Iota Force Issue #2: A Hair Out of Place

by The Iguana Man

Chapter 7: The Blowout

Finally, Nightmare Night came. The sounds of the festivities just beginning could be heard in the direction of Ponyville, but beneath the statue of Nightmare Moon, all was quiet except for the rustling of leaves and candy wrappers.

Though the traditional offering to Nightmare Moon wouldn't come until much later in the evening, there was a substantial pile of confectionery sitting beneath the statue's hooves already. Earlier that day, a young colt had been seen pulling a cart, bigger than he was and filled with candy, towards Whitetail Wood, where the statue stood. When asked about it, he simply said that he was getting the offering out of the way early so he could keep everything else for himself. No one had had the heart to point out either the illogic of getting rid of that much candy just to get a few more that night or the fact that that really broke the spirit of the night. As such, the colt made his offering and the rumour mill set to work.

That said, as much candy as he had been toting, the pile that now rested in front of the statue was larger still. However, were anybody watching and wondering, this apparent incongruity would have been explained when one half of the pile, the significantly taller and wider half, whispered something.

“Are you sure she'll come?”

“Of course she will.” The other half whispered back. “Alula said she'd made sure people saw how much candy she was taking.”

“You’re sure she won’t just wait until everyone else has made their offerings? You know, get as much as she can?”

“I don’t think so. From what we’ve seen, she can wait, but she’ll want to get her power source as soon as possible, so she won’t miss an opportunity like this. She’s already had to wait inside Twist enough since she… oh, sorry, I know you don’t want to be reminded…”

“It’s okay, I just… as long as this works.”

“I think it will. Oh, hold on, I think I hear someone coming.”

Sure enough, the leaves on the ground started crunching as they were crushed beneath ambulatory tentacles of hair. The Miniac came into the clearing. In her hooves was a large gun-like device, clearly cobbled together but still looking somewhat dangerous. It was connected by thick cables to a large canister on her back. She looked over the pile of sweets.

“So, there wath an offering already made. I did not underthtand that to be a thing. How... odd.” Her hair hovered around the pile, not quite touching it, as if afraid it might bite. She waited a few moments before shrugging. “But fortunate for me.”

A tendril grabbed a large clump of candy and lifted above the open canister before pausing. She had definitely felt something large and firm in that pile. Looking back towards it, she saw a patch of grey fur visible just beneath the surface.

The surface which subsequently burst open.

“Surprise!” Dinky and Truffle cried in unison.

There was a couple of seconds of silence as the Miniac stared at the two. Her hair dropped the candy into the canister and closed the lid automatically.

“That'th it? Thurprithe?” She asked.

“Yep!” Dinky chirped.

“You made thith bait, planted this thuthpithiouthly.. thuthpith... dubiouthly huge amount of candy here and all you were going to do ith yell “Thurprithe”?

“For the moment.” Truffle replied, a sneer on his face.

The Miniac stared a moment more before shrugging. “Very well, if you're that eager to die, I would be happy to oblige you.” She flicked a switch on the gun, causing a hum to emanate from the canister.

“I don't think that's a good idea.” Dinky said in a tone as if she was actually trying to help the Miniac.

“And why ith that?” The Miniac raised the gun, pointing at the two.

“Because, at the moment, we're just the distraction.” Truffle gave her a nasty smile. The Miniac's eyes darted to the side as she heard four thumps behind her.

She whirled around, coming face-to-face with Scootaloo, Icy, Lance and Archer, their weapons and abilities all readied.

The Miniac took one look at the assembled forces... and burst out laughing.

“AAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! Thith is your idea of a trap? Even if thith wathn't the motht hare-brained attempt at an ambuth I have ever witnethed, you theem to be forgetting one fact – the thircumthtanthes have not changed.” Hefting the gun in one hoof, she spread her arms wide, presenting her chest to her opponents. “You can fill me full of arrowth and bladeth ath much ath you like, but you will only hurt your friend.” She grinned. “There’th nothing that cutth quite as deep as a hothtage thituation, ith there?”

Archer looked up, as if thinking for a moment, before shrugging and letting loose an arrow.

