Swarm of the Century - Part 1
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Chapter 13
Swarm of the Century – Part 1
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Spike lay comfortably in his bed. Twilight had given him a day off after he came to the rescue yesterday. It had been awesome for him. He had proven himself to Twilight, and he had even pulled her out of what would have become a sticky situation.
And, to top everything off, Spike had gotten his claws on a rather powerful flower, Heart’s desire. With it, he would be able to make all of his problems go away.
He could attempt to brew the potion right now, but apparently an inexperienced brewer can easily cause the potion to give nasty side effects. So, he wasn’t going to take any chances.
Either way, for now, he was just going to relax in bed.
////
Twilight sighed. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were supposed to come and visit tomorrow. However, it seemed like nopony was even concerned! She was trying her best to make sure everything was organized for their arrival. But it was turning out to be a lot harder than she thought!
Banners were wrong, music was off, even the town itself was a mess.
Her next stop was Sugarcube Corner to check on the catering that had been prepared. At the very least, Twilight was confident that the catering would be perfect. It had been before, and it would be again.
However, before Twilight could go inside to do her inspection, she saw Pinkie bouncing away from the store, with a very excited look on her face. So, confident that the Cakes had the catering under control, especially with Pinkie gone, Twilight decided to follow her.
After a few minutes, it quickly became apparent that she was bouncing toward The Carrousel Boutique. So, since this was another stop on her list, Twilight figured this justified going inside and finding out what Pinkie had been called there for.
////
“But Mr. Cake told me that you had an outfit for me!” Pinkie complained.
“Pinkie, I’m busy working on Rainbow Dash’s outfit,” Rarity said, “When would I have time to make an entirely new outfit for you?”
“I—I don’t know!” Pinkie whined, “It’s almost like they wanted me out of the store or something!”
“Maybe it’s because you wouldn’t stop eating the food!” Dash said, as Rarity worked away on her outfit.
“Na,” Pinkie quickly dismissed, “It couldn’t possibly be that!”
“Well, that makes sense.” Twilight said, walking through the front door, happy to have her mystery solved.
“Mhmm.” Dash agreed.
“What?” Pinkie asked innocently. “You guys think I eat too much?”
“I don't think that question really needs answering.” Twilight said, rolling her eyes at Pinkie, “You’re doing a great job with the dresses, Rarity!”
“Do you think so?” Rarity asked modestly.
“Of course!” Twilight said looking at Dash, “She looks great!”
Dash cocked an eyebrow, earning a chuckle from Twilight.
“It definitely suits you!” Twilight said, laughing a little harder.
“Haw-haw.” Dash said sarcastically. “I’m only wearing this because I owe Rarity a favor.”
“Must be one heck of a favor…” Twilight said calming down, “What did she do for you?”
“She just kept a secret for me…” Dash said, suddenly in a very serious tone, “Let’s keep it at that.”
“Okay…” Twilight slowly, “Anyway, the dress really is nice on you.”
“Do you really think so?” Dash asked hopefully.
“Oh yeah!” Twilight said as convincingly as possible.
“Well… If you say—“ Dash said before being cut off by a fit of laughter from the front door.
Alex stood in the front door, laughing harder than he could ever remember.
Dash’s embarrassment was immediately apparent. She was bright red, obviously unhappy with being seen by Alex this way.
“W-what are you wearing?” Alex asked, his eyes tearing up from his laughter. “You L-look like… Like a girl!”
Dash frowned. What did he mean? Looked like a girl? What did that make her the rest of the time?
“What then?” Dash asked angrily, “I’m a stallion the rest of the time?”
Alex thought for a moment, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
Dash rolled her eyes, “Thanks.”
“No problem! Now, I was wondering if you wanted to go—“
“Everypony!” Fluttershy said, running in the room excitedly, before stopping and immediately returning to ‘shy’ mode, “Oh… I’m sorry… Did I interrupt you Alex?”
“Oh, no!” Alex said with a smile, “What did you want to want to say?”
“Oh, well! You won't believe what I found at the edge of the Everfree Forest!” Fluttershy said, shaking her hair lightly, causing five large fly-looking creatures to fall out. “Oh my! There’s five?”
The bugs flew out from her hair, and circled around her.
“These are adorable!” Twilight said as a bug flew around her. “What are they?”
“I don’t really know…” Fluttershy said, “I’m not even sure where those other four came from! I started with just one!”
Alex started at them, not making a sound.
