//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: At The Mares Of Madness // Story: LAIR OF THE BADALISC!!! // by Doctor Fluffy //------------------------------// At The Mares of Madness Rainbow Dash came as fast as she could. “Hey,” Rainbow Dash said, “what’s-” “I think we found the ponies that tried to kill us,” Pinkie said. “We need to get to the Badalisc as soon as we can. We’re finding out who did this.” “You sound like you have a plan,” Rainbow Dash said. “Honestly, part of it was hoping you help with that,” Pinkie said sheepishly. “But we already have the directions to see the Badalisc, so…” “We have gone off less of a plan before,” Rainbow Dash said. “Come to think of it, what was our plan back during the Summer Sun Celebration?” “I wasn’t really listening,” Pinkie admitted. “I just know we go in the forest, and then, uh… get the elements, and…” “Well, it’ll turn out better this time,” Rainbow Dash said. “We’ve got years of experience, we’ve got more ponies on our side…” “And,” Cheese said, “You’ve got Cavallocade ready to help, too.” The two mares looked at him in awe. “Really?” Pinkie asked, sounding as if she couldn’t quite believe that. “My family has deep roots here,” Cheese said. “As far as they’re concerned, whoever’s doing this hurt one of their own…. And,” he sighed. “And they hurt my… best friend.” “They didn’t say best friend, did they,” Portabella asked. Cheese sighed. “...No.” “Honestly!” Pinkie cried out, throwing out her forelegs. “Where do creatures get this from?” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Gee, I wonder where.” “Dashie,” Pinkie said, “I should probably tell you… there was one thing I couldn’t get past while planning.” “What’s that?” Rainbow Dash asked. “You can fly over to Twilight or Applejack,” Pinkie said. “You’re such a fast flier, you could get to Twilight easy as pie!” Rainbow Dash cocked her head and frowned.  This was not a bad idea. It made lots of sense, but… “It is a good idea,” Rainbow Dash admitted. “But it’s hard to fly that far. And… I don’t know if I could forgive myself if I wasn’t here for you.” “You really are the best friend a mare could ask for,” Pinkie said, nuzzling and hugging her. Cheese sighed and looked down at the floor. Can we really make that work? “I’m with you. All of you,” Rainbow Dash said. “We find whoever did this, and we show ‘em what Twilight’s best friends are capable of, and what a mistake they made.” Pinkie’s eyes widened.  “I mean it,” Rainbow Dash said.  “Warning Twilight is still a good idea, though,”  Giovanni said. He paused. “Actually, what if I can’t get to her? What if she has princess duties or she’s not-” “Go talk to Applejack, then. Maybe then, she’ll talk to Flutters, or… I don’t know, just tell as many ponies as you can,” Rainbow Dash said. “Are you sure they’ll trust me?” Giovanni asked, looking down towards the floor. “Abso-tively posolutely!” Pinkie Pie chirped. “Discord lives there.” With those three words, Pinkie had silenced the entire room.  “...You know,” Portabella said, “It is kinda weird when you say it out loud like that.” Pinkie shrugged, holding out one forehoof. “Ehhhhh…” For whatever reason, nopony felt like questioning that one. “I can help out in town,” Sans Smirk piped up. “I… won’t be much help out there. What about Tomato? He can help you out." “So everyone knows what they’re doing?” Cheese Sandwich asked. Everyone nodded. Later Apparently in this part of the Eponines, where tourism had become the dominant industry, they called anything meant to get up the mountain (save for a chairlift) a “tramway.”  