The Worst Plan
Eyes wild and panicked, Pinkie rounded the corner of the passage and sprinted out onto the bailey. Not an instant later, the howling and spitting Bandersnatch slewed around the corner and rushed after her in a dead run. Pinkie focused, putting everything into her hooves. She tried desperately to not notice the yowls and shaking earth as she ran across the unkempt grass towards the open gate to the keep.
A red stick poked up from the ground, and she immediately remembered its purpose. She sprang into the air, soaring far before hitting the ground hard and stumbling. She recovered quickly though and kept moving. The Bandersnatch ran past the stick, oblivious to its meaning, and fell into a concealed ditch that Pinkie had sprang over. The creature impaled itself on crudely sharpened and previously hidden poles. The creature let out a whine of pain as it struggled up and out of the ditch, snapping the spurs of wood. It took off in a loping run, seemingly oblivious to the jags of woods sticking out of its flesh.
But the trap had worked—it gave Pinkie the distance she needed to sprint through the gate well ahead of the pursuing Bandersnatch. She hurried up the steps to the gallery, spinning around to watch the beast coming at her. She held her breath for a moment, hoping to get the timing right, and waited until the Bandersnatch was just a few meters from the gate. Almost out of breath, she shrieked, “Raaaj!”
Hearing that, Raj swung at the ancient chain holding up the portcullis, and the Apple Ax cut through the rusted steel effortlessly. Outside, the heavy gate groaned through a layer of rust and rocketed downwards with several tons of force. He heard a loud whump and a terrible shriek followed by rattling and sputtering. Hefting up his other ax, he rushed out the gatehouse and into the yard.
The timing had been almost perfect. The sharpened pikes of the portcullis had landed squarely behind the thing's neck, and only one foreleg and shoulder had made it through while the rest of its bulk lay behind in the barbican, fur bristled out to full size from the trauma.
More importantly though, it wasn't dead.
The creature hissed and spat, struggling against the weight pinning it down. Its front legs flailed wildly at nothing while its back legs tore and clawed at flagstones slick with blue blood.
Pinkie cried out from her perch on the wall as the heavy gate lifted and rocked. “Rajy! It's gonna get out!”
“Nope,” he said to himself and rushed forward, axes held tight. The creature saw him coming and swiped at him, but the portcullis pinning it preventing the movement it needed. He came around the side without the shoulder and darted in, hacking at its trunk-like neck.
The Bandersnatch spat and writhed with renewed vigor before Raj's second swing came in. He tore through blue meat effortlessly, splashing viscera on his hands and arms, and the thing's head dropped to the ground with a heavy thud. The bulk of the body shuddered for a moment and kicked at the ground before going still. The Bandersnatch's tongue lolled out, eyes staring forward blankly as blood leaked from both stumps.
Raj fell back on his rear and breathed hard. He winced as he let go of his axes. His uniform jacket and gloves had saved him from the worst of it, but he felt hot cuts flex open on his arms and hands every time he moved. He looked again at the severed head on the ground and thought it a good price to pay.
Pinkie bounced over to him. “You okay, Rajrishi?”
“Fine enough, yeah.” He shook his head. “You?”
“Same. Still kinda wired though. That run was really scary.”
“I bet. I couldn't have done that, Pinkie. Good job.”
She smiled. “What works? Teamwork.”
“Yeah.” He struggled to his feet and walked over to the head. “Took some planning, a few failed tries, and a lot of luck, but we finally managed to put this thing down. Now, let's get back to—”
The body of the Bandersnatch stood up, making Raj yelp and fall back.
The Bandersnatch torso swayed drunkenly, ignoring its trapped leg to the point that it simply ripped it off and left it impaled on the portcullis, seemingly oblivious to the pain of such an action. The gummy, bleeding stump “looked” around, scanning for something.
Pinkie backed away. “I-It's still alive? B-B-But... no head? Head gone, no head!” She stammered, completely at a loss.