As soon as it hit, there was a flash of light and the Miniac yelped in pain. She looked down at her chest, only to find no arrow and no wound. She poked her free hoof against the spot the arrow had impacted, wincing as the spot was still sore. She looked up questioningly.

“Impact arrows.” Archer explained coolly. “You didn't think we'd only have lethal weapons, did you?” She nocked another arrow, it's end blunted and faintly glowing. “These babies don't do any permanent damage, but they hurt like a... you.”

Not seeming to notice the veiled insult, the Miniac gave a snort, though her bravado was beginning to crack. “The... the might thtill feel the pain if I let her, you know.”

Scootaloo shrugged. “She's a tough filly. You? Guess we’ll see.” Smirking at the growl her statement prompted, Scootaloo leaned forward over her handlebars. “Bring it!”

Managing to lock eyes with the Miniac through his mask, Lance beckoned with one hoof.

Letting out a roar, the Miniac surged forward, hair swinging wildly. Her enemies, though, were ready, darting to either side of her around her strikes, running behind her to cut her off from Dinky and Truffle.

As she spun around to face them again, Lance lunged forward with a flurry of quick, light strikes of his sword. Like Archer's arrows, none of the strikes pierced the skin, but each sent a stinging pain through the Miniac's body, forcing her back and keeping her off balance.

Once she had fallen back about ten meters and the clearing had been obscured somewhat, Lance stopped. He walked around behind his opponent and held his sword to the back of her neck, silently demanding her surrender.

Chuckling darkly, the Miniac had all her hair rush behind her, the mass pushing past Lance’s parry and knocking him back a good ten feet onto his back. Whirling around, she aimed her gun at his prone form and pulled the trigger with her hoof. The hum from the canister tripled in volume for an instant as a blast of pure light shot forth from the gun's nozzle.

Unfortunately, the arrow that struck the gun meant the blast enacted the Miniac’s vengeance on a young oak tree.

“What?!” The Miniac cried, turning her head to see Archer just to her left, leaning against a tree and nocking another arrow. She trained her gun on the blue filly, raising it to her eye and fired with a scream.

Another arrow impacted the barrel, knocking the blast up and over Archer’s head.

Snorting in contempt, the Miniac landed her back hooves on the ground, keeping herself stable with a couple of thin strands of mane while the rest rushed forward in a tidal wave of hair, ready to wrap themselves around Archer and hold her in place.

Unfortunately, a Scootaloo-shaped blur pulled her out of the way just before impact, causing the hair to wrap itself around the tree behind her. Before she could untangle it, a wave of cold rushed over the tree, forming ice to pin her hair in place. The Miniac tried to whirl her head around in the direction the freeze-gust had come from, but forgot to let her mane out more, meaning she only succeeding nearly yanking her scalp off.

With a “hmph!”, her hoof twisted a dial on the gun before firing it at the ice, the beam going over a much wider area and melting the ice down to a thin sheet. With a flex of her hair, the remaining ice shattered. She breathed a sigh of relief and was started to pull her hair off the tree. Until another gust came over and made even more ice.

At this point, the Miniac's rage had seemingly reached a point where it could noy increase any more and had plateaued into a furious calm. “I really hate you, Ithe-filly.” She stated simply before turning the dial back to where it was and firing a beam in an arc, scything through her trapped hair.

She was about to turn to fire at Icy when something impacted her ribs, the buzz of wings and the squeal of tires rushing off to her left.

“Hey, bed-mane,” shouted a rapidly shifting voice, “keep your eye on the birdie!”

Too livid to question these orders, the Miniac started firing at the orange-and-purple blur. Each shot came up well short – Scootaloo was moving too fast to hit normally and too erratically for the Miniac to lead her shots.

“Thith ith ridiculouth!” The Miniac bellowed as she fired. “You can’t outrun a lather! It moves at the speed of light.” She twisted another knob and fired the laser in a long arc after Scootaloo, all with a scream of “BY DEFINITION!”

“Yeah,” Archer said off to her side as another arrow knocked the laser in the opposite direction from Scootaloo, “but you don’t.”

