Entomology

by Your Antagonist

Prologue: Periplanetae- The Watcher On The Wall

(Entomology/ Honey I Shrunk the Foals)

Written By: Your Antagonist

Prologue: Periplaneta- The Watcher On The Wall

Periplaneta equestriana, or as it is better known: the common equestrian cockroach, is arguably the most fascinating of the modern Equestrian insects. Widely regarded as a disgusting housepest by most, this ancient and unfortunately-reputationed creature is quite possibly one of the most physically perfect lifeforms to have ever strode across a living room wall.

In addition to its outstanding running speed of three miles per hour—which is rather fast considering the creature’s size—the roach can hold its breath underwater for upwards of forty minutes at a time and even possesses wings that allow it to fly short distances, though it seldom makes use of them. In addition to its physical prowess, the roach can go weeks without food and can even survive for a small while without its head. But perhaps its most outstanding trait is its uncanny and unintentional ability to—

“Kyaaa! Ohmigosh, ohmigosh, ohmigosh! What is that thing?! Keep it away! Silver Spoon, make it go away!”

—frighten the sugary sweetness out of young girls with its mere existence.

The roach in question, which had up until this very moment spent the better part of its afternoon peacefully clinging to a barn wall, watched as the pink four-legged giant it had been observing went completely spastic and began shrieking in terror. As the roach couldn’t comprehend speech, barely registering the sounds as little more than vibrations in the air, it merely watched the source of the racket in amusement, occasionally stopping to clean an antenna out of habit.

“Land’s sake, Diamond Tiara, what’re you hollerin’ about now?” called a yellow and red creature of a similar build.

“Th-That!” the pink giant pointed one of its appendages at the roach.

The roach watched as an orange and violet beast recklessly strode forth. “I think it’s a cockroach.” The newcomer remarked as it focused its remarkably huge violet eyes on the roach. For the roach, the urge to run was overwhelming. After all, if there was one thing he and his hundreds upon thousands of siblings had inherited from their birth mother—aside from genetic blueprints and good looks—, it was the ability to recognize and escape from a troublesome situation rapidly and efficiently. All he needed was an opening…

A fourth giant, white in color with a shimmering green horn poking out of the pink and purple bush on its head, stepped forward. It curiously craned its neck at the roach before burying its nose into a book enveloped in a soft green glow. “Yup, that’s definitely a cockroach. A big one too. The book says they usually only grow up to an inch long, but that one must be at least three!” The white one’s voice cracked, sending an amusing fluctuation through the vibrations in the air. The roach listened on.

“Good find, Diamond Tiara,” said the yellow one that the roach had decided was the alpha of the group based on the massive pink ornament on its head.

“Tch, whatever, just put that gross thing in a jar already,” spat the pink beta.

“Here’s a better idea: you can do it since you’re the one who found it.”

“And who are you to tell me what to do, blank-flank?”

Dissent in the ranks, the roach observed. The moment of escape would reveal itself soon enough.

“The group project leader, accordin’ to Ms. Cheerilee,” The yellow alpha rebutted.

The pink one made a rolling gesture with its eyes. “And that means… what exactly?”

“It means you gotta listen when I tell you to do something!”

“Pfft, right.”

The roach observed a gray behemoth clad in blue garments strolling up to join the rest of its ilk. “You know she’s never going to touch that bug, right?” It said to the alpha.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Silver Spoon. She’ll pick it up…” A scheming glint shone in the alpha’s auburn eyes, “…if she wants any credit for this homework assignment that is.”

Pink’s ears twitched at the snide remark. “Excuse me?”

“I reckon you heard what I said.”

“But I—”

“‘But’ nothin’. We all agreed to catch at least one bug each and so far me and Sweetie Belle caught three, Scoots caught six, and even Silver Spoon picked up two. The least you could do is put one measly little roach in a jar.”

The pink one looked at the roach, grimaced and turned back to the rest of its swarm. “Couldn’t I just, y’know, write the report?”

The roach paused. It was picking up some rather strange interference through its rear-bound cerci, like a string of sequential rapping and tapping, which persisted for only a moment longer before going silent, allowing the roach to return to the soap opera before it.

“—let you write the report? Ha!” The wild orange one laughed right in the pink filly’s face, deepening her scowl and complexion. “Your English grades are almost as bad as mine! You’re better off just putting the roach in the jar.”

