Chapter 13: Bug Out
The three ponies were sprawled out on the ground, each one breathing heavily as they tried to recover from their high-speed escape. The Timberwolf lay a few yards away, thin trails of smoke drifting from its joints.
Wits End rolled over onto his back, sword still clutched in one hoof. “That,” he panted. “Was. Awesome!” He shot up, eyes wide with excitement. “Did you see that? I was all like ‘gotta not get killed, gotta go fast’! And the Timberwolf was all ‘nope, gonna kill you dead’, and I was was ‘nope, going fast, getting killed very slightly’. And then you guys threw me the sword, and the Timberwolf was like ‘Oh no, a sharp thing! Better kill you faster!’, and was all like ‘nom nom’, and then I was all ‘nope, I am Groot’, and made a shield that I have no idea how it works. And then I was all like ‘swingidy-stab!’, and stabbed the Timberwolf, and it was like ‘Oh noes!’ And then it ran away, and I was holding on, and then you guys grabbed on, and we all got the heck out of Dodge, and it was super cool!”
Pinkie Pie watched the unicorn’s wild hoof-flailing as he recounted the story. “You should relax,” she said once he was finished.
“Yeah, I feel light-headed after that.” Wits End flopped backwards onto the grassy plain again. “Whew, adrenaline rush.” He looked over at the prone Timberwolf, which was panting heavily. “So, what’d we do about Woodsworth here? Send him back to the bandits?”
The Timberwolf whined. “I don’t think it liked being with those bandits,” Fluttershy said softly, walking over to pet the wooden creature’s mussel. “And she says her name is Taxus Brevifolia Lupus III.”
“...So not Woodsworth, then?”
Fluttershy and the wolf shook their heads in unison. “No.”
“Does she have a nickname or…”
The Timberwolf let out a low noise. “She says you can call her Taxi, for short,” Fluttershy translated.
“Oh good.” Wits End stood up, levitating the sword to rest side-first against his back. “So she doesn’t want to go back to the bandits, huh? Does she have a family or a pack we can send her to?”
Taxi nodded her head slowly. “Oh my,” Fluttershy muttered. “She says that she was captured by those bandits only a few weeks ago. She says her pack is probably still in the forest, looking for her. Poor thing.”
Pinkie Pie bounced to her hooves, hopping over to be next to Wits End. “Well then, she can come with us until she finds them! We can be her new pack! A pony pack! Ooh, and I can throw her a pony pack party! This game’s getting more fun by the minute!”
Wits End leaned away from the pink mare slightly. “Hyperactivity aside, it wouldn’t hurt to have a heavy hitter on our side for the time being. I’m still pretty beat up from our not-so-little tussle. Sorry about the whole stabbing and screaming thing, by the way.”
The Timberwolf waved a massive paw in dismission. Fluttershy chuckled before translating. “She says that you were flashy, but you didn’t actually hurt her that much.”
Wits End visibly deflated. “Oh…” A small, dark cloud seemed to appear over his hanging head. “Right. Squishy wizard character. No strength score to speak of.”
“Speaking of magic,” Pinkie Pie interrupted, sensing the mint-colored pony’s oncoming depression. “What was that spell you used back there to make those plants grow in midair?” She took the scabbard from Fluttershy, handing it to Wits End. “I’ve never seen even Twilight use something like that! Where’d you learn that?”
The unicorn perked up. “I think I just learned it when I was fighting Woods- Taxi.”
“Really? How?”
Wits End slid the sword into its sheath, securing the sheath itself with one of his many belts. “I think that’s what that ‘Learning’ ability was. The Mimic class must be able to learn abilities from the creatures they fight.” He winced, feeling the belt tighten on one of his bruises. “Or in my case, the creatures they get beaten up by.”
“You still don’t look so good,” Fluttershy muttered, looking at the bruise forming along Wits End’s side.
“I’ll be fine,” Wits End replied, shaking his head. “I’ve gotten worse wounds from some guys I hang out with.” He frowned as he thought. “I wonder if they got sent back…”
“What’re you talkin’ about?” Pinkie Pie asked, popping up right next to the ruminating unicorn.
Wits End leaned away from the pink pony. “Nothing important. Personal space, please.”
“What’s that?”
“Why am I not surprised…”
Fluttershy fidgeted uncomfortably. “Still, that looks like it has to hurt. I’d like to help patch you up before we get into anymore trouble.”
