Rainbow Dash lay face down on the track, her energy finally spent. She couldn't even bring herself to move when she heard the footsteps skipping her way. "Can I give it a try now?" the voice above her asked.
Finally gathering up a little bit of strength, Rainbow Dash rolled over so she could look up at her friend's face. "Yeah, Pinks. Sure. How 'bout you go for a bit?"
Pinkie squealed a little in delight as she helped her into a sitting position. "Okie dokie loki! Be back before you can say artichokie!" And she began skipping towards the Nnn'tok, which cocked its head at her in confusion, made a motion not unlike a shrug, and zoomed off in the other direction. Pinkie just kept skipping.
A slow grin spread on Rainbow's face. She recognized this. She knew what was going to happen. And I'll finally see how she does... She blinked, and Pinkie was suddenly in front of the Nnn'tok, forcing it to skid to a halt and zoom off in the opposite direction. Pinkie shot Rainbow a friendly wave before skipping off again. And again it was when Rainbow blinked that she was in the Nnn'tok's way.
Was it Rainbow's hyper-competitive nature, or was the smile Pinkie shot her way before skipping off again just a little... teasing?
This time Rainbow willed her eyes to stay open as long as absolutely possible; tears were starting to pool in her eyes, and Pinkie still hadn't made a move, the Nnn'tok literally running circles around her. When she finally conceded and blinked again, Pinkie was suddenly in its way again, forcing it to leap over her.
Okay, that wasn't a smile anymore. That was a full on sly-as-all-get-out grin.
"Oh, come on!" Rainbow cried out as she collapsed backward and covered her eyes. "Okay, okay, fine! You win, covering my eyes, just get it over with!"
"Dashie, I have no idea what you're talking about," Pinkie said. She knew exactly what Rainbow was talking about. Still, the game was now picked up in earnest, and boy were the sounds of slapstick chaos tempting. But Rainbow Dash knew better; she kept her eyes clamped shut.
It still took several minutes for Pinkie to finally wear it down. Dash had to give the little alien credit, its endurance was impressive. It came within about two minutes of Rainbow's own personal best before the sounds of shenanigans finally stopped and Pinkie was standing triumphantly above her with the Nnn'tok caged.
Dash grinned as she sat up again. "Y'know I could have said 'artichokie' a lot of times before you came back," she teased.
For her part, Pinkie as actually sweating and a bit out of breath. "Yeah, little guy was a toughie. I'm gonna need an extra large strawberry shake on the way home to calorie back up, but I got 'im! Up top!"
Rainbow chuckled and raised a hand for a high five, only to get yanked to her feet and given a quick one-armed hug instead. Pinkie grinned again. "That was fun! Can we do it again?"
Rainbow grabbed the cage out of Pinkie's hand and wordlessly started back towards the soccer fields.
~DrW~
Applejack squirmed a little as Fluttershy poked at the back of her head. "Really, Fluttershy, I'm fine. Y' don't need t' be worryin' over me." She winced just a little at the slight touch to what would likely soon form into a bump right in the middle-back of her head.
"Well, I'm worrying all the same," Fluttershy said. A.J. simply rolled her eyes with a small smile and a wince. In her own quiet, unassuming way, Fluttershy was just as mule headed as she was. "Well, I'm no expert -- not on people anyway -- but your head looks fine. It's a very superficial wound, no bleeding or anything, and you don't seem to have a concussion. Now, what have you learned?"
Applejack couldn't help a chuckle. "Nuthin'. Nuthin' at all."
Fluttershy lightly bopped the the back of A.J.'s head, causing her to yelp, but Rarity could see the amusement on both their faces. Unfortunately, as much as she did enjoy seeing her oldest and best friend -- barring that unfortunate gap these last couple years -- starting to lighten up around other people... "Ahem. I do hate to interrupt, but what are we going to do about, ah, her?" She pointed up at the statue, where the Nnn'tok hissed down at the three of them and broke the horn off the statue with a kick.
"Ah, shoot. Principal Celestia ain't gonna like that," Applejack muttered.
