Chapter 4: Griffon the Brush Off
I awoke to the sound of metal screeching to a halt. It was safe to say my first thought had much cursing and revenges against whatever had disrupted the beautiful sleep I was getting. Opening my eyes, I saw a certain Pinkie Pie doing who-knows-what with pots, pans, and a hoof-file.
“Pinkie, what are you doing?” I muttered, waving in her general direction.
“I’m waking you up, silly!” she said, as if this were the most obvious thing on the planet. “I mean, the readers don’t want to hear about you dreaming for the next chapter, do they?”
“I suppose you’re right.” I pushed myself off the pile of hay I was sleeping on, and landed flat on my face. “Oof. That’s gonna hurt in the evening.” Pinkie rushed over to me.
“Get your face off the ground, Andy!” she said excitedly. Andy… I hate that name. “Don’t you want to surf the internet using the readers’ computers?”
“Pinkie, what are you talking about?” Twilight called from about ten feet to our right.
“Pinkie, remember the rules of the internet. Remember everything that can go wrong?”
She shivered at the mention of the rules of the internet. “I guess you’re right,” she muttered before trotting off. I heard her mutter something about ‘Rule 34’ and shudder. I grinned.
I finally found a weakness in the breaking of fourth-wallism!
After silent celebration, I went off with Pinkie and Rainbow Dash to play pranks on others. I do have to admit, it was quite good fun. The look on Spike’s face when Rainbow kicked a storm cloud in front of him was priceless.
“Uh *hic* oh,” Spike said, before burping green flame all over the scrolls in his hand.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” Pinkie asked in a worried tone.
“Nah *hic*. Don’t be *hic* silly. Dragons are *hic* fireproof.”
“What I’m worried about is Celestia getting crushed under all the letters you just sent her,” I put in. Spike was mortified.
“You’re right!” he shouted. He ran around trying to grab the letters, but each time he did, he would accidentally burp dragon fire on them. Ah, I had a bad feeling about this. I could just imagine Celestia underneath a pile of scrolls. The thought of this, combined with Spike’s futile attempts at cleaning up, finally got me laughing. The four of us sat there in tears for a good five minutes, until Pinkie finally recovered enough to speak.
“Have you ever seen anything more hilarious?” Pinkie asked us.
“I can think of one thing,” Rainbow muttered. I was lucky enough to see Rainbow coil her back hooves and slam them into the cloud again. Since it didn’t startle me, and my unnatural immunity to sneezes, coughs, and hiccups (no idea how that came about, by the way), Rainbow was slightly crestfallen when she saw me standing there with a raised eyebrow.
Pinkie hiccupped. The surprise that anything could startle her got me laughing all over again. A few minutes later, when all was said and giggled, the three of us were on our way to the next ‘destination’.
The next stop was Rarity’s. We stuffed a bouquet of flowers with sneeze powder and waited. Once Rarity finally came and predictably, stuck her nose in the flowers, the laughter was immediate. She began sneezing so hard, the saliva she blew out was opaque. Rainbow made a, well, dash for it, knocking over the tin of sneeze powder. The cloud of powder got Pinkie in the face, and she sneezed with enough force to send her flying. The last thing I thought before pink completely obscured my vision was that for six glorious hours, I was not the crash mat of other ponies.
After a quick trip to the hospital to make sure none of my bones and/or organs were permanently damaged, we got back to pranking. Our next stop was Twilight’s. I used my magic to go invisible and sneak an inkwell of invisible ink to her experiment. As she was recording her notes, Rainbow and I couldn’t help but snigger a little. When Twilight turned back to see that her notes were gone, the potion puffed once, then turned the color of emeralds. It then proceeded to explode violently, revealing the invisible ink. Once making sure Twilight wasn’t hurt, we laughed our faces off, then ran to pull our next prank.
The next prank was for AJ. We hand-painted all of the apples different colors and ran off with her pelting apples at us. I don’t know why she was so angry; I personally thought they’d be good for business. Kind of like that one SpongeBob episode.
Our final prank took us to the lake, where Pinkie set up a fake squirting turtle. Rainbow looked out through the telescope on her right, giggling.
“Who’re we gonna squirt?” Pinkie asked, a rubber balloon filled with water in her mouth.