Wits End shook his head. “I’m telling you, it’s nothing. We should focus on finding someplace to stay the night before it gets da-” He froze, paralyzed by the glare the pegasus was giving him. “Uh, before it… Before…” Fluttershy’s stare intensified. He swallowed hard. “Well, I guess we can take a break to heal first.”
Fluttershy’s eyes softened, and she smiled. “Good boy. I’m glad you came to the right choice on your own.”
Wits End was leaning against Taxi’s side, his trembling legs barely holding him up as he recovered from the Stare. “Yes,” he muttered, wiping the sweat that was pouring down his brow. “So glad.”
Pinkie bounced over to Fluttershy, oblivious to the mint-colored pony’s breakdown. “So whaddaya need, ‘Shy?”
“Lets see…” Fluttershy thought for a moment. “I’ll need some arnica, some parsley, some witch hazel…”
Taxi turned her head, chewing at the base of her shoulder. A moment later, she spat out a wad of the aforementioned ingredients. She tilted her head and made a low, quizzical growl.
“Oh! Thank you, Taxi!” Fluttershy picked up the mass of herbs, placing them in a pocket of her saddlebag. “That’s very kind of you. It’s nice to know that you can grow analgesics for the rest of us.”
Pinkie Pie tilted her head so far her mane nearly brushed her hooves. “An anawhatnow?”
“Analgesic,” Wits End corrected, joining the two mares how that he’d recovered. “Painkillers, basically.” He noticed to surprised look on Fluttershy’s face. “You’d be surprised how much usually useless trivia I have stored in my brain. Do you know what’d happen if you pitched a baseball at near the speed of light?”
Pinkie shook her head, sending her bells a-jingling. “Nope!”
“I do.”
“And?
“Don’t pitch a baseball at near the speed of light.”
Fluttershy coughed. “Um, excuse me?”
Wits End’s head spun around, his attention instantly grabbed by the adorable sound the pegasus’ throat had made. “Yes?”
“Well, I was just thinking it would be nice to have something to help break these down. It would help them to be more effective.”
“What, like a mortar and pestle?”
Fluttershy shook her head. “No, I saw I had one before.”
Pinkie Pie jumped in between them, bouncing excitedly for the upcoming scavenger hunt. “So whaddya need, Fluttershy?”
“It might sound strange, but some scorpion venom would do the trick...”
Wits End jumped backward, holding a hoof up to defend himself. “Woah there! Are you trying to heal me or kill me? The only venom I want near me is the kind that starts with ‘anti’ when I’ve been stung!”
“No no!” Fluttershy waved her hooves franticly. “I can neutralize the dangerous parts of the venom before I give it to you. It would just help it to enter the bloodstream-”
Wits End’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, the blood draining from his face to leave him a more drastic shade of green. “You’re gonna stick venom into my bloodstream!?”
“The venom isn’t going to be venomous when it’s anywhere near you!”
“Hey guys!” Pinkie Pie’s voice called from behind the two screaming ponies.
The two whirled around. “What is it?” they shouted in unison.
Pinkie Pie grinned widely. “I found the scorpion!”
Wits End blinked, looking past the small pink form at the much, much larger black chitinous one behind her. “Oh sugar honey iced tea.”
The giant scorpion raised its claws in the air, hissing loud enough to leave a ringing in the ears of the three ponies. Above them, a familiar voice boomed. “You have re-encountered the Giant Scorpion. Combat has begun.”
“Why did you bring that back?” Wits End shouted as the turn list appeared; his name at the top.
“Fluttershy said she needed scorpion venom!”
Fluttershy shook her head at high speed. “Not one that big!”
“And not one that wants to kill us!” Wits End added.
“You can’t get anywhere arguing over the past,” Pinkie Pie shouted, standing on her back legs with her forelegs crossed. “You’ve gotta keep looking forward to the future! Fight the philosophical giant scorpions that’re keeping you down and do the impossible!”
“This isn’t a philosophical giant scorpion, it’s a real giant scorpion!”
“Just take your turn already!”
“Fine!” Wits End’s horn glowed as he drew his sword, facing the monstrous arthropod. “I attack the giant scorpion!” he shouted, lunging forward with a diagonal blow across one of its legs.
The scorpion let loose a hiss of pain, drawing the wounded leg closer to the rest of its body. The health bar above it ticked down; it wasn’t much, but it was more than was done the last time the group fought it. “Come on,” Wits End growled. “Run away, you poisonous son of a-”
“Invoke Fear failed,” the Discord-alike voice said plainly.
