//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: A Pony eat Pony sort of World // Story: The Crossroads // by Ex-Nihilos //------------------------------// Chapter 8: A Pony eat Pony sort a World         Lucky just sat there, contemplating the events which just unfolded. He rummaged through his mind to piece back together what had happened with Pinkie Pie. Pinkie arriving happy, check. Lewdy going insane and grabbing her, check. Himself and Abigail pulling Lewdy off of her, check... and then Chubs. Chubs made Lucky practically seethe with rage. Not only was the pony beyond all logical physique, but it had also gone up and started eating Pinkies tail... the happiest pony ever (According to Haku) and all they showed her was that they pretty much WERE zombie ponies. Lucky facehoofed (A gesture he was sure he was going to do more) and gave out a very tired sigh. He was tired of these events. He wasn’t exactly in a wonderful position back on Earth when it came to his company. A rival company (Probably Potatoes & co.) had anonymously accused him of practically using slave labor. The allegations were ridiculous and even he wouldn’t stoop that low (Used to be a lowly grunt himself, vowed to not make others feel the same), but that didn’t matter to the public. The media made him out to be the worst criminal since Hitler and the public address he was going to give was going to be his way of putting everything to rest... instead he was the one put to rest. Now he sat in Limbo with a pervert and a slug made pony who had just completely scared off one of their only chances to get out of this mad hole. He looked upon them again with his frown only increasing in hatred. They were currently throwing rocks at various windows and ponies, the rocks themselves dissipated before doing harm anyway but it still angered him. If they were just gonna keep acting like this than there was little chance they were going to allow another chance to go off without a hitch. He craned his head back to look at Abigail who had turned away from the group, he couldn’t blame her. He felt like just leaving too, but thanks to a certain duo, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Lucky finally gave up his futile efforts and just rested his head back down, allowing his heavy eyes to close. He felt that at this point there was no use in thinking over everything going wrong, and instead decided to focus on other (Possibly) good things. He remembered the one mare Haku had mentioned that was in the food business. “Applejack” he said her name was, maybe mutual business efforts could be met and he could rise back up to his former glory? He doubted it, but it was a chance that he felt he needed to take. And if that didn’t work, Haku had also mentioned a mare named “Rarity” who was pretty much as money grubbing as he was. He knew that she certainly could see the value in such a partnership... if he could convince her of his late status. Haku sighed as he watched the stone return next to him. He picked it up, and threw it at a passing pony. As always, the stone either pass through them harmlessly, or did little to nothing to the victims. The stone returned once again. “You know Lewdy,” Haku spoke to the colt, “this isn’t as fun as you made it out to be.” Lewdy stopped throwing his stones and turned to face Haku. “I don’t know Haku, I’m having loads of fun. You’re obviously just doing it wrong.” Haku glared at his ‘friend.’ Haku held his glare for a moment, trying to faze Lewdy, and when it became obvious that he wouldn’t be, Haku picked up his stone once again. He tossed it upwards a few times, catching within his hooves each time, how he could even hold them with hooves was beyond Haku. But hey, screw physics. Turning back to Lewdy, Haku spoke, “Lewdy, does it hurt to die, again Haku means?” Needless to say, Lewdy was stunned to hear that question from Haku, but nevertheless answered. “Well Haku, it depends on how you die. Like earlier, when Raeg and I were fighting, a fight I must say that I won hands down, I died feeling the pain Raeg gave to me. When he slammed me into the ground, that was the last bit of pain I felt.” Haku nodded at this new information. “Ok then, quick question: