Suited for a Challenge

by Mocha Star

3. Let's Play

Rainbow rocked back and forth, soothing sounds filled her mind as she opened her eyes. Back on stage and now wearing the cloud as an outfit, she lashed out and swung at Discord. Her hoof passed through him like a cloud would part around her and she hovered in the air without flapping. She looked back and down at herself to see she was covered and made out of a yellow cloud.

Her head was all that seemed normal, but she felt the same inside the cloud as anywhere else. “What’d you do to me, Discord?” she asked, giving him what she thought was a withering glare.

Discord, for his part, ate some cotton candy cloud as it rained chocolate onto the stage floor. “I am doing nothing, my dear Rainbow Dash. I said I’d get you out of that get-up, and I did,” he ate half his arm while stuffing his treat into his mouth and chewed, blowing a large purple bubble that popped and splattered across his head. He pulled it with his pawed hand and pulled it off.

Rainbow didn’t budge or react when she saw him pull the gum off. He was grinning, holding a candy striped cane, and pointing behind himself with it at a spinning pigwheel, its ticking loud and annoying. “Well, Miss Dash, care to take a spin?” he asked as it stopped on a blank slot.

“No, send me home and I’ll forget all about this, otherwise I’ll kick your flank, and I mean it this time. I’ll even tell Fluttershy why you’re bleeding when I drag you in front of her and she’ll totally understand.”

“So, no spin then?” He asked. Rainbow hovered stoically still. “Well, I’ll just have to spin for you,” he grabbed a wheel peg and pulled down, sending it spinning. “Whatever it stops on, is a slight task you have to perform to save one of your friends; Fluttershy included. Now, before you react, know that they’re not in any real danger. But,” he pointed at a spot behind her. “Yes,” he spoke deeply from behind her ear, so close she could feel his breath, “that’s your real body. From mane to tail, hoof to ears.

“If you play my little game, you get yourself back; piece by piece. A friend for a part of yourself, are you going to play now,” he asked, licking her cheek and moving back with yellow cloud on his tongue. Rainbow looked gasped and blinked one eye as he spat the glob of cloud back onto her.

Her vision returned completely and she nodded without a word.

“That’s a mare, now let’s see where it stops,” he said small enough to fit on Rainbow’s snout.

“Discord, what am I right now?”

“Shh, it’s slowing,” he said, lying back until all she could see of him were his legs and tail. The feeling of him lounging on her face was awkward, but she focused on the wheel as it slowed. “Tick, tick, tick… tick… Woo-hoo! Pinkie Pie, what luck. You can go through that door whenever you’re ready and give the audience, myself, and readers a show.”

Rainbow didn’t think about the potential thousands of eyes on her as she floated to an open door that shone pink fog whisps just beyond the threshold and what she’d have to endure to save her friend.

---

Rainbow crossed the pink mist and got stuck when she’d passed halfway through. “Guh! Gum?! Really, Discord, you can do better than that,” she exclaimed while looking at the candy filled world. It looked like a forest had been turned to candy. She tugged herself and flipped several times, looking back at a tree made of jello. “So, I’m here to stay. Great. I’ll just go find Pinkie and get this over with.

“Maybe I’ll get my legs back and I can kick him in the… what do you kick a draconequus in?”

She listened to the cascade of normal forest noises and looked over the landscape taking it in. In the distance she could see a building that looked normal enough. It was white as a cloud and tall, she guessed that a good place to go first and hovered over the grass into the denser forest. She stretched her body inside the cloud and noticed that it didn’t change the outside of the cloud at all.

She felt her wings and flapped them, gaining height. “Ha, so I can fly at least!” She pumped her wings and realized she did have a maximum speed, about a trots pace. She lowered to the ground and landed to a squish. “What the?” she leaned over and licked the grass. “Icing? Well, could be worse.”

She hovered again, looking at the smear she’d made in the otherwise well crafted grass, then began to make her way to the object. Vines of some kind of taffy whipped from the branches and blocked her path when she was a few trees in. “Oh, c’mon!” She floated back and the taffy retracted.

