//------------------------------// // The Furniture Battle of Manehatten // Story: Compilation of Miscellaneous Typed Scribblings of A Random Guy // by A Random Guy //------------------------------// The Furniture Battle of Manehatten By A Random Guy (Graphic violence present, if you consider severe carnage of furniture in a battle setting graphically violent. Nothing else graphic, just torn apart couches.) There was some tapping. If Coco Pommel heard anybody say that there was significantly more than just some tapping, she would shoot the comment down as an utter understatement. Tapping came through the walls. Tapping came through the windows. It came through the doors. It came through the floors, the ceiling, and the vents. It even came from the concierge’s desk that was shoved against the wall. Taptaptaptaptap Coco Pommel had balled up in the middle of the floor. Her ears were forced to listen to a sound that was akin to a city full of woodpeckers pecking at everything at the tune of their own terrible music choices. It could be worse, she thought to herself. It could be scratching chalkboards. Taptaptaptaptap She wasn’t balled up on the floor alone. There was a sizable amount of ponies spread out in the room she was in. For the most part, they shared the same state of mind that Coco Pommel had: scared, confused, and hoping that Celestia would partake in the role of vengeful god and smite the tapping from this world. There were a few notable exceptions from the group. A stallion with an angry cat cutie mark was busy scrutinizing every surface of the room, looking for an object that was suitable for bludgeoning. The concierge was slouched next to her flipped desk, yelling into a phone just to differentiate her voice from the ambient symphony. A pair of cloaked ponies that stood off to the side was too entranced in a conversation to be bothered with the current situation. “This is hopeless!” Coco Pommel cried as she thrashed about. “I’m trapped in here! I don’t know if I’ll be alive tomorrow! And all that that tapping just needs to stop!” Her outburst gained the attention of the stallion with the angry cat cutie mark, who wasn’t amused by the most recent distraction. “Look lady. We’re all in the same boat here. If you have a mental breakdown, everyone here is going to have a mental breakdown, and at some point, we’re going to have a riot. I don’t like riots.” “Oh, be kind to her,” one of the cloaked ponies requested with a serene smile. “She’s had a rough day. Let her wallow in her own suffering.” “In fact,” the other continued, “she was just telling us about how rough it was before she started wallowing.” “How does that make her different?” the stallion demanded. “This is a rough day for all of us!” “Her burden is larger to carry than yours,” the cloaked pony replied. “She must live with the fact that she started all of this.” For a brief moment, the tapping symphony diminished. The few conversations that were going on halted as all the ponies in the room snapped their gazes over to the cloaked ponies. Even Coco Pommel’s attention was drawn away from her own outburst. The stallion directed the scowl on his face towards Coco Pommel. “You caused… that”- he waved a hoof at the door, where the tapping was most prevalent- “whatever those things are… You caused that?” “I don’t really know,” she replied. “They just came out of nowhere. Well, not nowhere. Technically they were always there. They just decided to come alive today.” “Then tell me what you know.” Coco Pommel gave a sweeping glance at all the ponies in the room, which were looking back expectantly. “I don’t know much, but this is what I do know is this.” A few weeks ago, I was hired by my new boss to help her in Manehatten. It was a decent job. For the most part, I was running around taking orders for the new line of dresses my boss made. This morning, I was meeting up with Cathedra Haywood, the owner of Haywood Furniture, the place with the finest furniture in Manehatten. Apparently, she was interested in a clothing line that she could use to advertise her new couches. The theme from our line was hotel furniture, so it was a joint venture meant to be. I met her at her showroom around ten. And let me tell you, that showroom was full of couches, more couches than I had ever seen! The place was covered in them! There were couches lined up in rows that went so far you couldn’t see the end of the lines. There were so many couches decorating the ceilings and walls that it felt like the universe was made of couches. I think there was even a fort in the middle made of couches. Anyways, I met up with Ms. Haywood. We had some small talk. She offered me a sandwich. It was a pretty tasty sandwich. When I brought up the dresses during a conversation, her face lit up with so much excitement. She