My Little Pawny: Fragouts Are Magic
By ANTIcarrot
Based on Friendship is Magic, created by Lauren Faust
And My Little Pony, created by Bonnie Zacherle
Render Unto Hasbro That Which Is Hasbro’s...
Chapter Four (part I)
“I am so sorry Miss Sparkle,” Professor Fields said. “I thought you would have realised that the bodies had been in the ground. Why, you came up with three of the seven independent proofs we have, lal byyourself, that The PAtch is over three months old. Surely you understood that the bodies had been in the ground for an equal period of time. With their resulting poor appearance being a completely logical conclusion.”
Twilight sat with her head hanging over the side of the chariot and moaned.
“It never occurred to me that you would have such a reaction to decomposing bodies. Though, I supposed that sight does affect some of us more than others.”
Twilight moaned again, before adding, “Oh, go eat rotten oats and...”
“Miss Sparkle?” One of the guards called back. “We’re starting our descent. You still want us to land outside Sugar Cube Corner?”
Twilight pulled her head up and sat down properly.
“Yes, please. I need a pick me up.”
“Right you are Miss Sparkle.”
Twilight nodded in gratitude as she saw Ponyvile and the sugar-bread styled maisonette appear in the distance.
“Nothing like a good wholesome cupcake to get all thoughts of death and gore out of my mind.”
“Well I suppose there’s no harm in stopping for a quick snack if you feel the need.”
The chariot pitched nose up as it fell below the level of the roof tops.
“Professor Fields, have you ever meet Pinkie Pie?”
“The Element of Laughter? No, I don’t believe I have. Why?”
“Oh, no reason,” Twilight answered as they touched down. She stepped down from the cart. “Thank you gentlestallions.”
“Oh, yes, thank you. Good flight.”
“Anything for you Miss Sparkle.” They both smiled at her, before turning to their other passenger and adding in a more professional tone, “Professor.”
“So your cryptozoology expert lives around here?”
“Yes. Her flatmate works at Sugarcube Corners. Though I’m not quite sure I’d call her an expert. More like an enthusiastic amateur.”
Twilight pushed the door open with her magic.
“Hello Mrs Cake! It’s so good to see you again!”
“Twilight! Well this is a surprise!” She hesitated. “Only, didn’t you see me just this morning?”
“It’s been a long morning. Could I have a double banana whip toffee cake with extra sprinkles please?”
Mrs cake raised an eyebrow.
“Extra sprinkles?”
Twilight sighed.
“A really long morning.”
“Oh my!” She smiled widely. “Sounds like you need them then! And you sir, is there anything I can get for you?”
“Oh, just a regular carrot cake if you have it. Don’t need anything fancy at my age.”
“Hold the sprinkles and frosting?” She added, knowingly.
“If you please, that would be great.”
“Coming right up. Pinkie pie!” She turned to stick her head through a hole in the wall. “Toffee, double whip banana with extra sprinkles, and a number 7.”
“Righty oh!”
“Just plain carrot cake huh?”
“They were rare when I was a boy. Didn’t even get to try one until I was about your age. Thought it was the best thing I ever tasted.”
“Must be a generational thing,” Twilight muttered as she watched the kitchen shadows carefully.
“Oh it is,” Mrs cake said. “My parents were just the same.”
“All done!” Pinkie called out and a dark frizzy outline appeared against the wall.
“That was quick,” Fields commented.
“Yeah, Pinkie’s like that sometimes. Oh, and Mrs Cake? Get ready to catch.”
“Catch?” She asked in confusion, before glancing at the Professor and her eyes widened. Then they narrowed as she glared at Twilight. “Oh sweet Celestia please tell me you didn’t...”
“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Sure enough Pinkie Pie was already in the air, as was the tray, and both cupcakes. Both Mrs cake and Twilight reached out for it, but Twilight got there first with her magic, and ten held the plate out for Mrs Cake to grab, even as Pinkie rushed up to Professor Fields.
“Oh my gosh! Are you new here? I’ve never seen you before and that’s really odd because I thought I knew all the ponies in Ponyville which is silly really because I keep running into ponies I don’t know and then gasping and leaping into the air and then telling them I don’t know them I mean don’t you think that’s just the silliest thing? Oh but that’s enough about me I want to know about you! Are you knew here you must because I’ve never see you before and...”
“Hey! Now hang on young Miss! Please stop shaking my hoof like that. No, wait! That’s not...!”
As a still frowning Mrs cake put the tray down, Twilight smiled at her, retrieved her cupcake and took a bite.
“Twilight Amethyst Sparkle, did you deliberately distract Pinkie like that?! Do you know how little work she’ll get done for the rest of the day?”
“I have important business and... I assure you that is entirely unnecessary! But...”
“Oh don’t worry Mrs Cake, I’ll pay the bits in compensation.”
“Young lady! Put me down this instant!”
Twilight smiled contentedly, as she enjoyed her sprinkles.
“Trust me. It’s more than worth it.”