“Ha, dumb candy,” she said moving forward again, once more the taffy blocked her path. She frowned and growled quietly, turning right and meeting the same barrier. She looked to her left and slowly edged her way to the opening; then it closed with a snap. She moved forward through the open space and ran into the taffy wall, bouncing back slightly and losing her balance. She rolled and tumbled through the air several times on all axis and saw both the taffy wall retract.

“Okay, you wanna play? Let’s play!” she floated with her maximum speed at one of the openings and then turned to the other, still floating into the barrier as it snapped into place from dozens of locations across trees made of gingerbread. She thought for a moment and grinned. “I got it!”

A moment later she was spitting cinnamon from her mouth and glaring at the bite mark she’d made on the tree’s surface. Gingerbread, filled with compressed cinnamon was her prize. She spent the next ten minutes floating into the taffy barriers, venting her rage at what she was at the moment.

“Okay, fine. What would Daring Do do?” There was a quiet chorus of chuckling from the trees around her. “What? What’d I say?” she asked and then thought about it and snickered. “Ha, one time I was playing hoofball, the stallion didn’t hit on me after that.”

The taffy wiggled with the giggling it was making. “Ah, you’re laughing taffy! I get it. So, did you hear that you can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna a fish? Even in a can!” If she was able she’d have held her sides and fallen over into the piles of potato chip leaves on the ground. The taffy ate it up, strands retracting until there was enough space for her to go through.

“Hey, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a lollipop? I dunno, three! How about that sea liner food? More like ‘slimier’ food, am I right? I asked for a salad and they brought me kelp. Kelp, I couldn’t believe it. When I sent it back I told them to tell the chef he needs to go back to chef school of hard rolls.”

She looked at the taffy space and realized there was an eerie quiet around her now. No animals, no bugs, not even the wind seemed to ruffle the chips in the trees. “Well, I thought those were funny,” Rainbow scoffed.

There was a roar of laughter and the path opened for her. She quickly made her way past the taffy infested trees with a grin and noticed it was feeling warm. “What gives? Who turned up the heat?” she looked around her and saw a ball of fire bouncing after her. Not wanting to take the chance of what would happen to her body inside the cloud when fire touched her, she backed away, turned back to her path, and kept an ear at the thing.

Every few seconds the sound of crackling would make her twitch. It was approaching her and it was faster than her. She turned sharply to the right and went between two trees, then began zigging and zagging through the nearby sweet foliage. She did bite a leaf and got a treat of sweet tea candy, then she looked back and yelped; the fireball had ignored her trickery and had gone straight to where she was finishing.

Sweat beaded as it reached her and stopped mid air. It had eyes that blinked and a mouth that drooled flame back onto its body. Rainbow slowly floated back and it followed her, hovering with her. “Uh, hi?” she asked. The creature responded by violently vomiting fire below her. “Gah! See ya,” she turned again and pushed her cloud covered body to the limits, even rocking her head back and forth for more percieved speed.

The creature burnt candy and melted softer sweets as it followed her, spewing napalm around her in random patches.

“Crap, where’s that building?!” she flew up but capped out when she neared the canopy. “Agh, don’t do this! It’s like I’m in an oven,” she looked down and balked. The entire forest around and under her was either aflame or burnt. She noticed she didn’t smell anything, and she knew what burnt food smelled like.

Filing that away, Rainbow picked a direction that seemed to be the way and flew as fast as she could. The creature wasn’t anywhere she could see, but the burning area behind her made her think it was close.

She kept a sharp eye out and didn’t see anything after a while so she finally let her guard down. That was when it returned, now a giant cloud of rolling black smoke made up its body. Its eyes still burned of fire and flame leaked from its mouth, but now it seemed different. “Why are you here?”

Rainbow gasped. “I just wanna find my friend and get out of this place as fast as possible. Can you help me get to the white building so we can book it?”

It seemed to take shape and loomed over her, past the canopy, and looked down on her with baleful eyes. “You may go, but only on the path I give you.”

He pointed at the ground and spikes made from packages worth of dried gum sticks shot up. The branches grew and bound together tightly, nearly blocking out the sunlight and forcing her down, closer to the ground. She looked behind herself and saw the beginning a few seconds flight away, so she turned down the dark corridor and began her flight.