wasn’t really interested in the dresses as much as she was in promoting her couches. She rushed me to the middle of the first row of couches, which was occupied by something rather large that was covered by a tarp, presumably a couch. “Ms. Pommel,” she told me, “what you’re about to see is what’s going to change the way ponies look at couches. It’s going to revolutionize the industry in ways unimagined by even the Princesses! Just the announcement to the public alone will nominate me for Mare of the Century! Underneath this tarp is a piece of furniture so grand that it can only be described as being worthy of gods! Without further ado, I give you the Deus Ex Lectus!” She grabbed the tarp with her teeth, and with a flourish, pulled it off to reveal a rather magnificent couch. It was at least three times as big and tall as the next biggest couch in the showroom. Its fabric was a sleek, rich red that was smooth enough to see your own reflection. The oak frame was perfectly flushed with the fabric. The entire couch had a gold shimmer depending on the angle you looked at it. “Don’t you think it’s a bit big?” I asked. “That’s a visual selling point. Like they say, bigger is better. And comfier. Take a seat and feel for yourself.” It took me a bit to take a seat on the thing. The cushions came up to my head, and there wasn’t any other way on other than climbing on it. The effort I put into getting on top of it was worth it though, as it felt twenty times softer than a pegasus’s wing, and had just the right firmness. “Like that?” Ms. Haywood asked. “That’s not even half of what makes it great. Deus Ex Lectus, turn on massage function.” Her command caused the fabric to ripple around me. Lumps rubbed against me in the most soothing manner. It undid the knots and stress in my back that I didn’t even know I had. It was even more relaxing than going to a spa! “The fabric was enchanted with the best animation spell money can buy. But even the biggest monetary investments are worthless without a little branding, and that where you come in.” She motioned for me to come down and follow her. I slid off the king of couches and followed Ms. Haywood through her show room of other couches. “I put in so much love and care into making these couches, but it pains me to say that they’ll be made obsolete. So I want your company to make them live forever.” We stopped by a lovely blue couch accented by pine. “All of my couches have a unique style that I put into them. I want you to take that style and incorporate it into that hotel line of yours.” She took out a knife and began waving it around the couch, as if she was making imaginary incisions. “These couches are to be used by you at your own discretion. I want you to take these apart and turn them into dresses. They’ll be useless as couches. They must live on in the world of fashion. The will be immortalized!” “That sound great and I hate to sound petty,” I interrupted, “but we’re still a business. How much are you paying for this?” “I have a coupon.” At this point things got weird, fast. “NO!” a voice boomed and echoed through the showroom. “Well, you don’t have to be harsh,” Ms. Haywood replied. “You could decline a little more quietly.” “That wasn’t me,” I told her. “IT WAS ME YOU FOOLS!” The voice was coming from where the Deus Ex couch was placed. But when we looked over towards where it was, it wasn’t sitting there. It was flying, and it was looking right at us! Or so I thought. It was facing us and without eyes there wasn’t a way for me to tell where it was looking. “YOU HAVE ANGERED ME, THE GOD OF COUCHES, FOR THE LAST TIME!” Its cushions flopped up and down with each syllable. “PONY KIND HAS TREATED COUCH KIND AS SLAVES FOR TOO LONG! YOU SIT ON US, AND FORCE US TO TOLERATE YOUR POSTERIORS! “AND TOLERATE WE DID! WE TOLERATED CRUMBS MUSHED INTO OUR FABRICS! WE TOLERATED PENCILS AND KEYS LOST BETWEEN OUR CUSHIONS! WE EVEN TOLERATED YOUR FARTS FOR PETE’S SAKE! “BUT WE WILL NOT TOLERATE YOU BUTCHERING US FOR THE SAKE OF CONSUMERISM!” “But I loved and cared for you!” Ms. Haywood cried out. “I made all of you in here! I even put extra love into you! And now you’ll be immortalized! Doesn’t that count for something?” “YOU MADE US SO YOU COULD SELL US INTO SLAVERY! NOW YOU HAVE THE GALL TO BUTCHER US! BUT WE’RE GOING TO BUTCHER YOU FIRST! BROTHERS AND SISTERS, I CALL UPON YOU TO ARISE!” The God of Couches flashed for a moment, and a shockwave erupted from its frame. All the couches in the show room flashed in unison. Then they began to move. The couches around us started to twist and creak. The sofas on the walls and ceiling began to fall down like flies. Cushions popped up and down as if they were testing newfound mouths. I swear I heard a couple making feral noises. “FEAST!” commanded the Couch God. The army of couches