Raj simply lay where he was, transfixed by what his brain kept insisting was some sort of trick. As he watched, the Bandersnatch’s body sensed Pinkie's yammering and leaned up on the gate, its neck stump whistling and bubbling. It laced its three remaining legs in the portcullis holes and heaved itself up, barely lifting the enormous gate.
Raj was only snapped out of his fugue when he saw the severed head jut its tongue out the side of its mouth to propel itself towards the gate.
Raj bounded up, going for his discarded axes. He scooped them up and dove for the rolling head, striking hard. He managed to catch the retreating edge of it, but the sharpness of the Apple Axes worked against him. Instead of digging in and catching on the fur and flesh, it sliced cleanly through the meat and bone and into one of the flagstones as it rolled through the gap.
The portcullis crashed shut and the Bandersnatch fell back, balance lost. It writhed weakly as its severed head rolled towards the neck, small edges of flesh regenerating to reach out for it.
Raj snarled, “Pinkie, plan F! Get on top of the Barbican and dump the oil.” The pink pony nodded and bounced away, rushing up the steps to get into the gatehouse.
Raj stared through the gate as the head slowly reattached. A strange sucking sound unlike anything he'd ever heard before came from it as the edges sealed followed by slight plucks like snapping wire as hair erupted from the point of injury. As the last bit healed, it reached up with its one remaining paw and twisted its own neck, the bone cracking loudly as it righted its own vertebrae. It then pressed its leg stump to its severed paw, pops and cracks once more signalling regneration.
Now healed, the thing turned to him with eyes full of burning, animal rage. It snarled and slammed itself into the portcullis, bowing the steel and oak towards him. Raj held his axes up as he took a step back, suddenly doubtful of the ancient griffin's engineering skills.
A splash came from beyond the gate and rich gold liquid started leaking from the ceiling and onto the frenzied Bandersnatch. Pinkie shouted out to him as the Bandersnatch kept slamming the gate in a frenzy, coating itself in the thick fluid.
Only when the last bit of liquid dribbled down from the slatted roof of the barbican did he raise his axes. With a snarl, Raj struck his axes against one another, launching a spray of golden sparks towards the portcullis. Most of them bounced off the bars and sizzled on the stones, but one passed through the gap and landed directly on the Bandersnatch's probing snout.
That was all that was needed, as the spark erupted into flames that raced along the thing’s oil-drenched hide. Raj winced and staggered back as it loosed an unearthly shriek, louder than almost anything he'd ever heard before. The pained Bandersnatch flailed, skittering and slipping on puddles of slick fire that covered the ground.
It took thirty agonizing seconds for the Bandersnatch to find the way it had come in and scrambled down it, still burning and shrieking. Raj tried to shake the ringing out of his ears as he stood up, absently noting the retreating tone of the Bandersnatch's screaming. The thing was finally running away.
“Hey, Rajrishi!” Pinkie cried from atop the wall, her voice barely audible over the fire in the gatehouse. “Are you okay?”
Raj stood up and looked at her. Even from a distance he could see her coat was stained from smoke and her mane was partially flattened from heat and soot. She was leaning on a barrel almost as big as she was, likely the one used to coat the Bandersnatch. He answered, “Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Just startled.”
“Did it work?”
“It ran away. Guess it hated fire more than it hated having its head cut off.” Raj smiled with relief. “Keep an eye on it. I want to know where it's going. If it doesn't die from that, I might need to go finish it off.”
Pinkie winced at the macabre notion but hopped up on the crenelated battlement. She caught sight of it immediately, a burning pyre trailing a thick plume of smoke across the bailey. Seeing it retreat like that brought great relief, but she was sickened slightly by how much pain the creature must have been in and that she had a hoof in inflicting it.
Her moralistic musings were pushed aside in an instant, however, when the burning streak turned smoothly. She squinted and propped herself up on the curtain wall, shading her eyes with a hoof. After a second, the fleeing Bandersnatch had fully righted itself and was tearing back across the yard.
“Oh horseapples,” she said to herself before shouting down to her friend, “Rajy, run! It's coming back!”