Pinkie couldn’t quite understand that. Trains were only a sort of cursory interest, but from what she could tell: Did you have a cable car that sputtered and seemed to vent black smoke? Tramway. A set of tracks just barely wider than Applejack’s farm’s apple carts, that harvested meat from the creature over Cavallocade and resold it to carnivores that preferred to have gotten it more or less ethically? Tramway. Small railroad line that headed up the Frostenhorn towards stands of mushrooms the size of trees that were sold as exotic furniture, and belched (as opposed to vented. There was a difference) black smoke? Still a tramway. It was this last conveyance on which Pinkie, Cheese, Rainbow Dash, Giovanni, and Portabella traveled. It was an ancient locomotive that looked to be about as old as Ponyville (maybe even older)  and clattered along ancient train tracks. “Quickest way to the abandoned town uphill,” said the older pony who stood by the boiler with a shovel. “Barely even know why we keep this stuff around, the Badalisc doesn’t even use it… that we know of, but hey. Towns are towns.” Pinkie Pie nodded sagely. Towns were indeed towns. Unless they were midsized burgs. Though that probably wasn’t what he was going for - more something about how sometimes, your hometown just… seemed weirder than anything to an outside observer, and it was better not to question it. “I know exactly what you mean,” Pinkie said. “Do ya?” the old stallion asked.  “More or less,” Rainbow Dash said, nodding slightly. “Hey, is that the town?” “Sure is,” the old stallion driving the train said, pointing with one foreleg towards a collection of outbuildings up ahead, half-drowned by the snow. They looked to have been built in the characteristic Cavallocade style, mostly wooden with peaked roofs, but the winds and biting cold had seared them to an almost black color. It matched the trees that encircled it. Pines like taller Hearthswarming trees, maples, other trees Pinkie couldn’t name, all seemed indistinctly dark under the gray clouds. The pines were especially odd to her, as they still had their needles, but… they still  “Yep,” the stallion who drove the train said, to nobody in particular, “Badalisc ain’t too far from here, city mares.”  “Thanks for taking us up this way,” Rainbow Dash said. “Almost don’t want to fly up there.” “The great Rainbow Dash not wanting to fly?!” Pinkie Pie gasped in what may or may not have been mock-horror. “It’s not that bad!” Rainbow Dash protested. “I just…” She leaned in to nuzzle Pinkie.  “I care about you. A lot,” Rainbow Dash said. “And I don’t want to be running on empty when you need me at my best.” (She was looking at Cheese and Pinkie.) “So,” Rainbow Dash said, “What do we know about them?” “They’re a unicorn stallion and a…” Cheese scratched one forehoof under his chin. “Earth pony, I think.” “It’s weird,” Pinkie said, “There’s something so familiar about her.” “You see it too?” Cheese asked. “It’s like it’s at the tippy-tip of my tongue,” Pinkie said, nodding. “But I just… I can’t…” She felt the train slowing, and looked around the tiny cabin of the locomotive that they shared. Small wooden outbuildings drew into focus, half-buried under snow and roots. The small locomotive drew to a stop. “End of the line,” the engineer said. “Anything past this point is either covered in snow or washed out.” The terminus of the small rail line was a station smaller than Fluttershy’s cottage. Pinkie peered in, noting that there was a cot, a small stove, and an office space, all of which would’ve comfortably fit in her apartment above Sugarcube Corner with space to spare. It all appeared to be set into a little plateau of the mountain, a small nook  A dead tree loomed above them on a bald cap of snow surrounded by tall ramrod-straight pine rees that barely came above a pony’s head, its branches reaching up through the mist and letting it trail through them, like a griffon’s talons plunging into a river. “Turn left at the dead tree,” Pinkie said, pulling the cookbook from her saddlebag. She held it to her forehoof, staring intently.  “Looks like there’s a map as well…” She placed it on the side of an old, half broken bench, tugging at one page with her teeth, revealing an expansive map about four times the size of one of the cookbook’s pages. “So there’s a trail here, and it lives in a cave near the top…” Pinkie mused. “And there’s this trail here, and the old stone bridge there…” She pushed it towards Cheese, Rainbow Dash, Sans Smirk, and Portabella. “Let’s get on it, then,” Portabella said, and the five of them began their trek.  