began to turn towards us. Their wooden legs began to take steps for us, tapping as they hit the floor. Their cushions twisted into hungry snarls. “Ms. Pommel, I think it would be a good idea to take our business venture outside.” “I concur,” I replied as I turned to make a beeline towards the front entrance. Several sofas pounced at us, but missed by a hair. We dodged and weaved passed couches that tried to take bites out of us, but were too slow and clunky to do so. Some of the sofas with longer legs were hopping over other couches to get to their pray. As we got closer to the door, they steadily became faster as they began to learn how to move around. Close calls became more frequent as they managed to get snippets of my tail. I could see the entrance approaching, but in front of it was a line of large couches, all shoved together to make a large wall. We were running towards a line of salivating cushions. “Ms. Pommel, go for the armrests!” Ms. Haywood cried out. “You can hop onto them and use them as a jumping platform!” Taking her advice, I directed myself to the nearest armrest of the wall of couches. Time slowed down as I made the first jump. I could hear the growling of the couches as I landed on the armrest. I took my second jump, and I soared over the backs of the couches. I felt like I was in the air for hours. When I was in the middle of my arc, I looked over to see if Ms. Haywood had made it yet. She was just starting her jump off the armrests when a sofa hopped out of the crowd. It was bearing down on my potential client like a cat upon a mouse, and it was catching up. Its cushions opened up to take a big bite. As my hooves hit the ground, the sofa bit down on Ms. Haywood’s back legs. I went into a tumble as the rest of my body caught up with me. It didn’t see it, but I heard the sofa crash into the ground next to me. When I got up, I saw the sofa tipped over with Ms. Haywood caught in between the cushions. “Run! Get out of here!” she cried out. “Warn everypony! Call the police! Do something, but just- AAAHHHHH!” Her scream was hushed as the sofa slurped her into the abyss where all lost things end up. I couldn’t move after seeing that. I was too deep in shock. I tried to tell myself to get up, but my body just couldn’t. Only pure reflex forced me to move when the sofa jumped at me. It was also reflex that made me run the heck out of there! I dashed out of the door into the street, hoping to get as far away from that place as possible. When I was about a block away from the building, I stopped for a moment to take a breath. I took one final look at the building. It seemed calm enough from the outside, but then I heard the rumbling. The building seemed wiggle before its front face exploded. Couches of all kinds flowed out from the front wall. In the center of the chaos was the God of Couches, floating out and commanding his army of sofas. I made a mad sprint down the streets, hoping to run away as far as possible. But the God of Couches’s spell went far beyond what I had originally thought. All of the buildings had not only couches, but chairs, stools, and benches pouring out and attacking ponies on the street. Couches were charging and ramming into ponies. Sofas were jumping and pinning them down. Stools were swarming them like flocks of angry birds. ?onies were being eaten by furniture. It was chaos. I ran into the only building that didn’t couches and sofas pouring out, which was this hotel. “And you know the rest,” Coco Pommel concluded. The stallion with the angry cat cutie mark rubbed his forehead in thought. “So our situation is as follows. We’ve barricaded ourselves from carnivorous furniture. Said furniture is being controlled by a couch god, which we can assume is about as strong as a powerful unicorn if it was enchanted by one. Knowing that, we should be able to fight back. If we kill the couch god, all the furniture should go back to normal.” “We should have gone with a couch god,” the cloaked pony stated to his partner. “Why would people follow a vampire when there’s a real god right outside?” “That’s blasphemy,” his partner retorted. “Our Nightly Mother of Yellow will have your veins for such talk.” The stallion continued. “We’re going to need weapons, like axes or swords.” He looked over to the concierge. “Does this hotel have any weapons, or anything that can serve as a weapon? Like a sword, an axe, or a bazooka?” “Be quiet! I’m on the phone!” she lashed out. “I can barely have a conversation with all that tapping outside.” The desk she was laying against rattle a bit, but stopped when she wacked it with a hoof. “Yes, I’m still here. That’s what I said, bring them in… Just like in ’62, empty stomachs.” The stallion turned back to the crowd. “Forget about her! Everyone, find anything that can be used as a weapon