Rajrishi's eyes widened and he dove back as five tons of flaming nightmare beast crashed into the portcullis, shredding it like paper and scattering debris across the courtyard. The whole wall shook, making Pinkie lose her balance and tumble backwards into the oil barrel. She rolled down the steps and, flopped gracelessly into the yard alongside the bouncing container.
The thing dug a claw into the stones to slow itself, rounding on Raj as he bounded to his feet.
It barked and snarled, burning oil alighting the ground beneath its feet. The Bandersnatch pounced, its muzzle snarling and drooling. Reflex took over and Raj sprang to the side. Two paws slammed hard enough to crack the ground where he’d been standing. Raj bounced on a foot to try and cut at its side, but the heat of the fire kept him from getting close enough.
The Bandersnatch rounded with a swipe, following it up with a series of walking swings. The heat was enough to tighten Raj’s face and make him tear up, forcing him to hop back blindly. He used the heat of the fire to guide him, always moving away from it and praying he wouldn't hit the wall or a bad patch of ground.
“Rajy!” Pinkie cried out, and Raj heard a sharp crack before something brown whipped through the air. With a hollow thud, the Bandersnatch's head was obscured by an uncannily aimed oil barrel. The Bandersnatch whined and staggered back ungainly, trying to shake the thing off its head until it butted against a wall.
Grateful for the breather, Raj glanced around and saw Pinkie by the entrance to the keep. She waved him over and shouted something he couldn't make out as he sprinted for the door.
The Bandersnatch freed itself as Raj reached the halfway mark. It raised its tail high and launched a spray of burning quills. Raj ducked, still running, flats of his axes held over his neck and chest. Two of the needles he dodged, three missed him by chance. All five hit the wall to his side and exploded like firecrackers, peppering his entire side with hot fragments. Raj shouted in pain and stumbled, but kept running despite the pain. The Bandersnatch ran after him, closing the distance terrifyingly quick.
He cleared the threshold of the door with so little margin that the creature's flames caught the tail of his tattered coat on fire. Raj dove to the ground, rolling and slapping at himself as the Bandersnatch thrashed and clawed at the doorway. Pinkie grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him back from the Bandersnatch's snapping jaws. The two of them rounded a corner of the passage and lost sight of the burning monster.
After a minute of wrathful screaming, the Bandersnatch disappeared, likely seeking a place to put itself out. Pinkie squatted on the step and breathed hard, staring forwards listlessly. Raj lay on the stone floor, extinguished and exhausted before muttering, “Well, that didn't work.”
* * *
Half an hour later, Raj was still pulling fire-blackened shards from his flesh. He winced as it came out—at the size of one of his knuckles, it was the largest fragment yet. Sneering, he flicked it away to a small pile of the things next to the wall. “That's the last of the ones I can get with my hands. I'll need tweezers or something for the rest, but they'll wait.” He smeared some of Zecora's ointment over the burned punctures and tied a bandage over his hip.
“Okay, good.” She peered down the passage back to the courtyard, seeing the black patches where the burning Bandersnatch had been standing. “Where do you think it went?”
“Probably to find something to eat and get some water. Burns dehydrate you pretty bad and its regeneration probably uses up a lot of water too. It'll be a while before we see it again.”
Pinkie sprang up to her hooves. “Well then, we don't have any time to lose. What's our next plan, Rajy?”
“Pinkie.”
“Sorry, honest mistake. What's our next plan, Rajrishi?”
Raj leaned on his knees and stared at the floor for a minute before sighing and saying, “Don't got one, Pinkie. I'm out.”
She stuttered, “W-What?”
“I am all out of ideas. Plan Fire was the last one, and I wasn't even expecting to use that. I would have wagered that Plan Decapitation would have done it.” He started counting on his fingers “Chopping its brain up didn't work, throwing it off a cliff didn't work, impaling it on spears didn't work, crushing it under a chandelier didn't work, smashing its head with that stone brick didn't work, poisoning it didn't work, cutting off its head didn't work, and setting it on fire only pissed it off.” He shrugged. “I'm tapped, Pinkie. There's nothing else we can try.”