“Do you guys all want one?” Fluttershy asked.
“Sure!” Twilight said.
“Definitely!” Dash said, flying over to Fluttershy.
“If you don’t mind parting with it.” Rarity said.
“You go over to Alex, little one,” Fluttershy said, turning to Pinkie, “Would you like one?”
“Ugh, No!” Pinkie said, moving away from Fluttershy, causing the girls to get confused. Before they were able to ask her though, Alex started freaking out.
“You keep that thing away from me!” Alex said, backing away from the bug.
“Alex, what’s wrong?” Twilight asked.
“That—That thing! I just… hate it!” Alex said, now hiding behind Pinkie.
“How could you hate these?” Fluttershy asked, confused.
“It’s a bug! A big bug!” Alex said, still in defense mode.
“But… you squished a pretty big spider just the other day… I watched!” Twilight said.
“Yeah! One spider!” Alex explained, “There’s like… five of those things! And they’re huge!”
“They’re harmless!” Dash said, gesturing for hers to fly toward Alex.
Alex tensed up as the bug flew over to him, and started rubbing itself against his face.
“See?” Fluttershy said, “It’s nice!”
“No no no no no no no!” Alex said, swatting it away, "I hate flies more than anything. You keep them away from me!"
“Alright Alex, follow me!” Pinkie said to Alex. “We have to go find a trombone!”
Alex had no idea what she was talking about, but he was more than happy to be getting away from those bugs. So, the two headed out the door, leaving the rest of the girls completely confused.
“What’s wrong with them?” Dash asked, “How could anypony possibly not one of these?”
“I really don’t know.” Rarity said.
“Oh well.” Twilight said, “Just forget about them. They’ll have to get used to them eventually.”
////
“So… Why are we getting a trombone?” Alex asked Pinkie.
“Because the Parasprites are gonna take over Ponyville!” Pinkie said urgently.
“They are?!” Alex asked, more alarmed than before.
“They sure are!” Pinkie said, “I have most of the instruments we need at Sugarcube Corner, but we’ll need to look for a few more!”
“But… why do we need instruments?” Alex asked again.
“Because we need to get rid of the Parasprites, silly! I just said that!” Pinkie giggled.
Alex gave up. He knew that Pinkie had an insane kind of genus to her. So he trusted her.
Pinkie looked up at the sky, and realized that it was already getting dark.
“Okay, we might have to call it a day…” Pinkie said, pulling a piece of paper and quill out of her hair with her mouth. She then wrote down a quick list of instruments.
“Okay!” Pinkie said, looking up from the paper, “Take this! I want you to look around for these instruments! We can meet up tomorrow at… Um, noon!”
Alex levitated the paper up off the ground and looked over the list.
“Okay…” Alex said after a moment, “I’ll look for these. I can’t promise much though.”
“Perfect!” Pinkie said seriously, “Get plenty of rest tonight!”
Just as Pinkie finished speaking, her demeanor immediately changed back to her usual happy self as she bounced away.
Alex turned around and saw all of the girls walking away from Rarity’s store, with their Parasprites following behind them. He shivered. At least there were only five. Anymore and he’d probably lose his mind.
////
A few hours had passed, and Alex had looked around for the few instruments that Pinkie had asked him to locate, but had no luck finding any. Accordions and tubas weren’t the easiest things to come by in libraries. So, since he had given up for the night, he decided to stand in his room, and ponder the many questions that he had arisen today.
How were these instruments supposed to help anyway? What could they possibly do?
Again, Alex reminded himself of Pinkie, and the way she worked.
The one incident that he always thought back to, was when Pinkie masterfully manipulated Dash’s friend Gilda into having a mental breakdown, causing her to leave Ponyville.
A small part of him even feared her…
But, as long as he kept on her good side, he wouldn’t need to worry about it.
Alex looked at the clock on his IPod, and realized that it was pretty late already. Twilight and Spike were long asleep at this point. So, knowing that he would have a busy day tomorrow getting rid of those infernal bugs, he climbed into bed, and pulled the covers up, and tucked himself in as tightly as possible. Then, just to be sure, he cast a protective barrier around his bed to keep them, and any creepy buzzing noises, from getting to him. None of those parasprites would be getting him tonight, No sir!
////
Alex tossed and turned in his bed, plagued by dreams of evil flying bugs.
He was being chased though Ponyville by a swarm of parasprites that intended to land on him, and crawl all over him.
