//------------------------------// // Subject 233: Cake Combat II // Story: Interviews With Equestrians // by Jmaster49 //------------------------------// I knew exactly who this was. But there was something else in play. He had already started to charge up an attack without so much as a hair of movement! “We got a problem. A big problem,” I mumbled to myself, and turned to the Cake siblings. “Guys, watch out!” The twins looked at me for a split-second. “H--?!” CRASH! From out of the ground, several appendages that were akin to tentacles burst out which nearly grabbed ahold of the twins had it not been for their quick thinking. “Woah!” Pound yelped as he flew into the air, “This guy means business!” Pumpkin used her magic to self-levitate. She was encased in her dull-blue magical aura in order to float and ‘fly’ away from the limbs. “Too close! Darn thing almost got me! Sir, are you alright?” Since I couldn’t exactly leave the ground, I was forced to deal with the limbs directly. “Rrgh!” I winced as I pulled back against the force of the shadowy arms that tried to pull me in. “Nothing I haven’t dealt with before! You two should fall back and regroup with the others as soon as possible!” “No way!” Pound shouted and simultaneously dodged a swipe from a tendril, “This is our home! Our ancestors built this land, and our parents were the ones who made this bakery. I’ll keep fighting until it’s over!” Pumpkin also managed to avoid the attacks of the shadowy demon. “Yeah, he’s right. This will be pretty easy to handle. It can’t even hit us!” SHING! And that’s when the demon immediately changed its tactics. Almost as if it could adapt to us on the fly, the tentacle arms became sharp swords! “AH!” Pound squealed as he narrowly avoided the slice of a shadowy blade. He wasn’t horribly injured, but it clipped his wing just enough to cause a slight bleed. “Tch...so this is what real HP damage feels like?” Pumpkin used her magic to generate blue crescent-shaped shields around herself. But the bladed edges of the shadowy demon’s attacks proved too much for those as well. “Ah! Nonono!” she panicked as the black sword pierced through her magic. She did a roll in midair to narrowly escape impalement from the weapon. “Ow!” Fortunately, she was able to escape with a mere cut above her flank, rather than a stab. Like her brother, she had good coordination, and managed to avoid fatal damage--at least for the moment. “How about this?!” From her horn, she fired off a spell that shot out like a discreet laser beam. It was a particle spell! Mainly used by surgeons, blast of magic like this was normally meant to make precise incisions to avoid damage to vital organs. Well this mare had repurposed that spell into an offensive attack! It managed to cut through most of the black limbs that held the blades with unparalleled finesse. But once the beam reached the shadow pony itself... TING! POOF! ...her magical beam evaporated on contact with its body. Was this demon outfitted with magical repellent or absorption? It was hard to venture a guess… “What?!” Pumpkin yelled out, “That’s stupid! That was my most powerful spell! How could it not--” Pound cut her off, and created a new weapon from thin air. A lance with a pointed tip made entirely out of clouds. It was easily twice the length of his body, but his control over the elements of weather allowed him to handle it easily. “Guess we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way!” With a flap of his wings, he charged in. A dive bomb attack to strike headfirst with a stab from his weapon. PLOP! “WHAAAAA--?!” ...Until it disappeared as soon as it came into contact with the pony. Defenseless, Pound Cake was knocked to the ground beneath the being’s left hoof in order to put him through asphyxiation. “LET HIM GO!” I screamed. Sadly, I wasn’t of much use at that moment. I had been in a nasty scuffle with a pair of the shadow blades myself the entire time. They covered such a wide angle with each slash that I was forced to resort to dodging and could only helplessly watch the twins fight from the corner of my peripheral vision. “Dammit, there’s just too many…” At last, our prayers were finally answered. A giant mechanism opened up from within Sugarcube Corner’s rooftop. All three of us looked up to find Pinkie Pie seated behind what looked like a controllable pink gatling-cannon...thing? “Say hello to my not-so-little friend!” cried the pink party pony from on high. After a slight whirr of the machine, and a moment’s delay, it fired! BAM! A laser of what appeared to be frosting filled with what looked to be sparkly, unstable sprinkles was fired directly at the shadow pony….and bounced right off. Directly back at Pinkie! SPLAT! “Wha--nonono! That’s not supposed to--!” Before she could finish her sentence, both she and her machine were covered in a pink cloud! “Pinkie!” Pumpkin Cake yelped with concern, “Are you okay?!” “It’s fine! I’m fine...I just need to get the--” BOOM! Her sprinkles detonated, and sent parts of her machine into the air. A bit of the building was taken along with it. And Pinkie herself was launched clear across the sky and out of the town, but not before she shouted one last time, “I’LL BE BACK!” Needless to say, this did not go over well with either of the twins. However, Pound Cake was still incapacitated, and I was still locked in a battle of avoidance. Which left things to Pumpkin Cake. “You try to harm my family and ruin my place of business...now it’s personal.” I felt her aura shift, as if she had started to pour more aggression into herself and her magic. The shadow pony meanwhile, was unfazed by her threats and the way her magic shifted. It was almost as if it wanted her to get this way in order to enrage her. And for the first time since the battle began, we actually heard it speak. “What can you do? You’re just some baker’s mediocre daughter.” Grogar you diabolical piece of...