Pinkie shook her head in disbelief. “No, no, no! That can't be it! You're supposed to be some super awesome warrior from space. You have to know what to do! What if we buried it? Like, in a big hole?”
“I doubt it would let us do that.”
“We could tie it up?”
“We can't really get near it. Too sharp.”
“Launch it out of a catapult?”
“We never found one big enough.”
“Throw it in a lake of molten gold?”
“We don't have one of those.”
“Well gee, Rajrishi, maybe you could come up with a stinking plan instead of just shooting all mine down!” she shouted.
Raj just stared up at her tiredly with a weak smile, offering nothing.
Pinkie huffed and walked a quick circle around the hall, muttering quietly to herself. She perked up after a second and said, “You just need to rest, recuperate, and recharge yourself. Come on.” She zipped behind him and headbutted his back. “Let's go downstairs. I smell water down there. We can cool off, take a drink, and you can think of some super awesome plan to get us out of this and save the day!”
Raj obliged, trudging down the stairs into the basement. When he reached the bottom, he found that years of the castle sagging and the river rising slightly had partially filled the basement with a layer of mucky, scummy water. Scowling at the filth, Raj continued through the water to find some that was flowing so he could drink it.
Deeper into the basement Raj found a small dock covered with a high ceiling. In its heyday, it was likely a means for dignitaries to come and go without hassle and for retreating royalty to escape in the event the skies were compromised. Now though, it had flooded and the dock had long ago been worn away, leaving nothing but the haggard moorings jutting from the water.
The current tugged at Raj’s feet as he crouched down, splashing some on his face while Pinkie doused herself fully to clean off the soot and grime that had caked onto her. He stooped down to dunk his head in the cool water and flung his head back with a dramatic flourish, feeling refreshed for the first time in hours. He cleaned the water from his eyes and turned to see a patch of Troll's Beard hanging from the wall.
He stared at it for a second, blinking slowly. For a minute he thought it was a joke, some trick of the light or an ill-advised prank from his companion. He pointed a thumb at it and said numbly, “Pinkie.”
She ceased her splashing to look over. Her pupils dilated almost to the edge of her eyes and she took in a lungful of air. She bounced out of the water and skimmed over the surface as she scrambled over to the plant shouting, “We found it!”
Pinkie bounced around the room for a solid minute with a kind of speed and energy Raj didn't think a creature could possess before she darted towards him, wrapped her forelegs around his neck, and swung off of him as she giggled. “We did it, Rajy! We did it!”
Raj grinned back and hugged her back, falling onto his butt in the water. “We sure did, Pinkie. Holy crap.”
Pinkie bounced on her perch. “Now all we need to do is get past... the Bandersnatch.” Her jovial mood slowly evaporated and she lowered herself onto his lap. “Right... that problem.”
“Yeah, I forgot about that too for a minute there.” He leaned his head back onto the wall. “Well shit.”
The two of them shared a silence for a bit before Pinkie perked back up. “Well, this is different than before at least. Now we just have to get away! Let's just make a break for it, right now while it's hurt. We'll get so far away that it'll never catch up.”
“It caught up before, and that was with a huge head start. And if catches up to us on open ground, we don't stand a chance. Fighting in the castle is our only chance.”
“Okay, then we'll trap it. Like we did with the chandelier during Plan C! That'll delay it long enough.”
“We don't have anything we can use for that.”
Pinkie sneered at him. “Well, what's your plan smart guy?”
“We split up!” Raj shouted, frustration thick in his voice. “That's what we do, we split up. You take the Beard and travel through the river. When you get to the cliffs you climb out, get to the train, go home, and save everyone in Ponyville.”
She stared back at him. “And what about you?”
“I'll stay here, keep the thing busy and away from you. When you get the chance bring other ponies along and you can get me out of here. Have Spike contact Luna, she'll know what to do.”
She shook her head incredulously. “And what, the whole time I'm saving the day you're here fighting it out with that thing? No way, Jose. Not happening.”