It didn’t seem to matter how much he ran, they were always right behind him.
Alex ran himself into an ally, and found himself stuck at a dead end.
Turning around, he watched in fear as the bugs caught up to him, and then stopped.
He held his breath.
Slowly, one bug broke from the swarm, and flew toward him.
Then, to his horror, it landed on his nose.
Alex shouted as he woke, sitting up in his bed in a panic. Looking around, he couldn’t see anything. It must still be night time.
Levitating his IPod in front of him, he bumped the screen with his hoof, causing it to light up.
“2:30 PM?!” Alex said in shock. “Why is it so dark?”
Getting out of bed, Alex bumped into the barrier he had cast the night before, having forgotten it was there.
As the shield vibrated from his impact, Alex finally understood why it was so dark. A patch of parasprites flew away from the impacted area, allowing a beam of light to shine in, and illuminate the inside of the shield.
All he could see were bugs.
“Holy buck!” Alex shouted, backing toward his bed. “How many of those things are there?!”
Alex did not like this. His heart pounded in his chest, and he could feel himself start to pant. The crazy thing was, that he hadn’t even been this scared when he had faced the Ursa Major. Sure, he knew that it was a giant, pony squishing bear, but, in the end, it had been relatively easy to deal with.
But these parasprites… they were just like a swarm of fruit flies; completely harmless, but completely terrifying. He had never had any kind of explanation for his fear of insignificant and unthreatening bugs, but it was there. And parasprites were like taking his fear, and multiplying it by a million.
Adjusting the spell to shrink greatly, the thick coat of parasprites was displaced, causing several to fall on the floor, as the rest desperately tried to reattach themselves.
Realizing that they must have been attracted to this shield somehow, Alex poured some more power into it, giving it the ability to shock anything that touched it. He wanted them as far away from him as possible.
All of the parasprites tried to land back on his barrier, but were stopped by the shock that they received upon touching it.
After a few minutes of repeated attempts, the bugs finally stopped trying, and hung back.
So, seeing that all of these bugs were finally confused, Alex took that opportunity to escape, so he could find Twilight, and figure out what exactly was going on, before he broke down in very un-manly tears.
////
Again, sorry for the short writing, hopefully I can get back into the usual swing of things soon. But, for now, things will just be a bit slower.
I actually wrote an entire other chapter, but decided that it was too soon to post it, as I didn’t feel like I had progressed certain aspects of the story enough to make it plausible.
All that means is that I’ll have a chapter pre-written for the future, and I’ll be able to release two at once when the time comes.
Anyways, Thumbs Up if you like it!
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great chapter although it took a while
For what it's worth, I think Alex acted in an entirely rational and behaved manner.
I would've chosen a shield made out of fire.
1212253
But he lives in a tree-library full of books that, if damaged, would cause Twilight to kill him, at least a little bit.
Why is he waking up at 2:30pm? Didn't he set the alarm on his Iphony? I guess you could blame the Parasprites for making it dark, but I think he still would have woken a little earlier than that, if he went to bed on time.
Still a good chapter, and I can't wait to see Alex's reaction to the Parasprite Polka and Princess Celestia not knowing what they are, even though Pinkie Pie does.
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1213880
But he didn't go to bed on time. He had been up for a few hours past Twilight and Spike.
I know that could only be like, 11 PM, but i've done that before myself. On one of those days that you keep rolling over and going back to sleep. So, since it was dark, i'll give him that excuse, haha.
“How could anypony possibly not want one of these?”
He knew that Pinkie had an insane kind of genius to her.
genus=very wrong
I don't know why...but I get the feeling that the Parasprites are going to be just a bit more aggressive than they were in the show. Just a theory (that will be proven wrong no doubt). Oh well, on to the next chapter.
~Sylpheed
Oh, Sweet Merciful Luna! If that's how he reacts to parasprites, I can't wait until the wedding!
"not want one"?
"alley".
Alex kinda-sorta missed his meeting with Pinkie, didn't he?
3064053 Lol
you're so right!
3064053 Oh crap! I didn't even think of that. Provided the wedding still happens. I don't know with this universe. That CMC still haven't met yet.
Fluttershy is friends with spiders. He just admitted that he murdered one. Wouldn't she be upset?
Hehe, bug zapper shield...
9619997
I would man scream
I'm with Alex here.
I live in Australia, I can deal with spiders. But bugs, man... They terrify me.