if you would, say, die from a rather large stone smashing into your head, would you feel it?” “Most likely,” Lewdy said, “if that’s all Haku, I really want to get back to throwing my stones at people. I need the closure from... the situation from earlier.” With that, Lewdy turned back to the passing crowds of ponies and once again began hitting each person with a stone. Hey, 3 years had to be spent somehow, and Lewdy had managed to build a sizeable amount of skill at it. Picking up his stone once again, Lewdy pulled his forehoof back, aiming for a pony a good 300 feet away, but before he threw the stone, he felt his face meeting stone. Falling to the ground, Lewdy stared into the face of his attacker, Haku. “HAKU?! WHAT THE FUCK?!” “Words of advice, Lewdy,” Haku began, picking up his stone, “ghost rocks still hurt ghosts, and also...” Haku dropped his stone. “Never say Haku is wrong.” Abigail and Lucky could only stare in shock at the act Haku just pulled off. Within seconds, Lewdy’s broken body disappeared and his live one appeared to Haku’s side. “HAKU?!” Lewdy shouted to Haku, “WHAT... THE... FUCK?!” Haku smiled to his friend. “Huh, that does feel better.” “Hubba-wha?” Lewdy asked. “Well, when you said throwing stones at passing people would be fun, Haku thought it might be fun, but it just wasn’t fun if the people weren’t even noticing us, so Haku just thought that maybe Haku would also feel better if maybe someone at least got hurt by Haku. That person, sadly, had to be you. And you want to know what?” Lewdy raised an eyebrow, as did Loro. “It’s not as fun to kill a person as it is in video games,” Haku stated cooly. Lewdy couldn’t help take his turn in glaring at Haku, anger pushing up within him. Lewdy took a couple steps forward, but was once again pelted with stones. Picking himself up, again, Lewdy starred as Chubs picked up his stones. “Sorry Lewdy, lost my grip on my stones. It’s tough to hold onto them with hooves, you know?” “Haku knows, right? Haku means, how are we even doing this?” Haku asked his chubby companion with a smile and nod. Lewdy could only sigh in despair as he died again for what had to be the 45th time that day. Watching Lewdy come back to life again, Haku turned away from the stones. After all, if killing Lewdy wasn’t much fun, then there really much left to do. Walking towards one of the remain benches, Haku looked to Abigail and Lucky, murmuring something about taking a nap. “‘ow the bloody ‘ell is he taking a nap after killing someone?!” Lucky whispered to Abigail, both of whom took a step back when Haku turned to face them with a rather large grin. “Well, Haku guesses you can say that Haku is just,” Haku paused and put on a pair of sunglasses, “Stone Cold.” ‘Nice one Brain,’ Haku thought. ‘No problem.’ Everyone else could only facehoof themselves. “Stone cold this!” Lewdy shouted as he threw a stone at Haku’s face, hitting Haku between the eyes. “He shoots he scores!” Haku heard before landing. Or maybe it was “Revenge is mine!” Haku doesn’t know, Haku was just hit in the head with a stone. ‘This is not good! Brain, status report!’ ‘abrojabi kydanajba ohf frozen peas arughioys’ ‘Oh that is not good,’ Haku thought before passing out. ------ Haku awoke on what little grass was still around the area. Picking up his head, Haku met Chubs eyes. “Hey guys,” Chubs shouted, making Haku’s ears scream in pain, “I think he’s waking up!” “SHUT UP CHUBS!” Haku shouted, “You cause Haku pain with your shouting! And what the hell happened to Haku anyways?” “Oh, you were throwing stones at passing ponies and you just sorta tripped. Your stone came crashing right back into you,” Lewdy said walking next to Haku, “amazingly, you didn’t die... you lucky bastard.” Haku grab his head, the pain just now coming back, while trying to get up. “Stay down, you’ve been out for a while,“ Abigail said, “That stone really hit you good.” “Haku doesn’t believe you!” Haku said pointing to Lucky. “Me?” Lucky asked. Haku shook his head, trying to clear it. “No, Haku doesn’t believe the Lewdy. Haku would never simply trip and hurt himself. Haku blames Lewdy for Haku’s pain.” Lewdy eyes went wide, “What?! Haku, you tripped mate! You hurt yourself! It wasn’t me!” Haku glared at Lewdy for a moment. “So what, was it ghosts? Haku thinks not.” Lewdy facehoofed. “Haku... ugh... we are ghosts.” From somewhere behind them, Loro exclaimed “Los fantasmas?! Yo veo... I see...” “So you admit it!”         “Ah’m a little worried about askin’ what the ‘ell you’ve all been doing.” A voice said from the edge of the Crossroads. Memphis had broken away from Raeg and Twilight Sparkle at the sounds of shouting. He had a hard frown on his face as he regarded the group like he would a group of children who’d made a mess of a room. He’d seen from down the road the rock fight going on and could only expect that it somehow related to Lewdy’s pastime of throwing rocks at ponies. At least it devolved into having rocks thrown at him, that brought some comfort to the Southerner.         Lewdy didn’t bother to regard Memphis beyond a grumble about death and hellfire that the tan pony didn’t take kindly to. Before he could return the cold glare with a comment of his own Abigail stepped forward and said rather nonchalantly with an obvious amount of sarcasm “Oh nothing special, we’ve just been getting to know each other a little better is all.”         “Ah don’t take sarcasm in this situation right too kindly now Miss Miller, now please if one of ya could just tell me what’s been goin’ on that’d be quite fine.” Memphis said calmly, though his voice did hold an edge of agitation to it that was not present before when he spoke to the group.         Haku was the first to answer with his own exclamation of the events that transpired while they were gone, “Haku was attacked by ghosts!” In response Loro took this moment to facehoof and solemnly shake his head at the unicorn. Memphis did not look amused with the statement, instead he regarded Haku with a very cold look of indifference.         “Y’all are keeping something from me and that’s plain to see. Now spill it, what happened?” Memphis said.         “God damn it what do you think happened? Pinkie Pie walked by the Crossroads earlier.” Lewdy said with a scowl.         Memphis frowned and Twilight took closer attention to what was being say, “Pinkie Pie? She avoids the Crossroads like it was a hornet’s nest. Even then ah don’t see why that matters, she don’t regard us at all.”         Lewdy rolled his eyes, “Yeah well I proposed to Abigail and she just HAD to comment about it,” he said, ignoring the very hostile glare Abigail was giving him.         Loro sighed, “Señorita Pinkie Pie me vio y confundió a mí estar vivo. Un Hippogryph?”         The language was lost on Twilight who could only stare at Loro with a look of utter confusion. Memphis nodded, “I think I understand. She spoke to you and ended up gettin’ you all but what happened next?”         “CHUBS TRIED TO EAT HER” Lewdy shouted and gave a scowl to the pony in question.         “Not ‘efore you went and scared the livin’ daylights out o’ her Lewdy!” Lucky retorted with a vicious look of disapproval.         “I could ‘ave gotten ‘er to stay if someone didn’t try to rape her with his mouth,” Lewdy said, “and where were you when that happened moneybags? I didn’t see you making a move to stop him.”         “I could ‘ave if I wasn’t busy holdin’ you back!” Lucky said angrily back at him.         “Enough! Out o’ both of ya!” Memphis shouted for the first time. Lewdy cast a distasteful glare on Lucky but backed off in compliance to him, he chose instead to point his glare upon the ground again.         “Wait! Are you saying one of you tried to eat Pinkie Pie?” Twilight asked, shocked.         A nod from Abigail confirmed it. Memphis put a hoof to his face, “This day just keeps gettin’ better,” he muttered. Abigail couldn’t help but picture a nicely woven wicker basket falling into a pit of fire and brimstone.  This day was not exactly going well, and dying was shockingly among the least of her worries.  It had only been two or three hours since she’d appeared in this strange world of ponies and already she’d dealt with the fact that she was dead and moved on to being annoyed that her afterlife wasn’t as perfect as she might have liked. Well, it was a pretty terrible afterlife if she had to be around Lewdy for the grand majority of it.  