The pink one turned on its orange counterpart, its posture exuding deliberate hostility. “Listen here, blank flank: I will not touch that disgusting thing.”

“Then we will not let you put your name on the finished project.” The alpha stated.

“You can’t do that!”

“Wanna bet?” The alpha challenged. For a moment there was silence as the pink one measured up its leader’s gumption.

“Rules are rules, Diamond Tiara,” The white giant cut in softly, “and we all agreed that we’d—”

“I didn’t agree to anything!”

The gray one stepped in and rested a tree trunk of a leg on the pink one’s shoulder. “Diamond, I know you’re, like, deathly afraid of bugs, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to let this go. I think you’d better just pick up the bug.”

“But… but Silver Spoon!” Pouted Pink.

Gray cast a sympathetic look at Pink, turned to the rest of its pack and finally sighed, shaking its head. “Look, I’ll go find some tongs or something to help you catch that roach without actually touching it, okay?”

“But I—”

“I’ll be right back,” Gray said to Pink before stepping off and away, on a mission of its own. Another bout of silence followed, the only sound the roach could register being the giant’s hoofsteps as it stomped its way out of the barn. Well, that and the rapid tapping again, somehow louder this time. The roach paused and focused on its cerci again, trying to discern the source of the tapping, but it had once again gone dead. The roach didn’t dwell on the thought as the regularly scheduled bickering continued.

“Chicken,” Orange spat snidely at Pink.

Pink’s face turned as red as the hair on the alpha’s head. “Oh, shut up, you—”

“‘Blank flank’?” Orange finished, to Pink’s annoyance. “Yeah, heard it before, scaredy-pony.”

“Tch, whatever, loser.” Pink snobbishly turned its nose up at Orange, cheeks still aflare.

“I mean who’s afraid of a few little-bitty bugs?” Orange continued to goad. “I’ve foalsat the Cake twins before and they love to play with bugs! Pumpkin even sucks on them!”

“Okay, first, that’s like, totally gross. And second, they’re like a year old, they don’t know any better, you featherbrain!”

“‘Don’t know any better’? More like a couple of foals have more guts than you do, you… you… jellyfish!”

“That doesn’t even make sense!”

“Yeah it does!”

“How?”

“It means that you’re spineless because you’re an invertebrate!”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You’re the dumbest thing I’ve ever—”

The Alpha stepped abruptly stepped between orange and pink. "Scootaloo, knock it off."

“Oh, come on, Apple Bloom. She makes fun of us all the time, so why can’t we return the favor for once?”

“Because, we’re better than that, Scoots. We don’t have to sink to her level to—”

“Hold the phone,” Pink interjected. “You think you’re better than me, blank flank?”

“That’s not what I said, and—”

“Oh, I heard what you said, you miserable—”

“Enough!” shrieked the shrill voice of White, who until now had been watching from the sidelines. “Stop fighting! This isn’t getting us anywhere!”

“Well, that flightless turkey’s the one who started it!” Pink cried.

“Turkey?” Shouted Orange. “That’s it! I’ve had it up to here with—”

Something spurned the roach to turn away from the squabbling; there was that tapping again, closer than ever this time, unnervingly so. The roach could feel it through the thin wooden wall it had perched on, like a million pins rapping in an unending sequence. It wasn’t alone on the wall. Out of the corner of its eye, the roach could see something slithering and slinking in nearby shadows. It could feel something watching it, sizing it up, and that something exuded an almost predatory aura.

Danger. The roach was in danger. It didn’t have to see its fellow wall crawler to know that it was being watched— nay, that it was being stalked. And it certainly didn’t need to know what was stalking it to make a break for safety. The roach could tell that whatever the thing was, it was big and probably a fast runner to boot, but if all that tapping was coming from the stalker’s feet…

Flick!

…it stood to reason that it lacked the same proficiency in flight. Its wings unsheathed, the roach began to awkwardly flit its wings in rapid succession, something that the stalker had apparently taken note of. The rhythmic rapping and tapping of those little pin feet had become a frantic pitter patter of pin-drops racing towards the roach. The roach didn’t dare look at the source of the sound. Whatever was coming was worse than bad and radiated malice, and the roach was certain it could spend the remainder of its life never knowing what that looked like.

Take off.

