Appledashery

by Just Essay

Sing Her Song And Become Stupid

"Whew... you really live out in the boondocks, don't you?" Daring Do remarked.

"Yuppers!" Pinkie beamed as she led the other three mares plus Trixie to the house on the end of the desolate gray farmstead outside of Dredgemane. "The boonest and the dockiest! Out here we is stoned immaculate. Snkkkt--heeheehee! Get it?!"

"You know, come to think of it..." Rainbow Dash shifted the weight of Trixie's unconscious body over her flank. "I've always seen your home in pictures, Pinkie, but I've never been there."

"You'll like it here," Maud droned. "We have rocks."

"Oh, it's only the happiest, bounciest, squishiest house in all of Equestria!" Pinkie trotted backwards with a wide smile. "Known far and wide for its rock candy, rock gardens, rock candy..."

"Rock'n'roll?" Daring said with a smirk.

"The last time Daddy listened to Led Zebra, he nearly set fire to the drapes."

"Well, I'll keep my muzzle shut, then!" Daring remarked.

"Heh..." Rainbow smirked. "That'll be a first."

"Look. We saved the day. Can't we just be on hoof-bumping terms for once?"

"We've still got a lot to work out," Rainbow said. "I mean, with all the Lunar Code and shard business."

"Oh, there isn't much of anything to work out," Daring said. "After all, when I'm carrying the stone back to Equestria Proper--"

"Grnnnnghhhh..." Rainbow steamed.

"Maybe we should just worry about getting Trixie a place to rest and recuperate," Maud said.

"Oki Doki Loki!" Pinkie zipped to the front door and slid it open with a creak. "Mommy Pie! Daddy Pie! I'm hooooooome!" She stepped in with a flouncing stride. "And you'll never guess who I brought to visit!" She looked across the living room and grinned. "Oooh! We already have guests!"

"You do?" Rainbow trotted forward--then stumbled to a stop. "Holy platypus nuggets!" Trixie slumped to the ground with a dull thud!

"Pinkie! Maud!" An elder pony gasped as she was shoved against a wall next to an old stallion and two trembling mares. "Get out while you can--!"

"Shut it!" One henchstallion snarled while six more held their weapons to the helpless residents' necks. He cocked a rifle and aimed it at the ponies who had just arrived. "Stay right where you are!"

"Mommmmmy. Dadddddddy..." Pinkie smirked. "You should have told me! I would have baked something!"

"I am filled with abject terror," Maud murmured, an eyebrow twitching.

"Maud!" one of the two mares whimpered, face wet with tears. "We're so sorry! We never meant for you to walk into this!"

"I said QUIET!" One thug slapped the butt of his rifle into her shoulder, making her yelp in pain.

"Heyyyyy..." Pinkie squinted. "Since when did smacking each other with weapons become a fun way to party?!"

"Pinkie, they're holding your friggin' family hostage!" Rainbow grunted.

"Wow!" Pinkie gasped. "They must be really desperate for cake!"

"Enough squawking!" The lead stallion with the gun grunted. "Everypony in this house officially belongs to Don Canter!"

"Over my dead career!" Daring hissed and flapped her wings into action. "Come on, Champ! We can totally take these cheeseballs on!"

Just as she said that, Rainbow looked over her shoulder to see four more thugs sneaking into the room from an adjacent corridor. They flanked the group with weapons drawn.

"No... NO!" Rainbow shouted, stretching a hoof in Daring's direction. "Stand down!"

Daring hissed. "You've gotta be kidding me..."

"For real!" Rainbow gnashed her teeth. "This is way over our heads!"

"But--"

"They've got hostages!" Rainbow gulped. "No sudden moves..."

"That's more like it, toots." One thug smirked, trotting around the shivering family. "Don't wanna be doing anything stupid, now."

"I do not like you aiming weapons at my family," Maud said.

"And what are you going to do about it?!" A henchstallion frowned at her. "Break the ground beneath us in half?! Try it and you'll be hugging your mommy, daddy, and sisters in pieces. The same goes for your friends."

"We came here to Dredgemane for one thing," another thug said. "And you grabbed it for us."

