//------------------------------//
// Chap 11: Do The Worm! 
// Story: My Little F***wits: Friendship is Weird 
// by Captain Princess 
//------------------------------//

Fight or Flight.

This was the dual-choice of action that the ponies were offered, when facing a giant worm, almost as fat as a tree was tall. It's spine covered shovel-head appeared to be perfect for diving into the ground and swimming through the earth as if it were water, but the ponies facing it down were now thinking of what that body shape could do to them or their carefully constructed surroundings.

Few words came to anypony's mind save for the following two: Total Annihilation.

Fight or Flight?

Twilight in particular, the Princess of Magic itself, was caught. Caught in a staring contest with this Equestrian Death Worm. A creature with more eyes to stare with than Twilight felt was reasonable. What was worse, was that she was faced with an odd number of eyes, as the massive creatuer had to turn it's shovel-head to see her, and so she was faced with only 3 eyes to stare at.

Were it not for the fact that the other side of it's head logically contained another set of 3, evening the eye-count to 6, Twilight might've been distressed.

She was however, very afraid. If only for a moment.

This was because there were some abnormalities in the overall equation of this instance. Three of them, to be exact. A fact that would haunt Twilight in the near future, as for the moment she knew of only two. There was an unknown unknown, and she hated those.

No, what brought Twilight out of her staring contest was a peculiar sound. It sounded an awful lot like anger.

"RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHH! THRESHEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRR!"

Like a shot, Lemon flew over Twilight's head. For but a second she stood in awe of his speed, his anger, and his intensity. In the moment between her spotting him and him reaching his obvious target, Twilight made a very calcuated discovery. Lemon had a strong hatred for this creature.

He also called it by a different name, and that was perculiar. The dimension that these two (three) had come from was indeed a curious place it seemed. Twilight figured at the very least, that the Equestrian Death Worm was unique to her lands.

Alas, the moment was over. Lemon reached his target, and his attempt passed with flying colours. The colours that were flying were his, and they were flying away from the worm, which had successfully swatted Lemon away as if he weighed as much as the feathers he left behind.

The world came quickly back, as she heard his warcry change into just a cry. A cry of fear, perhaps, but the situation was not so dismal just yet.

"IT'S GOOD, IT'S GOOD..." called Zegram as he spotted his idiot friend trying to aim himself toward a hay bale.

He missed, and got a facefull of appletree.

"IT'S BAD, IT'S VERY BAD!" he called out.

Now the situation worsened. What was simply the intrusion of a large, possibly murderous creature now became an aggravated assault by a certainly murderous creature, who had just been offended by the bug that had attmpted to headbutt it. As it shrunk it's body some, Twilight recognized the threat immediately.

Like the coiled spring it was, the massive creature fired itself up into the air, the rest of it's body sliding out of the hole, sealing it behind with a flick of it's tiny tail. Immediately as the ground-bound worm was in the air, the pegasi of the group, save for Lemon who was most likely concussed, found themselves sharing one collective imperative.

Get off the ground, right now.

This however, left a remaining five grounded ponies to deal with the wrath of the incoming colossus. And so it landed, and struck a very hard and solid surface. One it could not dig through. As the dust settled, it's six eyes beheld a purple sheen, protecting the tiny creatures from it's consierable mass. This was an affront to it's penetrative nature, and immediately the worm examined the situation. 

Twilight had indeed flexed her Magic Muscles and cast a bubble around herself and her flightless friends. All save for Lemon, who was still having pleasant dreams of bark and worms in apples.

It seemed to be a stable solution, and Twilight, Pinkie, Rarity, Applejack and Braeburn all convinced themselves they were safe when the worm turned and dove back into the ground. Their sighs of releif were effectively on-cue, and just like any trope, the instant they all relaxed even slightly, the ground became a-rumbly once more.