# # #
People were sitting on the ground, mostly by themselves, but there was one group of three that was taking their backpacks apart to see what exactly was inside. Cpt_John would have loved to join them, and had gotten as far as sitting down, before the Irishman stalked over and dragged him to his feet. Blood_Son had then started to drag him around the edge of the clearing, lecturing him verbally, and with the butt of her rifle, on why exactly he and everyone else was being so stupid.
Killing that monster had probably driven anything dangerous and mobile far away. But as it sat there rotting, some of those things would come back, looking for an easy meal. And some dangerous things simply weren’t mobile because they were small, or poisonous, or small and poisonous! Earth had snakes and spiders. Who knew what the hell this world had...
“We can’t stay here,” Blood_Son said.
“Nothing I’d like more than leave,” Cpt_John muttered.
It was... Um, what time was it? He wondered if anyone had found anything as useful as a watch yet. It had been Friday night, and he had started playing at about 1AM, which had been an hour or two before things started to go to hell. Sleep sounded both really good right now. And really bad. The whole snakes and spiders thing.
“No, I mean we can’t stay in this clearing. We need to go back and check the bodies.”
“You do know they’re dead, right?”
“No. I don’t. And you don’t either. That dragon thing mentioned Valhalla. People in Valhalla came back to life after the battle was over.”
“You’re talking about, um...”
Cpt_John tried remembering the name of that game mode. It wasn’t something he played much.
“Sabotage.”
“Right. Except that dead players in sabotage can still chat. It also said we rejected the Valhalla option.”
Blood_Son was silent.
“We still need to check the bodies.”
Blood_Son nudged him towards the group of three.
“Why?”
“Salvage. Our kit won’t last forever. We’ll need spare parts for everything. Including boots. And have you checked the rations we have? Are they as never ending as our bullets and grenades? If not we need more. And need to learn if there’s anything else we can eat on this planet.”
“Can’t we do that in the morning?”
“Which is another thing. We need somewhere safe to sleep. The church came through with the rest of the map. Hopefully it’s still there. Get inside, lock and barricade the doors, and let some people get some sleep. Place even has a lookout tower.”
“Thin walls though.”
“At least it’ll keep out the view.” The police officer nodded at the three former computer game players. “Find anything useful?”
Cpt_John broke off, and approached another player sitting down on the grass, with a hand gun and pile of bullets in front of him. The magazine had been removed and was held in one hand, with a thumb mechanically pushing a new bullet out every few seconds. The bullets tinkled as they hit the top of the pile and fell down the sides.
“Hey, KSK.” When that was ignored, he tried again. “Leopard swhy? Vee gates zee? Ze brawka, um, etvas?”
The tinking stopped.
“Nein. Ich bin gut.”
Right, Cpt_John thought. You’re good. So good you’re playing with bullets like they were tic-taks.
Unfortunately he was the second best person at speaking German, right after KSK_Leopard2, whose English skills mirrored his own.
“Vir gehen, um, soon. Nicked yetst, aber, soon. Ze comma mit ... vir. Ze furshtay?”
There was a pause.
“Ja. Ich verstehe. Sie werden bald verlassen, aber noch nicht.”
The middle of that, and most of the end, went over his head. But he got the first part.
“Well, gut, gut. Funf oder zen minutan.”
KSK_Leopard2 nodded, and did nothing else, but didn’t go back to pushing bullets out of the magazine. Cpt_John turn to rejoin Blood_Son when the german added something else.
“Bald. Wir gehen bald, aber nicht jetzt.”
“Ah.” Balt. Soon. “Danka.”
As he cross the short gap Cpt_John shook his head at their luck. Only three survivors with headsets, and one of them couldn’t speak the same language. Vunderbar. Vunder-bloody-bar.
“Well is there anything we do have enough of?!”
N00BT00BR: Plenty of condoms. So we’re sorted if we meet any pretty looking goats.
Tsplitters: Sleeping bags look decent. What we do have seems to work at least.
“Good. Given our luck so far we’ll need it all eventually.”
N00BT00BR: You sure about this? Claymores usually disappear when we die, but...?
Blood_Son thought about that for a moment, before pulling a face.
“We don’t have much choice. Anything we step on or in front of could kill us. Here or back there.”
“Aren’t there perks that let you spot explosives?” Cpt_John asked.
“Worth a shot. Okay. Pack it up you two. John, help me get the others.”
“One already knows.” He nodded at KSK_Leopard2. He looked between the last three and sighed, which turned into a yawn. “You take those two. I’ll go get Mr ‘Are we there yet’.”
“Good luck.”
He turned and walked across the field to the furthest player. Every game had one. And theirs happened to be... Cpt_John tilted his head. Asleep? He snorted. He wondered why things were so quiet.
“Hey, BSG,” he said as he poked the player with his rifle butt. “Wake up.”
He tried a few more times before giving up. Briefly he thought about yelling FOUR! and swinging his rifle butt down on his head. Cpt_John still had slight ringing in his ears... But no. Blood_Son was right. They only had the supplies they were carrying and couldn’t afford to risk anything useful, irreplacable, or valuable. Like his M4.