Wits End blinked. “Oh.”
Steam seemed to blow out from either side of the scorpion’s head, glowing faintly red as it glared at the small pony that had hurt it. “Giant Scorpion is now Enraged toward Wits End,” the Discord-alike v oice continued. The scorpion’s name jumped up from the bottom of the list to immediately after Wits End’s name.
Wits End face grew pale as the massive barbed tail reeled back. “Oh my.”
The barb fell in an arc, easily piercing through the unicorn’s cloak. Wits End felt a pain sharper and greater than anything he’d felt from Taxi’s claws shooting through him, along with the sensation of something being injected deep in his body. “Wits End has been badly poisoned,” the Discord-alike stated calmly. “Wits End has been incapacitated.”
Wits End felt all strength flee his body as he toppled over. “Oh this is not good…”
Fluttershy gasped. “Mister End!” she shouted, taking a step toward the prone unicorn.
Wits End’s hoof shot out, as if to hold her back. “Don’t move!” he growled through his clenched teeth. Fluttershy’s name was next on the list, and as the scorpion’s turn ended, hers moved to the top. “I’m fine.” A fresh stab of pain shot through him, and he bit back a gasp, forcing it into a chuckle and a grin to avoid worrying the pegasus any more. “Or I will be, if you two can take this overgrown cockroach down. I’ve got a couple of turns, even with this bugs juices in me. So you two just figure out how to finish this thing, and I’ll-” He blinked, his vision blurring. “I’ll just rest for a bit…”
Fluttershy watched as Wits End’s head sunk to the ground, his chest moving shallowly. “Wh-what do we do?” she asked, looking up at the scorpion. “I-I don’t know how this game works! Mister End’s the one who knows how this game’s played, and he’s…” A loud bang interrupted the pegasus’ panic. The cream-colored mare jumped, turning toward the source.
Small pieces of a burst balloon floated around Pinkie’s head, her mouth set in a confident grin. “Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing, Fluttershy! Leave it to your old auntie Pinkie Pie!”
“I’m still a year older than you…”
“Minty Fresh wouldn’t’ve said those things if he didn’t think we could do it, so lets do the thing and win the points!” The earth pony punched the air with a forehoof, mane seeming to crackle with her excitement. “Besides, I’ve got a plan.”
A small part of Fluttershy’s mind was terrified by those four little words, especially since Pinkie Pie was the one saying them. The majority, however, was bolstered and inspired by them, and she nodded, her lips set in a tight line. “So what do I do?”
Pinkie’s grin widened, showing more teeth. “Move over there by its legs and declare a prepared action to hit it if my attack is successful.”
“Oh, I don’t know if I can-”
“DO IT OR MINTY’S GOING TO EXPLODE AND THEN EXPLODE AGAIN!”
Fluttershy squeaked, darting to a point behind the scorpion’s tail. She hovered there, shepherd's crook held in her hooves. “What she said,” she said softly. “Prepared action. Successful attack.”
“And have Taxi move over behind it and do the same thing.” Pinkie waved a hoof towards one side of the scorpion.
“Huh? Can I do that?”
Pinkie nodded, sending her bells ringing. “She’s your animal companion now, after all! She acts on your turn!”
Fluttershy looked over at the Timberwolf, which was eyeing the giant scorpion cautiously. “Um, would you mind doing that, Taxi?”
The massive wooden wolf let out a snort, moving carefully around the scorpion; just out of reach of both claws and tail. It hunched down, readying to strike.
Pinkie’s name moved to the top of the list. “Okie dokie lokie then! This one’s gonna be a doozy, so hold on tight. First of all, I use Lucky Stars!”
A small chime played, and a few pink sparks of light burst around her. “Pinkie Pie’s critical chance has increased,” the Discord-alike’s voice announced.
Fluttershy leaned around a chitinous leg. “What’s tha-”
“Next, I charge and attack the scorpy!” Pinkie dashed in, jumping in a giant arc to strike the scorpion right between the eyes with her back hooves. This time she was much more successful, compared to the first time she had tried. The words “critical hit” flashed above them, accompanied by a fanfare, and the green bar above the scorpion’s head shrank by quite a bit.
“Taxi’s prepared action has been triggered,” the Discord-alike’s voice announced. The Timberwolf lunged forward, slamming its claws into the giant scorpion’s side, bringing the health bar down to less than a third of its former size. “Fluttershy’s prepared action has been triggered.”
