Fluttershy found herself in an odd position of holding something magical and human told her she had to come up with a game or challenge. She didn’t know what would happen if she lost, but she assumed it was a bad idea to throw the match. So she had to think of a game that she was good at… oh right, she already knew the perfect game to take on this person with.
Bonnie didn’t know what was going on. One second she was asking Cobra Bubbles about options to move the Head Hunter out of the area, the next she noticed her sister hugging a seagull and some crazy guy wearing a black coat with a helicopter backpack was challenging a befuddled looking Fluttershy to something. The pendant they both held was giving of a rather ominous glow.
Shush liked seeing her big sister cousin, she also liked the friendly friend that made the floppy looking bird come play with her. The strange guy with the whirring bird backpack wasn’t very nice sounding, but he didn’t come off as violent or evil like some of the people Mr. Bubbles dealt with. He must be a very sad and angry person, so maybe he was a gray?
“My name is Fluttershy and um… we’ll play, ‘The Quiet Game’?” She was asking more than saying they would, but apparently it was enough and the entire world warped around Fluttershy and this human.
Slowly the pier torn asunder and lifted both Jack Spicer and Fluttershy on two separate pieces where they were staring at each other. Between them on her own piece was a rather curious Shush who wasn’t freaked out by the change in scenery.
Shush had apparently been chosen as a judge for this competition because her hearing was really good, some magical force had both her ears pointing towards Jack and Fluttershy and her tail pointing straight up.
-
Off to the side on a large section of pier in the void everyone was now in, Bonnie was looking left and right wondering what just happened to the rest of the world until she saw something out of place sitting with her and Cobra Bubbles.
“Okay who are you and what do you have to do with this situation? I’m tired of things going wrong for my friend over there and my sister just got dragged along into it. I’m guessing we’re apparently the peanut gallery for whatever ‘it’ is.” Bonnie already knew something was up with the Shar Pei the second she saw him. “The names Bonnie Jookiba and I’m a professional thief, don’t try the whole ‘I’m a normal dog’ act. It won’t work on me as one of my older sisters is a Shih Tzu who happens to live in Hawaii. I know for a fact that almost every dog on the planet can talk.”
The grey flabby looking dog gave her a flat stare for a moment before sighing and standing on his hinds legs. He looked at the MIB agent who wasn’t particularly surprised to see him standing on his hind legs, given the MIB was aware that dogs were more intelligent than they appeared, but then again so were cats and all other forms of animals on the planet that hid the truth quite well. MIB never bothered with the business of animal related crimes or low level criminals. They mostly dealt specifically with aliens as that was where their expertise was alongside human resource management.
“Nice accent you got there Bonnie, the names Fu Dog. I’m the magical animal guardian of New York. I was going to get the Shen Gong Wu before anything happened, but your magical friend over there found it by accident first. So don’t blame me, blame that plank for being too loose at the wrong moment. I was going to prevent something like this from happening by having the Lunar Locket on me at all times, at least until the evil wannabe over there and any of the others looking for it left town. It just became a moot point to do anything like that now.” Fu was a dog with a jersey accent that had it before Jersey was a real place, he quite liked Bonnie’s gangster accent. “Now we’ve got a Xiaolin Showdown going on here and I’m going to have a lot of problems if that pendant falls into the wrong hands. Did Frank get the word out to you MIB guys already?”
“… no, he hasn’t gotten any word out yet.” Cobra said and continued to stand there in a stoic manner staring at Fluttershy and Jack looking at each other. After a moment the tall human finally spoke again. “What is the word?”
“He was going to warn you that the dragon monks and a few world conquering wannabes were going to be gallivanting around New York again, after that whole Serpent’s Tail fiasco you’d think MIB would be more than tired of magical stuff happening in their neighborhood. At least you guys managed to keep that one under wraps without needing to neutralize anyone. As a magical guardian of New York, I would like to apologize for this mess and the inconvenience ahead of time.” Fu dog pulled out his phone punched in a number and then waited. “Hey Frank, I got a magical quadruped wearing leafy greens whose facing down a tall pasty faced human nerd backed by an army of robots that are in the middle of a competition of staying quiet, do you have any bets to place on who will win this one? So what if it’s a suckers bet, can’t you at least make this a little fun for me. We’re only betting biscuits and kibble here.”
