5.3 - The Hunt for Pink October
July 14, 2015
Ponyville
Tuesday
Monday was a maelstrom of sprockets, gears, and a number of unidentifiable devices from Spike’s satchel that Quantum made do with. By Tuesday morning the mint-coated unicorn’s plans were in action, though her companions were as much in the dark as the lunar face of the conjoined sphere overhead. Hal, the only member of the troupe unaffected by the July heat, hovered over the hulk of an overturned carriage with his forelegs crossed, watching Quantum attempt to huddle behind it with Derpy while also avoiding her.
“Cutie,” The burnt-orange pegasus hmphed, “How many times have we been lab partners in class? I know you have blinders on when you’re in the zone, but don’t you think it might help a *teensy* bit if you actually clued in the pony who, I dunno, spends every day of his life these days trying to keep you from getting yourself killed or worse?”
“Hush,” Quantum huffed at Hal while batting Derpy’s cloying hooves away with a stick as the clumsy gray mare sought purchase to peer over the cart. “You’re smart. You have to know what I’m up to by now. I didn’t think I’d have to explain.”
“Not the point,” Hal muttered. “You’re trying to catch that Shypie character and get a blood sample off of her for Tissy to scan,” He waved his foreleg at the empty street on the other side of the fallen cart, “But do you really think this is going to work?”
In the middle of the street, among bits of ruined masonry and other hunks of offal, stood Spike. The little dragon was arranging a small collection of muffins from a picnic basket neatly atop a crudely painted X symbol on the ground. Above the symbol, tall enough to be masked by the rays of the morning sun, was a large net, woven from bits of scavenged hemp, bed sheets, and weighted by broken up hunks of old clay flowerpots. The net was affixed to the exposed rafters of a house that was leaning so far into the street that it was in danger of toppling over – suspended by a makeshift quick-release clamp that was itself affixed to another series of bed sheets, tied together until they extended all the way back to the cart.
Hal rubbed the bridge of his nose after giving the ridiculous contraption another once-over. “Build a better mousetrap much?”
“It’ll work!” Quantum insisted, shaking the end of the line of bed sheets and making them all flap in the wind. “All we have to do is confuse her and immobilize her for a few seconds. Just enough time to pounce on her and get what we need.” She patted a small bag that was attached to a strap and looped over her shoulder. “Got syringes handy and everything.”
Hal’s expression suggested that he did not share his classmate’s enthusiasm for the project at hand. “So your plan is to leave a bunch of muffins on the ground, wait for the amalgamated and potentially dangerous PinkyFlutterPieShy to come traipsing along to munch on said muffins, whereupon you intend to yank on those bed sheets, wait for a net made of more bed sheets and flowerpots to fall on her, and then you, Derpy, and a *baby* dragon are going to leap on her and hold her down until you can take out a syringe, which I might add you have no experience in the proper use of, jam it into her, and extract blood?”
Quantum nodded almost as vigorously as Derpy, who was doing so simply because Doctor Hooves was.
“Cutie…” Hal just shook his head and fluttered back a bit in the air, making a surrendering gesture with his forelegs. “You don’t need me to remind you that the last time you had a scheme like this, applebucking turned into deforestation. But you know what? Knock yourself out. Get it out of your system because I know you’re not gonna be satisfied until you do.”
Quantum scooted as far away from Derpy as she could manage and still be hidden behind the cart. For a whole day she had been burying herself in material scavenging, planning, and building. The toil had taken her mind off her predicament and even made her feel a little at home in this absurd place. But the veiled horror, tempered only by companions and gentle banter, was draping over her mind again. Sometime in the late afternoon yesterday, she noticed that whenever Derpy moved out of a six hoof range, Quantum could feel a gentle tug, as though she was a bottle of wine that had just been unstoppered. When the gray pegasus mare got too close, the hairs on Quantum’s coat would rise and point at her like static cling, and she could swear she was having to make an active effort to keep her body from naturally wandering in Derpy’s direction like a paperclip towards a giant electromagnet.
It was fascinating. It was also absolutely terrifying.
“Hey Doc,” Spike, who was now standing next to the cart with the empty basket swinging from his elbow, looked on. “Do you really think this is gonna work? We’re not gonna hurt her, are we?” The little dragon had a way of looking like a lost puppy when he was even slightly dismayed. “I mean, Shypie is…weird, but there’s still two of my best friends in there…”
Quantum added a soothing note to her voice that she picked up long ago, ironically, from her mother. “Don’t worry. We’re not gonna hurt anypony. This’ll bring us one step closer to finding a cure. And then we’ll put everything right again.” Quantum’s smile grew wan. “It’s gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna…be okay. You’ll see.”
Spike’s frown lifted, and he nodded his scaly head. “Yeah. If you say so Doc, I believe you.” He turned to look back into the street, smiled, and waved a claw. “Oh hey Shypie. How’s it going?”
