//------------------------------// // A Teensy Weensy Little Bit of a Spaz Out // Story: Over the Edge and Through the Wood // by JarOfHearts //------------------------------// Chapter 15 A Teensy Weensy Little Bit of a Spaz Out Edited by: Neko~ Troy let out an inarticulate scream of impotent anger as he shook his fist at the heavens. More specifically, a rainbow-maned pony in those said heavens who was rolling around on a little cloud laughing her tail off. She had released a bolt of lighting scant inches from where he was standing. Right behind him. The result had been a rather impressive standing leap that got him some serious air time. He might have also screamed. He couldn’t remember and his ears were ringing, so it was anyone’s guess at this point. Yes, he DEFINITELY didn’t scream like a little girl. Most certainly not. The wayward human flipped the bird at the pegasus and stormed off into the forest from whence he came. Still stewing in his own piss he kicked at some flowers as he walked the path to the castle. Blue flowers. Flowers that the ponies had made a point of avoiding. Flowers he himself had made a mental note to steer clear of. Those flowers. Of course, he only recalled this fact right as his shoe caught fire. For the second time in half an hour, he let out a high-pitched scream born of pure panic. He kicked and stomped and danced the hot foot dance. Then things got worse. His flailing had robbed him of his balance and sent him tumbling into a patch of the accursed blooms and he was lit up like a dried-out Christmas tree with lights plagued by faulty wiring. Soon, his body was engulfed in flame and his cries took on a desperate edge as he wailed. He was going to die, this was his funeral pyre. He had gotten complacent and now he was going to die because of some stupid plant, and it was all his own damn fault. His flesh was cooking. His bones would be ash. The burning, the heat, THE HEAT! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “I lost…?  “I lost?”  “Wait a second, I'm not supposed to lose. Let me see the script.“ -Robin of Loxley     (Robin Hood: Men in Tights) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ...Where was the heat? Troy suddenly realized that he felt… mildly warm. It took a minute for his brain to catch up to this revelation as his screams lost their edge, taking on a more confused timbre as he calmed down. Cracking an eyelid he saw he was clearly still ablaze. Seeing he was, in fact, still burning to death he waited for the pain to set in… Nothing. His eyes didn’t even water or dry out when he opened them. He breathed out, and the tongues of fire danced where his breath passed. Ok, time for the moment of truth. He breathed in. The flames entered his lungs and…  It was like breathing in humid weather or maybe kinda like a rainforest… And that was it. Waiting a heartbeat, then three more just to be safe, Troy finally began to rise from where he had fallen. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nothing happened. He felt around for his hair and bag. Nothing, everything was apparently fine. This was fine. Taking a deep breath Troy continued down the trail. He would… he would do something about this, eventually. He was having trouble thinking as the adrenaline spike from the whole ‘you are now on fire’ thing worked its way out of his system as he stumbled through the forest. It was kind of hard to navigate with everything tinted orange. But hey. If his biggest complaint about CURRENTLY BEING ON FIRE was a color filter then he was going to keep his mouth shut before the universe decided to send another curveball crotchward. He heard growling from the underbrush, as a whole contingent of those wooden wolves burst out of the underbrush rushing towards him. What the hell! Why were all the random encounters popping off now?! He started pawing for his axe, there were at least twenty of them, and he had to run. Maybe he could climb a tree? Before his thought process had a chance to fully spin up, the group ground to a halt. Maybe it was the orange tint, but if he was reading the doggish features on the wooden wolves correctly, between the lowered ears and tucked tails, this lot didn’t like what they saw at all. Apparently, they had expected just your run-of-the-mill non-pyrotechnic victim, not whatever this hot mess was and it showed. That small bit of hesitation was enough of a sign. When he worked his axe free of its sheath, he charged forward, howling like a demon. To describe his thought process, you would first have to realize that there wasn’t one. Troy was just a jumbled margarita mix of scared, pissed off, and stress roughly molded into the approximate shape of a person at this exact sequence in time. Charging into a fight outnumbered twenty to one was a great example of how little was going on upstairs at the moment. Luckily for him, a fight wasn’t forthcoming. The pack turned and ran as one, and Troy chased it down the road, his screams gaining a joyful if somewhat manic edge. Again, stress, coupled with the anxiety and uncertainty from living from day to day in addition to the last fifteen minutes of ‘Lets-give-this-man-a-heart-attack-athon’. All of his jumbled emotions came pouring out of him as retributive vitriol as he cut an image that would have made any Viking ancestor proud. He continued to chase the wolves, screaming like a madman all the while. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Zecora sipped her herbal tea as she relaxed on her porch. It was such a lovely day, she looked up to where her freshly brewed tonics hung from the branches of her home and smiled. She had finally been able to fully replace the tinctures she had used during all the excitement with the fillies. Her mind turned to the strange being she had met so soon after, the Hueghman, if she remembered correctly, and wondered to herself when she might see her odd new friend next. There was a commotion in the distance, drawing her attention to the surrounding foliage. Some kind of continuous background roar was approaching from the direction of Ponyville, along with some distant canine yelping.  It was at that moment a pack of timberwolves burst through the bush, ignoring the subtle scent wards that would normally keep them at bay as they charged past her house and back into the forest. Hot on their heels was the Hueghman in question. Hot being a good word since he was quite literally on fire. Though he didn't seem to mind that fact overmuch, as he howled his challenge to his quarries. It was only when he paused to catch his breath that he noticed Zecora watching him. He waved. She waved back. Taking a deep breath, the blazing sentinel of vengeance resumed his screaming and charged into the brush. “VAAALHAAALLAAAAAAAA!” With wide eyes, Zecora slowly took a sip of her tea as she watched his passing. “So that is how today will be. Might as well see what help my new friend will need from me.” She slowly got up, set down her tea, and gave chase to the rampaging hellion that was her new neighbor. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Several Hours Later… Twilight Sparkle was in a grand mood as she trotted down the path to the Everfree forest. While she pranced down the trail, Spike caught an errant branch that would have clocked her on the side of the head. For no apparent reason. Again. There had been a lot of such things on the trail, tangles of vines hanging at prime choking height, shambling shrubberies, spiders the size of Opal. The cat, not the gem. The little dragon had valiantly defended Twilight from the Everfree’s efforts to ruin her good mood. He didn’t know why every bugaboo and Stranglevine seemed to pop up whenever he and Twi went into the freaky woodscape, but it was like clockwork. Fifteen steps later he torched a suspiciously thick creeper that was hanging a bit too low for a traveled path. With what he could swear was a hiss, the vine jerked upward and admitted them passage without further issue. This near-continuous onslaught barely even registered with the pony he was riding. She was humming a tune as she trotted ever onward. The diminutive dragons waning patience and burgeoning curiosity eventually joined forces and pushed Spike to finally ask the burning question at the forefront of his mind. “What’s got you in such a good mood?” He inquired as he kicked a diving… something square in the beans, mostly by accident but hey a win's a win. With an indignant hiss/screech/squawk the thing crashed into a nearby tree and scurried away on all seven scuttling limbs. The thing looked like an inverted umbrella. “Becauuuse, Spike.” She drew out the word with a smile. “We’re finally going to get some answers to who our new ‘neighbor’ is.” Her smile swung wide as it hinged towards the manic. “Think about it, an entire culture, an entire history that we know nothing about, they might even have entirely unique areas of study we can’t even imagine. Since they have no magic it might take years, maybe even decades to make sense of their version of science.” Twilight was on her rear hooves and gesticulating wildly as she continued breathlessly, while Spike clung on to her mane for dear life before spotting an approaching problem and dismounted to deal with the issue as Twilight continued ranting. “So much to learn, so much that’s brand new to pony kind, and it’s mine! ALL MINE!” She threw back her head along with her forelegs, and let out a maniacal cackle that would have given Nightmare Moon a good case of the willies.  As she stood there panting, she became acutely aware that Spike was staring at her. So was the Anaconda that he was choking out. It was trying to choke him back but draconic constitution is nothing to be sneezed at. Its eyes rolled into the back of its head as it went limp, though it still maintained an expression that screamed “Lady, you need therapy and lots of it” even as it collapsed to the forest floor. “Well,” Spike commented as he dusted himself off. “That’s nice.” “Look! We’re here!” Twilight said, totally not changing the subject, as the chasm that now sported a vine bridge that had gone from serviceable to positively hardy looking in only a few days widened out before them. Interesting as it was, teleportation magic was a thing, and the last time the two of them had gone over a free-standing bridge Spike had gotten a severe case of motion sickness. So it was only natural and made total, logical sense that she teleported the two of them to the entryway of the ancient castle.  