“You know Cobra; one wonders where we are and how the hell he’s still getting phone service here. I didn’t think a signal could even get through all those folds of his.” Bonnie’s aside didn’t cause any chuckles on Cobra’s stoic face; instead he let a slight smirk show on his face.
“So, is that sister of yours available? If not, then what about you?” Fu Dog had to get in his flirting, no matter how often he failed. He was always eternally looking for love in all the wrong places. Didn’t matter the species or the type, he’d still try to make a pass at any female if he thought they were, looked and sounded mature enough.
-
“What are the rules of this game exactly before we start? Again, it’s Jack Spicer if you didn’t hear me the first time.” The pale boy said flippantly while tapping his foot in an impatient manner.
“We can’t hurt or attack each other in any way; we can’t make too many unavoidable noises such as the act of breathing or… passing gas. The one who stays quiet the longest wins. May I ask what happened to the world before we start Mr. Spicer?” Fluttershy preferred being polite in the middle of all this unfamiliar magic, it kind of reminded her of the things that went on in Discords realm of chaos where he had a nice home.
“Xiaolin Showdowns tend to warp the fabric of reality around the competitors and those who have a stake in the competition, like all those guys over there watching us. That strange Chinchilla thing is obviously going to take part in this which is why she is between us, after the competition is over things go back to normal and the winner will have the Wu in their possession. I’ve tried to study the phenomenon before, but I never been able to figure out how this works except that it’s tied to the planet itself somehow.” Jack had tried to figure out how to artificially start a showdown without a Shen Gong Wu, but that never panned out. “I figure there’s no point in trying to understand magic perfectly and I have seen a lot of freaky things happen in a showdown. That’s why I’m not surprised by your appearance whatever you are. We start the competition when we both state the words ‘Gong Yi Tanpai’, Got it? Good, cause I’m not going to lose this one!”
“Okay…” Fluttershy gulped as she was ready to be quiet as possible; there was some irony to an eavesdropping mouse in the middle of a ‘quiet’ competition. She inhaled and so did Jack across from her.
“Gong Yi Tanpai!” Both competitors stated in a loud tone and with a brilliant flash everything was so quiet you could literally hear a pin dropping through the air. They both slowly sat down on their ramshackle rickety portions of the pier made out of bits of wood that shouldn’t obviously go together, in fact after declaring the start of the match the towers they were on became even more rickety looking and would likely fall apart at the vaguest of sounds.
This was the start of a game of extreme patience and self reflection.
So there they were, the three beings were sitting quietly on their own towers. Of the three towers of wood, Shush had a more sturdily built one and it was kind of obvious what making a noise would do. One of the towers would fall if too much noise was made and Shush was being driven by some kind of mystical cosmic magic to reflect any sound made by the contestants back at either tower and a loud enough sound would inevitably collapse them.
Even if she didn’t want to hurt Fluttershy, Shush would have to if the pony made any noise. She quietly continued to hug the poor seagull that got dragged into this mess and it cooed slightly at Shush snuggling against her form.
Fluttershy smiled reassuringly at hearing that the Seagull liked Shush, she thought Shush was nice too and that was despite the fact that she seemed to have an attention span comparable to Rainbow Dash from little time they had spent together. Looking at Jack she tried to keep the smile on her face at his angry glare, as he sat with both his arms and his legs crossed and when had he grown a monkey’s tail? The tail was holding on to the staff with a monkey topper.
Jack was having a hard time looking at that innocent face, the cute smile and the large eyes, he heard of adorable creatures in ancient legends that would devour your soul and snuggle the life out of you in a most disturbingly friendly manner as possible. He didn’t think they were real, but seeing Fluttershy staring into his eyes. It was like she was looking straight through him to the little boy in him that was whiny and always crying about being a loser, combining that with the fact that he was overcompensating for something by trying to take over the world.
The quiet game was obviously very quiet and Fluttershy could attempt to keep up her cheery mood forever. Jack wasn’t as good about keeping himself in check and he wanted to wipe what he thought looked like a smug smile off of the pony’s stupidly adorable face.
If there was a professional at being quiet, then Fluttershy was that professional. She was so quiet it was hard to not think of her as dead. She would shift ever so slightly without making a sound and continued to think happy thoughts about suddenly being stuck in a void and on top of a rickety tower made of wood from the pier.