Quantum nearly rammed right into Derpy while clamoring to gawk over the cart. There, standing in the street clear as day next to the red X, was her quarry – the pony with Fluttershy’s mane, Pinkie Pie’s tail, and a mishmash of colors and cutie symbols on her body that made it look as though the two of them had been rolled into a ball and fired like clay. The curious creature was waving a foreleg vigorously at Spike, who was standing out in the open.
“Shypie!” She—it called.
Quantum hooked a foreleg around Spike and dragged him behind the cart fast enough to elicit a yelp and nearly cause the dragon to lose his footing. “Will you get back here!? She can see you!”
“Oh, uh…is she not supposed to see me?” Spike fidgeted in Quantum’s grasp. She rolled her eyes, let him go, and peered again over the lip of the fallen wagon. Shypie, still just standing there, smiled and waved in response.
“Come on…” Quantum hissed under her breath, “…just a little closer to the X…take the muffins…nice sweet bran muffins…”
Shypie waved at Derpy, who was now perched atop the cart and waving vigorously back. Hal, hovering somewhere nearby, laughed softly just as the minty mare held herself back from reaching out to grab and drag the gray pegasus back.
“What are you doing—oh just forget it…” Quantum sighed. When Shypie bent to sniff at a muffin, Quantum groped frantically for the bed sheet ‘trigger’…only to find it pinned under Derpy’s rump. She cursed herself for nearly touching the gray pegasus twice more before finally crying out for her to move.
Derpy shifted her weight and freed the trigger-rope, but Shypie was already staring at a butterfly and making ‘ooo’-ing noises, trotting farther away from the mark. Quantum felt her anger rise, but Hal stepped in, superimposing himself between the minty mare and Derpy, his wings passing through the latter’s head.
“Cutie, stop,” he reproached, “It’s not her fault. Shypie was barely under that X for a few seconds. The net never would have hit her.”
Quantum stared out at the muffins, which remained undisturbed. “But…why?” She muttered to herself, “I mean they’re just bran muffins. Why not eat one? Did she know what we were planning…?”
“What you were planning,” Hal corrected. Spike trotted right out to the muffins, nabbed one, and bit into it. He brightened.
“Ohhh hey!” The little dragon munched, “Thissh the best kind! Worms an’ everyfing!”
Quantum flashed an exasperated stare at Derpy, who only shrugged.
“I can’t make bran muffins, Doc. But I put a lot of pretty rocks in there that look like candy, and I thought maybe if the muffins were also moving, all that might get her attention! Cause…cause yanno,” Derpy whimpered and began counting on her hoof, “we’re all out of bran…and grain…and—“
Derpy rattled on again. Spike munched on the bait. Shypie bounced in the air, trying to catch the butterfly that was hovering just out of her reach. Hal did his best to stifle a chortle.
“Oh Cutie, I know you’re trying, but—“ Hal sputtered, “Let’s just go back to the lab, we’ll try something else—“
Before he could say another word, Quantum furrowed her brow, squared her shoulders, and marched out from behind her ‘hiding place’. Smooshing the final muffin under her hoof and paying no attention to Spike’s complaints, she stood upon the field of battle, muzzle to giggle with her opponent. A tumbleweed rolled by. Spike followed it with his eyes, wondering how it got into Ponyville.
“Listen,” Quantum announced, “I know this isn’t clear to you…Shypie…but I need a sample of your blood. With that, we might be able to figure out what’s going on here and maybe even reverse the effect before it’s too late.” The minty mare peaked her eyebrows hopefully, “Do you…understand?”
Shypie turned to look at Quantum, panting like a puppy, her eyes wide with delight. “Shypie!” She sang, “Piesky Shypie! Heeebieee~” Giggling at her own rhythmic nonsense, she followed the path of the butterfly with her eyes until it flitted over and perched right on the tip of Quantum’s horn.
For a moment, there was nothing but abject silence as the unicorn went cross-eyed behind her glasses trying to stare up at the creature. She wondered what Shypie was seeing, looking only at the hornless Doctor Hooves, and then quickly realized it didn’t matter. Now was her chance. She lit the flame of her magic, heedless of showing it off, and caught the butterfly in its light, restraining it and pulling the startled, writhing creature down to eye level. Shypie’s stare followed it, and it was as if Quantum could see the question mark brewing above the mare’s head.
“You want this?” Quantum cooed cheerily and waved the butterfly before her. “C’mere. I got it for you. Come take a look!”
The grin that split Shypie’s features might as well have been a hinge for the entire top portion of her head. She bounced over, taking impossible strides with her leaps and coming in far too fast. Quantum’s eyes went wide.
“Wait! No!”
