-Kuril-
My daughter must be somewhat clinically insane, even if she did have a point about the absurdities that went on here and the ponies that have to live with it. It doesn’t help that my daughter decided to fight the ridiculousness of this evening assault with her own fire. I should probably tell her that fighting fire with fire tends to cause more fire to spring up everywhere.
I mean using a cupcake as a cast. Inventive surely, but it’s weird considering we’ve been using items that didn’t have a limited lifespan or so many different elements to them. I’m pretty sure most perishable food items wouldn’t be very useful for sustains, but a cast? What would a cast with a cupcake even do?
Most of the casts we’ve been doing were with things we wouldn’t mind losing and were singular solid objects we could get away with casting.
What was the essence of a cupcake really? Our practice of magical alchemy so far seems to be following a trend of the effect being definitively connected to the object used in some intrinsic way as far as casts are concerned. So I was worried when Jade reacted badly to hearing Pinkie squeak loudly from upstairs after getting shot at by those little ballistae.
At least Pinkie delayed the encroaching battering ram pretty well with a few well thrown cupcakes.
The cast was a lot more powerful than I thought for something as temporary as a delicious baked snack, the effects were also impossibly bizarre. How does a cupcake cause all of what is happening now? How was I going to remember all of what’s happening here? Sure it’s memorable, but what were the exact effects the cupcake was having?
-Fizzle-
Okay, so, Jade did a cast with a cupcake, didn’t she say that doing a cast with multiple things at once would do weird things? I didn’t think she meant literally this weird... what were in the cupcakes again?
Let’s see icing, the cake itself, vanilla and some of them had fruit filling. Jade liked the strawberry ones, then again she had a notable thing for fruit.
“Jade… what the… I can’t even find the words for this.” I really couldn’t, there were no words for it. Just what was this cast doing and why was a cupcake making all of that happen?
-Jade-
The horror, what have I just unleashed? No seriously, what did I just do to those pukwudgies? Well I can certainly say that I’ve stalled them for the next few minutes or so. Hopefully we’ll get some air support before then and it’ll wipe out those crossbows.
The cupcake had disintegrated in my hand, I unleashed the magic created by said sugary treat out the window towards the pukwudgies threatening Sugar Cube Corner in the shape of a wide cone of glittering magical light. I probably shouldn’t have done that, the effects were instant and quite horrific.
This late evening assault couldn’t possibly get any weirder than this because now… now I wasn’t going to ever look at cupcakes the same way ever again. Oh, I’d still eat them, I would almost never do another cast with one though.
“I think I might have just broken the Ge-neigh-va convention.” There were horrified screams from the pukwudgies and what was happening to them after I had managed to hit them with the magical wave and those screams became quite warped seconds later as things got worse.
“In this case, I would try to disagree with you by pointing out that ponies probably don’t have these pukwudgies in a formal peace treaty.” My mom just watched the chaos going on outside as the pukewudgies were quite impossible for the leader to organize at the moment. “I would try, but I think I’d have to agree with you on this one. I’m adding cupcakes to the banned list of magical alchemy ingredients.”
The only pukwudgies still assaulting Sugar Cube Corner were the crossbow crews still firing arrows into the bakery, they had been far enough away from the magical wave I launched out the window. A cupcake was quite a short range magical alchemy cast, but the effects were obscenely horrific. The leader had also unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you feel, evaded the horrors that the cupcake had unleashed upon his people.
“Hey, the frog mucus is very useful I’ll have you know!” It was, it’s just that my mom didn’t see it that way.
“So remind me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the frog mucus cause a massive mess that plastered both of us to the nearest wall? It took hours before someone came and peeled us off them.” Look mom, it was a definitively useful effect. It’s just that we weren’t prepared for it is all! “It took me forever to do the laundry again.”
“Hey, it was a useful effect, we just need to be ready for…” Mom held up her hand stopping me and then she just pointed out the window in response. It made me look at the horrors I had inflicted on the puckwudgies. “Oh that? That’s temporary…. probably… and you know it! It has to wear off eventually and then they’ll be back to happily raiding Sugar Cube Corner.”