This had unfortunate consequences. Mainly because the situation she had unknowingly dropped the two of them into was too bizarre to stumble upon without the benefit of forewarning. So she and Spike were now standing in front of a wide-eyed Zecora, who was standing in front of a pot of something or other and had frozen as she just finished throwing a ladleful of the concoction on the human. Causing it to explode. Repeatedly. The creature in question didn’t seem perturbed by this in the slightest, not even noticing that most of its body was currently on fire. As usual, it was hard to tell what it was thinking behind those tiny eyes, but given what she guessed was a friendly wave of its many digits she wasn’t intruding on what she would have otherwise assumed could only be a murder attempt or at least some very unprofessional testing of volatile materials. “Zeeecora,” she intoned sotto voce, “why are you exploding the human?” While she was certain she was doing an exemplary job of keeping her cool, the way the zebra leaned back from her may have caused her to second guess herself. But she wouldn’t! Because she was certain, that special kind of absolutely, positively, monolithically certain that came from knowing she was absolutely keeping her cool. Right? Right! Said human was less on fire now, only his pants were still aflame and only in part. Blazing merrily away like a pair of sizzling assless chaps with slightly more dignity. He burbled something in his monkey language and excused himself from the company of the two equines to go do… Something. Something that Twilight Sparkle would be inquiring about at length. Zecora was distracting her from her primary goal as she talked about “Nullifying the flame of a familiar flower blue” and “What in the hay happened to you?” That last bit wasn’t addressed to her. Though she did check herself over just in case, couldn’t look trashy in front of the representative of a whole new species now could she? No, that would be bad, Celestia would be mad if she did something that could hurt pony/human relations. She would never do that, she would burn the Everfree to the ground before that happened! The thoughts of fire brought an unbidden and totally sane-sounding giggle to her lips, that died when she saw Spike. The poor dragon looked like he’d been run over by an entire carriage convention. Bits of wood and grime were sticking to him at odd angles, slivers of some kind of chitin were stuck in his teeth and a fang was sticking out of one of his shoulder scales. Though he wiggled that free and tossed it aside without any fuss, solidly classifying it as ‘wedged debris’ rather than a battle wound. Because dragon. “Oh, you know… The Everfree is just such a…” The miniature drake waved his claw as he searched for the right words. “...aggressively intimate kind of place. Kinda like that one time Twi tried that special cider Applejack brought. She kept hugging Pinkies tail and wouldn’t let go. I asked if I could have some,” He tossed his head up in an exaggerated pout “and she wouldn’t share with me. Didn’t we have a whole friendship report about sharing?” Twilight Sparkle made indignant noises that could have been something distantly related to a response. Perhaps a few thousand years ago, they could have been the precursors to actual words. Instead, they just filled the air with noise as she tried to come up with a proper rebuttal. As she failed at that endeavor Zecora’s comment finally sunk in. “Wait, he was affected by Poison Joke?” At Zecora’s nod she followed up with, “and it set him on fire?”  “I was surprised too,” Zecora stirred her concoction as she replied. “Tis too cruel for Poison Joke prank to do. It is a shock that our friend has lived. As for the cure I had to get…”  She grabbed the ladle she was using to stir her brew and flicked out a splash of her potion onto the ground for another raucous explosion before returning the wooden spoon back into the pot. “...creative.” Twilight could only stare in shock as her magical senses took in what was happening. The potion was, from what she could tell, repurposed weed killer mixed with some potent war magic. A soft “yikes” was her only response. “That,” Twilight stuck out a hoof and pointed at the concoction innocently boiling away. “is a hazard in the strongest sense of the word.” to which Zecora only let out an affirmative hum as the human finally returned, and got another splash of boom juice for his trouble. Now his pants were only half on fire. Fascinated by the process she tried to center her senses