//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Thingy's Halloween // by chucklefarts //------------------------------// “Alright, how about this. You and me meet up with some foals as they are about to enter the maze and go in with them. I’ll shapeshift into my cute little pony body like I usually do and we pretend like everything's normal. While that happens, the rest of my biomass will be waiting with some surprises for everypony.” Anon and Thing were on the roof of the building opposite to Roseluck’s house. Thing was little more than a shifting mass of tentacles, a cross between what looked like a plant and an octopus with huge tree trunk sized tentacles and her more normal looking pony head growing out of one of the smaller tentacles. It seemed that she had little use for a face except as an interface to talk and look at least somewhat like a normal organism for the sake of Anon’s sanity. “I’m just worried about exactly what you are planning. I mean they are just foals. I’m not sure if you have ever experienced this before but foals are very impressionable and they can be mentally scarred at a young age. Perhaps you should not show them anything too violent or goreish. It might scare them a little too badly.” Thing rolled her eyes at anon. “Oh, alright. I’ll be kind to the precious, pure, little, cute, fragile foals.~” Thing’s voice warbled as she mocked Anon with pursed lips and rotated her head upside down as she mocked the foals and Anon’s softness towards them. She even placed the tip of a tentacle on her forehead in a mocking fainting gesture. “You can scare them but just don’t scar them for life. Are you ready?” “Yeah, just gimme a second here.” The tentacle neck that supported Thing’s face began to bulge and stretch. Squelching biomass squeezed its way into the tentacle and caused it to convulse and become engorged. Slimy gurgling and crackling could be heard inside of the shifting sack of a tentacle. Finally the grotesque bulging mass of meaty tentacle began to disgorge Amber’s face. A circular fleshy lip began to form around the circumference of Amber’s neck. It resembled the lips of a leech or perhaps the stretching flesh of a vaginal canal. The opening stretched and more of Amber’s neck slid out. The opening stretched further and Amber’s shoulders and forelegs followed. Amber was drenched in slime that lubricated her exit from the organic sphincter that spat her out. Finally, Amber was completely ejected from the tentacle, completely soaked in slimy fluids, but there was something wrong. Amber looked like a marionette puppet with all of the strings broken. Her legs were in all the wrong angles and her torso was twisted slightly. A groaning noise came from Amber and her limbs began to twitch and stretch. Her forelegs were upside down, the shoulder joints had not fully formed yet, but the powerful and flexible alien muscles allowed the limb to move in spite of the improper skeletal structure and cartilage. Thing stretched her improperly oriented legs and stood up in a grotesque fashion, her body bending and twisting in strange ways to support itself. Her torso was upside down and her spine curled in on itself as she luxuriously stretched her parody of a pony body. Her belly and rib cage prominently jutted upwards as Thing performed her grotesque backbend. Her neck too was upside down but that didn’t stop her head from twisting rightside up to grin at Anon. “So… Is that how you are going to scare the foals? I have to admit, you do look like a rather grotesque contortionist I suppose.” Bones jutted out at her shoulders at strange angles. “Nah, I’m just stretching. It feels kinda good actually.” With that, thing rolled her neck and the vertebrae popped. Her joints to popped together as the bones began to properly solidify. She pushed off the ground with her mutated forelegs and stood on her hind legs. Her spine uncurled itself and her forelegs cracked into their proper place as her head rotated 180 degrees to its proper place, she set down her forelegs into the proper position and stood upright like a normal unmutated pony. “Aww, I guess I have to blend in again. Ah well, at least I got to make you wince a little. It’s getting harder to creep you out. My old tricks just don’t work anymore!” Thing giggled. Anon just raised an eyebrow. “I think bodily mutations have ceased to phase me since I met you. Now, what is...” Anon gestured to the biomass still slithering in the corner like the horrifying vine patch that it was. “...Your, um, biomass going to be doing while we go to the maze?” The mass of huge tentacles reached out with two tentacles. “That is for me to know!” One of the tentacles gestured at Amber while the other reached out to boop Anon. Anon ducked, he had seen this coming from a mile away. Instead the huge tentacle wrapped itself around Anon and picked him up off the roof, pinning his arms down next to him. “And for you to find out!” Anon was physically unable to dodge the boop as the tentacle held him in place while the tip curled around to firmly poke his nose. Anon, frustrated at the inevitable boop at the tentacles of the eldritch abomination bit the tentacle booping him and growled almost like a dog. Amber laughed uproariously as the other huge tentacle wrapped around her barrel and picked her up as well. “Rawr! Fistey!” Thing’s tentacular biomass gripped Anon and Thing’s Amber flesh puppet and hefted them off the side of the roof to gently place them on the ground. Anon briefly rubbed his nose. “Do you really have to boop my nose every time?” Thing pouted mockingly at Anon. “But that’s how I show my love to you, Nonykins!” Anon rolled his eyes but a smile subtly twitched on his mouth. “Alright, ready to scare some foals? You better enjoy it, this is the only time of year when it is socially acceptable to scare little children. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. You do it all the time to me.” Thing grinned through Amber, Amber’s eyes became slightly more slitted like cat’s eyes and her teeth were sharp. Her smile split her cheeks apart just slightly. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it, Anon.” Above, the huge tentacle monster began to shift. It slithered rapidly, mimicking the motions of an octopus. Despite its size it barely made a sound and it changed its color like a chameleon so that it could disappear into the darkness of the roofs of Ponyville. When the slithering biomass had to bridge a gap, it would amorphously squeeze its biomass into the tentacle reaching across to the other roof so that it could quickly shift its center of mass across the gap. The thinner tentacles where the biomass was drained from were easily hefted across to the other roof and reached ahead, the biomass would then rapidly transfer from the larger tentacle into the smaller. This way, Thing’s large biomass propelled itself quickly across the roof with amorphously shrinking and expanding tentacles for very efficient movement. When Thing’s biomass reached the edge of town it began to slither through the tree branches. This time the tentacles began slithering like snakes, rapidly splitting from the main mass and reforming on the other side, branching and merging extremely quickly as they slid through the branches like a hundred black snakes. The biomass continued this way in the trees, stalking Anon and Amber. Thing’s biomass was controlled from a central hivemind, allowing her to efficiently control her two bodies. Finally they reached the Maze. The biomass spouted a few eyes and perched them on top of the tips of two tentacles to observe. Anon and Amber were at the maze entrance, Anon was talking to the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Amber turned her head and instantly made direct eye contact with the observing eye tendrils. Amber smiled with malicious intent directly at the biomass. Her face returned to its original state and turned back to face Anon and the crusaders. All was going according to plan. Applebloom stared skeptically at Anon and Amber. “So, ya’ll want to join us in the maze because Anon is scared? But, he’s huge! How can he be afraid of anything?” Amber smirked at Applebloom. “Aw, he’s just a big softie.” Amber elbowed Anon in the leg with her foreleg. She looked up at Anon and squinted at him, a queue to play along. “Right, Anon?” Anon absentmindedly scratched his nose and looked down at Amber. One look at Amber’s severe look and Anon’s eyes widened. “Er, yup. I’m Anon, large towering human, afraid of haunted children’s corn mazes.” Thing rolled her eyes and almost groaned. She sprouted a tentacle out the back of her barrel behind Anon and waited. Somewhere in the distance inside the maze, a faint *boo!* was heard and she grabbed the back of Anon’s neck with her hidden appendage. Anon yelped and spasmed slightly, a few foals giggled in the distance at their surprise scare. “See? He gets jumpy at the smallest things!” Applebloom still looked skeptical, it seemed that some of Applejack’s truth detection had rubbed off on her. Scootaloo had had enough. “Ugh! Come on, Applebloom! Just let them come already! I want to see the maze!” Applebloom squinted one last time at Anon and Thing. Anon looked nervous and Amber looked like she was enjoying herself for some reason. “Ah guess Anon really is just scared. Alright, come along Anon. We’ll protect you!” The three foals suddenly looked at each other excitedly. It was as if they had read each other’s minds. “CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS ANON PROTECTORS YAY!” They all raised their forelegs and clopped their hooves together. Anon did not look so enthusiastic, he placed a hand on his brow in a mock faint. “Oh dearie me, I’m a damsel in distress, somepony sav- EEK!” Thing had given Anon another hard pinch with her tentacle in the back of Anon’s neck. The crusaders looked back at Anon to see what was the matter. “Oh, he’s fine! Just a little startled, you know how he is, scared and all. Let’s get going! You three should go first. We’ll follow and I’ll comfort poor Nonymous back here.” Sweetie spoke up. “Don’t worry, Anon! We’ll let you know if anything scary is coming up!” Anon rubbed the back of his neck and angrily stared down at Thingpone. Thing looked up at him and snickered mockingly. Anon just sighed dramatically and continued walking behind the crusaders. Thing’s biomass slithered in the tree silently above as they entered the maze.