It became abundantly clear that Pinkie and Cheese hadn’t thought hard enough about the journey. Or at least, what the journey meant. It wasn’t as if they were strangers to long walks, both had their experience at wandering across Equestria and hiking through similar terrain, it was just that there was so much of it. Their hooves crunched through the snow. Half-frozen fungi dotted the landscape between black pines that twisted like a griffon’s talon with too many joints. The wind bit at them, rustling along their coats. And Pinkie was very, very relieved she’d sprung for a hat. Her ears could get cold extremely quickly, after all. Rainbow Dash fluttered down towards them, weaving through a gap between two black pines. Not green, Pinkie realized, black. Actually black. That can’t be good, she thought. Pinkie held the cookbook up to one foreleg. It wasn’t hard to see where she was going - after all, it was simply a straight shot through the trees. Tentacles of the massive beast above Cavallocade appeared to be the most important landmark on maps of the place. Just ahead of them was an arch of tentacle that curled into a spiral, and there it was marked on the cookbook’s map as “The curlicue.” “Yeah,” Cheese said, uncharacteristically serious, “It looks like we’re going the right way. This trail’s a straight shot to…” He took a deep breath. “The lair of the badalisc.” Thunder crackled outside. “What is with your weather team?” Rainbow dash muttered under her breath, just as Pinkie looked up from her map back to her. “Does it look good out there?” Pinkie asked. Rainbow Dash nodded. “I can’t see anything in the pines. Wish they weren’t such a dark color-” “They’re black,” Cheese said.  Rainbow Dash blinked, then pulled up her flight goggles. “Well, I’ll be. They really are. Thought these were just too tinted.” She sighed. “Remind me why we’re not all rushing up to the cave?” Rainbow asked. “I could… I could practically carry you and Cheese up here.” “The winds get bad up here,” Portabella said, even though she knew he’d told this to Rainbow Dash already. Just inches ahead of them was the tentacle marked on the map as the Curlicue. “Okay, seriously, your weather team needs a real shakeup,” Rainbow Dash said, before fluttering over it. “It’s starting to remind me of Everfree,” she added, once they’d all passed through. “From what Giovanni told me,” Cheese said, “The uh, tentacled thing… what’s its name, can’t believe it slipped my mind… anyway, because it has such a weird effect on the weather, ponies around here are encouraged to be a bit more hooves-off.” ‘Yep,” Giovanni said, “Weathercreatures around here need special training. And we get so many days off. It’s why I came here in the first place!” “So I guess it’s a little like Everfree,” Rainbow Dash said, looking around nervously. “Never liked the place. It was so…” “So what?” Cheese asked. “All I knew when I walked by was-” And he took a breath, before doing a passable imitation of Granny Smith “Ponies said ‘you don’t wanna go down that road.’” Pinkie looked to her right and watched a branch sway lightly. Then another. Each branch waved as if in the wind, but each moved in a different direction. One even brushed upward, as if the wind had erupted from the ground itself. “Well, it’s… almost unnatural is what it is,” Rainbow Dash said. Pinkie wasn’t listening. Her eyes tracked one branch as it lifted up and down, as if waving at her. “Weather moves by itself, and the plants, and animals…  there’s nothing like them,” Rainbow Dash said. Up. Down. Up. Down. Pinkie was no longer staring at that same branch. But there was another one now, still waving at her. “Whatever happened, it feels like Discord or a bunch of unicorns had one heck of a bad day,” Rainbow Dash said. “Things in that forest just… don’t make sense, and we have to keep weather from there on its own sys…” Rainbow Dash’s voice trailed off as she noticed Pinkie Pie staring… then the trees. This was beyond odd motion now -  the branches rose and fell in waves. “Is that nor….” Rainbow Dash asked, before reconsidering her words. No, ‘normal’ didn’t matter so much here. “Is that supposed to happen?” The four of them froze, staring at the waving branches. Cheese stared at it blankly. “Run,” he whispered, and sprinted down the trail. Pinkie, with stamina nobody would’ve expected, galloped right to the front of the herd, just behind Rainbow Dash. “What does it mean though?!” Pinkie yelled. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it!” Cheese yelled. The trail curved sharply to the left, and Pinkie suddenly smelled… Wait a minute. It happened so fast. It happened so slow. Amazingly, both things could be true.  Pinkie skidded to a halt in the snow, powdery flakes curling out all around her. That smell. That smelly smell! That kind of smell that smells… …smelly… ICING! “Dashie! INCOMING!” Pinkie yelled, screaming up towards Rainbow Dash. Her flyer’s instincts were finely-tuned that she immediately knew what to do. Rainbow Dash dove towards the ground, her belly fur practically scraping the snow. Just then, a frozen cake sailed out from between the trees, slamming into a black pine and crumbling like a boulder dropped from a great height. “It’s them!” Portabella yelled. “Run!” Rainbow Dash yelled, and just then, a tree branch exploded. “Don’t have to tell me twice!” Giovanni yelled, sprinting forward at a speed that Rainbow Dash almost found herself envying. “Your reign of terror ends NOW!” someone cackled from behind them. Pinkie stared back behind them to find Vic, or Victory, whatever it was short for, standing far behind them on the trail. In his telekinesis, he held objects - a metal tube that vaguely reminded her of her Party Cannon, and a knife. “I don’t even know who you ponies are!” Pinkie yelled, galloping down the trail. “You WILL!” Vic cackled, and Pinkie heard the sound of his hooves pounding against snow. Somewhere, Pinkie watched a frozen cake slam into Rainbow Dash’s barrel. Pinkie rushed through the snow. Trees rushed by, and she found herself surprised by how fast she was able to run. All around her, the tree branches undulated up and down, and at that moment it reminded her of nothing more than a crowd trying to wave her away, begging her to stop. Like Tartarus I will. She rushed forward. Just ahead of her, the trees seemed to open up, and Pinkie saw somepony stepping out of the woods. I was having such a great weekend here, and you RUINED IT! She thought. She’d been with Cheese, with her best friend, tried to figure out what the difference between ‘Cheese’ and ‘best friend’ was, she’d had such yummy food, and it’d been such a great time overall- The pony held out a hoof.  Pinkie blinked, and decided then and there that she was going to ram through her then and there. “Wander Shoes!” the mare yelled, and Pinkie had just enough time to wonder ‘who or what is tha-’ Everything went grey, as a massive reddish earth pony, almost the size of Big Macintosh, slammed into her. Pinkie tottered along the trail’s edge, and bounced off a black pine. A nub of wood jabbed into her barrel, not breaking the skin or fur but just skipping along her. It felt like she’d been punched with a very, very tiny hoof. She lost her hoofing then and there, tumbling across the snow. “NO!” Cheese cried, and all of a sudden he exploded into motion. Pinkie tumbled forward, head bouncing against the snow. She collapsed in a heap, as uncoordinated as Cheese’s Boneless #2, head buried in powdery snow. But: As she struggled to find her bearings, to untangle her legs from the knot that was now her body, she saw two things:  Cheese, barreling towards her, his legs like the pistons on a locomotive.  And Rainbow Dash, hiding behind a tree. Giovanni was nowhere to be seen. Can’t really blame him, Pinkie thought.  