“Oh, um…” Fluttershy fidgeted. “Sorry, Mr. Scorpion.” She swung her crook with a soft grunt, bouncing off of the base of the arthropod’s tail. The green bar shrank slightly. Barely more than the thickness of one of the hairs on the pink-maned pony’s heads.
“And to wrap things up,” Pinkie declared, “I’ll use Helping Hooves to hit the monster again!” She reeled a forehood back and slammed it forward, punching the scorpion square in the mandible. Miraculously, the words “critical hit” flashed again, along with the same fanfare. Pinkie jumped back, landing a few yards away. “And that’s how you play the game!” she shouted.
The scorpion let loose a screech as its health bar shrank one last time. Time seemed to slow down as it reached the end. However, the bar stopped with barely a hairs-worth of green left.
Pinkie Pie’s jaw dropped, almost brushing the dirt below. “Are you kidding me?”
Another cloud of steam puffed out of the giant scorpion’s head, and it focused its eyes on the pink pony that had hurt it so much. “Giant Scorpion is now enraged toward Pinkie Pie,” the Discord-alike voice announced, almost smugly as the scorpion took a step toward her.
Fluttershy’s ears perked up as a leg moved past her. “Eeyah!” she squeaked, hooves striking out with her crook again as if by their own control. A soft ‘tink’ seemed to echo around them; all those involved frozen in time for a full second.
The last sliver of health disappeared.
The scorpion hissed one last time, legs contracting violently as it tipped over onto its back. As quickly as it had moved, it stopped, hardening almost immediately. Wisps of glowing light rose from its body, hoving for a moment before shooting into the chests of the ponies.
After a moment of silence, Pinkie Pie’s excitement reached critical mass. “YEAH-HOO!” she shouted, bouncing at top speed around the scorpion’s remains. “We did it! We won! We beat the big dummy loser-pants buggy! Woo-hoo! Wasn’t that awesome!”
Fluttershy nodded, holding a hoof over her pounding heart. “I’m not happy that we had to do that, but Mr. Scorpion would have hurt other ponies if we hadn’t stopped him.”
“That’s great,” a voice groaned from under the scorpion’s tail, “but I’m still kinda dying slightly here.”
“Huh?” Fluttershy paced around the remains, following the voice. “Oh my gosh! Mister End!”
Wits End’s head poked out from under the scorpion’s body, eyes now open but surrounded by dark circles. “Would you kindly get me out from underneath this insect’s butt?”
“Of course! I’m so sorry! Taxi?” Fluttershy looked up at the Timberwolf, now standing behind them. “Would you mind helping out a little bit?” Taxi nodded, taking one of the scorpion’s claws in its jaws and dragging it off of the wounded unicorn.
“Great,” Wits End muttered. “Now I can die free of bug butt. Farewell, my comrades.” He raised a forehoof to his forehead dramatically. “There’s a place a little bit higher than the peak of Canterlot Castle. I’ll… see you there… Guh.” He slumped, sticking his tongue out.
“Oh, you’re not dead, silly!” Pinkie Pie bounced by, wrapping Wits End up in a nearly bone-breaking hug. “Geez, you’re so dramatic. You oughta hang out with Rarity when we find her again! You two’d get together great!”
“Can’t breath,” Wits End croaked. “Possibly actually dying…”
Fluttershy pulled the pink party pony off of him. “Are you alright?”
Wits End groaned, pulling himself up into a sitting position. “Well, I’m still poisoned, but once the encounter was over, I stopped being incapacitated.” He grinned sheepishly at the pegasus. “Guess I don’t have to worry about you sticking venom in me, huh?”
“Oh my!” Fluttershy exclaimed. “We have to get you to a hospital! Where-”
Wits End waved a hoof dismissively. “Don’t worry about that. You’ve got points in Heal, don’t you?”
“What? Um…” Fluttershy closed her eyes for a moment. “Well, yes I do, I guess.”
“Just make a Treat Poison check.”
“Are you sure? Shouldn’t we wait and let a doctor help you?”
The off-mint-colored unicorn narrowed his eyebrows. “Make the Treat Poison check, Fluttershy, or I swear I will die of poisoning right now.”
“I make a Treat Poison check!” Fluttershy said quickly. A few moments later, the color returned to Wits End’s face, the dark circles around his eyes disappearing.
“See?” Wits End said, standing up and shaking out his legs. “Simple as that. No need for doctors or hospitals or-” He stopped. “Hang on. Hang on, wait. Wait, hang on.”
“Are… you alright?” Fluttershy asked.