“What? Now?” Derpy called and glanced down at the bed sheet trigger she was now sitting on again, “Oh! Now!” Nabbing the sheet-rope in her teeth, the bubbled pegasus pony gleefully yanked just as Shypie came crashing down upon a shocked-stiff Quantum Trots Lulamoon.
Yelping and flailing for the shoulder pack that contained the syringes, Quantum kicked and fought against the tangled, weighted net and the writhing body of Shypie, who had given up on the escaping butterfly in favor of jumping up and down on the minty mare, cackling, and yelling about pillowfights.
“Help!” Quantum cried in a pitch unbecoming a stately stallion. “I’m gonna die!!”
Hal was doubled over with laughter and phasing his foreleg repeatedly through a rock in lieu of beating on it. Spike casually walked up to the fray and studied it.
“Doc? You need a hand in there?”
“Grab her!” Quantum shouted over the giggling din and shouts of ‘Laughter!’ from Shypie. “Stop her! Or hit her or something!!”
Spike faltered, shifting his weight and looking for an opportunity to leap into the fray.”Uh, right, umm…umm….now!” With that, the little lizard vaulted off his heels and landed directly on top of the tower of Quantum, Shypie, and finally the net, which he was obliged to grab and hold onto for dear life as Shypie gleefully bucked him.
“Rodeooooo!” The painted mare squealed, bucking wildly, “Yeehaw, tarnation apples! Rodeooooo!”
“F-fluttersh—! Pinkie P—!” Spike’s brain felt like it was being battered back and forth by tennis racquet between his ears, “Stop! I can’t hold on!! Doc, do something!!”
“I’m trying!” Quantum hissed through the empty syringe tube she had drawn from the pouch with her teeth, trying desperately to keep from crushing it as the blessedly lightweight form of Shypie trampled her repeatedly. “Just hold her still! Hal do something!”
Hal floated peacefully nearby and shrugged. “What do you want me to do? I’m a hologram, remember? You get the sample, I’ll scan it and send it to Tissy. That’s the plan, right?”
“Th-this p-p-plan s-sucks!” Quantum jittered between stomps, “Wh-whose i-i-idea w-was th-th-this??”
“Um, yours?” Hal glanced calmly upwards. “Oh hey, incoming. Brace yourself.”
With an undulation of limbs and a swishing of tails, the pile became one mare heavier as Derpy landed atop it from the sky, laughing like a hooligan. “Doc this is a great idea!” She cried, “This looks like so much fun!”
Worried that she might have her intestines stomped right out of her, Quantum braced against the triple-weighted assault, reared back with her magic, and jammed the syringe into Shypie’s shoulder – missing, if she only knew, a major artery by only a few inches. She managed to raise the plunger for perhaps two or three whole seconds before Shypie noticed the device sticking out of her side. Her eyes went wide and she emitted a banshee wail that nearly made Quantum’s interphased glasses shatter before her assault on the minty mare turned from playtime into terror.
“Doccccc!!” Spike was thrown clear, and landed with a thump somewhere in the dirt. Derpy was next, her face colliding with the building that the net contraption had been secured to. Shypie tore through the unsound net with her teeth and burst free, just before the entire building came crashing down on the spot, sending up an obscuring cloud of dirt and debris.
Hal coughed unnecessarily and beat his wings in a vain attempt to dissipate the cloud, his bemused demeanor vanishing. “Cutie? Cutie!” He fluttered deeper into the mist, “Speak to me! You okay!?”
Derpy and Spike approached the new pile of junk, the former succeeding where Hal the hologram failed in beating away the mist. Quantum sat in the middle of the destruction. She was shivering, her eyes shut tightly and her forelegs over her head, but she was alive.
“Woah, an open window fell on you!” Spike observed, “That’s amazing Doc, you ought to have a four leaf clover for a cutie mark!”
“Err…” Hal ahemed, drawing his control device from his pocket protector. “Did you get the sample?”
Without opening her eyes or ceasing to brace herself, Quantum’s foreleg shot up in the air – with the syringe containing just a few drops of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie’s mingled blood resting on the flat of her hoof. Hal smiled.
“Nice work Cutie, nice work.”
“Shypie?”
All sets of eyes followed the sudden question. There was Shypie, standing only a few strides away. She tilted her head and trotted over the mangled mess, reaching down to nuzzle Quantum with her cheek.
“Kindness,” Shypie stated simply.
“D’awww!” Spike gushed, patting Shypie gently on the flank and receiving a nuzzle of his own in turn. “I bet we could have just walked up and asked her for her help. She’d understand.” Spike, grinning from ear to ear, met eyes with Shypie and took on a tone as if he were talking to a newborn foal. “Youuuu’d understand, wouldn’t you, cutie-wooty?” He instantly made a face, “Bleh, wait, what am I saying...”