Twilight's magic bubble, or dome shield, had one glaring weakness. This was the weakness that a worm such as the equestrian death worm was now exploiting, as it tunneled, for it had decided that this protective shield was simply not going to happen, and in a rumbling shower of earth, erupted from underneath the bubble's protective field.

This would have been the perfect counter-attack if the rumbling hadn't given the situation away to the ever intuitive Twilight, who thought quick on her hooves, and just as the ground began to rumble, formulated a quick two-step plan.

"EVERYPONY JUMP!" she called to everypony in the dome, and due to the fact that nopony else knew what they ought to be doing, they all obliged. By some miracle of planetary formations or the machinations of the fates, Twilight's first step went off perfectly, and everypony jumped up off the ground at the exact moment for Twilight to effectively slide a shield-floor beneath them, moments before the worm erupted from below, throwing the now sealed shield-dome into the air, and with a speed and precision not very becoming of a beast this size, swam it's entire body out of the earth, threw up it's tail-end and caught the dome in it's coils.

As Twilight looked at everypony in the bubble, none of them were thinking. They were all utterly terrified, and to tell the truth, so was she. Twilight hadn't the heart to even think of asking for some sort of help at this stage, for she knew not what anypony else could do, or what else there was for even herself to attempt at this stage. In the time it took for the worm to decide it's next move, Twilight could only stare around her, as the shield floor beneath them began to fall, and the dome ceiling came crashing down upon their heads.

The worm had taken these ponies, encapsulated in their little half-bubble, and had thrown them to the ground with some force, shattering the dome on contact and slamming the little ponies onto the dirt in frustration.

The pegasi could do nothing but watch. They had already seen just how easily one of them had been deflected and the remaining options looked just as grim. But for Rainbow Dash, the last straw was drawn. She could not idly flap by and watch as her friends were bodyslammed into the Appleoosan dirt by some big, fat, apple-munching worm.

Knowing her limits, Rainbow tried for a ranged approach, and began zooming around the orchard collecting apples. If this big galoot liked apples, he was going to get apples. Right in his face!

Like a shot, Rainbow returned to the still stunned Pegasi floating nearby, with her plan.
"Fluttershy! You!" she barked, with her load of apples. 

"Wha-bwuh?" stuttered Dingo, transifxed by the grim scene below.

"Here take these! Let him have it! We're not gonna let this big fat worm eat our friends!" came the command, and Dingo immediately obeyed, at a loss for any idea of what else to be doing. The whole scenario was overwhelming it seemed.

Fluttershy simply refused. She couldn't bear the thought of harming a living creature, even if it was a threat to her friends. This was compounded by her being frozen in fear. She couldn't speak to a creature like this, on what world would it bother to listen? What if she tried the stare, but it ate her instead? This thing was WAY too scary!

Rainbow and Dingo however, were on the offensive, peppering the creature's massive hide with fresh produce.

Sadly, it did nothing. The worm was rearing up to dive into the dazed ponies on the ground. Rainbow became desperate, and zipped closer. She had no idea what she was doing but she knew she was doing it, as she rushed wth all haste toward the creature's face, and with a ramrod stiff hoof, shoved an apple square into one of it's big glazed eyes.


It was the pained roar that woke Twilight. She could hardly see, but she could certainly hear. And she could feel too, as the ground rumbled violently every few moments with a loud thundering crash. Unsteadily she got to her hooves, only to be knocked from them by the shuddering earth, and as she fell to her side she caught sight of the rest of her friends. Applejack and Braeburn were already up, dragging Pinkie and Rarity away, who were still out. She could hear Applejack and Braeburn arguing about Big Mac and the other townsponies, and when she turned her head slightly, she saw them all.

A massive crowd of ponies, stood on the edge of the small clif that surrounded the orchard. All staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the spectacle before them. All save for Big Mac, who, even at this distance and with fuzzy vision, Twilight could see, was fuming.

But Applejack was calling out to him, telling him to stay clear. And Arguing with Braeburn that this was the best option. Big Mac was strong but he was no fighter.

