Nopony would truly expect a pumpkin would be able to run quite so fast on two spindly vine legs.
Nor would they expect it to be able to scream quite so loudly as it ran, considering it had no mouth with which to scream.
But that's exactly what was happening right now all over Ponyville, with pumpkins running about in every direction.
"Come back here and face thine demise with honor, thou bloodless coward of a gourd!" Luna shouted furiously, a large wooden mallet that'd been procured from the test your strength game, grasped tightly in her hands as she chased after one of the pumpkins in question, bearing down on it like a ferocious predator in the process.
The pumpkin chucking event, in light of recent developments had been cancelled and instead replaced by a new event to account for circumstances beyond their control. Instead of pumpkin chucking, they now had the pumpkin run.
The whole goal of the game, despite being the creation of Twilight on the fly, was incredibly simple, and very straightforward; smash the pumpkins to terminate the come to life spell that had made them ambulatory under their own gremliny power.
While straightforward in concept, actual implementation was difficult. Everyone who wished to participate was given access to some form of blunt instrument to use for use in rendering a pumpkin into mush, but catching them to do that was proving to be a challenge in itself as they ran, jumped, rolled, scurried, and did all manner of other things to avoid actually being made ready for pies.
It was a fact that Luna -as well as many others- were learning the hard way right now. As fast as she was, the pumpkins just seemed to be one step ahead of her the whole way.
"You're already dead, you just don't bucking realize it yet!"
And speaking of fast...
Luna recognized that voice as belonging to Rainbow Dash, who was currently chasing after another rogue pumpkin, a crowbar gripped in her hands as she raced along. That fact made her feel slightly better, knowing that she wasn't the only one apparently having difficulty with catching her quarry. If it were just her, that would be one thing. But this was apparently a group effort in terms of difficulty.
"Be made into a pie!" she yelled as she closed in on her quarry and swung the mallet downward. Unfortunately all she hit was ground, as the pumpkin had jumped out of the way. "Foul vegetable! Thou shalt be made to suffer one way or another!" she declared.
And then, much to her surprise, her words came to pass as a filly she recognized as Sweetie Belle came charging up, and performed a running jump and landed hooves first on top of it, smashing it to pieces with ease.
"A most excellent save, Sweetie Belle," Luna commented, impressed by the feat.
"Thanks, Luna," Sweetie Belle replied, feeling a sense of pride in her accomplishment.
Unfortunately that sense of accomplishment came to a sudden end as another pumpkin came running out of nowhere, and slammed into her from behind, knocking her off balance as it ran by, sending her falling to the ground with a thud.
"BUTTS!" she roared in utter voice-cracking fury.
Luna was tempted to laugh at the display of anger exhibited by the filly, but now wasn't exactly the time for laughing. In the competitive mood she was in, neither was lending a hand. But she would make it up to her, after the fact.
Despite the thickness of her makeup at the moment, it was evident to everypony present and paying attention, that Mayor Mare was quite worried about the level of chaos that had managed to engulf all of Ponyville. All around them, dozens of pumpkins were running about, utterly ruining the festivities of Nightmare Night. And all around them were dozens of ponies, armed with blunt instruments attempting to smash the pumpkins to pieces. It was a recipe for utter disaster; made all the worse by the fact that she had actually agreed to it!
Granted they didn't have any better ideas at the time, so Twilight's idea for what they were referring to as the "pumpkin run" just felt like a serious accident -or accidents- waiting to go wrong. There was such a potential for injury if the participants got competitively combative with one another; broken bones were the least of their concerns right now.
Perhaps she'd feel better about all the competitively driven, unrestrained violence being carried out in town, if Twilight were actually paying more attention to their surroundings, and what was going on, rather than looking at whatever notes currently held her attention more. Whatever it was, it couldn't possibly be that important... could it?
"Princess," she spoke up, "I know that I actually agreed to this. But is this really a good idea for handling the situation?" she asked, yet again.
"Under present circumstances, yes," Twilight replied as she looked up from her charts and notes in order to address her. "Granted it's not the greatest of ideas, but I wasn't sure what else we could do. Everypony put a lot of work into making tonight a lot of fun, and a spell to cancel out the enchantments on all of the pumpkins, would risk undoing that hard work by wiping out all the enchantments in place simultaneously, not just the come to life one," she explained.