“Pinkie, fighting to survive is very different than fighting to win. I can manage that on my own.”
“And what if you can't?” she shot back.
“That isn't the point Pinkie,” he said solidly. “The point is to get that plant back to Ponyville and time is not a luxury we have. We are at our time limit, if we delay at all, we are going to be way too late. The train is going to be at the tracks at noon tomorrow. If we don't get there in time, then it will leave without us and hundreds of ponies are going to either die or be twisted mutants for the rest of their lives, including every single of one your friends.”
Pinkie's eyes teared up and she bit her lip. “But... you're my friend too, Rajy.”
“I know I am, Pinkie, but this is a crappy situation. Sometimes you just have to pick the least bad option from what you have in front of you.”
“I know that, but it's still lame.” She darted forward and wrapped her legs around him. “You be safe, okay?”
Raj hugged her back. “I will, Pinkie. I know what I'm doing. It'll be fine.”
“You better be,” she sniffled, “or I'm gonna give Rainbow Dash a big pile of bits to kick your butt.”
Raj laughed a little bit. “Rainbow Dash, don't think I've met that one yet.”
Pinkie blinked and lifted herself up off his chest. “You haven't met Dashie? How long have you been in Ponyville?”
“A while. I don't get out much.” Raj shrugged.
Before Pinkie could say anything in response to that they both heard a warbling screech echo from all around the keep. “Huh, he didn't take long to get over being on fire.”
“No it did not. You need to get going.” He stood up and walked to the edge of the wharf. “Best if you go underwater for as long as you can, at least under the castle itself.”
“Not a problem, Rajrishi.” Pinkie stuffed the Troll's Beard into her mane and drew out a long plastic tube. “You just sit tight and I'll be back lickety-split with a whole bunch of guardsponies with spears and magic and stuff.”
“Great, but focus on getting that plant back to Ponyville first, Pinkie. That's the most important thing.” Pinkie shot him a salute and cannonballed into the river, the tube held in her mouth. Raj watched the mouth of the tube descend until it dropped below the water.
With Pinkie safely on her way, Raj drew his axes and said to himself, “Alright, now to figure out how to avoid dying for the next few days.”
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Seems like fire is the way to go, except it needs to be a LOT more fire for a longer duration.
6518556 Like at least 5000 degree celsius?
6518611 A lava pit would probably do it. Meat dumped in lava has a tendency to explode from all the water turning into gas in a fraction of a second.
Does the human in this story posses OP magic akin to Dragon Ball Z or any similar titles and beat everyone whom he wants to?
6518664
No, no he does not. He's strong and smart but loses pretty badly a good chunk of the time.
How you manage to keep me on the edge of my seat despite the weeks between chapters is beyond me, but somehow you manage. Do me a favour would ya — win the lottery or something so you’ve got more time to update this.
The promethium didn't do the trick because it wasn't sanctified. Duh, everyone knows that you have to sanctify promethium before use! What was he thinking?
6518774
Yes, so smart he decides to drop his only weapons, in a life-or-death fight against a giant werewolf with claws that can cut through solid rock, for literally no good reason except sheer dickwaving. He also predictably enough lost that fight, like he reasonably should have.
Oh wait, no he didn't.
6518774 Am I right in assuming that he's basically just got the strength of an earth pony on steroids(or Big Mac), or does he have other abilities?
6519625
You're pretty right. I do plan on giving Raj laser eyes at some point though. Don't worry, it'll feel organic.
6519679 Well, you did basically make humans the children of dark gods, so I think that it would jive with the setting. Just be sure to avoid giving him a weakness to glowing green rocks, you really don't want DC comics kicking down your door.
6519679 I can't tell if you're joking or not.
I tend to dislike fics about superpowered humans, because the authors tend to overlook the obvious. Real life humans are perfectly good at being awesome without any special powers.
