//------------------------------// // Really Under No Control, All. // Story: Cauldron Club // by Biplane //------------------------------// Gus the pelican had had enough. He'd come to Fluttershy's for a friendly visit and a little relaxation. In the few minutes he had been here he had lost his dinner, fallen on his face, and had seen his hostess and the other guests all pass out from the tea. He still had some of the tea in his mouth. He hadn't swallowed it yet (it was a pelican thing), and he was debating whether to simply spit it all out in the stream, or take the sample to Fluttershy's often-mentioned smart friend Twilight Sparkle to analyze it. Wherever she was. Gus stood outside Fluttershy's house, weighing his options, when Poncy the bear burst out the door, cradling one of the potions in his furry bear arm. He stumbled towards the bridge, then collapsed against it. Hmm. Well, that didn’t look good. A few moments later, the door burst open again, and three ponies clad head-to-hoof in black leapt and somersaulted out. Their faces were covered by masks, but the masks had been cut in the back to allow a long pink mane, a rainbow-hued mane, and a poofy pink mane to stream out behind them. Similar consideration had been made for the tails. Gus found himself wondering where the costumes had come from. It was probably not the first question he should have had. Perhaps something more along the lines of “Why are Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy ninjas?” might have been a better first question, but ponies were weird, and Gus was willing to skip that one. But where had the costumes come from? I mean, it had only been a few minutes. They hadn’t exactly had time to make ninja outfits. Did Fluttershy just keep ninja clothes in her house, just in case? Had Pinkie Pie broken physics again and simply produced them out of nowhere? Was it some kind of... magic? Anyway, they didn’t seem quite normal. To say the least. Gus was really not an especially profound observer. Fluttershy stood before the other two, staring intensely into their eyes. Then, in a loud, confident, and decidedly un-Fluttershy-like voice, said, "For the honor of the Shogun, we will scale the wall of Ponyshima Castle and make war upon our enemies! But remember that you are ninja, and we must strike only when the time is right! Remember you are the invisible shadow from which the shuriken flies! Remember that your foe cannot fight what he cannot see, and that, so long as you remain unseen, your foe is in defeat! You will remember this!" "Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!" cried Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. And then the three disappeared into the nighttime shadows. Huh. Well. That was weird. Gus shrugged, which was a perfectly normal pelican thing to do. He decided right then that he was not going to wait around and see how this turned out. He flapped his wings a couple of times to warm his muscles up a bit, when he spotted some bears come out of the woods, and head to the bridge to check on Poncy. Well, that was good. At least Poncy would get a little attention. Wait. Wait a minute. Were those... they were! Gus's crab dinner was lounging on the creekside beside the bridge, under where Poncy had collapsed! What luck! He waddled over, opening his still-full-of-mystery-tea mouth, preparing to scoop up the four delectable crabs. One of the bears dropped Poncy's potion bottle, and it splashed all over the little crustaceans. Gus didn’t care. A little seasoning wouldn’t hurt. He opened his mouth and scooped up the little glowing crabs. Wait, glowing? Gus, the crabs are glowing. That’s, like, Do Not Eat 101. Unfortunately, eating things, glowing or not, was a perfectly normal pelican thing to do, and this pelican in particular was not going to be stopped by a little eerie glowing. He was hungry. A couple flaps of his big wings, and they took off. Do you know what happens when you combine crabs, tea, not-quite-correctly-made-old-mariner's-swimming-potion, definitely-not-correctly-made-thousand-year-old-bat-pony-agility-potion, and... whatever honey-looking potion Pinkie Pie had made? Well, don't feel too bad. Nopony else does either. Gus sure didn't. . . . Poncy the bear awoke in a daze. The three ponies were passed out around him. What had been wrong with that tea?! Stumbling to his feet, Poncy found his swimming potion (apparently it had been Pinkie Pie's and Rainbow Dash's potions that had been mistaken