“Oh, a little incentive from the forest. We don’t want you here, so hurry and move along,” it chuckled from ahead of her; its flaming eyes opening. It formed an arm and then two green talons. With a familiar snap, it vanished and fire caught her attention from behind.

“Jerk!”

She flew forward as the fire encroached upon her, keeping a steady pace that was slightly faster than her. She had to weave over, under, and around all manner of candies. Cotton candy bushes, chocolate bunnies would hide as she passed, unknowing of the danger their soft melting bodies were in, peanut butter cups were set as hurdles she had to fly under and over, Skittles and M&M’s rained down on her, stinging when they made contact with her nose or squinted eyes.

“You’re not stopping me, Discord. Why don’t you just give up?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he replied from beside her. She glared at him. “Oh, come now. A little danger is what you’re all about, right?”

“Yeah, when I’m in control. Not when somepony’s just doing it to mess with me.”

He reached over and pulled a hankerchief from her nostril, then used to to dry her head. “Must it always be about you? What about your dear friend, Pinkie Pie?”

“I’m doing this for her!”

He moved from her sight and whispered inside her mind in a way she’d never felt before. “Are you so sure?”

The tunnel ended suddenly and she breathed in fresh air and felt warm sunlight on her head. The building was just up ahead and she was a bit elated at the sight. She approached and rolled her eyes. “Of course it is,” she said as she looked up the gigantic glass of milk. She reached a fancy door with ornate carved gold trim and carefully pushed it open something she didn’t expect to expect.

“A hospital? I hope she’s okay; if she’s hurt, Discord, I’m gonna bite your nose.” She made her way in, taking notice of a lack of ponies. She reached the counter and pressed the bell with her snout..

“What’d’ya want, murderer?”

Rainbow looked over the counter but didn’t see who spoke, only a snack of an apple. “Hey, I’m no murderer. Where’s Pinkie Pie?” she demanded as she floated herself into a horizontal position and quickly grabbed the apple in her lips. She took a bite and then another, then she finished it on the third.

“Hey, I ate your snack cuz I was hungry. I see some grapes that’re calling my name.” When she was forcibly pulled back, she grinned at the assistance. “Thanks, I need he-”

Two stalks of broccoli towered over her from behind, their shadows letting electric light through their heads. She looked up to see something moving inside their florettes, they were spiders. “You’re coming with us on the charge of serial murder,” they moved to pull her back but she resisted. “Call for backup, this one’s as strong as a carrot!”

Rainbow tugged herself free and hovered past the now very living and cowering fruit and vegetables as she moved down a hall. Green onions wearing white hopped aside while turnips wearing varying colors of shirts ran into nearby rooms and barred the doors. Rainbow rolled her eyes and turned a corner and into a green banana.

“Hey, watch it, ya freak,” it said and pushed past her without a care.

“Unripe fruit,” she scoffed and turned into a stalk of broccoli. “Ah, lunch is served,” she bore her teeth in a manic grin that had it walking backwards on rooted legs. “I know its weird, but I like to start with the middle, because it has lots of fiber,” she leaned forward and gave chase as spiders fell from its head and scurried around.

Rainbow didn’t notice until something tickled her ear, but that was when she saw at least three spiders climbing the side of her muzzle. With a very loud and not very Rainbow Dash scream, she bad to spit and sputter, twirling in place at her slow pace in an attempt to get them off. As soon as one would leave, two more would enter her vision, most were climbing across her muzzle and she realized they were webbing her mouth closed.

She tried to lick through it but the webs were actually more solid than she’d expected. “Mo, monp moophfith.”

She faced a wall and bumped into it, stopping three spiders from webbing her, but six more took their place. She saw them moving and working in an order and she felt insulted, that these spiders were going to stop her just before she saved her friend. Her ear tickled again and she’d had enough of whatever was teasing and tickling her.

She floated up and pressed her head against a ceiling tile, than turned her head left and right, her ear stopped being tickled and she shuddered with delight. She lowered and looked around, frantically for anything she could use to get the spiders off. She shook her head to no avail, and snorted without any advantage given, and mumbled and whined at creatures that couldn’t hear.