Instead, he grabbed BSG:WIN////’s arm and lifted. The player didn’t wake up. Cpt_John was almost impressed as he hauled him higher and higher until he was half standing. Still sleeping even then.
Cpt_John let go, and let the hacker fall to the ground. That finally woke him up. He watched the player sputter and slip around in the wet grass for a few moments before speaking.
“Get your gear together. We’re shifting camp. Five minutes.”
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: What did you do?!
“I woke you up. And I’ve been guarding your stupid arse while you caught forty winks.”
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: I was home!
“You were dreaming.”
He looked down at BSG face. Bruised, burnt, and covered in mud. The rest of his body didn't look that much better. Well that wasn't quite true. In the middle at least he looked worse for wear, but when you looked at the outline... Whatever BSG:WIN//// had been before, now he was his game avatar, a US Special Forces soldier, and twin of Cpt_john’s own new body. Which was not something he was particularly happy about either...
“Look... Sorry mate, but you were dreaming. This is real. There ain’t no easy way out. Now come on. It’s not safe here.”
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: Safe? There’s no such place! You keep safe by keep moving!
The player heaved himself to his feet and looked around unsteadily.
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: Where are the others?
“Others?”
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: The other players. Where are they?
The other soldier waved his arms about. Cpt_John couldn’t help but notice that one of the hands suddenly had a gun in it.
“They died,” he answered slowly. He glanced around himself, looking for any nearby cover and not seeing any. No one else was nearby either. He turned his attention back towards the gun. “We fought the monster, and they didn’t make it.”
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: Well, yeah. Yeah, but we won. So where are they?
“They died,” Cpt_John said again, as he slowly moved his thumb to touch his M4’s safety switch. “They got stepped on, or got hit by a paw, or got caught in friendly fire. They didn’t make it. They died.”
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: No, but... No. That’s not how the game works!
“Did you know any of them?”
He was pretty sure he knew the answer. Only one player had an [FCUK] clan marker. Clan players almost always joined the same clans and same games as their friends. But he wanted enough time to rotate the safety without it clicking. An M4 was a better melee weapon, and better ranged weapon, but between arms reach and fifty meters, a handgun was simply faster and easier to point at your enemy.
And BSG:WIN//// wasn’t within arms’ reach.
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: What? No. I... No.
“You remember Chernobyl? In the first game? At the start of the mission, sneaking past the guard hut and then snipping the church tower?” The safety switch started to pull, but his thumb pressure slowed it, and it silently rotated through single shot. “That church is on the edge of the map. It came through with everything else. We’re going back there.”
BSG:WIN//// just shook his head and started to pace.
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: It’s not safe. It’s just timber frame construction. It’d just get stepped on next time. Probably won’t even give the next thing a splinter!
“If the thing that brought us here had more...”
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: Discord. It called itself Discord.
“Okay... If Dischord had more than one monster, he’d have used it. And he hasn’t appeared again. So maybe we’re lucky and he’s forgotten about us.”
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: Can’t take that chance.
The safety finally and silently clicked into automatic, and Cpt_John relaxed slightly. He nodded at the monster.
“That body over there is probably food for something. I don’t want to be here when those somethings turn up. You should come with us.”
The other player just shook his head again.
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: No.
“You need to come with us.”
Another shake of the head.
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: No.
Really not wanting to do this, Cpt_John stepped forwards to try and close the distance. The situation was already spiralling down hill. Maybe if he got close enough he could catch him around the head before things got worse.
“You don’t have any choice. You have to come with us!”
He didn’t see it coming. Or rather he did, like that strange moment when your mind is aware that it’s seeing something important bit doesn’t quite understand why yet. He saw BSG:WIN//// turn and saw the arm come up, but he didn’t really catch up to current events until a 9mm wide black hole was pointed at his head.
Bloody lag...
[FCUK]BSG:WIN////: Don’t tell me what to do!
# # #
Author's note:
I hadn't heard the Twilightlicious song when I wrote that first section, but I was definately humming it as I typed this up for FimFiction. ^.^ I'm somewhat dissatisfied with this chapter, mostly because I spend twice as much time with the humans as with the ponies. A couple of reasons for that: The human section was supposed to be short and immediately followed by a visit to Lyra. (As if you couldn't see that one coming...)
With the B section added (hopefully within the next month) things should be much more rounded. After this situation gets resolved, I'll have finished the compulsary ponyless 'meet the new guys' section in any HiE story. The human/pony ratio should then swing in the other direction as Twilight does her thing, the humans try to survive, and you find out what exactly Discord did in his final moments of freedom.
My regulars may have also noticed that the story intro has changed and the DARK tag has gone. Given how many bronies seem to think 'dark=cupcakes' I can't help but wondering if it has been loosing me readers. I also hope that mentioning Twilight might get my story a second glance too. (The depths we authors stoop to for attention...) If anypony has any sggestions as to which tags I should be using, please say so in comments.