Mayor Mare nodded, remembering that part of the conversation quite well. "I know that, Princess, I really do. It's just... so many things could go wrong. Somepony could get seriously hurt, and not just by slipping and falling while chasing the pumpkins either," she explained.
It was Twilight's turn to nod in understanding. Ponies getting competitive and sabotaging others in the form of deliberate injury had certainly been a concern. But she didn't want to believe that it was necessary to stipulate that such tactics wouldn't be acceptable; surely something like that would be basic common sense.
"If that happens... then we'll just deal with it as necessary," she finally replied and looked out at everything unfolding around them.
What immediately caught her attention was both Pinkie and Scootaloo chasing after a pumpkin, with some kind of complicated teamwork maneuver being pulled off as Scootaloo extended her arm, with Pinkie grabbing it, swinging her around as she was lifted off the ground, and then hurled like a hammer toss. Scootaloo soared, before coming in for a landing as she grabbed the pumpkin with both hands, skidding to a stop and jumping up, and proceeding to smash it against the ground hard.
"Well... at least they're using teamwork," she thought to herself as she watched the two high-five each other.
One by one, bit by bit, the number of rogue pumpkins was being whittled down, Ponyville being stained with orange vegetable innards in the process as the nuisance was quelled.
Despite the initial concerns about ponies getting competitive and hurting one another for the sake of winning, things really weren't shaping up in that manner; quite the opposite actually, as many were actually working together to eliminate the orange gourd menace that was ruining their fun. They were learning the hard way that individual victories were going to be rare, and the only way to succeed was to assist one another, with sometimes three ponies being necessary to deal with a single pumpkin.
Finally it was down to the very last rogue pumpkin, and it was turning out to be the trickiest of them all. It was showing no signs of falling to whatever herding tactics had been used to take down its brethren in the widespread slaughter. So that meant the residents had to change up their game in accordance.
That led them to where they were now; a good portion of Ponyville all surrounding the pumpkin with a body wall, preventing it from having anywhere to go, except around in a circle as it tried to find some escape.
"This is gonna be so good," Rainbow Dash said with a grin as she cracked her knuckles, looking forward to finishing this game.
"Ya said it, Sugarcube," Applejack agreed. They'd been given a lot of runaround for no good reason. And although it had been fun for a while, everything had to end sooner or later.
Everyone looked to the sound of the voice and saw Luna approaching, looking weary as she dragged the heavy wooden mallet behind her.
"I would like to be able to say that I managed to crush at least one pumpkin tonight," she stated. She'd been given the runaround as much as anyone, but she didn't have a single squashed gourd to her name. Naturally this left her a bit peeved, as she felt that she'd been largely useless at handling this mess.
Thankfully she didn't have to explain that fact to those present. At hearing her request, the portion of the crowd parted to allow her entrance into the makeshift arena, and draw on her quarry.
As if it sensed its own approaching doom, the pumpkin started running around even faster, trying to find some manner of escaping its fate.
"I am far too tired for eloquence after all that has happened tonight," she said as she hoisted the mallet, raising it above her head. "So let us simply settle on good riddance!"
The force of impact to Luna's blow caused a pretty sizable explosion to occur, sending bits of rind and pumpkin guts flying. More than a few were caught in the blast range to some degree, but none of them to the extent as Luna herself! She stood there, a blank and disbelieving look on her face, pumpkin innards hanging off of her body in various areas.
Nopony dared breathe, for fear of what sort of response the night princess might have.
That response came fast and furiously, first in the form of a snort, and then an outright laugh as she picked the stringy pumpkin mess from her horn and away from her face. It was the sort of laugh that had one throwing their head back as their belly visibly quaked. This lead the others nervously laughing in response, before succumbing to more genuine laughter at realizing nothing bad was going to happen.
"Per chance would somepony be so kind to as lend me a towel?" she asked them as she picked the stringy mess from her horn and out of her face. As much fun as the pumpkin run had ultimately been to participate in, she didn't want to continue through the rest of the night with sticky fur.