6520689
There’s some level of superhuman‐ness to Rajrishi (minor to moderate resistance to magic) but it not only hardly defines him (he proves himself badass enough without knowing about or or relying on that) but there is a very good reason for the superhuman‐ness that slowly develops… and to say any more would give away both an important plot point and one of the most interesting plot twists I’ve seen on FiM Fiction. I can’t say unequivocally “read it, it’s worth it” because the reveal is too far in to justify reading this if you absolutely cannot stand humans with any level of superhuman ability, but I will say “give it a try; I don’t think you’ll be disappointed”.
6521360 I've stuck with the story this long, haven't I?
One of my all time favorite stories on the site involves a group of humans in Equestria gaining magic, but their spells are just extensions of the personalities and talents they already had.
It just feels like for every one author who does it right, there's twenty or thirty who let their stories devolve into wish fulfillment.
6521405
Sorry, I had a minor brainfart and thought you the same guy who Lord of Turtles was responding to. If you’re actually up to date with the story then I think you can rest assured that Lord of Turtles was joking when he mentioned laser beams — apart from being retarded they don’t show up anywhere in the source material he’s drawing from.
Nice chapter.
Hack it up, chuck the pieces into separate holes, light it on fire, and then fill the holes in. Should take it a damned long time to regenerate.
6522431
I imagine it was kind hollow-sounding. Honestly, though, in terms of HiE stories, it's not even that bad. What bothers me about this story is how often it does things like this while also seeming completely unwilling to actually acknowledge how stupid the behaviour was. I mean, responding with a "no" when someone asks if the main character is at all mary-sueish? That's either just dishonest or being so full or yourself you don't even have a critical perspective on your own work at all anymore. Really, this story is just chock-full to the brim with HiE clichés, it just plays it utterly straight and tries to pretend it's actually not.
6523041
Observing the HiE cliches being played straight is (to me, at least) far more entertaining than reading through so many words where such-and-such author tries to subvert said cliches, only to flub it.
....
Does anybody know of a list of the HiE cliches, incidentally? I know a few, but... Not all, I don't think.
6519094
Wich fight was this, my memory is a tad hazy
6523041 You need to actually look up the definition of a Mary Sue. A Mary Sue isn't just eons who is powerful, by that definition Superman is the biggest one around. A Mary Sue has no trials, no difficulties. I could replace Raj with a number of other adventure and fantasy characters and they would do fine in this situation. Drizzt Duorden comes to mind as a distinctly powerful badass.
6526676
Exactly. A trial is in some way actually trying. It is not resolved by the protagonist of your story deciding out the blue that he apparently had a death-wish all along just so that the writer can make him look even more ~totally hardc0rez~ by beating the giant werewolf-lookalike with the diamond-crushing jaws to death with his bare hands. Then not even a single character ends up asking just what the hell he was even thinking there, but instead he gets kicked out of the farm he just saved, because of "you beat the giant werewolf to death and now I'm scared." ~so tragic and misunderstood, just like my japanese animes~
I could keep going about all the other examples and how absolutely obvious they are about not even trying, but I think if that was not enough for you to see my point, then those won't make any difference either.
OH.
MY.
CEL-FUCKING-ESTIA!
Was that a Doc Savage reference?!
6654304 I thought it was a Ninja Scroll reference.
Wait, that was just a boat with gold bars as cargo set on fire.
See -- plan Fire would have worked if you could keep it trapped. See what needed to happen was decapitation, keeping the head and body seperated, and burning them both until it stops coming back to life. And if it doesn't, then until it's too afraid of you to ever menace you again.
6654304 I was thinking Peter Jackson's Hobbit, but I wouldn't be surprised if Doc Savage had done it before.
7181765 Oooh, I've got that video! Great story
6654304
The Hobbit, they did it to Smaug, only pissed him off.
i bet Raj and everyone else reading this is just thinking vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/shingekinokyojin/images/3/32/Why_won%27t_you_die%3F.gif/revision/latest?cb=20160710155035
7230036
Pain doesn't mean anything to an ancient creature who can regenerate from anything, and you need specialized magic weapons to kill a bandersnatch.
So we now know the origin species for SCP-683, the Equestrian Bandersnatch.