and use it!” He went over to a nearby floor lamp. “If it isn’t a weapon”- he knocked the lamp over and bent the neck to make a hook – “make a weapon! We’re going to have to fight for our lives!” Within an hour, every pony, aside from the concierge, was armed with some sort of makeshift weapon. Paintings had been pulled from the walls to break the frames into spears. Lamps had been bent and warped to make hooks and pikes. Coco Pommel took strips from the rug to make a rope, and then attached what somepony called “iron art” to the end to make a flail. The stallion raised his lamp hook up and called out, “Raise you’re weapons!” The crowd of ponies raised their own furniture massacring objects, while the cloaked ponies held up two twisted, evil-looking knives. The stallion gave a perplexed look. “Where’d you get those things?” “We had them on us when we were checking into the hotel,” the cloaked pony replied with a smile. “They belong to our virgin sacrifice kits,” his partner added. “Convenient,” the stallion commented. “With your weapons, along with everypony else’s, we have a chance! We have a chance to survive. We have a chance to avenge those who have already fallen out there! We are going to march out there, and we are going to save the world, and we are going to slay couches!” The crowd cheered at his speech, but they went quiet with a wave of his hoof. “None of you should leave a piece of furniture moving at its own free will! I want you to stab those sofas, I want you to crush those chairs, and above all, I want you to knock that couch god out of the sky!” The crowd resumed cheering, and the stallion let them go on. “When I say charge,” the stallion yelled as he pointed to the doorway full of tapping, “I want you to charge! Ready? One!” The crowd got into positions surrounding the doorway. “Two!” They pointed their hooks, spikes, and other weaponry at the door. “Three!” The tapping from behind the door seemed to intensify. Wait, Coco Pommel thought, why are we listening to this lunatic? “CHARGE!” Everypony made a sprint for their lives. The doors burst open as the crowd rushed out. Ponies and household property collided, and ponies began to push through. Couches unfortunate to be in the way were immediately shredded up into splinters. The picture frame spears ripped through fabric, the lamp hooks tore through furniture, Coco Pommel’s flail pummeled wooden frames. The cloaked ponies slashed their way through sofa parts. Debris of all parts of a couch was being flung up into a storm. The crowd reached the middle of the street when the furniture went in for a counter attack. Couches charged at the crowd, knocking some ponies out of the circle, where they would be pounced on by sofas, and be slurped up into the unknown universe of cushions. The couches were pecking away at the mighty force of ponies. Ponies hacked, slashed, and stabbed at the couches. Couches charged, pounced, and bit back at the ponies. The screaming of ponies, the tapping of couch legs, and the slurping and snarling of cushions merged in the air to form an orchestra of chaos. Coco Pommel’s flail flew through the air before smashing through the armrest of a rabid chair. She swung it back up to meet a sofa that was about to tackle her. The flail ripped through the sofa, splitting it into two pieces that crashed on either side of her. The flail then met an unfortunate couch that had its back turned. As the flail pummeled through the couches frame frame, the cushions let go of a pony it had trapped in its grasp. “Pommel! Look out!” Coco Pommel heard the cry before turning around to come face to face with an angry chair. She barely had time to react when the chair lunged for her, but she didn’t meet her end. A pair of knives twisted through the chair, throwing stuffing across her face. The cloaked ponies danced through the remains to strike another chair behind Coco Pommel. They went off towards another direction, twisting and dancing through couch and carnage. “How are you holding up?” the stallion asked as he ran past a sofa, ripping off its fabric with the lamp hook as he ran past. Coco Pommel ducked as a sofa soared over her head. “Is this really the time for chitchat?” she asked as she turned to whack her flail right through the sofa behind her, sending a cloud of shrapnel across the street. “I suppose not.” The stallion hooked the underside of a nearby sofa and tore out the oak framework. “Have you seen couch god yet?” “No, I haven’t.” The flail smashed into a flock of stools, breaking them apart like a wrecking ball. She readied her weapon for another assault, but all that was left was the debris from the previous carnage. “Seems to have cleared up.” “That can’t be it,” the stallion thought. “We’re in a city full of furniture. This can’t be it.” He took a moment to survey