for milk and honey, as his was untouched), and lurched his way out the door into the cool night air. Stumbling towards the woods, his vision swimming and his balance way off, Poncy had to stop several times to rest. Coming up on the cute little bridge over the cute little stream, he found himself collapsing against the cute wooden railing. Poncy wasn't sure how long he lay there, in and out of consciousness, but he thought he saw Gus the pelican the first time he opened his eyes, ninja ponies the second time he opened his eyes, and more bears leaning over him the third time he opened his eyes. The fourth and fifth and sixth and so on times he opened his eyes were much the same as the third. This was his first clue that the third time he had opened his eyes had signified his return to consciousness. His throat felt parched. His bear friends surrounded him, concerned looks on their furry bear faces. One of them gave him a little water. It tasted funny. He made a face. A look of confusion crossed the face of the bear that had given Poncy the water. He took a sniff from the glass bottle the water had been in. He tasted it. It did seem a little odd. Turning to the other three behind him, the bear shot them a look that said "Does this water taste funny to you?" The three each tried a sip of the bottle of water, and shot him a look in turn that said, "Yes, it does taste rather odd." Now, this seems like an important moment to talk a little bit about water safety. If you see somepony (or somebear) passed out, holding a bottle containing a clear liquid, it is important to consider the possibility that the liquid contained in that bottle might not be water. Now, this seems like an important moment to talk a little bit about potion safety. When making a potion, especially one that is clear and may resemble water, it is customary to add a dye to it, so that it is less likely to be mistaken for water. Also, you should always label your potions so that somepony coming across one will know what it does before they consume it. Also also, in the event that you accidentally imbibe a potion thinking that it is water (especially if it has been made by an amateur and is likely to have several errors), the best course of action is to cap it and set it aside, and then seek magical help. The best course of action is not to knock the bottle over, spilling it over the side of a bridge and onto some crabs as they crawl out of a stream, just before they are scooped up by a wandering pelican, then panic as you and your friends begin to turn into bear-sharks. For example. . . . Scootaloo buzzed her wings, her eyes closed tightly in concentration. She felt maybe a little lighter. Was the potion working? She opened her eyes to see that she was still on the ground. "Aww! It didn't work!" "Are ya sure? Maybe yer just not tryin' hard enough?" Apple Bloom suggested. Scootaloo's reply was a flat stare that was half exasperation, half glare. "... Or... maybe ya are," Apple Bloom backpedaled. Masterful recovery. "You probably just have to drink a little more of it!" suggested Sweetie Belle. Admirable observation, Sweetie. Keep those other two on track; atta girl. "Oh. Oh yeah. That makes sense," Scootaloo said, embarrassed. "It just tastes so awful!" she said, and made a face to match: eyes closed and tongue out. "Well, ya gotta try it out at least!" Apple Bloom countered. "I know, I know, just give me a sec. I dropped it around here somewh- hey!" Scootaloo said in surprise as she found it. "Hey?" said Sweetie. "It's empty!" "Whut? Did ya spill it all?" Apple Bloom accused. "No! There's hardly any on the floor! Where did it all go?" "Oh no," said Sweetie softly, looking up. "Uh, girls?" "Well it went somewhere! If ya got some on the floor and we don't clean it up and it gets all sticky, Ah'm not gonna get in trouble for it!" Apple Bloom said, eyes searching the floor for missed spots of potion. "Girls?" “Look, I told you there isn’t any on the floor! Do you see any on the floor? I don’t!” Scootaloo countered Apple Bloom hotly. Sweetie Belle gave an exasperated little growl. “I know where it went.” “Whut about that spot there?!” “Girls!” Sweetie said. She put one forehoof under Apple Bloom’s chin and the other under Scootaloo’s, and tilted their heads back. Gummy was on the ceiling, his four tiny legs flailing uselessly in the air. Flying is, I assure you, not a perfectly normal alligator thing to do. “My potion!” Scootaloo said. “Uh... sis?” said Apple