"I... don't know what you're talking about," Rainbow stammered.

"Oh yes you do..."

Rainbow looked around.

"Awwwwww Luna's nipple," Daring seethed. "Not you."

"Yes me." A thoroughly bruised, thoroughly angry Romulus stood in the front door's entrance, snarling beneath a battered beak. He took a few limping strides forward, scraping his talons threateningly against the wooden floorboards of the Pie Family House. "I've endured indestructible sarosians, egotistical explorers, meatheaded pegasi, and ancient animated wheels in my quest to get that shard. Lady, playing dumb is gonna earn you a free lobotomy, I swear on all that's unholy!"

"There's no dayum reason to bring the Pie family into th--"

SCHIIIING! Romulus held his blade straight out. "There is EVERY REASON to bring them into this!" His hawkeyes narrowed. "The moment you crossed us... the moment you decided to hog that which I had made quite obvious belonged to me... you sealed their fate in death."

"I dunno about the rest of the ponies here," Daring hissed. "But I don't negotiate with criminal jerkwads."

"Daring..." Rainbow growled aside.

"No rocks are worth the blood of my own family," Maud droned with the slightest hint of inflection. "I suggest you give him both shards, Rainbow."

"Wait..." One thug craned his neck. "These bimbos have two shards?!"

"What else do you know, Romulus?!"

"All of you, shut up!" Romulus glared at Maud. "You don't seem to understand the way things are, now. We're not asking for the shard. We're taking it! And once we've got what we wanted, we're gutting you like fish!"

"Ewww!" Pinkie shuddered. "I hate the smell of sardines!"

"You can't possibly be serious!" Daring snarled. "Romulus, you've flipped your rocker!"

"Have I?!" Romulus' feathers raised around his head. "After all of the pain and suffering I've endured?!" He shook his head, glaring at Rainbow Dash. "Oh no. It doesn't end here. Once these stupid ponies are sliced to ribbons... I'm going to search all over this place and I'm gonna find out what town you and their idiot daughter live in. And, with Don Canter's goons on my side, I'm going to go there and personally hunt down every last living member of your friends and I am going to feed them their own insides while they die a long, slow, agonizing death spent gargling on their own body fluids!"

"You wouldn't..." Maud slurred.

"He would." Daring's jaw tensed.

Rainbow was nearly hyperventilating at this point. She clenched her teeth as her wings twitched. The bag dangling off her shoulder rustled.

"Lancie...?" she whispered.

"Way ahead of you, Sparky." Lancie sticked half of his head out. "Though I wish I wasn't."

"Shut it." Rainbow gulped. "An explosion? A smoke bomb? A teleport?"

The guards all blinked awkwardly.

Romulus craned his neck, squinting. "Who in the Hell are you talking to?"

"Her rock," Maud said. "Like boulder, only with antlers."

"H-huh?!"

"You heard Mr. Monologue himself," Lancie murmured back at Rainbow. "He's going to hunt down your pony pony pony pals."

"So long as he knows what he knows..." Rainbow Dash's eyes twitched. "Lancie...?"

"Yeah, Sparky?"

She gulped. "Can you make them forget?"

"Them-who?"

Her brow furrowed. "Everypony."

"That's it!" Romulus marched forward, swinging the scimitar high. "You're furniture!"

"Lancie..." Rainbow backtrotted.

"Everypony in this house?"

"In the whole town!" Rainbow clenched her eyes shut and teetered back. "The whole surface of Dredgemane! Do it!"

"Might cause nosebleeds!" He said as the air filled with static and then--

FLASSSSH!

Romulus stopped the blade just an inch from Rainbow's forehead. His hawkeyes blinked blankly.

The guards stumbled in sudden dizziness.

Daring's face scrunched and Maud couldn't stop blinking.

"Hey!" Pinkie grinned. "I'm home!" She turned around, grinning. "Hey! Mom! Hey Dad! Blinkie! Inkie!" A blink. "Utter strangers inexplicably clutching guns and clubs in their hooves!"

"Where... h-how...?" one thug murmured.

"What in griffon's name?" Romulus stuttered, glancing at the scimitar in his grasp. "The hell kind of a contract is this...?"

