Vacation to a Pleasant Country Retreat

by Sixes_And_Sevens

A Brisk Constitutional Along a Historic Boulevard Towards a Popular Eatery

“Hi, Mom,” Ruby said as the group of ponies ran down the stairs into the bar. “Uh, don’t go upstairs.”

Berry sighed and leaned against the counter. “What did Romana blow up this time?”

“Nothing has exploded, Berry, and for once this is absolutely not my fault,” the blue unicorn said, locking the door behind her. “It’s just that we’re under attack by possessed pegasi.”

The stallion at the bar blinked and glanced up. “Excuse me, did you say ‘possessed pegasi’?”

Romana looked at Berry. “Tourist,” Berry explained, reaching under the bar and flipping a switch. Heavy steel shutters swung down over the front of the large windows.

“Gotcha. To sum up, Mr…”

“Service, Civil Service.”

“Mr. Service, Ponyville is essentially the Weirdness Capital of Equestria. This is… it's not exactly ‘normal’ for the town, but we’ve seen weirder stuff going down.”

“Oh. Should I be… worried?” Civil asked hesitantly. “My wife is out there, you see, and my sisters-in-law. And my father-in-law.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Berry said dismissively, pulling out a hefty bat. “If it’s a friendship problem, it’ll be solved in a half-hour. Maybe closer to an hour if it’s aliens again.”

“Oh, it’s aliens,” Romana assured her, locking the front door, then sliding a table in front of it for good measure. “Invasion of the mind-swappers. This one is actually Rainbow Dash.” She gestured at the little mechanical crab, still sitting on a Ouija board.

“Huh,” said Berry. “Can I get you anything? Can you… drink?”

No

“Oh. Sorry about that.”

Civil glanced around, bewildered. Then, very carefully, he peered into his mug.

---

“Okay, keep it moving,” Pinkie said, ushering the others through the narrow passage, Robo Dash being carried on the backs of Ditzy and Daisy. She was tied up with jump ropes.

“Ponies must’ve been smaller back in the olden days,” Spike observed. “I’d better bring up the rear, just in case.”

Pinkie glanced between the passage and the dragon. “This would’ve been a lot easier before your growth spurt…”

“Yeah, I know. Go on, I’ll follow you,” Spike said, waving her on.

Pinkie frowned. “Spike? I’m getting a Pinkie Sense…”

Before the pink mare could react, the dragon shoved her into the tunnel and shut the door. “Spikey? Spike! What are you doing?”

“Sorry, Pinkie, but there’s no way I’m going to fit through there. I’ll stay here, guard the door. Your best bet is the bar—”

“Spike.”

“—it should be about a quarter of a mile—”

“Spikey, please!”

“—and I know for a fact that the door is still in the cellar. Berry’s very proud of its historical significance.”

“Spike, come on, please!”

“Pinkie, you need to go,” Spike said. “I’ll make sure they won’t follow, but I can’t come any farther. Go, or they will catch you.”

There was silence, and then a sniffle. “Don’t you dare,” Pinkie whispered. “Spike, Pinkie Promise me that you’ll be okay.”

“Pinkie, I—”

“Pinkie Promise, and I’ll go.”

Spike shut his eyes and let out a long sigh. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye, I promise you that I’ll be fine.”

“Forever,” Pinkie whispered, but her heart wasn’t in it. “See you soon, Spike.”

There was the sound of crunching dirt. It faded away slowly until the dragon couldn’t hear it any more. He waited a few more minutes for good measure. Then, he screwed up his face and exhaled a thin stream of green-white fire across the top of the door, melting and warping the metal into a solid chunk, then melting the handle for good measure. He watched the melting steel cool from white to red heat, then orange, then a layer of chitin-black slag. He nodded to himself. A job well done. Spike sat back against the still-hot door and stared across the room. There was a knock at the other door. Then another, and another until it seemed that it could grow no louder. Then it did. The wooden door began to buckle and creak. He closed his eyes and thought of Rarity.

---

Pinkie slouched along the hallway, absolutely silent. Nopony else said anything, either. In fact, apart from Robo Dash’s vain attempts at escape, there was no noise in the tunnel. Hyacinth broke first. “Lovely place for a stroll,” she said weakly. “So… uncluttered.”

Nopony else seemed willing to comment. “How much further…” Hyacinth tried again.