And so, Twilight finally turned her attention to the worm, and what she saw turned an already unsual and strange scenario into something from a bizarre fever dream.

It was hopping in place. Just bouncing about. It would even have been funny if ponies weren't in mortal peril.

Fluttershy was clinging onto Rainbow, who were just flying up above in circles with what looked like Zegram and a fourth pegasus, and the worm was hopping impotently in place trying to swat at them. If Lemon hadn't turned red in the past few minutes then the only logical conclsuion was yet another stranger.

Getting a little tired of nasty surprises, Twilight was hoping that it was just a local townspony, helping out.

She had to do something while it was distracted. She was about to fire raw magic at the worm when a bloodcurdling battlecry came busrting from the top of a tree as it's leaves and apples exploded from it in all directions and a yellow streak screamed at the worm, slamming into it's lower body with an anti-climactic thwack, and a glowing glass bubble shimmering over it's body. 

"OH COME ON!" shouted Zegram as his words mirrored Twilight's thoughts.

Really? A shielded worm? First an Equestrian Death Worm from the San Plomino Desert digs all the way to Appleoosa, just in time to swallow up a magical artefact that has never been seen or mentioned this side of Unicorn Range, which gives it magical powers like a shield spell. All in the same week that a pair of non-equestrian ponies find themselves trapped in Equestria, a world that wasn't even real to them, concieved as fiction by some clearly meta-powerful god-being, and in doing so becoming friends with one of the most reclusive ponies Twilight knew of, the Princess of The Moon.

And yet, they themselves would assumedly be respectively powerful in Equestria, if the land they came from was more real, which created Equestria by one being's sheer force of will and imagination.

But no. One was an idiot, the other insane.

Even for the standards of Equestria these last few years, that was simply surreal.


And she was brought out of this revelatory trance by Applejack and Braeburn both arriving by her sides, shouting at her to snap out of it.

"Huh? Wha? Who- Applejack! Braeburn, what- where are Pinkie and Rarity?"

"Dey fahn Mif Fwiwigh P'finfef" reported Braeburn, in as official manner as one could with a rope in his mouth.

"Uh, what's with the ropes?"

"We finna hoghfie dif wahm" stated Applejack.

And as a unit, the two Apples reared back and threw up the lassos, both slamming their front hooves into the ground as they flung them right at the worm, both snagging it over it's head within seconds of eachother, and immediately bolted away from Twilight and the worm in opposite directions, and began to pull it's head down to the ground. The worm thundered into the ground as it toppled, and Lemon bolted out from under it as Zegram nose-dived down after it, slamming into it's shielded head with a thud, as he tried to break it with just his hooves.

As the worm trashed, Zegram simply sat down on where he approximated it's 'neck' would be, and promptly shouted.

"TEXAN POWERS, ENGAGE!"

From a baffled outside perspective, this did sweet fuck all.

For Zegram however, this opened up the webway into ancient and forbidden druidic arts. From the barbecue aether, he extracted the knowldge on how to ride this sum'bitch worm like a rented mule.

As he did this, Applejack and Braeburn took off their hats, let go the ropes they held, and saluted. They knew not why, but they knew only that they needed to. In that moment, they knew a spiritual connection with that pony, despite what Applejack aldready knew of him, and that to Braeburn he was a complete stranger. In that moment they felt themselves one with him, with eachother, and with every salt-of-the-soil, down to 'questria, hard workin' pony that was out there, watching, joined with them, sharing their kinship with this unknown instigator, this distant beacon, this Texan brother.

Eeyup.

The worm was far from it's home, drawn to this offensively moist place by the most delicious of smells, and the worm had come a long way to get the source. What it had eaten wasn't anything like as delicious as the smell that it gave off, but after eating it the worm had noticed it wasn't getting repeatedly beaten in the head by the bird things. This would have been funny to the worm if it hadn't just been pulled over and now having one of those birdies sitting on it's head and making it feel oddly subjugated and pliable. No matter how hard or awkwardly it writhed, it could not worm it's way out or rock the little interloper off. At this point the worm was losing the will to care.  This thing was just going to sit there and not fall off and frankly it wasn't doing much else, so there was less and less reason to bother.