Fluttershy almost screamed in fear for her opponent’s life when she saw The Maw rise up behind Jack Spicer out of the darkness without a sound. She silently moved her bat wing out to feel around off the left edge of the platform she sat on. After a moment she visibly relaxed even as The Maw came down on Jack Spicer and then evaporated into nothing without harming the boy genius. It had been nothing more than an illusion and Fluttershy knew it couldn’t logically have been standing on air.
She saw several more illusions, trying to attack Jack Spicer or spook her into making a noise loud enough to make her lose the game. She held resolute, even when fake images of her friends started berating her about being so meek all the time and that she should speak out and be assertive more often, especially right this moment when she was playing a game about being quiet.
The game was really becoming interesting as the game itself was trying to manipulate them into making a sound for Shush to reflect into one of the wooden towers. With that knowledge Fluttershy tried not to pay attention to the outside distractions any longer and saw Jack Spicer was likely seeing and hearing similar things given look on his face.
“Come on Fluttershy, speak up if you want me to make you a personally crafted MMMM Cake for you when you finally come home! I know you really liked the bit of cake you got a taste of on the train before I devoured the rest of it in front of Celestia after mashing it together with all the other foods.” The illusionary Pinkie didn’t try to get touchy feely with Fluttershy, but she was trying to goad her into making a noise. “Oh I know what will make you smile... maybe I can even get a giggle out of you yet! So a pony walks into a bar, then I asked him if he was okay. He responded ‘I don’t know, let me hum my way into a few more and then we’ll see’.”
Biting her bottom lip, Fluttershy started sweating slightly; this competition was now sliding into downright mental torture territory. There was no way she was going to stay stoic, not through an accurately depicted illusionary Pinkie’s comedy routine without busting her gut. Wouldn’t the laughter be involuntary? Well she did say that they couldn’t make too many involuntary noises, so laughing at all was still going to make her lose.
Jack Spicer on his side of the things didn’t even see anything related to the illusion that supposedly engulfed him; instead he saw the four dragon monks float down from out of nowhere to land on nothing but the empty space around Fluttershy.
“Oh would you look at that, it is Jack Spicer. You are to be dropping your balls on this one!” The little yellow skinned bald monk kid said with a smile.
“Even in the form of an incredibly complicated illusion created by the showdown, you still bomb the idioms Omi. I hope that the way you phrased that wasn’t actually on purpose. It’s he’ll be dropping the ball on this one.” The only girl among the four illusionary monks said as she slapped her face, she had her hair up in pigtails. After a moment she smirked evilly at Jack. “He already knows he’s going to lose as it’s only a matter of time, then again dropping his balls would really help in the matter.”
“What she said.” The little illusionary monk said without realizing the full implications of his previous statement or even his current one, much less what the girl said.
Jack Spicer really wanted to defend himself against the very evil illusions that obviously only he was seeing, the two that spoke already actually did a pretty good depiction of the monk’s personalities. His eye twitched fiercely and he tried to keep his anger in check.
“Yeah, the big baby knows that no matter how hard he tries, he’s always at the bottom of the rung of our competitions. The monkey staff is the only real thing he has going for him and we’ve seen how well that works out. The Shen Gong Wu nobody really wants because it makes you hairy and smelly, like an old guy with an incredibly bad amount of back hair.” The Brazilian guy said with a cheeky grin. “He’s always whining about something, he’ll be crying for weeks and will be sadly blogging about how he botched this one forever.”
“I reckon he doesn’t need to hear what I think; he already knows I think he’s a snake.” After that the big bulky cowboy hat wearing human walked forward while tipping the hat to the pony. “That right there is a pretty lady if I ever did see one. So why don’t you be the gentleman here and lose to the little darling?”
-
On the third side of the showdown, Bonnie just watched as Fluttershy broke out into a cold sweat and the Jack guy was growing angrier by the second. After noting that their eyes weren’t entirely on each other, she guessed that something else was going on here.
“Hey Fu, you’re a magical being right? Can you give me an idea of what’s going on here?” Bonnie turned to the so called magical guardian with a hand print that was just her size imprinted on his face.