“Shypie!” Shypie squealed. The enigmatic combination of ponies then leapt away, bouncing down the street while boisterously singing a nursery rhyme and replacing every third word with ‘cupcakes’, ‘bunnies’, or ‘Shypie’.
Hal booped a few buttons. “Good news is, you got enough for a sample. Other good news is, you’re not dead, and my scanner says you’re not even hurt except for bruises, so get up. Bad news is, the test results were inconclusive.”
Quantum rose and bore down on Hal, not even caring who saw Doctor Hooves shouting at nothing, “Incon—incon--!?”
Hal waved his forelegs as though he were expecting to be hoofed in the face. “C-calm down! We know more than we did so it wasn’t a total loss!”
Quantum shut her eyes, took a breath, counted to ten, and touched her forehooves to her temples. “…what do we know?”
Hal spoke over Spike and Derpy, who were both listing random pieces of inconsequential information in response to Quantum’s question. “Shypie is most definitely Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie combined at the molecular level. Judging by the rate of progress and the affect on various portions of the body and the mind, as the infection strengthens Tissy says it will stop at nothing to get you to purposefully or accidentally touch, hug, lay on, hold, or do whatever to another infected pony long enough for the combination process to begin. It seems to have the ability to access your senses too, so stay on your hooves or you may walk right into Derpy thinking she’s a doorway or something.”
“Great,” Quantum sighed, “So you’re saying I might go to the bathroom and come back with an extra head.”
Hal swallowed, “…apparently two is the max, which explains why your molecules didn’t react to Shypie, but...Tissy speculates that the pain from gradual atom smashing going on inside your body is likely enough to have driven most of these ponies insane long before the end stages of the disease.” He glanced at Derpy and Spike, who had coincidentally come across the same random fact and were casually discussing it. “I can’t even imagine what that must have been like to see going on all around you…”
Quantum brushed some dust off her body and flattened her ears, looking on with her classmate. “…they’re a lot stronger and braver than anypony gives them credit for, I bet.” She sighed. “How long?”
Hal shook his head. “Dunno. But once it starts in earnest Tissy expects the combination process could last weeks. And if you’re sticking to one another then you’re both infected already.”
Quantum’s voice softened. “What do we do?”
Hal looked apologetic. “I…dunno that either. Go back to the lab. Rest. Princess Twilight and Tissy are some of the strongest minds in Canterlot. As soon as I know something, I’ll be back.” He managed a small smile. “Promise.”
Hal mashed some buttons, called the portal of white light that led back home, and vanished into it. Quantum watched the dragon and the ditsy pegasus chatter on amidst the ruin of Ponyville as though it were any other day. She approached, and soon the three of them were sharing in the simple camaraderie.
For dinner, they had ruby tortes. With real rubies.
Stats
Page generated in 0.017 seconds
Total duration
1,002 users online
330,879 hits today, 2,364,530 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Hello! Nice to see this continue!
Now that I don't have to be so secretive about it due to the Seattle's Angels post, I'll be sure to keep an eye on this as it updates. I've been loving it so far and I'm glad RedSquirrel recommended it for me.
Still got some LUS going on, but I'm going to chalk that up as an added charm of the piece.
A more humorous part after some rather dark and disturbing chapters before, so that's welcome to help lighten the mood.
Keep at it!
7155596
Wow, color me out of the loop horse. I had to look up LUS, and then decide if you were talking about the current story arc in particular, or the fact that I tend to frequently refer to Quantum as 'the minty mare' just because I don't want to write 'quantum' a thousand times a chapter. I'm guessing it was the former!
Anyway, thanks for reading and I'm glad you're enjoying it! I think I'm finally back on my proverbial horse here as far as getting new releases out!
Wait, there was a post?
7156249
LUS refers to Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, a term used when describing a character through their looks rather than their name. It's not that big of an issue here, but it's something to keep in mind as some readers find it annoying.
And yeah, your story was featured in Seattle's Angels latest site post. Find it here!
http://herdshire.smackjeeves.com/comics/1895181/cover/
My suggestion, find potara prickly pears. You might become a cocky megalomaniac, or a sociopathic alicorn, but at least you won't be completely insane and lucid enough to find a better solution...
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/208968/pony-fusions
7156556
This site has got everything!
I dunno what the white pony may be missing. I haven't seen under his cloak yet!
7156265
Oh! It was the latter then! Yes I'm getting rather used to trying to find other ways to refer to Quantum rather than solely by her name. I think there's a place for it, but there's such a thing as overdoing it too. Thanks for the observation.
I had no idea there was a review. Read it. All I can say is thanks so much. Really encourages me to get behind that keyboard and get to work!
Beg pardon folks, but at some point in my blundering I accidentally hit the 'unpublish' button on the latest chapter, 5.3. I have since republished it, but if for some reason you couldn't find that chapter, that's why.
Sorry!