“You look like you’re gonna barf!” Pinkie Pie chimed in.
“I’m not gonna barf,” Wits End snapped back. “I’m not gonna. I…” He blinked a couple of times. “I’m gonna barf.”
The two mares backed up, giving the unicorn a wide berth. However, instead of vomiting, his horn glowed green. “Poison Sting!” he said in a rush. A large shiny stinger, like that of the scorpion remains behind them, formed in air just in front of his horn, launching forward and embedding itself point-first into the trunk of a nearby tree.
Wits End shook his head, feeling much better. “Woah,” he muttered, watching the stinger dissolve the bark around it like some kind of acid. “That’s a thing.”
“How did you do that?” Fluttershy asked, standing next to Wits End, now that it was safe to do so without fear of splash effects.
“I… think it’s the Learning ability? I think my body internalized that scorpion’s venom, and turned it into magic.” Wits End tapped his chin with the end of a hoof. “This whole thing has a strange combination of game rules.”
“It sure does!” Pinkie Pie agreed, bounding around the two ponies.
“Which reminds me,” Wits End said, grabbing the bouncing mare by the scruff of her neck. “How do you know about stuff like prepared actions and charging?”
Pinkie stuck her tongue out. “I’ve played this game before, silly!”
“What” both Wits End and Fluttershy exclaimed.
“Well, duh! There were a bunch of ponies playing it at one of the parties I threw! I watched them play, and after a while they let me join in! Then I borrowed an old copy from Twilight’s library and read through it, and I found some other supplements that I donated to the library when I was done reading them. The Jester and Mimic are in the ‘Otherworlds and Oddities’ expansion, by the way. I’m surprised you didn’t know about them, Minty Fresh, what with you being the big fancy master of this whole thing.”
Wits End’s mind was spinning as he tried to process the wave of information that had washed over him. “Wait. So, you know how to play Dun- Caverns and Cutie Marks?”
Pinkie nodded. “Better than you do, apparently, you big goof! Now come on! I wanna fight more stuff!”
“ Hold on,” Fluttershy cut in. “We’re not getting into anymore fights until everyone’s all healthy again. Cured of poison or not, Mister End is still hurt from getting beaten up so much.”
“Thanks for the confidence boost,” Wits End muttered.
“Now,” Fluttershy continued regardless, “Taxi’s told me that there’s a village not that far away where we can get some help. We’re gonna go there and rest, and then we’re gonna find our friends.” She shot a surprisingly cold look at the two other ponies. “No arguments.”
Wits End and Pinkie Pie looked at each other. After a moment, Pinkie shrugged. “Well,” Wits End said, looking back at the pegasus, “those bandits did mention a village while we were there. At the very least, we can let them know something’s up.” He waved a hoof at the Timberwolf. “Lead the way, Taxi.”
Taxi looked at the three ponies and let out a small bark. “Oh, we don’t have to walk,” Fluttershy explained. “Taxi can carry us there in no time.”
“What?” Before he could react, the wooden wolf had caught the three ponies gently in its jaws, depositing them on its back.
“Taxi says to hang on to something,” Fluttershy said nonchalantly, taking hold of a handle-like root.
Pinkie strapped a vine across her lap, bouncing excitedly. “This is gonna be fun!”
Wits End shook his head. “I didn’t think her name would be litera-AAAAAAAAAAUH!”
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Pinkie... just Pinkie...
Well, I honestly wouldn't mind if she hosted a C&C party. I'd be a bit... concerned if she lead the game, but I'd give it a try.
I'm sorta curious how encounters will go once everyone is together. Real tabletop games get really bogged down when fighting starts with a large enough group. It was a good introduction to have the ponies split into groups of three here, because it gets everyone involved in the combat. A trial by fire, have to learn sort of things.
At least, I think so. Has Rarity's group fought anything serious yet where they had to learn their powers or risk wiping?
5793872
Pinkie as a DM would be amazing. Then again Discord as a DM is already amazing too, due to him being able to bring it to life and still having a sense of humor on what is happening. Just imagine Pinkie and Discord teaming up to design a campaign...
Odd, it didn't notify me of two updates, oh well. Nice to see that the weakest starting class ever is well on the way to becoming the most overpowered now though.
lol
Pinkie as a DM
The concept scares me
Yes. I know what will happen. And it is actually pretty pretty. Assuming you consider nuclear explosions pretty....
5986032 Me gusta
Of course Pinks knows how to play, what do you take her for, a second rate party planner?