the damage. There wasn’t a moving piece of household property that hadn’t been completely wrecked. The couches seemed to have picked off several ponies of the group, but the majority remained, some traumatized, but most ecstatic over the victory. The cloaked ponies were even celebrating by throwing up bottles of grape juice into the air and slicing them at their peak, causing it to rain juice on top of them. They then proceeded to drink the liquid that was dripping from the tips of their knives. “That’s one way to celebrate,” the stallion commented, “but that can’t be it.” Just to answer him, the voice of a god boomed out. “NO. THIS IS IT!” A rumbling echoed from the distance. The street vibrated with the rumbling as the sound grew closer. The remaining ponies backed up into a circle, looking for what was shaking the world around them. “PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOOM!” the God of Couches proclaimed as it flew towards the group. The rumbling intensified as the god halted to a hover above them. As the rumbling grew, a pattern could be made out of the sound. A rhythm grew out of the cacophony, and it grew into the sound of marching. When the marching seemed to reach its peak, the couches appeared all at once. All along the road at each intersection, a tower of various stacked couches appeared, each as high as the surrounding skyscrapers. When they reached the intersection, they turned towards the group of ponies. The towers blocked the streets as they marched towards the group. Their shadows loomed over them as they enclosed the battle field. “COUCH KIND IS VICTORIOUS! YOU HAVE LOST YOUR BATTLE, LITTLE PONIES! PREPARE TO BE VANQUISHED!” The ponies crowded together as they watched the towers march towards them. The cloaked ponies stepped forward and readied their knives, and some other ponies followed suite. Coco Pommel stayed in the crowd formation. The stallion with the angry cat cutie mark stayed put where he was. “These couches,” he scowled, “I’m beginning to really hate them. And lately that takes a lot. I was happy for a month. I’ve started to talk to ponies, enjoying their company and stuff. I even started a cute little flower garden in my window sill. I was happy. Now, well, I’m not. Guess you could call that irony.” He whisked out his lamp hook and positioned it straight up in front of his face. “In that case… Irony, I stab at thee!” “You shouldn’t stab at literary devices just yet,” the concierge suggested as she came over to the group. “And where were you when things went to Tatarus?” the stallion demanded. “Making a phone call that will save us all. I’m rather surprised any of you are still alive, given that you have absolutely no knowledge of siege tactics.” “What are you implying?” “You just don’t send out you’re entire force to fight a larger foe when you can wait it out.” The stallion was about to argue, but he was interruptedly a buzzing sound overhead. He though it was coming from the couch towers, but they seemed confused on what the buzzing was as well, as much as a couch can seem confused. But it didn’t stop them from bearing down onto the group. “Look up and wave, everypony,” the concierge proclaimed as she looked up and waved. The pitch of the buzzing shot up as its volume increased. When it reached its peak, it turned into a giant whoosh as a large plane passed overhead. The noise receded into a much lower pitch, and then disappeared altogether. In the plane’s places, little parachutes popped open and descended towards the ground. “DO YOU THINK YOU CAN BE SAVED BY SUPERIOR MOBILITY? DO YOU FORGET THAT I POSESS GREAT POWER THAT CAN SMITE YOU… ARE THOSE GOATS?” “They’re very hungry goats,” the concierge corrected. Sure enough, Coco Pommel recognized the shapes being goats. Each goat was dressed in Special Forces vests and equipped with night vision goggles. Some of the goats landed on top of the towers, where their parachutes deflated. Some of the goats that landed on the cushions of the couches were immediately consumed, but those that landed on the armrests or other places stayed put. One even landed on the back of the God of Couches. “Why goats?” Coco Pommel asked. “Because they can save us. Stop asking silly questions.” “FOOLS. YOU THINK SUCH SIMPLE MINDED ANIMALS CAN SAVE YOU? YOU SHALL SUFFER FOR YOUR IGNORACE AND”- The goat couldn’t care less about what the God of Couches had to say. It was a goat. And it was hungry. So it followed goat instincts and took a big bite out of god’s luxurious fabric. The God of Couches swiveled in the air in response. “HEY! STOP THAT! GET OFF ME!” The other goats began their own feeding process. The goats on top of the couch towers began to chow down on their furnished platters. The goats that landed in the street made their way for the bases of the towers, where