The roach was airborne, headed anywhere that was far away from that wooden barn wall. Though its flight pattern was a bit erratic from lack of flight practice, it was almost certain that if it stayed straight, it would have a clear path to the door. From there it would just have to take its chances in the world outside its cozy little barn… or so it thought. Its unversed and unconditioned little wings had begun to falter in their beats, causing the roach to descend right in the middle of the warring giants. To be specific, right into Pink’s path. Fearing the worst, the roach braced for impact as it crashed into Pink’s surprisingly soft forehead, where it held on tightly for dear life.

For a moment, all was well. The roach had found relative safety, put decent distance between itself and the shadow stalker and to top it all off was only a mere sprint away from the door. Though despite the overwhelming number of positives in its favor, something was amiss. Amiss and quite unsettling. Pink had stopped completely, frozen as it were. This wouldn’t have been so alarming had the rest of the feuding giants not frozen as well. Then Pink screamed, shaking the air with such vibrancy that the roach winced, possibly cursing the sensitivity of its cerci.

“Waaaugh! Get it off! Get it off! Get this filthy, disgusting— wahh! just get it off! Daddy! Silver Spoon! Somepony save me!”

“Diamond Tiara!” The alpha hollered, “Just calm down so we can—”

“No! Get! It! Off! Ohmygosh,ohmygosh, it’s going to eat me! Don’t just stand there, save me! Saaaave me!”

“Wahaha!” Orange cackled in delight, “Oh, I wish I had a camera right now, this is gold!”

“Scootaloo, you ain’t helpin’!”

“I know, but I—ahaha— I can’t help it! This is hilarious!”

“Heeeelp!” Pink pleaded betwixt hyperventilated gasps. “I— I— kill it, kill it! Please, I’m begging you! I swear I won’t make fun of you for being blank flanks, just get it away!”

The alpha, seeing no alternative, stepped before Pink, only to find the inconsolable giant to be even more of a handful than she usually was. “Dangit, girl, we can’t help you if you don’t—oomph!” In a flash of fright fueled panic, Pink barreled into the alpha, sprawling the yellow giant to the ground. This only made Orange laugh even harder.

“This—” Orange paused to suck in a breath of much needed air, “This is too much! Ahahaha!”

White stepped in front of the rampaging Pink, and managed to stop its cohort’s advances, if just barely. “Diamond—ngh— Ti…a…ra!” It roared with its amusingly squeaky, shrill voice. “You need to calm down so I can—” The horn on White’s head began to glow a ghastly green. “—pick it off for you!”

“No! Just get it off! I can’t— I can’t go on with a roach on my— I think it’s trying to bite me! Don’t let it lay eggs on me! Don’t let it poison me!”

“Roaches—mmph— aren’t…. poisonous— agh!” In its panic, Pink flailed its mammoth legs at White’s face, kicking white all over, the most decisive blow falling upon White’s glowing horn. The white giant gave a yelp before falling away, clutching its horn in pain.

The roach half-expected the light on White’s head to go out from the blow, but in an odd twist of fate, it only grew brighter and brighter still, its intensity almost blinding. The roach shut its eyes tight as the light became something of a green sun and began to radiate from the giant’s eyes.

Something bad was going to happen, it could just tell. It didn’t know what, but it was definitely worse than the stalker. For now, all the roach could do was cling to its spasming host and hope for the best.

More shrieking and crying from Pink.

Swiftly dying laughter from Orange.

Pained groans from the alpha.

The white one just continued to glow and crackle with that strange glowing light.

There was a blinding eruption of green light that flooded the barn. The roach held tightly to its host and clenched its eyes as a wave of energy pulsed past and forced it away from its host, blowing it farther away from the door.

Moments passed by in silence and blindness before the roach was able to register anything again. Though when it came, it was met with a rather startling discovery…

“Diamond!” Called the familiar vibrations of Gray, as the giant stomped back into the barn. “I found something to help you pick up… that.. roach…” Gray had been rendered speechless by the same sight as the roach and the migraine afflicted, but otherwise untouched, White. An instance that could only be summed up in a simple question, for which there was no simple answer: “Sweetie Belle… where are the others?”

Prologue End

Welcome To The World Below The Grass…

Comments

[Diamond Sparkle]

I want them to encounter a spider at some point.

[Earl of Purple]

That cockroach is the cutest. Normally, that's Sweetie, but not any more.

I didn't know they could fly, though I've never actually seen a wild cockroach; just Madagascan hissing cockroaches.