“Fluttershy,” Rainbow giggled.
“Are you crazy?!” Pinkie and I screeched at the same time. “She’s Fluttershy!” I said.
“Yeah!” Pinkie added. “She’s sooo sensitive. Even our most harmless prank will end up hurting her feelings.”
“Ugh, fine,” Rainbow relented. “We need somepony made of tougher stuff.” As soon as she pulled her face away, I burst into laughter again. Pinkie had put ink on the ring surrounding the magnifying lens of the telescope, so when Rainbow put her eye to it, the ink stuck to her face. Rainbow looked at me oddly.
“I… I think we know someone who fits the description,” I managed to choke out. Rainbow cocked her head inquisitively.
“Really? Do I know them?” she asked. At this point, Pinkie was laughing too.
“Yeah… you know them… really well,” she gasped. She pointed to the pond. Rainbow leaned over it and, after a half-dozen seconds, realized the prank.
“Good one, guys!” she said, and fell back with us. For a long time we laughed, the sounds of Fluttershy poking the fake turtle only barely audible. I eventually had to leave them, for fear of not getting any sleep that night. I trudged down to the barn, exhausted, waiting for the new day to come.
I woke to a cacophony of noise. Pinkie was standing over me, with odd green glasses, a fake moustache, an arrow through her head, a clown's ball-nose, and a party-popper in her mouth.
“Wake up, Andrew!” she hissed. “We’ve got a lot of pranking to do.”
“Sure, Pinks.” I looked around, realizing where I was. “But first, can you get off of me before the readers start jumping to conclusions?”
“Oh!” Pinkie scrambled back, startled at her lack of awareness of you readers. “Sorry, Andrew!”
“No problem, Pinkie. Where did you say Rainbow’s house was?”
“Oh, it’s in the sky.”
“Oh, that’s helpful. Okay, we’ll need a cloud-walking spell and teleportation. Hang on a sec, Pinkie. This’ll tingle.”
I focused on Pinkie and myself and imagined us walking on clouds. There was a faint pop and a mild tickling sensation, then all was normal. “Alright, now for the teleport. Pinkie, hold on and shut your eyes!”
Pinkie squeezed a hoof around me and shut her eyes. I felt the burning pass, and suddenly we were on top of…
A cloud mansion. You have got to be kidding me.
Seriously, it was quite possibly the awesomest thing I’ve ever seen. The architecture was amazing; it reminded me of the Parthenon. The only problem was the choice of decoration. There were rainbows everywhere. I was beginning to feel the post-teleportation migraine I had recently begun developing, so I sat down and picked at a piece of cloud. I tried dipping it in the rainbow and popped it in my mouth. It was like cotton candy, only extremely spicy. As I tried washing the taste out of my mouth, Pinkie explored. As soon as the fire was no longer dripping off my tongue, I followed.
Rainbow certainly did have an impressive setup. A plush couch, huge living room, and even a cloud fireplace in a corner. And by that fireplace…
“No.” I stared at the ice-blue beauty. “Is that a guitar?”
It certainly was a guitar. A six stringed, blue, awesome electric guitar at that. I picked it up gingerly, making sure not to scuff it. I twiddled the knobs, then tried an E-chord. It sounded perfect. I tried playing Skillet’s “Monster”. The guitar never failed. I was just starting “Ammunition” when an angry voice came from outside.
“There’s a burglar in my house?! If I get my hands on you, I will-” I cut her off by continuing the song while she yelled a stream of very creative curses. She rounded the corner, a frying pan in her hand. I kept playing, completely oblivious to her antics. I must have used magic subconsciously, because when I finished the song and looked up, Rainbow was repeatedly trying to hit a golden barrier with said frying pan. The pissed-off pegasus only looked up when she was panting from exertion.
“I’m… gonna… get… y- ANDREW?!” she yelled. “What are you doing with my guitar?”
“Well, I was just walking on by when I said to myself, “It’s a good day out. You know what I wanna do? Steal from Rainbow Dash.” So, I found Pinkie, teleported up here, decided to blow up your toaster, and take your guitar. Is that a problem?” I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice. Rainbow’s eyes widened.
“You were the one that blew up my toaster?” she asked incredulously. I shrugged.
“Nah, that was probably Pinkie. But the guitar is awesome. Where’d you get it?”
