorn as a thought occurred to her. "Twilight! We must vanquish this ooze." She said surprisingly seriously. "What? Why?" Twilight looked at the others. All of them shared similar confused glances. "I know the damage to the orchard is impressive, and the town is nearby, but that doesn't seem like your normal reaction." "We. Could. Level. UP!" The pink pony resumed bouncing. "We were so close. It was supposed to happen after beating the boss, but we couldn't find it. Then everypony had to go home." Twilight facehoofed. "Really, Pinkie? Besides, we don't need to 'vanquish' it. A reverse summoning spell should send it back just fine." Twilight turned towards the ooze as her horn glowed a bright purple before a beam of magic fired out and hit the dull green creature resulting in a small explosion. "See? Magically summoned creatures can easily be banished with-" A loud crash interrupted her as yet another tree was ripped from the ground by the completely unharmed ooze. "Nope! It's in the book! Even low level oozes can have resistance to magic. This is a higher level Prismatic Ooze. It's stats should be in there." Pinkie pointed towards the book still in the other ponies hoof. Twilight looked back to the page in the book. "Okay. 'Prismatic Ooze. DR 20/ -. Immune to all non-sonic based magic. Special Abilities: Consume and Prismatic Shift?' What does that even mean?" "Ooh! That is a mean ooze. The DR is Damage Reduction. It means that unless we hit it really really hard, we won't do much. And magical fire and lightning is out. Only sound based magic works." Pinkie started bouncing again. "It wouldn't be hard with game magic. I was playing a Bardpony! I could cast magic music and sing spells! My favorites were Pinkie's Brew and Gypsy Bard. The music was only a starter though. It weakens creatures so the other adventurers can defeat it! Lets see. I think Consume means that it gets stronger the more it eats." "What if we call for Discord?" Rainbow Dash asked from above. "Have him come by and set up the game world. Once it is in place, we can kick ooze butt. It'll be awesome!" A quiet voice spoke up reminding everypony of her presence. "I don't think so. I'm so sorry. He told me he was going on a vacation for the next week. Something about an election and more chaos than he could ever hope for." "So no Discord. And I don't know any spells to create an entire game world." Twilight said, beginning to pace. "Hmm. Magic, sound, magic music. Of course!" She turned back to Pinkie Pie. "Pinkie, we need you to go back to town and bring all the instruments you can carry. Rarity, can you go with her? We need as much sound as we can get. We'll see if we can stop it with game rules if not game magic." "Of course, dear. It should be simple enough. What will you four be doing?" Rarity asked. "We'll stay here and see if it can be slowed down, or at least turned." Twilight watched as yet another tree fell before the ooze. "It's heading in a straight line and only eating the trees in front of it. At this pace it will be out of the orchard within a couple hours. After that, there is nothing between it and Ponyville. We need to keep it here." "Okie dokie. You can count on us, Twilight." With that, the pink pony took off at a gallop with the white unicorn following behind. "How we gonna slow it down Twilight?" Applejack asked. "I have no idea." Twilight responded. "But we have to find a way." The purple pony looked back to the book in her magic. "'Prismatic Shift: As the Prismatic Ooze consumes organic material, its skin will shift colors from yellow to green to brown and black. Upon shifting to brown its speed and size increases. Once completely black, its strength triples and it rages, striking out at closest targets.'" She watched the ooze as there was almost no green left in its coloring. "There isn't much time." She glanced once more at the manual in her hoof before putting it away in her saddlebags. Present "Hey, Twilight!" a voice called from directly behind the alicorn. "Gwah! Pinkie, don't do that! Glad you made it. Now if we each grab-" Twilight looked around. "Pinkie. Where are your instruments? Please tell me they are in your mane." She looked again. "And where is Rarity?" "I left them in Ponyville. I think I overloaded." She gave her mane a quick ruffle, producing static electricity but nothing else. "But I found something even better! Rarity is catching a ride back. Can't you feel them coming?" The pink pony pointed beyond a hill slightly to the north. Twilight turned to where she pointed, only now noticing the rumble beneath her. It was as if a thunder storm was in the ground. Small pebbles began to dance as the noise grew. Even as that noise got louder, another noise ended abruptly. The purple alicorn looked to where the ooze had stopped, tendrils reaching towards a tree, apparently frozen. The rumble grew even louder as Twilight turned back to Pinkie. "What is tha-" and stopped abruptly. The earth pony was suddenly clad in denim fabric, with a white sweatshirt, buckball cap, and sunglasses. Standing on her hind legs with her forelegs crossed in front of her, she said "I brought the bass."