“Didn’t you tell me that your knife sheath protect you from small bladed weaponry?” Yes and I knew where you were going with this Fizzle, but I’ll just wait for you to ask as I’m not that rude. “Why can’t you use that to rush the leader right now?”
“Their wheeled crossbows are still up, the knife sheath only makes me resilient. It doesn’t stop the arrows from nicking me even if they won’t puncture straight through me.” I knew what I was doing Fizzle, I’m not a complete idiot. I’m only partially an idiot for casting with a cupcake, it was disturbing to watch the end results of that and would haunt my nightmares. “Trust me, I’m quite certain there is poison on those arrows. So even a little nick would be a bad thing for me, especially while doing things that would make my blood pump the poison through me faster.”
“Well that explains why Pinkie isn’t responsive, we need to get her some help!” Mr. Cake came down the stairs clutching at a pale looking Pinkie in one hoof, there was a shallow bleeding scratch at the base of her neck and she looked to be having problems breathing.
“Patch the scratch, I can take care of the poison.” I wasn’t going anywhere without a phoenix feather on me just for such an occasion as this. I brought four, one for me, Fizzle, mom and a spare. I’d have to return to Canterlot soon if I kept using up the feathers, unless I could find a better source of them instead of just interrupting Philomena’s little bird seed gambling ring. “You do have a medical kit right?”
“Right here, but how are you going to deal with the poison? It looks like pinkie is having a really bad reaction to it if it it’s just a paralytic.” Setting down a medical kit Mrs. Cake looked to me, I just simply pulled out the same phoenix feather I tried to use on Fizzle a day or so ago. Pinkie was a hyperactive pony, a paralytic would certainly cause havoc on her body and have a very negative reaction. Sitting still was not something Pinkie would ever do voluntarily, unless she was sleeping or relaxing. “A feather? What’s that going to do?”
“Exactly what I expect it to do. Now bandage her already, this feather will cure the poison. The pukwudgies are occupied at the moment.” An arrows zoomed by my head coming close enough to one of my ears that I could hear it making a whistling noise before it impacted the back wall, I slowly crouched down with a weak grin forming on my face as I corrected myself. “Mostly occupied.”
“We’ll all be happier and better off when those crossbows are taken down.” Muttered Fizzle angrily as she and mom came over to me. “I’m so thankful it didn’t hit you, but they are really accurate with those things. I don’t suggest standing still and being highly visible.”
Pinkie’s neck wound was quickly cleaned and bandaged, I held up the feather and used the resulting white flaming ball of fire from the cast on Pinkie. Her color returned immediately and she was soon breathing better as the white flames sunk into her body and burned out the poison.
“You okay Pinkie?” She smiled up at me and nuzzled her face against Mrs. Cake’s leg in response. “Yeah, she’ll be fine. I can only do that three more times though, older more adult ponies would probably be able to handle the poison better. You see, this is why I don’t want to be nicked by pukwudgie poison Fizzy.”
“Well we can’t just sit here waiting for the effects of the cupcake cast to wear off on the pukwudgies, they’re going to be very mad when and if they can recover from that.” What did you want from me Fizzle, those crossbows were still very dangerous to… approach?
Several cracks and flashes were heard outside, we looked out the broken window and watched as a pukwudgie abandoned one of the remaining crossbows and it exploded in a blast of lightning. It was about time we got some help.
“That’s our cue Fizzy!” The crossbows were destroyed and their ammunition supply was still laying around and I had an opportunity to pick up some of those arrows for later. The only pukwudgie not trying to recuperate from the sudden loss of momentum to their remaining offensive capability was the leader.
The pukwudgie commander turned his stead towards me as I exited Sugar Cube Corner and the cockatrice crowed loudly trying to look me in the eyes. I covered my eyes with my right arm as I grabbed for my knife with my left hand.
Fizzle was nowhere to be seen as I had a cockatrice with the world’s ugliest pukwudgie on it coming at me to stab me with his sword and I couldn’t look at him or else his mount would get me.