"Uhhh..." Daring Do's eyes darted left and right. "Did I take a wrong turn at Albucanter?"

"Lancie...?"

"Because Daring Do and the Big Stuffy House sure doesn't have a ring to it."

"Lancie, did it work?" Rainbow asked.

"What does it sound like, Sparky?"

"Just a confirmation, please."

"Ahem." Lancie gestured. "Done and spent, your Dashness."

Rainbow cracked her neck joints. "That's all I needed to know." GRIP! She grabbed Romulus.

"Daaah!" Completely unprepared, the griffon dropped his weapons and flailed in her grasp. "What the...?!"

"Hrnnngh!" Rainbow threw him across the room like a glider.

WHUMP! He slammed into a pair of stallions. All three struck the wall hard and were out cold.

The other eight thugs gasped and scrambled for their weapons.

Gnashing her teeth, Rainbow Dash spread her wings and soared their way. FWOOOOOSH! Heads collided under her merciless hooves.

Comments

[Sharp Quill]

So it turns out that threatening Pinkie and Maud's family doesn't bring out... much... in them.

"You do?" Rainbow trotted forward--then stumbled to a stop. "Holy platypus nuggets!" Trixie slumped to the ground with a dull thud!

Should I be offended?

"Uhhh..." Daring Do's eyes darted left and right. "Did I take a wrong turn at Albucanter?"

Bugs Bunny reference.

[FloydienSlip]

Dat title tho.

[BabySkittleMonster]

Way to go, Dash! You should have just killed Rommie when you had the chance - now you've wasted your wish! Then again, I guess your friends are out of danger - for now. Because let's face it, when have you and your friends ever not been in danger?

I'm talking to an imaginary pony who talks to her (possibly) imaginary chaos-statue. Hello sanity, it was nice knowing you for the brief time we spent together.

[zaponator]

I bloody knew it!

...on another note, though, this chapter seems to lend credence to the idea that Lancie isn't real by having nobody notice him while he and Dash talked, but at the same time further cements the idea that he is real by having him perform yet another feat of magic that's virtually impossible to explain away.

[RoboRed]

CALLED IT. FRICKIN' CALLED IT.

Was expecting it to be at least more than a chapter later, though. And it ended rather quickly.

[The Danish Adonis]

5224398
I don't know if you should be offended, but you might as well play it safe. That's what most other people on the internet does.

[Sharp Quill]

5225113 I don't know if you're aware of the full context, but the whole platypus thing is an on-going joke between me and JE/IC (though who will get the last laugh is to be determined... heheheheh.)

[Lightning Bearer]

Well. As I suspected, Dash cashed in her wish for non-cuddles once again. As not-so-suspected, she used said wish to essentially white-wash the whole arc. Overly convenient? Maybe. A shame? Arguably (in the sense that it essentially renders any character development or forward motion on the part of every character but Dash null and void). An effective wrap-up of the many disparate threads of this arc? You betcha.

The aftermath--including any contribution of this entire arc to the overarching story--ought to be interesting.

[Leftover of Saikano]

Lancie marched forward, swinging the scimitar high.

Why didn't he use it against Romulus?

I like the title. Reminds me of something I can't remember because no remembers it.

[Salad king]

You know, for a story called appledashery, there is very, very, little appledashing.

[Future Regret]

Why RD? You could've wished better.

[arancaytar]

Sing Her Song And Become Stupid

Don't even start

[arancaytar]

"I am filled with abject terror," Maud murmured, an eyebrow twitching.

Wait, is she being serious or sarcastic?

SCHIIIING! Romulus held his blade straight out. "There is EVERY REASON to bring them into this!" His hawkeyes narrowed. "The moment you crossed us... the moment you decided to hog that which I had made quite obvious belonged to me ... you sealed their fate in death."

Okay now he's officially Shell.

Also, you're one stupid motherbucker.

When you have the heroes and the hostages cornered and at your mercy, let them surrender. If you don't give them a choice, not only are they going to fight, but they're going to kick your plot.

[SnowOriole]

raaaaaainbow

why not you just kill romulus with the shard GODDAMIT