on the human to try to divine what was going on. Her magical senses were giving her mixed messages, detecting the man before her as a hole in space. However, she was detecting small motes of… something. She got closer to discover the flames were, surprise surprise, hot. Though not as hot as she would have expected. Pulling on one of the motes with her magic was a bit of a trial, but so long as she didn’t engulf the mote and touch the human it worked fine. As she pulled the mote close she realized what it was almost immediately, Poison Joke pollen. It wasn’t magically inert either. After her first run-in with the plant, she had taken the liberty of doing some research, and the plant was potent, its pollen capable of affecting a pony decades after being removed from the plant. From what she could tell the result was the pollen was trying to affect the human with its own strange breed of magic in a small but constant stream. Only for the magic to quite literally, burn out on contact. The end result was something akin to oxidizing red phosphorus vapor, a flame cool enough to touch. Though waving her hoofs through the flame proved it was cooler the closer it was to the human. Her mind swam with possible implications, with ideas swarming like schools of fish. It was only when Zecora doused Troy with the boom juice again did Twilight finally got pulled back to the present. The man grumbled something but still seemed pleased with the result. Despite having been engulfed in flames near moments ago his pants didn’t seem too worse for wear. Twilight could only wonder if it was an effect of the nature of the fire, the pants, or the one wearing them. More questions when she already had so many she could burst. But she could ask him now. With a violent burst of purple, a blank chalkboard and stand appeared. She grabbed some chalk as she quickly wrote out her greeting in the alien language, and double-checked her work against the cipher that she had taped to the side of the board, and found her confidence in her memorization skills was not misplaced. [Hello! My name is Twilight Sparkle. I have come here today to request an exchange of knowledge.] She poofed a table from the library onto the grass and set her over-bloated scroll on top, yes the table wobbled and was only knee high for the human, but everything would be fine. The human leaned down and unrolled the scroll a bit as his brow creased as started to read what was best described as barely decipherable gibberish. [Hello/Greetings/Welcom/Salutation/Non-offensive first-time official greeting/Well met, This Document/Scrol/Paper is Here/Present to Facitate/Alow Proper/Pole-ite/Aceptable/Admisable/Suportable/Sustainable Dilog/Comunication/Interchange/Discourse/Interlocution as to Set/Establis/Certify Proper/Pole-ite/Aceptable/Admisable/Suportable/Sustainable Means/Method/Manner as to Proper/Pole-ite/Aceptable/Admisable/Suportable/Sustainable Behavior/Conduct/Demeanor. In this…] This was Twilight’s proudest achievement. She had created an introductory scroll that would explain everything in a way that was impossible to offend the reader. It had taken her many, many drafts and a few sleepless nights, but this would make sure everything happened the proper way. She stuck her head into her saddlebags and withdrew a survey for the human to go over. Her magic whisked the chalk over the board as she offered the paper. [If you could complete this after reading the scroll, it would be much appreciated.] Unfortunately, Troy’s flaming pants lit the survey, which caused a bit of a kerfuffle, but it was fine. The survey was still legible, even if minorly singed. Though it was weird that it caught fire, the flames were cool or rather just warm to the touch… Twilight heard the scratching before it registered that the human was at the chalkboard as he wrote a reply. This would be fine, he would agree, and then once the dialogue got going she would learn ALL THE THINGS! Any misunderstandings would be cleared up and all that knowledge in his head would be hers and… then she registered his response. [I am sorry, but I do not think I can do that.] It took her a good couple of seconds to process what was written. She read it again and looked at the words that had been written in the human’s strange language. There had to be some mistake. Or possibly a mistranslation? No. No, it was correct. She was being told no. No dialogue. No answers. Nothing. She was going to fail in her task, the one set by Princess Celestia herself. One that would be stamped upon the pages of history for generations to come. This moment would be taught in schools little fillies and colts went to. Everypony would learn about how she had been unable to make friends with an entirely new species. She felt something akin to a too-taut guitar string snap in the back of her skull. And there in that field, in the middle of the Everfree, Twilight Sparkle Lost Her Shit. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.”                         -Benjamin Franklin