That was until it prodded the worm. That was, for whatever reason the worm had decided to go with at just that moment, extremely upsetting. The poke seemed to be authoritative, commanding, and the worm was NOT having any of that. NOONE commanded the worm! Worm goes where worm pelases! Rising up in a bestial anger, it charged for the earth, through the big red barn that was now in it's warpath.

But it couldn't quite make it. The barn's old and splintering wood stood fast in the face of the worm's onslaught and stood it's ground with a vibratic thwack, as the worm's head collided with the surprisingly sturdy wall. And then it didn't move. No rearing back and roaring in pain, or trying again. The worm just sat, or lay, whichever worms were known to do, with it's head against the wall, and it slowly sank to the ground, splintering the wood as it's face ground against it, and thundering to a stop on the ground.

Through the dust that kicked up, Zegram sat on the now knocked-out worm's head, rooted to his spot. Applejack & co were broken free of their spiritual connection to the hotsauce materium and were steadily approaching him. Most of the crowd, the Appleoosan townsponies who had all shared in the moment began to cheer. Even Big Mac had pulled somepony's hat from their head, that he may throw it into the air in celebration.

As the last remnants of the druidic cowboy know-how ebbed away, he made use of the last stragglers of info, and kicked the worm again, choosing the spot very carefully.

With his kick the worm began to cough and gag, and slowly up through it's body and out of it's mouth rolled the now stomach-juices covered artefact, still glowing and emitting all the pleasant sensations it was previous. It simply wasn't floating ominously now.

And it was at this point that everypony had either dispersed or come closer. Twilight and her friends, save for Rainbow Dash all stood, staring with Braeburn at the two fuckskiteers. Lemon was delicately pointing at the object, as if meaning to touch it but clearly not wanting to quite bridge the gap, whilst Zegram was recovering from the use of his surprise superpower, whilst wondering where Dingo had gotten to.

Fluttershy was gently patting her hoof on the creature's massive nose/snout, cooing to it.
"Poor dear" she mumbled to it, whilst Braeburn took the moment to address this concern.
"Poor dear!? Ma'am that thing darn near killed us all!"
"It's a living creature, it probably didn't even know where it was or why it was here!"
"The Princess there called it a 'questrian DEATH worm! It's a killer!"

Fluttershy had to scoot away from the agitated Appleoosan, seeking shelter behind her friend and his cousin, who hadn't the heart to give her has-a-good-point cousin anything more than an angry glare.


"So uh, which if you unicorns wants to like, look after this thing? I mean, I'm not sure it ought to be touched." said Lemon to the group.

Rarity, ever the selfless one, was on the verge of volunteering, but every inch of her being wanted to stay back from the disgusting trinket, cearly crystaline though it was. That left the Princess, and Alicorn, to entrust her superior magical powers to the task of moving this object.

"Yeah, it makes sense that I should be the one I guess. Whatever this thing does, I'd rather only risk it happening to myself." said Twilight, without even a hint of irony.

"Real generous" Lemon dryly remarked toward Rarity, who swiftly put him in his place.

"There's generosity dear, and then there's pointless risk. We all know Alicorn magic has far greater potential to be able to contain or resist whatever that unfortunate item might do when touched, by magic or otherwise." she stated confidently.

But the artefact had not been consulted on the matter, and as Twilight began to even channel the Alicorn magic it voiced it's displeasure with a vicious and ear-splitting hiss that sounded like nothing any living creature could produce without the use of several callous and dry voice-boxes.

"WELP! HAVE FUN TOYING WITH THAT THING GUYS!" Twilight shouted in frustration the instant the hissing stopped.

"You're not going to help?" asked Zegram.