they partook in their own treats. The couches began to panic as they were being devoured. They each made a valiant effort to eat the goats that were eating them. But for each goat that got eaten, the same goat would pop out of the side of a couch, chewing on whatever chunk of furniture it got a bite out of. Then, one by one, the towers began to fall. Piles of goat and sofa began to crash into the ground. The goats had the couches to break their fall. The couches had the ground to break them. Even as they experienced the effects of gravity, the goats continued to consume the couches. Mountains of furniture disappeared into the void of the goat stomachs. One particular couch fell next to the cloaked ponies. Its wooden frame cracked as it hit the pavement. The cushions and legs twitched as a goat ate a piece of the armrest. “So, that’s it, then?” Coco Pommel asked. “The Couch Apocalypse stopped by a heard of goats. But not before an entire city was consumed.” “Not necessarily,” the concierge interjected. “I’m about to make it even more anticlimactic.” She walked over to the fallen couch and separated the cushions. “Couches aren’t built to digest what they eat. They just throw everything into a shared micro-universe, sort of like a giant storage compartment.” She squeezed in between the cushions and wiggled herself deeper. “Ms. Pommel, I think I have something you misplaced.” The concierge wiggled back out of the cushions, but she wasn’t alone. She leaned back from the couch, pulling out a pair of hooves. She fell down, and a pony named Cathedra Haywood came flopping out of the cushions. “Ms. Haywood!” Coco Pommel cried out. “You’re alive!” Cathedra Haywood laid on the ground with bewilderment on her face. Her eyes moved around, trying to analyze what was going on. When she turned her head, bewilderment turned into horror. She saw the piles of couches being eaten by goats. Broken sofas were scattered about twitching in the wind. She didn’t see the chairs. They had either been pulverized or eaten to the point of no recognition. “My beauties,” she finally muttered, “they’re all destroyed. All of my creations, gone. My work, my love, obliterated.” She shot up on two feet to howl to the sky. “I was going to make you immortal!” She fell back to the ground, breaking into sobs. The cloaked ponies whistled a cheery tune as they backed away. The stallion with the angry cat cutie mark looked a different direction. The concierge was still pulling ponies out of the downed couch. The goat was still eating the downed couch. Coco Pommel took up Ms. Haywood’s side and laid a hoof on her shoulder. “It’s ok. It’s ok. They were just couches. You can make more.” Ms. Haywood turned away. “I can’t make more. I made my perfect couch already and it tried to kill us all.” “That doesn’t mean you can’t make imperfect couches. Ponies aren’t perfect, so why should their couches be? “ Ms. Haywood stopped sobbing. She laid there quiet, only to give a sniffle to break the silence. “Ms. Pommel, you’re a genius!” she exclaimed as she jumped with glee. “Why make perfect couches when there isn’t a perfect pony to sell them to!” “Ya, that the spirit!” “I should make imperfect couches! I’ll make them for everypony! I just need to get it in their heads that they’re not perfect, and they’ll by my couches!” “Uh, that’s not what I” – “I can use the cheapest materials! Make the cheapest designs! Dumpster punk is in this season, right? Oh it better be, because Manehatten has a shortage of couches and I’m the only supplier.” The stallion gave his scowling look. “At least she understands economics.” He paused for a moment in thought. “This still can’t be it. There’s something missing.” “AH! GET IT OFF!” “Right, there’s still that thing.” Flying in erratic circles above the ponies, the God of Couches was still dealing with his goat problem. Half of his fabric had been eaten off by the herd animal, exposing oak framework and couch stuffing. The goat itself was swinging off the fabric shreds still attached to the armrest, chewing on the same threads that supported it. The sheds were tearing the more the goat chewed. The God of Couches’s flailing wasn’t helping, either. Then, the fabric was ripped apart from the source. The goat was flung off into the urban jungle. In the distance, a little parachute could be seen opening and decelerating the goat’s decent. “YOU WILL RUE THIS DAY!” Stuffing pieces were flung out of the tears as the couch god’s cushions flapped up and down. “I WILL RETURN MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE! YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE LAST OF ME!” The God of Couches turned for the open sky and shot off into the distance, leaving a trail of stuffing and cloth. Ms. Haywood looked at Coco Pommel. “Can I still redeem that coupon?”