“I make it another fifty meters,” Ditzy said. “Keep your eyes peeled and your hooves to the wall.”

Silence fell in the hallway.

---

Civil Service was shaken, and more than a little confused. A strange mare and a couple of fillies had come into the bar with some story about an alien invasion, and the barkeep had believed it completely? Not only believed it, but treated it as though it were some sort of regrettable but unavoidable incidence, like a dentist appointment? Perhaps it was some sort of local prank. That, however, didn’t really account for the metal shutters that had been put up over the windows, or for the steady hammering at the top of the stairs and the front door. Berry sighed deeply. “Y’know, sometimes I really hate living here. Do you know how huge my insurance payments are these days?”

“Oh, dear,” Civil said uncertainly.

“Yeah.” The bartender shook her head. “Still, can’t complain. Good neighbors, generally. Crazy, of course, but good.”

Civil thought about his sisters-in-law. “I see what you mean,” he agreed.

“Anyway. Refill your glass, sir?”

Civil considered this. “Have you got anything that’ll make this make any kind of sense?”

“One Discord Special, coming up.” The mare turned to the liquor cabinet, then paused. “Shush.”

Civil blinked. “Beg pardon?”

“Hey, everypony, hush up!” Berry said. Silence fell over the bar. “Huh. Thought I heard—”

The door to the cellar swung open and a pink mare with deflating curls glanced out. Everypony screamed, and Berry made to swing her bat at the intruder’s head. “Aaah!” Pinkie screamed, throwing up her hooves. “Not possessed, still me!”

Berry relaxed. “Celestia, Pinkie, you frightened us half to death.”

“Sorry, Berry. I guess you know what’s going on, then?”

“Yes. Dash helped to shed some light on the situation,” Romana explained, leaning over the bar. “How many of you are there?”

“Six, plus Dashie. But I don’t know if she counts, ‘cause she’s possessed and also unconscious.”

“Possessed? Unconscious?” Civil repeated, his voice a register higher than normal.

“Civil? Is that you, dear? Something dreadful has happened to Daddy and Carrot Top.”

Oh, Civil thought. Hyacinth is mixed up in this. Well, alright then. Honestly, he wasn’t sure why he had expected anything else.

In a minute, all of the Bouquet sisters in town, the strange pink pony he’d seen at Sugarcube Corner, and a grey pegasus were all congregated behind the bar. “So,” said the pegasus. “What’s been going on here?”

Berry shrugged. “The usual. I think we’re under attack from upstairs now.” The metal shutters rattled. “Okay, all sides. They gonna follow you the way you came in?”

There was a long pause. “...No,” Daisy said evenly. “Spike is… guarding it.”

“He’ll be fine,” Pinkie said, her smile tight. “Fine.”

Scootaloo coughed. “So, uh, you’ve got Dash’s body. Should we, I dunno, put her back in?”

Romana frowned slightly. “Not yet, I think. Remember, we still have to find a way to prevent these fellows from coming back… I think it might be best if we all sat down to talk about what’s been going on here…”

---

Outside, the bodies of the citizens of Ponyville gathered alongside the swarm of metal crabs. Resistance would not, could not, be tolerated. For the good of the Brachyura. For the survival of their kind. All of them closed in on the Stick and Carrot. It would be no more than a matter of time.

---

Romana ruminated over her ginger beer. “You think that they already knew that you were going to try and escape out the back, then?”

“I don’t see how it’s possible…” Lily said slowly.

“Oh, it is,” Romana assured her. “Actually, it makes a lot of sense. How those two pegasi knew where we were, how those robots and the ponies have been able to work together without outwardly appearing to communicate… and that means we have a means of communication.” She turned to Rainbow Dash’s body. “Don’t we?”

Magenta eyes glared up at the Time Lady. Romana sighed. “Come now. You’ve got vocal cords, you can talk. Am I right, or not?”

“...Yes…” the pegasus rasped. “We are… connected.”

Everypony in the bar stared. Romana smiled slightly. “Might I know to whom I am speaking, please?”

“We are… Brachyura.”

“Is that your name, designation, or species?”

“We are… the Brachyura… the elite… of the Pieces.”