Then she thought of something, something she hadn’t tried. She turned back the way she came, hoping to find a nurse or maybe the banana to get them off. She managed one better when she saw an eye peeking out of a doorway. She looked at the eye and it blinked, she gave the most pathetic expression she could and the door opened.

Rainbow recoiled at the potato covered with more eyes than she wanted to count. Each eye swiveled and turned, as though it were watching everything all around it at once. All too quickly the potato had reached her and spindly tendrils slithered out of it, wrapping around her head and leaving a sticky slime as it went and wiped the spiders away.

Rainbow worked her jaw and blinked several times to clear her vision. She averted her eyes, “Uhm, thank you? Look, uh, I owe you one, so I guess I promise not to eat raw potatoes for the rest of the year,” she glanced at the potato and didn’t see a reaction, did it understand her? It stepped to the side to show several tiny potatoes with one single eye, each looking at her.

“Yeah, that’s not creepy at all… Look, thanks a ton. I’ve gotta find my friend so we can leave this world and go home, so,” she quirked an eyebrow as the giant potato fell to its side and rolled down the hall. “Well, okay then,” she followed down the hall to the gasps and overall fear she raut in her wake. She felt a little proud at the awe she inspired, even in these vegetables. The halls were long and the turns were many, the stairs were thankfully easy to transverse, and she yawned loudly twice going down them.

“Ugh, how much farther? Are you even taking me to my friend, or are you just rolling on to Boringsville? We’ve been moving for, like, hours,” she whined even though it had only been six minutes. The potato stopped, the eyes she could see opened and blinked at her and then closed in a pattern that guided her down a dark hallway. “Huh, the only hall without lights? Dark and spooky? My only assistant staying behind?”

She grinned. “Boss fight ahead.”

She entered the darkness and once it was all consuming she turned her gaze around, there was nothing. No sound, no light, just complete sensory deprivation. She moved ahead quickly, she didn’t bump into anything even as she moved around, zig zagged, and dropped for as long as she thought she could before she hit the ground.

“Hello?” she called out. She called out again, screaming this time and only silence replied as an echo.

Ponies aren’t designed to be alone and even the most strong and stalwart pony can become a cowering foal in the darkness that is all consuming, but to taking away all the senses will turn any sapient being mad with time.

Rainbow quickly fell into panic, she didn’t know how long she’d been in this void but she wanted out, now. She screamed, called, fought against the cloud holding her limbs and flew in any direction she could in the hope of finding anything besides the dark. A light came on behind her and she pun around, it was blinding for an instant and then it was manna from heaven.

She rushed towards it and hovered under it with her eyes closed and her snout held high, as though she were a plant getting a taste of sunlight after days in darkness. A clunk sound and she turned to see another light, then another and another. She followed the path they lit in the absolute darkness that existed just beyond the beam from the lights.

A door, plain and simple wood with a handle and Applejack’s cutie mark on it, brought a few tears to Rainbow’s eyes. She didn’t care which of her friends was behind the door, as long as she wasn’t alone anymore. The door opened inwards before she got to it and she crossed the threshold.

“Pinkie?!” Rainbow called out to her friend. She heard a pop and she landed on all four hooves, thankful for the freedom to move, she flapped her wings and flew over to Pinkie.

“R-rainbow Dash?” She said weakly, “I, don’t know how much longer I have…”

“What? Pinkie, what’re you talking about?! You’re fine, let me get this thing off your head and unstrap your legs and-”

Pinkie gave her friend a hard glare. “No, they have what I need. I don’t have long, Rainbow. They’re coming, hide and save yourself.”

“Wh-what do they have, Pinkie? What can I do to help you?”

A cracking sound echoed through the room that started to appear from the darkness. Three stalks of celery were flanked by six broccoli, spiders crawling around their florettes freely. One of the celery tossed something to Rainbow and she caught it, dropping it suddenly.

“Ah, the serial killer is afraid of a potato eye? What a fearsome beast, just like your friend,” he gestured to Pinkie, “but we’ve taken everything we need from her. A new subject will certainly help us fight off the murdering monsters that plague our farms, till our homelands, and fertilize our ancient lands for their own neferious purposes.