“Hey you, chicken lizard riding jerk!” Okay that cloak really was quite effective if it let Fizzle get behind the pukwudgie leader. I lowered my arm slightly and saw that the purple eyed pukwudige had turned the bird around, only for the cockatrice to stop as Fizzle held the open compact mirror up to the cockatrice.
The cockatrice clucked confusedly as its magical stare bounced back into its own face. It flopped onto the ground in a boneless heap dropping the pudgy pukwudgie. The pukwudgie got up and started stomping on the ground while angrily shouting what sounded like expletives.
“Excuse me, but can I get a little lightning bolt action down here on that guy?” I received an answer from above when a small bolt struck the lead pukwudgies backside causing him to yelp, he turned to his battered army and started calling for a retreat. By then the cast effects were wearing off and had taken their toll. There were barfing pukwudgies everywhere forming up for a quick retreat, while continuing to puke as they did. “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome!” I heard back from the pegasus up in the clouds.
“This is so gross, all of this is going to take a lot of time to clean up.” I stepped around whatever the pukwudgie puke was made of, I was sickened to my stomach just looking at it all. I wasn’t going to use that cast again on anyone unless they were a mortal enemy of mine. Speaking of enemies, Fizzle started to follow after them. “Fizzy what are you doing, you don’t follow pukwudiges for any reason!”
“I’m just going to make sure they don’t stick around!” Fizzle was already sneaking out of my sight and off after them. I sighed, I need to follow her to make sure she didn’t get hurt.
There are many reasons as to why you don’t follow pukwudgies anywhere, even when they were retreating from you! Knowing mythology as well as I do, they already have multiple traps planned for their retreat long before they started attacking Ponyville. Even if she was still stealthy thanks to that cloak, stealth didn’t matter if you couldn’t spot a trap or avoid them.
-Kuril-
What a mess, the Cake’s home had been wrecked by arrows and there were hundreds of spines sticking to the wall outside. That poor delightfully cheerful little filly Pinkie got hurt, but my little tom cat and Mrs. Cake took care of that soundly. We’d need a fresh source of phoenix feathers if we were to keep dealing with poisonous or mystical problems like this.
I watched as Jade stopped to gather several of the arrows that were left behind, she then moved off to chase after Fizzle.
The strange rainbow colored vomit was both disgusting and kind of appropriate considering what casting a cupcake did to them. That horrific sight was going to be burned into my memory for quite a while and I was still quite unsure of the true effects, but at least it worked and it wasn’t like Jade had actually killed any of them. I’m quite sure that some of them will actually wish they were dead after that, but I wasn’t about to care for the psychological scarring that the pukwudgies may have received from this.
A bright and powerful explosion happened in the distance and I rushed to the location, to see what happened. I hoped my girls were okay.
-Fizzle-
It seemed that they were still leaving town entirely, but where were they? I had lost sight of them as I crept up the bridge at the edge of town and looked around. It seemed that the pukwudgies were no longer dangerous and I just wanted to be sure they wouldn’t bother Pinkie or anyone else any time soon. I turned around and started to head back into town.
“Darn it Fizzy, watch out!” I turned back to Jade charging up the bridge in a panic, she tapped her sheath and jumped to my left. What was she…? An arrow slammed into Jade’s chest with enough force to send her rolling over my back with a yowl and off the side of the bridge into the river below with a huge splash of water.
I stood there for a moment trying to comprehend the series of events that just happened, I turned around slowly and narrowed my eyes beneath the hood. I could feel my body shaking and my horn started sparking wildly with magic, some of the magical energy splashed against the ground as I felt the world turn bright red. I was angry… no this wasn’t any simply anger… it was something more powerful than that and my magic was responding how I felt right now.
This feeling was not directed just at the pukwudgie or the crossbow, it was also at myself for letting this happen.
It was pure rage!
-Jade-
Okay, my world was pain. My body was surrounded by water, there was blood in it. I tried to reach into my pack to get a feather, I was getting quite numb. It is Equestria, so fast acting poisons were likely a thing here and... my knife sheath saved me from the arrow’s blade, but I was going to black... out...