“Ah, a club,” Romana said, nodding. “So. One chance, now, to be fair. The Doctor always does it, and I suppose I’m the substitute for today. If you get back in your robots and surrender now, I swear to you that I will help you peacefully accomplish… whatever it is that you’re trying to do. Which is what, exactly?”

Dash’s face twisted into a cold smile. “Think you’re so smart? Still have to ask?”

“That is generally the way one gets answers,” Romana replied calmly. “So?”

“Years ago… our society was… destroyed. Doctor… thought us dead. We were… clever… Built bodies… keep our minds… save ourselves…”

“Yourselves and no others,” Romana said, inclining her head to the side. Her hat began to slide off, but she fixed it with a hoof.

Scootaloo scowled. “How many did you kill, though? I think we know the Doctor well enough to know that he wouldn’t ruin you for nothing. So, who died?”

The Brachyura’s stolen face twisted into a sadistic smile. “No one of… worth.”

The atmosphere became notably cooler. The crab holding Dash’s brain skittered antsily on the counter. “All lives have worth,” Ditzy said coldly, staring with undisguised contempt at the possessed pegasus.

“Have they?” Dash’s shoulders shrugged under their bonds. “Perhaps, perhaps. But some have more worth than others, don’t they?” She gave Hyacinth a savage, knowing grin. “You, for instance, thought you were worth more than your sister-in-law, didn’t you?”

The magenta mare turned beetroot red. “I— I—” she sputtered.

“And you still think that, too,” the creature in Dash’s skin continued. “Even now. Condemn us all you like, but you’re no better—”

Her head snapped back. Dash had leapt at her body’s face and clung on for dear life. The Brachyura bucked wildly in its bonds. “Dashie!” Pinkie shrieked, lunging forward. The two fell to the floor, the alien beating its face against the floor to destroy the robotic shell.

Pinkie pulled the pegasus back upright and ripped the crab off, slapping the blue mare in the face. “No! Stop it, you, horrible, cancerous—”

“Pinkie! Pinkie, it’s me!” Dash coughed. “It’s Rainbow! I switched us back!”

“...Eh?”

Pinkie looked at Dash’s eyes. Then she looked at her flank. Cloud with rainbow lightning. Then, slowly, she looked at her hoof, where the crab was twitching. With a desperate twitch of the tail, it struck out. “NO!” Dash cried, leaning forward.

Pinkie’s eyes went blank, her expression falling. Then she blinked and frowned at the crab. “I’ve had about all I can take of you, you Greedy McMeanypants” she said, shaking a hoof in its face, or at least where she imagined its face would be.

The bar was absolutely silent. “How did you…” Romana began, then paused. “Does this have anything to do with the time the Doctor tried to create mental contact?”

Pinkie frowned. “When did he do that?”

Berry raised a hoof. “That was the day I invented ginger whiskey.”

Pinkie’s face lit up. “Oooh. Was that what he was doing? I thought he was trying to brush my mane! And then he fainted.”

“Sensory overload, then,” Ruby guessed. “Pinkie’s just too much for these guys to handle.”

“So, what, we just let all the little robots stab her?” Rose asked.

Pinkie shook her head. “Nope, nope, nope. They may not get my mind, but it still really hurts when they try to stab me. If I let all of them get me…”

“Yeah, speaking of hurting…” Dash groused.

Ditzy gasped. “Oh, gosh. You’re bleeding. Here, let me untie you….”

“Not to mention, whatever Pinkie does to them, it doesn’t appear to hold them very long,” Scootaloo said, staring at the struggling little creature.

The banging at the shutters began to pick up. Civil eyed them nervously and backed into the corner of the room. “Well, we’d better think of something else, then. And quickly!”

There was a crashing sound at the top of the staircase. They were in.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

If it’s a friendship problem, it’ll be solved in a half-hour. Maybe closer to an hour if it’s aliens again.

Ah, the joys of a Ponyville with Gallifreyans.

And I do have to appreciate calling a crab cancerous.

Now, there's just the matter of how to get out of this situation. I imagine Canterlot cavalry will be involved.

[Sixes_And_Sevens]

10024667
Yes!!! Someone caught the pun straightaway!

And yeah. The introduction of Time Lords has definitely made Ponyville a little more Ponyville...

[Prince Leviathan]

Crab Zombies all around
Wearing Friend's faces

Back up arriving....sometime.

Twilight must be reading a really good book or something