"It clearly doesn't like magic so there's nothing I can really do at this point, and you guys are the ones who need it, so maybe it will do exactly what you need it to. I don't really care at this point because I don't know about anypony else but that scream channeled right through my magic and now my head is screaming and on fire inside and I have very little desire to care about ANYTHING for the moment. Now if you'll excuse me I am going to go over here and sit and try to remember a spell to cure this intense headache whilst putting every ounce of my strength into remaining calm." she calmly explained, turned, and walked some distance from the group, before slumping down onto the ground and holding in the loudest scream that never was.

"Wh-uh...ok." said Zegram, as Lemon returned to ghost-poking it, as if he were to summon up psychokinetic powers that he didn't have. Or poking at it with an invisible stick maybe.

Zegram decided to just risk it, and as he approached, he rather clumsily tapped it with a hoof, knocking it into Lemon's hoof-tip, and that was as much as he could recall of that moment because the next moment was very uncomfortable.

His back felt raked and was burning. The wings that he had just gotten used to as being limbs that were there, on his body, were now stuck to his sides, and it felt as though they were wrapped so tightly under some kind of wrap that not even a single inch of muscle could move, and his wings were effectively bound to his body.

As he turned and looked to see that his wings weren't even there at all, suddenly the world turned. It turned fast and with heft, and Zegram began to feel the motion without motion beneath his hooves, and a faint sense of roundness and outside nothingness touched upon this sensation for a moment. A moment whereby Zegram realized that he was feeling the planet.

And then his mind exploded with chatter, voices everywhere.

And the ponies gathered around the two watched slackjawed as these two ponies had their wings burned away and began looking up at the sky and screaming bloody murder. They weren't screams of pain, but abject terror.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash was having a small panic attack as her new friend Dingo was doing the same. Only she hadn't a clue what was happening. Once the worm was down she'd decided to introduce herself to this new pegasus Dingo, whose flying had been pretty awesome. They barely got past their introductions before Dingo had just changed and screamed infront of her.

As moments go, it was a little upsetting.

It didn't last long, either. A few seconds of fear, and suddenly Lemon and Zegram were stood where they were a moment ago, confused and glancing around.

"What?"
"WHAT!?"
"Whassat?"
"Who?"
"Carrots?"
"What the hell?"
"Apples?"

"Where's Bloomberg?"
"He was just here a moment ago."
"That was terribly loud."
"Some kind of worm I think."
"Not one of ours! We saw it!"
"Way too big for one of us!"
"So it wasn't an apple worm."
"I wonder what that was."
"Where's Bloomberg?"
"Where am I?"

The trees. The apple trees were talking.

"You guys okay? We got a hoof over here!"

The grass was talking.

"What...what was that man?"
"Woah dude haha..."
"What does that...mean, dude?"

The weeds were talking.

"WHAT THE FUCK!? WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY TALKING!?" cried Zegram and Lemon in unison.

"Who's talkin'?" asked Applejack

"THE PLANTS!"

"You-..you never heard 'em before?"

"NO!"

Applejack and Braeburn both turned to the rest of the group.

"Y'all guys can't normally hear that?"

"I've never heard anything like plants talking, dear." said Rarity.
"I hear lots of things" said Pinkie with an innocent smile.

"...huh" said the Apples to oneanother.
"Wait, so only earth ponies could hear us this whole time!?" cried an appletree, before most of the orchard erupted into a group revelation.
The weeds and grass didn't seem to care.



As the group stood silently in this surreal event, Big Mac and his cart of crusading fillies rode up, feeling it was now safe, and as Big Mac approached his sister and cousin to confirm that they were ok and to ask what in tartus just happened, the cutie-mark crusaders leapt from the cart and gathered with the rest of the group around Lemon and Zegram.

"Wait, you're earth ponies now?" asked Scootaloo

"euuhh..." said Zegram as Lemon simply took a step back and jabbed an accusing hoof at the artefact on the ground.