Fluttershy hummed thoughtfully. "Somehow, I doubt it'll come to that." At the look the other two shot her she shrugged. "I mean, Mr. Discord can probably just fix it, right?"
Rarity placed a hand on Fluttershy's shoulder. "I'm sure he has the capacity, Fluttershy Darling. But from what we've seen of him, I have no reason to think he'd care enough to."
Fluttershy didn't look so sure, but she let the matter drop, and handed Rarity the animal cage. "Rarity, could you do me a favor and just, hold the cage on the ground and be ready to close it?"
"Oh, uh, of course, Darling. I assume you have a plan, then?"
Fluttershy didn't answer, but Rarity did see the look in her eye, so she left her to her own devices and did as asked.
"Now, now, there's no need to be so naughty," Fluttershy said up to the Nnn'tok, her tone identical to when she was dealing with Angel Bunny. The Nnn'tok hissed again. Fluttershy crossed her arms across her chest. "Well, now. That's hardly very nice. You really should apologize. I don't mind that you're a little rude, but you did hurt a friend of mine." The Nnn'tok replied with a chittering sound. "Such language. I'm asking one final time, please apologize. We're just trying to help you get home."
Now, Rarity didn't have the gift Fluttershy had when it came to animals, but even she didn't need that last bout of chittering translated. Fluttershy sighed. "I apologize for this. I really did try to give you a chance." Rarity looked away and slapped a hand over Applejack's eyes, who only sputtered a little in confusion.
The Stare was Epic Level. Fluttershy didn't hold anything back.
The Nnn'tok turned from purple with green spots to white with grey. It started shivering where it was perched, but stubbornly stood its ground. For about five seconds. Then it dropped to the ground and ran into the open cage as fast as it could, and Rarity slammed the cage door shut. Fluttershy crouched next to the cage herself, her demeanor all care and concern. She picked the cage up, turned to the other girls and said, "Now I suppose we should get this poor little thing back to Mr. Discord. She's had quite the day." At this she started back to the Soccer fields, soothing and singing a lullaby to the still terrified Nnn'tok.
"Y'know, Rarity," Applejack said with just a small shake in her voice. "I think I did learn somethin' t'day. Fluttershy is absolutely terrifyin'."
Rarity couldn't help but titter, one hand delicately covering her mouth. "Oh, Darling, you have no idea."
~DrW~
In truth, Derpy was at a bit of a loss. The Nnn'tok was full-on invisible and scampering around a full-on obstacle course of glass. Given that she wasn't the most graceful of creatures on the best of days, was in a body she still wasn't particularly familiar with, and there were two of her at the moment, she wasn't exactly sure where to go from here.
Other Derpy tapped her chin. "I just can't get over this. The lab doesn't look like this during a lab, let alone after hours. Who set this up?"
"Probably Discord," Derpy replied. "For two awkward, bumbly ma - er - girls, what could be more annoying?"
Other Derpy rolled her eyes as the sound of glass rattling let her know that the Nnn'tok moved to a new position. "Well, that is annoying. 'Course, I can't really blame him for going out of his way for us a little. You didn't have much of a poker face when dealing with him, after all." At the near feral growl Derpy replied with she asked, "What did he do to you anyway?"
Derpy sighed. "Nothing he didn't do to the rest of the town. That's kinda the problem. If it was just me, I could laugh it off later, but it wasn't. My daughter got caught up in it."
Other Derpy suddenly started choking on fresh air. "D-(cough)-Daughter?"
Derpy laughed in spite of herself. "Yeah. Daughter. I haven't been to school in years. Far as I can tell, our ages is one of the things different between our two sides of the portal, and whatever it was about the portal that made me this, made me match you that way, too."
"So everyone over here is younger than over there?"
Derpy shrugged. "It's kinda weird and random, actually. I came here as a student, the Doctor old enough to pass as a teacher. Celestia and Luna may not be thousands of years old over here, but they're still, y'know, adult authority figures. Which I guess does make a pattern, except there's your friends' little sisters."
"What about them?"