Snarling, the Miniac turned towards Archer, but before she could train the gun on her again, the hum from the canister faded. Frowning, the Miniac pulled the trigger a couple of times experimentally, but only produced a clicking sound. She turned her head back toward the statue.

“Keep her off, just a few more seconds!” Scootaloo shouted from closer to the clearing. Before the Miniac could question this, her hooves suddenly froze to the ground.

Gathering her hair together for a couple of moments and tightening it into a solid ball, the Mane-iac swept it through the ice, breaking it all off in a couple of strikes, then repeating the motion for her back hooves. She showed no sign of being bothered by the attack, but it bought the few seconds that were needed before the Miniac charged into the clearing, ready to grab another bunch of... absolutely nothing.

There was not a speck of candy left in the clearing. The only things there were the statue, a sweating, panting Dinky and Truffle, lying on his back with a hoof over his bulging stomach.

“Oof,” he moaned, “I think that was a bit much, even for me.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Dinky asked between breaths.

“I'll live.” Truffle gave a weak smile. “What about you, that was a lot of impressive magic you used.”

Despite her face being red from exertion, it was still noticeable how Dinky blushed at the compliment. “I'll be fine, we needed to get it done quickly.”

“WHAT ITH GOING ON?!” The Miniac screeched, having somehow found an even greater level of anger. “Where ith the candy?!”

As if in response, Truffle gave a low, wet-sounding belch.

“You can't have...What about the wrapperth?” She yelled in desperation. “You mutht have hidden them or elthe where are all the wrapperth?”

Truffle winced. “Let's just say they didn't do the taste any favours.”

The Miniac stared blankly, her mouth opening and closing like a guppy fish. Her head fell behind her hair as she heard the others run up behind her. From behind that curtain of green mane, however, came a deep, unhinged chuckling.

“You think you've got me, don't you? That you've thwarted my planth? Think tangling with the Mane-iac would be tho eathy? You foolth!” Suddenly, she shot up on her hair-tendrils, rushing to the side of the clearing. She turned back to her opponents, hair raised to attack anyone who came at her. “There ith an entire town full of thugar for me to capture!” She opened her mouth to continue her rant before pausing as she heard a quiet song approaching.

“This is nightmare night, this is nightmare night,
Pumpkin scream in the midnight blue.”

The Miniac's grin turned sadistic as two tendrils of hair darted in the direction of the singing.

“This is nightmare night, keep your children outta sight,
Hide and shriek or the seeker's gonna come for youAAAAAH!”

Pulled into the clearing, suspended upside-down in hair-tendrils, was a filly – Tootsie Flute, if Icy remembered her face right. She looked around, confused, panicked, clutching onto her larger-than-normal candy bag as if it were a life preserver.

“In fact, why don't I demonthtrate?” The Miniac sniggered as she effortlessly ripped the bag from Tootsie Flute's grasp. “Of courthe, I'm well aware that I could eathily get thugar other wayth... could get energy other wayth even eathier.” She mused idly as her hair plunged deep into the bag. “Why, with a cothtume like mine, I could get adultth to give me more candy than I could ever need.” She regarded Tootsie Flute with amusement, keeping Iota Force in the corner of her eye. “But I prefer to take the thingth I want from otherth. A fringe benefit, perhapth, but it'th that little touch of pointleth cruelty that truly maketh a villain'th life meaningful, don't you agree?” She said, turning back to the group.

“I dunno about that,” Archer replied, smirking, “but I know you're wrong about one thing.”

“And what'th... that...” The Miniac trailed off, realizing that her hair was still plunging into the bag, far deeper than the bag actually went. Panicking, she pulled her hair out, revealing what she'd grabbed in the bag. Or rather, what had grabbed her in the bag.

The open pages of a very familiar comic book.

She glanced at Tootsie Flute, only for a flare of distortion to shift her form back to that of Alula, the sudden shift in size throwing the hair off of her, making her fall to the ground. The Miniac turned to Iota Force, terror paralysing her vocal cords.

A hint of teeth showed in Archer's smile. “That is our idea of a trap!”