She was just about to answer when a… griffon… walked into the room. Seriously. A griffon. It was definitely female, if it was in Dash’s house (does not mean Dash is a lesbian). It took one look at me and shrieked, “Thief!” I once again had to pull up my barrier to deflect a storm of razor-like talons.
“Keep your little friend under control, Colors!” I yelled while struggling to back away.
“Gilda!” Rainbow said. “He’s no thief. Actually, he’s a friend of mine.” The griffon backed off, eyeing me suspiciously.
“So, Andrew?” Rainbow asked, hovering above me. “What’d you come over for?”
“That’s right!” I face-hoofed myself. “Pinkie dragged me over here to ask if you wanna go pranking today. Where is she, anyway?”
“I’m right here!” Pinkie exclaimed, dropping from the ceiling. I tried to figure out how exactly she’d managed to get on the ceiling when the entire house was made of clouds, but thought better of it.
“I’d love to, guys, but I promised Gilda we’d get a flying session in after breakfast.”
Pinkie was slightly crestfallen, but I just put a hoof behind my head and laid on the couch. “It’s cool, Colors.”
Rainbow took off, flying to a nearby cloud and motioning for Gilda to follow. Before flying off herself, she turned to me.
“I’ve got my eye on you,” she hissed. I opened my eyes and stared at her with my signature “bring it on, asshole” look.
“Likewise,” I said. She fumed for a moment before storming off to find Dash. I turned to Pinkie.
“You’re gonna follow them, aren’t you?” I asked. She nodded happily. “Good luck.” I cancelled the cloud-walking spell on myself and dropped out of the house. About fifty feet from the ground I cast a teleportation spell, this one taking me to Twilight’s library. I rounded the corner to see her studying a book intensely.
“Hey, Twi.”
She just waved at me half-heartedly before returning to the book. I swear, that pony does absolutely nothing other than study.
I browsed for a while, eventually coming up with a series of books called “Daring Do”. It seems she’s the ponified Indiana Jones. Now all I need is pony Bourne, and I’m good for the next few days. I was just starting on “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone” when a very angry Pinkie stomped in.
“What’s up, Pinkie?” I asked with a little concern.
“What’s up is that Gilda is a mean-grumpy-mean-meanie pants!” Pinkie snarled.
“Pinkie Pie, are you sure that this friend of Rainbow’s is really so mean?” Twilight asked, still not looking up from her book.
“Um, yeah!” Pinkie exclaimed. “She keeps stealing Rainbow Dash away, she popped my balloons, and she told me to buzz off! I’ve never met a griffon this mean.” She paused. “Actually, I’ve never met a griffon at all, but if I had, I bet she wouldn’t be as mean as Gilda!”
“You know what I think, Pinkie?” Twilight said. “I think you’re… jealous.”
“WHAT?!” Pinkie yelled.
“Green with envy,” Spike put in.
“Well, in this case, pink with envy,” I added. I couldn’t help but chuckle at my choice of words.
“Pinkie, just because Rainbow Dash has a new friend doesn’t mean she’s a pest. Maybe it’s you that needs to change her attitude.”
“Improve my attitude?!” Pinkie shrieked. “But I… it’s Gilda that… are you serious?!” she stormed out of the library.
“Twilight, I’m gonna go check on her,” I said. She nodded, head finally coming up from the book.
I walked through the town, trying to locate the pink wonder. I finally found her sitting at a small table, sipping a milkshake. I sat down next to her and duplicated the milkshake with magic.
“Pinkie, what’s up? You’re seriously pissed, I can see that. But what makes Gilda so much of a jerk that you won’t consider rethinking it?” I took a big sip of milkshake. Mmm, strawberry. She was about to answer when someone behind us screamed.
“RATTLER!” Granny Smith yelled, then started muttering incoherently and zoomed off at the speed of about one mile per hour. I looked at the stand behind her to see a familiar tail poking through the vegetables. Gilda poked her head out and said, “This stuff ain’t fresh, dude!”
“Okay, I can see where you’re going with this,” I murmured to Pinkie, who nodded. We watched Gilda further terrorize the citizens. She snuck an apple from a basket with her tail and popped it in her mouth.