"You mentioned in your stories that they were going to school here, first year of junior high or something. They're in elementary back home. Same class as my daughter."
"Huh, weird."
"Yeah. Weird. But we're getting off track. That's usually the Doctor's thing. We should figure out what to do about this mess."
Other Derpy screwed her eyes up in thought. "You said you think Discord set this up?" Derpy nodded. "You think he'll make it go away when we're done here?"
"Probably. He does that."
A slow smile spread across Other Derpy's face. "Watch the door." Then, after a quick check to make sure the windows were closed, went over to the edge of the mad science maze, took a moment to measure it up, then deliberately pushed one of the larger beakers over. "Oops!"
The chain reaction was... impressive. One beaker fell upon two, two beakers fell in differing directions, hitting two more each, and so on. The sounds of glass shattering became almost deafening. Calling it a domino effect would almost be an understatement. Derpy, who had caused her fair share of accidental destruction in her day, whistled in appreciation. Before the glass had even finished shattering, Derpy heard a chittering noise before the Nnn'tok became visible again and leapt into her arms.
"Hey, buddy," she laughed. "You doing okay?" The Nnn'tok was shivering in her arms. She figured putting it in its cage could wait a moment.
Other Derpy just shrugged with a grin. "I just don't know what went wrong."
Derpy was pretty sure she heard a disembodied laugh, but it cut off so quickly she couldn't be certain.
~DrW~
The Doctor smirked ever so slightly, even as he was still hanging upside-down. "Is it out of your system, yet?"
Sunset Shimmer was still smiling broadly, but the giggles had finally subsided. "Yes. Mostly."
"Good, now if you don't mind, I think my sonic rolled towards the ovens when this thing got me. Find it for me, if you would." Sunset obligingly got on her hands and knees as she looked for the Doctor's dropped device. She couldn't help another snicker. "I heard that!"
Fortunately it didn't take too long to find the sonic -- all the stoves and counters were built directly into the floor, so there wasn't actually much for it to roll under. "Found it," she said, jumping up to her feet with a grin. Today was proving more fun than she expected it to.
"Excellent! Now, press the big, notable red button please." As soon as Sunset did so, the stretched out Nnn'tok began flailing about in pain, then withdrew back into the ceiling vent. Unfortunately, it did so without letting the Doctor go first, so his back slammed into the ceiling with enough force to knock the breath out of him. Then the Nnn'tok unwound itself from around the Doctor, and his front met the floor with similar force. "Ow..."
Sunset Shimmer stood over the motionless form of the Doctor. "So, you've saved the universe before, yeah? Like, multiple times?"
The Doctor rolled over to look up at Sunset. "Not. One. Word."
Sunset's smile stayed just as wide as before, but she did mercifully shut up as she offered him a hand, which he begrudgingly took as she helped him to his feet. He wordlessly took his sonic back and looked up at the vent. He could still hear the Nnn'tok scampering around up in the vents above. "So, now what?" Sunset asked.
"Simple enough. I just have to get it out." Calmly the Doctor walked into the walk-in freezer. Sunset could hear the sounds of crashing from within. He came back with a chemical tank. "Grab a chair for me please?"
Sunset did as asked, and, after putting on a thick pair of gloves he had in his pockets, the Doctor stood on it directly below the ceiling vent. He used the screwdriver to pop open the cover, then stuck the vent end of the tank into the opening and let loose. The cold mist that poured out of the opening in the ceiling was impressive, hiding the upper half of the Doctor from view. He then stepped up onto the back of the chair for a bit of extra height, causing a surprised *meep* from Sunset, though his balance was perfect; the chair only briefly tipped onto two legs. He reached into the vent and, luckily his hand closed around a round-ish thing inside.
Hopping down to the floor with his prize in tow, the Doctor showed it to Sunset. It was the Nnn'tok, curled up in a ball, frost thick in its fur. "Cool, eh?" the Doctor said with a grin.
Sunset buried her face in a hand. "Ah, no..."
The Doctor cackled as he led her out of the kitchen.