“The stories we’re told by those that come out of those places is harrowing,” it stared at Rainbow, “the vegetables are thin and gaunt, the fruit seem to change every generation… whatever you’re doing is destroying us, and we can’t let that happen.”

“Woah, woah, woah. Wait. You mean to tell me that somepony’s farming is making you all go crazy?”

“A ‘farm’? Truly a word in your language that has no meaning to us,” it motioned and the broccoli began taking slow steps with various garde manger tools as weapons. “Finish the pink one, we have her now,” Rainbow’s eyes turned to Pinkie and the small colander helmet she was wearing, the two wires that led out of the room via a wall, and the bells rang in her head.

She flew to the helmet and yanked it off just as it began to spark. Rainbow felt a surge of energy pulse inside her and in a flash she was blinded. The sound of popping came from what seemed like everywhere and she clutched the helmet to her chest as the lights dimmed. She inhaled carefully and opened one eye, then the other.

“Pinkie?”

The pink mare was standing over a giant popped popcorn with a grin. “Heya, Dashie! I got my stuff back,” she tossed a bag of sweet and salty roasted almonds at Rainbow’s hooves. “I was so hungry I didn’t know how long I’d last, but it turns out I wasn’t that hungry after all, then you came in here and took the helmet off and I don’t know why you did that,” she bounced to Rainbow and took the helmet from her and placed it back on her head, “ahh, smooth jazz.”

“What, buh, I… Pinkie?! What’re you talking about? You were about to get popped! I mean, shocked, and I saved you from those guys!” she pointed to the popcorn.

“Oh, them? Nah, they do this every hour or so,” she zipped to the now popcorn guards and picked up what was once broccoli and some large pieces of salt from the floor. She used her hooves to grind the salt into grains, spread them over her treat, and then ate it in one bite. “These are awesome, Dashie, try one,” she hook kicked a popcorn to Rainbow who dodged the delicious projectile.

“Pinkie, I thought you were in trouble.”

“Why’d you think that? I’m just a side character, but still main cast, so I can’t be hurt too badly.”

Rainbow held a hoof to her temple. “Okay… you’re still random as ever, so you’re you, but now what? How do I get back to Discord and buck him to next week.”

Pinkie tossed another popcorn at her that she swatted away. “Pinkie, quit it. I’m seriously not thinking about snacks right now,” she turned to the table and gripped the colander in her hooves. She put it on her head just as popcorn hit her in the back. With a loud crack, Rainbow saw everything vanish into a void of white, smooth jazz was all she heard.

She looked around and out of the corner of her eye she noticed something in the distance. She tried to flap her wings, then looked back and groaned loudly. She saw pink where blue should have been, all over her body except her legs. Her legs were blue, but she was completely dressed as Pinkie.

A curl of pink fell into her vision and she grumbled at it, blowing it away only for it to bounce back into place. She noticed Discord lying somewhere in the distance, his form was too unique to be anything else. “Discord, I’m gonna… I’m gonna, well, you won’t like it when I get my hooves on you,” she started to gallop towards him and after several minutes she slowed to a canter.

He waved at her, still as far away as he’d been, egging her on. She galloped again for a few seconds, then slowed and narrowed her eyes. “Wait a second,” she rubbed her eyes with her right foreleg and he was gone when she opened her eyes.

“Oh, that could have gone on for a while,” he said from somewhere. She looked around herself and then at her foreleg where he was curled like a wristband from her elbow to her cannon. “Well done, brava, the crowd goes wild,” he cheered and a wilde beast leapt over Rainbow. “So, did we learn anything?”

A short yellow filly looked at Rainbow with hazel eyes, she moved her orange mane from her face with a blow. “Miss, am I okay?”

Rainbow looked her over, then at Discord who shrugged in ignorance. “Uh, yeah, you look fine, kid.”

“Oh, I was just asking because you’re dressed in a puffy pink bodysuit and I thought it was a different kind of party. Thanks, miss!”

Rainbow turned and watched the filly go and as quickly as the filly walked past, she was now looking around a grand ballroom. Wherever she was it was a really swanky party full of rich unicorns and fancy accents. “Rarity would love this place,” Rainbow commented and quickly made to follow the filly.