Vic stood in front of Portabella, holding a woodspony’s axe in his telekinesis, a mad grin on his face. “I don’t really know or care who you are,” he said, “but hey. It’s nothing personal.” “Nothing personal?!” Portabella yelled. “You nearly killed all of us! You chased my cousin and his marefriend?! Does that sound like nothing personal!?” Vik almost looked surprised. “Really? Them? Huh.” “Oh come on, it was obvious!” Portabella yelled. Was it?! Oh no, we haven’t been hiding it well enough! Pinkie thought, panicking. Then again, she knows Cheese, it’s probably super obvious to anyone that knows him… Rainbow Dash inched closer to Pinkie, stopping her train of thought at the station. “I need you both to stall them,” Rainbow Dash whispered. “Giovanni’s hiding from them, he’ll come for us when he can. Stay close to the trees on the edge of the trail. Keep them busy until-’ “Until what?” Pinkie asked, but Rainbow Dash was gone. “Stay out of this, Sandwich!” called out Vic, the thin stallion. “This doesn’t have to involve you either-” “You followed us through the Garden,” Cheese said, almost snarling. “You nearly killed all of us in an avalanche. You made it my business.” I can’t believe it. Pinkie had never seen Cheese angry. She’d seen him happy, tired, and depressed, but never genuinely mad. She had, admittedly, expected anger at some point back when she’d visited his factory, half-expecting Sans Smirk to be leeching off of Cheese. But she’d been proven wrong, and the look on Cheese’s face proved that she simply hadn’t been able to imagine it. “What’d we do to you, huh?!” Cheese yelled. “I was so excited to see somepony I…” His speech staggered. Trailed off slightly. But he pushed forward. “Somepony I love!” He loves me?! Pinkie Pie thought, her eyebrows shooting up. Truthfully, it didn’t come as that much of a surprise, but it’s a world of difference between surmising something and hearing it outright. “And you’ve just gone out of your way to ruin it! Do… you even know what you’re doing?! Why are you even doing this?!” Vic trotted up, a strange metal pipe held in his magic aura. It reminded Pinkie of her Party Cannon somehow, but… but slimmer. It barely looked like one at all, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of familiarity. “Because Pinkie Pie ruined our lives!” Vic yelled. Dead silence all around. “You planned my tenth birthday,” Wandering Shoes said. He had an extraordinarily deep voice. The three other ponies turned to stare at him, eyes open wide. “I remember coming into the room you reserved, and I saw the decor. It was for a little filly. Everything was pink. There were ponequins with frilly dresses all over the room, ballet bars, mirrors that made the room look like a dance studio. I checked the presents, and all of them were full of dancewear and petticoats,” Wandering Shoes said. Pinkie cocked her head to the side. That did sound familiar… “My friends came in next, and they started. Laughing,” he continued. “They never stopped. They insulted me, laughed at me, called me less of a stallion, left terrible drawings of me in a dress all over town! And it wouldn’t have happened without you, Pinkie! YOU RUINED MY LIFE! I’ve had to dye my fur ever since so nopony recognizes me!” “Is that… is that true?” Cheese asked, looking down towards her. Pinkie took a deep breath. “It is.” She did remember it. She’d pulled a favor with Rarity to get some of the costumes there, after giving Wandering Shoes one of her patented Pinkie Pie Party surveys and interviewing his best friend, who’d said that he always had this faraway look when he stared at her dance costumes. Portabella and Cheese looked down to Pinkie, gasping. “And I’m sorry,” Pinkie said. “I… I had no idea your friends would react like that. But-” “No more excuses,” Wandering Shoes snarled. “You ruined my childhood. You ruined my life in my hometown.” “And you KILLED MY FAMILY!” Vic screamed. Pinkie Pie blinked. Wandering Shoes’ story had, at least, been explicable. This was, after all, something she remembered. She remembered renting various costumes from Rarity, she remembered carefully budgeting the party, buying ballet hoofshoes… and she remembered reimbursing Wandering Shoes’ parents. This one was a bit out of left field. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Pinkie said bluntly. “I’ve literally never done that.” The expression on Vic’s face was quite indescribable. “I definitely believe it,” said the pony that had been with Vic, chasing them through the garden. “You left me alone, Pinkie. Forgot about me. And then there’s what you did to Fields.” “It’s too horrible to mention,” the other mare said, staring down at the snow. “You… you ruined my party. My childhood. I can’t bear to say it!” Pinkie blinked. If anything, this was more inexplicable than Vic’s. Pinkie could look Vic over and say ‘I have never met you and I don’t understand a single word you said.’ She had absolutely no memory of him. None. Had never seen a stallion that looked like him, had never heard his voice, had never planned a party for him. But Fields was vaguely familiar, and Pinkie could remember nothing. The most she remembered was a note in her Secret Party Planning Cave that read “parents asked specifically for carrot cake.” Pinkie looked towards Cheese. “Whatever Rainbow Dash is doing, we need to buy time,” she mouthed. Cheese nodded. “I… can’t believe you,” Cheese said, and Pinkie was surprised again by the anger in his voice. “Pinkie is the sweetest, kindest mare I’ve ever met. I don’t think there’s a single cruel bone in her body!” …Pinkie didn’t entirely believe this. There were moments she regretted, sure. She’d been terrible to Fluttershy during her ponytones audition, for example. But a compliment was a compliment, and she wasn’t going to complain. “Nopony’s perfect, but she’s the furthest thing from the kind of monster you’re describing,” Cheese said. “I don’t… I don’t even know who most of you are!” “Honestly, Fluttershy has more reason to get revenge on me!” Pinkie added. This, unfortunately, seemed to bounce off Wandering Shoes like a superball.  He just laughed, staring Cheese Sandwich down. “You really think you can take the four of us on?” he asked. “Can you even take a punch, you wet noodle?” “Can you?” Cheese asked, rearing up, drawing one foreleg back… Before a glass jar of punch sailed through the air, and shattered on Wander Shoes. There was a brief silence. Three things happened in that brief moment. “I’M SO COLD!” Wander Shoes yelped. “OH CELESTIA, IT’S SO COLD, AND IT’S SO STICKY!” With that yelp, he threw a wide haymaker towards Cheese.  Just before the punch, Pinkie felt something coming, and dove for Cheese. There was a rumble, and she saw an avalanche rushing towards them, prismatic light dancing across the snow, rainbows arcing between particles of snow. Rainbow Dash was at the front of it all, dragging it like a cart. “NOT SO FUNNY THIS TIME, HUH?!” Rainbow yelled. “Oh, you-” the blotchy pink mare hissed, rushing towards her. Cheese Sandwich didn’t quite pick up on the plan till it was half underway, and only barely grasped that they had something that could be called a plan. As best he understood it, Pinkie had picked up on the idea that they were distracting the four ponies before Rainbow Dash did… something. Throwing punch from his saddlebag’s emergency supply at Wandering Shoes hadn’t been part of the plan, and probably hadn’t been all that necessary. But on principle, Cheese didn’t like any of these ponies and they seemed like they probably deserved it. They’d presumably been the ones that dropped an avalanche on him and his friends. They’d chased him. And… The flowerpots falling on Pinkie’s head, that’d probably been them? It’d been a little weird that Pinkie hadn’t noticed it, but the two of them had been having such a good time that watching flower pots bounce off her mane just didn’t seem very important. From the few times he’d visited her in Ponyville, that didn’t seem… too uncommon. And then there was Rainbow Dash rocketing towards them, avalanche trailing behind her. “Giovanni!” Cheese called out. “GET TO PINKIE!” Giovanni, Cheese noticed, hadn’t been doing so well with all of this. He’d been so prepared to help out Cheese, his friend. To be his wingcreature. And then they’d dealt with four lunatics trying to kill them, and nearly dying from an avalanche. He’d disappeared. But:  “I got you!” Giovanni called down, divebombing towards Cheese. There was an impact, a sense that Cheese Sandwich’s entire body save his head had been punched, and the snow released its grip on Cheese’s body. “Cheese, I’m so sorry-” “It doesn’t matter,” Cheese said. “I’m glad you’re back.” Giovanni’s foretalons dug into his barrel slightly, but Cheese didn’t mind. “...hey?” Portabella said, looking over towards him. To his shock, Giovanni was carrying them both under his forelegs, squeezing them together like two peas in a pod. The strain was clear though, with his wings flapping mightily. “Get to Pinkie Pie!” Cheese yelled. “I can’t! I can barely carry two of you!” Giovanni yelled back. Cheese looked down to see the blotchy pink mare holding Pinkie under both forelegs, outstretched… Directly towards Rainbow Dash. As an equine shield. These ponies. These lunatics. What the hell is wrong with them?!   “PINKIE!” Cheese screamed.   The blotchy pinkish mare had her pinned. That was for sure. Her forelegs curled over Pinkie’s, holding directly in Rainbow Dash’s path. Pinkie’s eyes widened.  “What did I do to you?!” Pinkie breathed. “If you survive this,” the blotchy mare hissed, “I’ll show you. Second by second.” Pinkie looked down at her right foreleg, an odd sensation on her fur. Some of the dye had rubbed off, exposing dull, almost bleached-pink fur. What are you…? Pinkie wondered. But she didn’t have time to wonder. Rainbow Dash wasn’t stopping, and she looked like she was performing the silent calculus needed to keep her friend safe, to see what angles she could fly to avoid hitting Pinkie.  At times like this, there’s only one thing to do! Pinkie rocked her head forward, lifting her captor off the ground. Pinkie’s own hind-hooves firmly planted themselves through the snow. Using Mexicolt Wrestling abilities Pinkie had never seen fit to mention until this point, she bent forward and threw the blotchy mare into the snow, headfirst. “AGH-” The world became white. Direction, color, gravity, up, down, all lost meaning as pure kinetic force ripped through the rushed along the relatively flat ground of the trail. Pinkie didn’t have time to think. She rushed for a tree with sufficiently thick-looking branches, climbing it like a ladder. The snow licked at her tail, but it was better that than getting crushed under an avalanche. I may not have claustrophobia, but anyone would get claustrophobic under that, she thought. She breathed a sigh of relief. Finally. She was going to be okay. She was going to ride this out- crack If you were to ask Pinkie how she noticed the sound later, she wouldn’t be able to tell you how such an insubstantial sound stood out through the roar of the avalanche. Pinkie, YOU FOOL! She thought, looking down towards the cascade of snow beneath her. Vik was standing on it, hooves glowing and suspending him an inch above the shifting ground. Snow bent around him, like he was a smooth river rock in the middle of whitewater rapids. His mane was lank and wild, his pupils had shrunken to the size of pinpricks, and he clutched an ax within his telekinetic aura. CRACK He swung it into the tree, screaming incoherently, and Pinkie felt the tree judder forwards. About the only coherent word Pinkie picked out of his speech was ‘DIE!’ “NO NO NO NO BUCKDAMMIT!” Pinkie screamed, as the tree leaned into the avalanche ever so slightly. “When you get to hell,” Vik snarled, levitating the axe almost to eye level with her, “Tell ‘em I’ll be right along.” Pinkie took a deep breath. Right.  She uncurled her legs from the tree, legs wobbling as she put her best effort into balancing (think of skating! She told herself, even though it wasn’t that applicable) and rushed forward. “Die alone,” Vik whispered, and the tree fell. Pinkie scrambled up the trunk. Surely Rainbow Dash would catch her. Surely- And then she saw Lily Fields. Standing behind a party cannon, a smile on her face so wide it looked like it might very well split her face in half. She fired. It wasn’t impossible for Rainbow Dash to dodge, but it didn’t have to be.  All Rainbow Dash had to do was notice the projectile of Black Forest cake, and make the subconscious, numberless calculations that added a second or two or three to the time it’d take to get to Pinkie Pie. Vik used that to hammer into the tree with his axe. And as the tree pitched forward, almost at a 45 degree angle to the snow, Pinkie leapt.