Naturally the fillies began to walk upto it but the brave newly grounded ponies stepped infront of them, deciding that it was definitely not a good idea to let little children have a magical polymorphing artefact. In no concievable reality was that going to end well.

"So, uhm...now what do we do with it?" asked Fluttershy, seeing as nopony else seemed able to think clearly at the moment. The artefact was no longer exuding any firghtening chills or air of distress. It was just a lump of goo-covered crystal now.

Ever the idiot, Lemon decided that the best thing to do to the object that had just altered his body and opened his mind to a dimension of thought that he was not happy had access to his hearing, was to tap it again. Maybe it would do the same thing, but backwards. To his disappointment it did nothing, and the angry surprised glare from Zegram was utterly lost on him.

"Has anyone seen Dashie?" asked Pinkie, once her friends had all heaved a sigh of releif once they noticed that the artefact appeared to be spent.

"Yeah uh, we got a bit of a proble- why're you two earth ponies?" asked Rainbow, having heard her name as she was approaching.

"We uh, we are the problem?" offered Lemon.

"Wait, so, you two...and she...wait so it only works on you other-world types?"

"What?" asked Zegram

"Whe-uh, where's Dingbat?"

"Wait...her?"

"Oh man you think they-"

"Shut up. Rainbow what do you mean by-"

"She lost her wings! She was saying stuff about talking apples!"

"She go anywhere?"

"Nah she just sat down over there" and as Rainbow pointed a hoof, there was indeed a red Pony sat on the ground, staring off into space.

"Now THAT makes NO actual sense!" said Twilight, having returned, looking fresh-faced.
"I don't know why it would affect anypony other than you two, since you two touched it."

"What if it's doin' some weird magic with the fact that they ain't from Equestria?" asked Applejack
"They what?" asked Braeburn

"I guess that would make sense but why? What does that artefact have to do with worlds other than here?"

"Beats me, you're the Princess of Magic here."

But at that moment, Twilight was taken to digesting the fact that, despite her best wishes, there was yet another trans-dimensional interloper now here, and if the bizarre nature of recent events had any say, chances were this new pony's arrival was a symptom of something greater, and stupider.

"I know what to do!" shouted Pinkie, as everypony around her cold have sworn they saw a lightbulb flash above her head. But that would have just been silly. That doesn't just happen.

Yeah, that doesn't just happen like how everything else has totally not been just happening. thought Twilight.

"It's a crystal thingy! So maybe there's something about it all the way at the Crystal Empire!" said Pinkie as she finished her thought.

"That...that actually could work. The Cyrstal Empire is a thousand years out of date. There could easily be information there that would otherwise be considered ancient or lost years ago. It could even be accurate considering the lack of re-tellings and translations to warp the meanings." said Twilight, thinking out-loud.

"To the Crystal Empire we go then!" cheered Rarity, all to happy with the idea.
"Yeah!" cried out the three fillies, at which point Big Mac chimed in with a 'nnope' and Applejack put her hoof down.

"Absolutely not! This here's Appleoosa, not some magical diamond place, an' there was jus' a big killer worm right here. Celestia knows what kinda dangerous nonsense is gonna happen up north in a magical kingdom. No way are y'all fillies goin' up there after this!"

"But there's a princess there! She could protect us!"

"To be fair Applejack, my brother is there too. He has got to still be the most talented unicorn with defense magic that Equestria has seen in years. He and Cadence could easily keep them safe if anything happens." remarked Twilight.

"And uhm, who knows? Maybe nothing bad will happen up there anyway." added Fluttershy

"Yeah! It'll be totally fine and the little fillies can get to see the totally cool Crystal Empire!" added Pinkie

After exchanging glances, Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow all sighed, and together, gave their muddled and mumbled consent, resulting in their little sisters latching onto them and hugging them amid a torrent of thankyous and bouncing.

And so it was, half an hour later, that 12 ponies were on the long train ride north, from Appleoosa to the Crystal Empire.