“No. No!” The Miniac tried to whip her last hair-tentacle at Alula, only for it to be caught in the vortex and pulled into the comic. It was now inches away from her head, and the purple of her coat and the green of her hair began to recede from her hooves and tail, leaving Twist's cream and red.

Hauling himself to his feet, Truffle strode up to her, his belly wobbling but not slowing him down. He hopped up, grabbed the comic in both his front hooves and pulled with all his might.

“Get. Out. Of. My. Marefriend NOW!” He roared, pulling the comic back and making the colour-fading accelerate. Soon, only the surface of her face remained the Miniac's. Then, with a pop, even that came off, spiralling into the pages of the comic book.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo!” The scream faded into silence. For just a moment, in the page of the comics, one panel could be seen of the Mane-iac, now fully grown, beating against the fourth wall. Then Truffle slammed the comic shut, threw it onto the ground and spat on it, his face contorted in disgust.

Silence fell over the clearing, everyone taking a moment to catch their breaths.

The silence was broken by a loud sniffle. All eyes turned to Twist. Not that she could see that – her eyes were unfocused without her glasses and welling up with tears.

His face instantly softening, Truffle held a hoof out to Alula. “Did you bring them?” He asked, not taking his eyes off Twist.

Alula handed him a large, thick pair of glasses. Nodding in thanks, Truffle went up and slipped them onto Twist's nose.

Twist looked up, now able to see Truffle in front of her, his hoof outstretched to help her up.

Ignoring the hoof, Twist darted forward, wrapping her hooves around Truffle. She pressed her face into his chest and burst into noisy, messy tears,

“Oh Thelethtia I am tho thorry I thouldn't have I mean I couldn't thtop her and I didn't know and the wouldn't let me remember but I do now and the and I tried to hurt you and to kill you and to kill me and I thould have been able to thtop her why couldn't I thtop her and I...” Twist babbled through her crying, her tears forming deep pools beneath her glasses. Through it all, Truffle continued to hug her tightly, patting her mane and whispering to her. It didn't stop her crying, though.

Feeling a few sympathetic tears herself, Icy tore her eyes away from the spectacle and turned her attention to the comic, now lying unmoving on the grass.

Catching Alula's eye, not wishing to speak, she indicated for her to lift it. Lighting her horn, Alula did so, whereupon Icy sent a short burst of freezing energy over the comic, encasing it in a thick block of ice. Nobody was going to be opening that thing for a long time.

“Excellent thinking, Icy Flight.” Came a regal whisper from behind her.

“Princ-”

“Do not shout, I wish not to interrupt things. When young Pipsqueak told me what you were attempting, I merely came to see if there was any aid you required. It seems, however, none was necessary. You are to be congratulated.”

Icy seemed not to hear the praise, looking at Twist and Truffle.

“Will she be okay?”

“She will.” Luna replied solemnly. “We have excellent therapists and counsellors on our staff who will do all in their power to see that she recovers from this... terrible experience.”

Icy nodded dumbly. She knew, intellectually, that was a good thing, but couldn't bring herself to be happy just at that moment.

“Princess?”

“Yes, my little pony?”

“We... we beat the bad guy again, didn't we?”

“It would certainly seem that way.”

“So why doesn't it feel good this time?”

Luna gave no answer.

Comments

[raven618]

"Thith ith ridiculouth!” The Miniac bellowed as she fired. “You can’t outrun a lather! It moves at the speed of light.” She twisted another knob and fired the laser in a long arc after Scootaloo, all with a scream of “BY DEFINITION!”

“Yeah,” Archer said off to her side as another arrow knocked the laser in the opposite direction from Scootaloo, “but you don’t.”

One of my favorite lines and moments from this whole issue.

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

Excellent climax!

[Herald of Opera]

Wait a minute. If those last lines are trying to compare this to Fire Eyes, they seem to have forgotten that he's still at large.

[The Iguana Man]

10614482

True, they didn't catch him, but they did beat him and, for the moment at least, stop his attacks. And, as the lack of lava-encroachment in Equestria indicates, he's not been seen since.

Though whether that's a good thing or a bad thing... well, that's a little more up in the air.