Bloom. Applejack’s reply was querulous in tone, but her actual words were muffled by the couch she was hiding behind. It was probably something along the lines of “Whut?” “Gummy is flying.” "Mumble?" “She said Gummy is flying, dear. Honestly, you really are being too silly about this potion business,” Rarity interjected, not looking up from the book she’d been reading. “They’re perfectly safe.” Applejack peeked over the couch, saw Gummy floating across the ceiling, and paused in thought. Breathing deeply, she let out a nervous sigh. She supposed Rarity was right. Flying alligators weren’t really all that big of a deal. It was just... potions had a 100% chance of backfiring in her experience, and in horrible and unpredictable ways. She didn’t trust them. And the thought of the mischief and chaos her sister and her friends usually got up to, combined with the idea of them flying all over the place... well. Her paranoia was perhaps slightly more justified than Rarity thought. “Okay, Ah guess you’re right,” said Applejack, sounding unsure. She walked out from behind the couch slowly. The five ponies gathered underneath the tiny toothless alligator, staring up at him. He blinked down at them, one eye, then the other. He began to drift slowly to one side. “Welp, he’s movin’.” Apple Bloom observed, in the type of casual conversational tone one naturally employs when there is a flying alligator in your home. “Yep,” replied her sister. “Should I go and get Big Macintosh? Perhaps he could get the little fellow down?” suggested Rarity. “He’s tall, sugarcube, but even he ain’t that tall.” It was true. The Apples’ living room ceiling was quite high up. “Can’t you grab ‘im with that fancy horn of yours?” “Oh, I suppose I could,” said Rarity, a little embarrassed that Applejack the earth pony had thought of it before she had. Her horn glowed faintly purple. “Or... perhaps not? I can’t seem to grab hold of him. Perhaps it’s a side-effect of the potion?” “Well, that reassures me none at all,” Applejack said. “Mumble grumble stole my potion. Mumble grumble stupid cheating alligator. Mumble grumble creepy. Mumble grumble I could be immune to magic or whatever,” was basically the gist of Scootaloo’s ongoing monologue throughout the conversation. Eventually, watching the alligator drift lost its entertainment value. Because, you know, flying alligator. Ho hum. Applejack figured that he’d come down eventually, when the potion wore off, like one of Pinkie’s balloons. Everypony agreed that that was probably the case, and, one by one, found something else to do. Gummy began to drift towards the upper window. The upper window, fortunately, was almost never open. The upper window, unfortunately, was open. Big Mac had been cleaning the windows earlier that day, and he’d sprayed it with a hose. Apparently, he’d knocked it ajar. Nopony really noticed this. . . . Gus was decidedly uncomfortable. This was because the glowing crabs in his mouth had started to grow. Not only was he running out of mouth room, but the pinches were getting stronger. Also, they would not shut up. Wait. Gus. Crabs don’t talk, Gus. PINCH. Okay. Ow. You know what? This was not worth it. Nothing was worth the night he’d had so far. Forget this. Gus spit out the crabs, tea and all. Gus was done. He was going home. Maybe next time he visited Fluttershy, things wouldn’t be so crazy. But then. You know. Ponies. So they probably would be. . . . Four crabs fell from the sky, growing exponentially in size and intelligence as they did so. . . . A thundering crash shook the Apple house. “Whut in the hay was that?!” Applejack shouted, startled. “It sounded like something big crashed outside!” said Sweetie Belle. Alarmed, the five ponies in the living room, plus Big Macintosh and Granny Smith ran outside. There was a massive crater in the zap apple field. Applejack was horrified. “The zap apples!” was all she could think to say. And yeah, the destruction of your livelihood is cause for concern. She was completely shellshocked. Suddenly, over the rim of the crater, a giant red claw appeared! Sweetie Belle shrieked. Emerging, dazed, over the side of the crater, were four gigantic crabs, each probably about the size of the Apples’ market stall cart. "They're giant crabs!" said Apple Bloom. "Whoa!" said one of the crabs. "They're mutant giant crabs!" squeaked Sweetie Belle. "Bogus!" said another of the crabs. "They're teenage mutant giant crabs!" Said Scootaloo. Rarity narrowed her eyes.