“I was right!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Not only is she mean, she’s a thief!” then she thumped herself. “No, maybe she’ll give it back.”
“Pinkie, by now, giving it back would be more of an insult,” I muttered. I suddenly noticed Fluttershy on a collision course with Gilda. Oh, this is not going to be good…
“Hey!” Gilda shouted. “I’m walkin’ here!”
“Oh,” Fluttershy muttered, obviously terrified. “I was just trying to…”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Gilda imitated. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?”
Fluttershy squeaked something out. Gilda drew a huge breath, then roared a lion’s roar. Fluttershy screamed, then ran off crying.
“That’s it, I’m beating the life out of her,” I hissed. I stalked towards her.
“Hey, Gilda!” I said. She turned and glared vehemently (I’ve always wanted to use that word!) at me.
“Oh, it’s the thief. What do you want?”
“What I want is for you to stop being such an ass to my friends,” I snarled. She grinned cockily.
“Oh yeah? And what are you gonna do about it?” with that, she flew up above the buildings and blew a raspberry at me. I used magic to lock her wings, dropping her to the ground. I turned her mouth into a zipper and levitated her to eye level.
“Next time, you’re not getting off so easy,” I said in a calm voice. I flung her across the town square and trotted back to Pinkie. “Pinkie Pie, I hope you have a better plan than I do.”
She smiled from ear to ear, and whispered her idea in my ear.
“Welcome!” Pinkie exclaimed in a cheery voice. I really hoped that her plan would work; it’s not easy putting so many pranks up in an hour. As Dash walked in, she rushed immediately over to me.
“Gilda told me what you did,” she spat. I merely nodded.
“And I suppose only one side of the story was told?”
“I don’t need to hear your side of the story,” she said. She turned away. “I heard enough from my friend.” I just smiled sadly. Oh well, the truth would be revealed soon.
Pinkie set up some genius pranks. There was the snakes-in-a-can, the re-lighting birthday candles, the pepper-in-the-food, the dribble glass, and the good ol’ tricking-your-target-into-thinking-she’s-getting-pranked-when-she’s-really-not-so-she-makes-a-complete-fool-of-herself trick. Finally Gilda snapped, and with a loud roar, started berating the group. I snickered, then headed to the edge of town to work the final phase of the plan.
About five minutes later, Gilda came storming down the path. I grinned, then called out to her. She whirled and shot towards me, trying to slash my face. As soon as the claw got within my reach, it stopped suddenly. I motioned for Gilda to look down. She did so, a look of rising terror on her face. In front of her was a black void. A pale arm was rising out of it, holding Gilda’s talons in place. The thing in the pit raised its head, revealing a grinning face with empty sockets for eyes and long, lank hair. Gilda screamed once, trying to release herself from the grip. Once the Grudge finally let go, she flew off, screaming, into the sky. I chuckled and dismissed the illusion magic and walked back to Sweet Apple Acres.
Once I got back to the Acres, the Wolves and I got to work bucking the rest of the grown apples. I managed to balance sixteen buckets on my head at once, if you can believe it. I jumped into bed, waiting for the blackness of sleep to overtake me. What I saw, however, frightened me.
It was a face, a horrid face that reminded me of the Ring Girl, the Grudge Girl, and a Heartless at the same time. It was laughing maniacally, struggling to break out of crumbling stone chains.
“Soon,” it told me. I felt a chill creep up my spine. “Soon, I will be free. I can see the rage coming, brighter and brighter like a bonfire. It will be soon, my host, and then I will rampage until nothing is left of this world!” it broke into another fit of laughter as the scene started to fade away.
“Wait!” I shouted. It turned to me, curiosity shining in its unblinking gaze. “What are you? Who are you?”
“I suppose I had a name once, but it has been long forgotten. Call me Vael, for I will break the veil that will lead me to eternal carnage. As for what I am…” it leaned closer, its shifting face burning in the pale moonlight. “… I’m you.”
A/N
Thank you everypony who has liked The Everlasting Hope, and a thank you to everypony who disliked it as well. I Hope (hah, get it) the mystery of the beast will be a good enough intro to the next chapter. A special thanks to rainbowdash_25 and Skillet (the band) for giving me the best idea I’ve had for a while, which will hopefully stand out in the next chapter. I hope that story’s coming along well, rainbow!