And now Memphis was showing some of that hidden side, the part where he was a very angry pony balanced on the edge of exploding in a rage.  And now they risked losing Twilight, the only pony who was going to help them for a long while, most likely.  If only they didn’t have to deal with Lewdy and Chubs, they could be half way to escaping this little pocket of limbo. “It’s not as bad as it seems, Twilight.”  At this, Abigail received disbelieving looks from every set of eyes in the Crossroads.  “Or, well, there’s a decent explanation for it,” she tried again.  It didn’t seem to really calm Twilight at all, which was unfortunate.  “You see, Lewdy’s been here for three years.  Three years during which he couldn’t venture out of this small space.”  Lewdy nodded his head sadly, though he didn’t seem to really be that sad at the moment.  Lucky, on the other hand, simply seemed shocked that Abigail was defending Lewdy at all.  “From in here, we can’t affect anything unless one of the living lets us.  He knows that Pinkie loves to throw parties, so when the opportunity for an invitation to one pranced up and said hi, he went a bit crazy. “That doesn’t, of course, forgive him for what he did.  Nor him being an unlikeable person, but being an insufferable cur isn’t a good reason to be imprisoned for so long in near-solitary confinement.  And I think there’s just something wrong with Chubs,” said Abigail in a quieter tone, “he honestly doesn’t seem to be able to control himself.”  Abigail looked to Twilight to see if her words had any effect; Twilight’s face was an unreadable jumble of outrage, confusion, pity, and a few more that got lost somewhere in between. Lucky broke the awkward silence first, “We’d like to apologize to ya, miss Twilight,” he certainly knew how to talk to people, and an apology tended to go a long way when the other party was uncertain and you’ve wronged them, “although I can’t speak for Lewdy and Chubs, I will admit I could ‘ave done more to help the situation. I ‘ope you accept my sincere regrets lass.” “Haku would also like to apologize, for Haku did not think to stop Chubs.  Though it was funny to wa--” A hoof struck Haku to stop him before he undid whatever good he had done. Twilight stared for a second more, “I guess I can sort of understand... Lewdy, was it, but HE,” Twilight gestured to Chubs, “TRIED TO EAT PINKIE?  I mean, WHAT?  Why would he even do that?” “Her tail looked delicious,” Chubs mumbled, “like cotton candy.  But it wasn’t tasty at all.  Just tasted like hair, which isn’t good.”  The grey stallion then looked down, more from disappointment at the tasteless hair than in shame.  He looked up again, hopefully, “you didn’t bring back anything to eat, did you?” “No,” said Memphis, “we didn’t bring back any food.  Maybe next time, if’n there is one.”  He continued to stare daggers at Lewdy; the last thing they needed was more of his antics. Abigail turned to Twilight, she saw that Raeg was barely able to keep his relatively sweet and kind composure in front of Twilight, so he wouldn’t be helping out for the moment.  “Look, Twilight,” she began, “we’re really sorry about what happened.  Pinkie seemed petrified just to be passing by, and then things spiraled out of control.  We really didn’t mean to frighten her.  Will you still help us?” Twilight stood, considering what had been said.  Clearly, at least some of these ponies were crazy, but most of them seemed genuinely good (or at least, not evil).  On the other hoof, they’d tried to eat Pinkie Pie.  On the other other hoof, this was a great opportunity to write a seminal paper on aetheric studies and otherworldly apparitions.  Twilight was nearly starting to consider the correct alliterative title for the book.  It’d be leather bound, with gold leaf edging and lettering.  The Princess would be so proud of her!  On the other, other, other hoof, she didn’t know -- Twilight’s rambling train of thought was violently derailed by a streak of rainbow crashing down in front of her.  “All right, which one of you hurt Pinkie, ‘cause you’ve got a whole world of hurt coming your way!”  Rainbow Dash glared at each of the gathered ponies in turn. Loro noticed her gaze and kept a stoic demeanor.