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// Team Chat 3 of 3 
// Story: Ponies Versus Starcraft 
// by ambion 
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	Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were walking along. The day was sunny, the sky clear, and the zerg larva wrapped about the pegasus’ like a shawl shone with exceptionally shiny mucous that it drooled in thick, slow dollops. The mare brushed one such accident aside and tried to keep up; both with Pinkie’s hop and with her rambling. It took her a moment to realize she was being asked a question.

“What? Oh, sorry. I’m happy that we got zerg. I mean, I’m happy if you’re happy...”

Pinkie gasped, her hair poofing out ever-further. “Of course I’m happy! I’m happy that you’re happy that I’m happy! Delighted that you’re ecstatic that I’m elated!” She plucked up Silky Wriggles (this being the aforementioned larva) and spun about in a whirling dance. “The funnest, bestest, infesty-est, how could anypony not be happy?” She patted the expresionsless, dribbling thing on what could be called its head for lack of a better word. “And we’re going to the Spa to celebrate!”

Fluttershy was rather relieved to hear this. Placement, getting teamed up with Pinkie, getting set in the deep end of this whole thing had gone so quickly, and she felt very unsure of it all. While Pinkie wasn’t her first choice as a spa-buddy, she’d never be maliciousness enough to ever point this out to Pinkie. Just as she was telling herself how nice it would be, and to be more patient with her good-hearted, jaunty joculative jester friend of joyoys jubiliation, a thought struck her.

“I didn’t know there was a spa this way,” she said, barely whispering loud enough to be heard.

“There isn’t!” Pinkie said merrily, bouncing along just as she had been doing the whole while.

“Oh...but I thought we were going to a spa...” Fluttershy didn’t want to sound dissapointed. She’d probably misheard...somehow.

Pinkie beamed a very knowing smile that made Fluttershy studder-step and nearly stumble into her. “We are,” she said. “A spaaa...wning pool! And here we are!”

Fluttershy did one of her patented squeak-screams, as Pinkie had just grabbed her midsection, sprung forwards and dove them both, headfirst, into a green, sludgy muck that filled the ground before them. In some regards the substance had familiar qualities, in the same way that the remains of bananas that have liquified in the back of a cupboard over the course of a month are distressingly reminiscent of bananas.

Even Fluttershy would have struggled to consider anything about this ‘nice.’

Pinkie swam along with her in tow. The ooze moved like syrup around them, feeling somehow both cool and warm at once, with a odd numbness that tingled along her skin and face. Just as Fluttershy was readying herself for a Really Nice Panic-attack, she was lifted up to the surface. Her exhalation blew a thick bubble of syrupiness that burst audibly. Standing knee deep in the stuff, she watched as her pink friend shoved and shook the muck from herself. Pinkie seemed very eager about the whole thing.

“How do I look, how do I look?!” she cried aloud.

Fluttershy, mindful of her mouth and eyes, blinked and tried to speak. “Oh my,” she managed. Something very strange had happened.

Something very strange indeed.

Growths like coral antlers had shot this way and that from the back of Pinkie’s skull, adding a whole new level of uncomb-ability to the already unruly mane. Little patches of scaling glinted pinkish and yellowy (depending on how the light struck them) here and there, and stubby protrusions ran along her sides and legs.

Pinkie could not have been more satisfied. “Zergified! Represent!” she shouted, dancing and whooping ecstatically. She paused, mouthing an awed ‘O’ at Fluttershy. “Whoah.”

Fluttershy, heartbeat rising, looked to her reflection in the goop of the spawning pool at her hooves. Growths like thorny briar vines had shot along and through her mane and tail, as if the Everfree itself had decided to braid them for her. The feathers of her wings were calloused over with tough hide, but from the fleshy mass wispy, spider-web strands hung, catching the slightest movement in the air with a delicacy and sensitivity feathers could never have managed. Fluttershy shivered at the sight; they retracted. As she breathed and relaxed, they eased back out, dancing softly on the air. The same spattering of chitinous scales that adorned Pinkie had spread in longer, narrower lines across her own body. They stood and rippled and flushed with colour in the sunlight.

“Zergy,” said Pinkie, staring reverently. Silky Wriggles was as grumpy looking (and otherwise non-communicative) as ever. The pool had worked no wonders on him (it?) apparantly. Fluttershy opened her mouth once or twice to speak, trying to find her thoughts.

“Can we...go to a proper spa now? If you don’t mind?” she asked. Its work done, the ‘water’ of the spawning pool fell off them both readily. Fluttershy found her new wings to be strong, much stronger than she was comfortable controlling. She gently lifted Pinkie (who in turn carried S.W.) and slowly rised into the warm sunlight.

The pink mare yawned and nodded. Espying a passing fruit tree (as in, they passed over it, not some strange type of tree that happened to be walking by) Pinkie lazily fired her tongue several metres, tore away something swollen, orange and green, and glomped the whole thing, despite it being larger than her own head.

Fluttershy couldn’t quite recall if that was something new, or just Pinkie being Pinkie. She sighed, kept calm and fluttered on, Pinkie and larva in tow.