“No matter what the game or how simple the showdown appears to be, there’s always something interesting going on. I’m betting something illusionary to hurry this along and the one with the stronger will to stay silent longer wins.” The magical four legged being looked to be really having a hard time with whatever it is that was putting a grimacing smile on her face and her tail between her legs. He could vaguely see what both the contestants were seeing given his magical nature.
“Ouch, whatever Fluttershy is seeing must not be pretty for her to make a face like that.” Shaking her head, Bonnie was silently cheering for Fluttershy to win. “Whatever they are seeing must be making this a tough competition for the both of them.”
-
Fluttershy resisted with all her strength to not to start dancing around and singing along with the Pony Tones, though it was quite nice to hear. She kept herself in check and wanted to cry because she had to be quite and not make too much noise, being quiet had never been so trying like this.
“You will never be able to conquer the world being as weak willed as you are; it is the unmitigated truth.” The tall dark man with lizard eyes said to Jack with a condescending stare, he turned away and started walking. “I shouldn’t even have been an illusion for you to even waste my breath on. Someone as foolish and weak as you is entirely beneath my notice.”
Jack wanted to cry for entirely different reasons than why Fluttershy wanted to. The illusion of the best warrior of the Heylin almost broke him by just dismissing him. He wasn’t even physically here, the Heylin were all about dark magic and warriors involving such practices. Heck the illusion of him was rather spot on.
-
It had been ten minutes of constant mental battering for both Fluttershy and Jack. Fluttershy had never thought playing ‘The Quiet Game’ would be this ruthless. Even Jack thought this baby game would be boring and he was proven horrifically wrong.
“Idiot says what?” A large green illusionary dragon quickly stated as fast as he popped up, he was actually quite visible to both Fluttershy and Jack when he popped up.
Only Jack knew who the dragon was and his tongue was moving before his mouth could stop it. Fluttershy’s heart stopped beating for a moment at the sight of the dragon and was too scared to even breathe. Thus in comparison even if Jack whispered he was much louder than Fluttershy who had ceased making any sounds at all.
“What?” When Jack said this it was barely a whisper, but the sound of his voice and the lack of any sound coming from the pony scared stiff along with the falling of Shush’s tail towards his pillar made his eyes widen.
“WHAT!” Rang out the teen’s voice from Shush’s tail and the focused sonic attack destroyed the pillar Jack was on making him fall into the void screaming, he was lightly battered by chunks of wood as he fell into the darkness.
With a bright flash the quiet showdown was over, the pier was back to normal and Fluttershy was wearing the Lunar Locket which now had Luna’s cutie mark emblazoned in it. The pony was also holding the monkey staff and after a moment she let out a deafening screech and after finishing that she started breathing deeply. The dragon had scared her so horribly; she hadn’t noticed that the world had been changed back to normal.
“No, how could I lose to you like that… it was your first time … you don’t even know what a Shen Gong Wu is…” Jack fell to his knees with tears in his eyes, his tone turned dull and bland despite his sniffing and snuffling with tears running down his eyes. He was a whining nobody living in a world of small victories. “Why do I always keep losing? Why am I always the chew toy? Why can’t I be better? I knew taking over the world would be difficult, but I’m such a loser that I’ll never even achieve it. He was right and he wasn’t even here to say it himself!”
Fluttershy frowned at the poor broken human and her heart went out to him. Even if he was probably going to attack her with the robots after this, she could at least cheer him up some. She looked to the others and then made her way up to Jack to carefully wrap both her hooves around him and started patting his back gently. After a moment she started to gently rock him back and forth.
“There there, it’s okay. Everything will be alright, shhh…” Here was an upset being that needed her kindness to pull him out of his funk, which was something Fluttershy could definitely do. “Hush now, quiet now, it’s time to get some rest from your trying day. Hush now, quiet now, it’s time to get some good to come your way. All your troubles are far behind you and you need a little break. It’s better to try and move forward to overcome your tear filled lake. So listen to me you sad poor thing, just allow in the warmth and joy I will bring. Hush now quiet now and listen to me sing.”
Jack started snuggling into Fluttershy’s grasp and she continued to sing into his right ear, ponies were incredibly good at ad-libbing music. At this point even the ever stoic Cobra Bubbles was wiping his eyes slightly.