Harmannoyed

by Tirimsil

Ch. 8 :: Falling Down

Friendly tree ♪ friendly tree ♫
Please be a friend to me ♪
Tattle-tale, don't be ♫
I should shut up.

Deep in the peaceful valleys just inland of Maretime Bay, where rivers ambled to the sea and birds sang because they had songs, Izzy Moonbow - who had many songs herself - sat in a tree, wisely stopped singing, and pouted at nothing.

Izzy liked to learn new things, but only most things. Some new things were better left unlearned, such as that there were Recalloids. She found the sheer volume of content with Harmonoid to be too much, too fast.

Izzy didn't like complicated things. She had trouble focusing on them and would get distracted by simpler things like cute beetles and yippy dogs.

Just a few weeks ago, Sunny had tried to get her to read Lordstone, an ancient epic by a long-forgotten author. Why did her ribs feel funny. There were over a dozen different versions of it now each with their own huge followings. She couldn't even name half of the characters, and they expected her to learn a made-up language - more like three made-up languages - to get the full experience! It was nuts. She could barely even stay still for the movies, let alone read the books.

Yet something was making her focus on this. She furrowed her brows and rubbed at her belly self-consciously. She was pushing and pushing this angle that Harmonoid was bad. She knew there was something behind this... but what was it? Was she pushing too far? Was she imagining it? Was she being a "crazy unicorn"?

Zipp had offered a pegasus story called Feathers of Every Gray. It was horrifying and Izzy didn't want to think about what was in it any more than she wanted to think about her ribs breaking for some reason. She wasn't sure if it was meant to be romance, tragedy, or horror. Zipp seemed very uncomfortable with answering which it was.

These Recalloids looked like Generous☆Harmonoid, except she was supposed to be hot, and her Recalloids were just scary. Why did Recalloids even exist? Why did the actresses need to be a secret if they had guards? Why did her ribs hurt so much?

Pipp made her do a "hot pepper challenge" once and that was a tennis ball ghost. A blue tennis ball ghost clearly embedded in her chest. She stared down at it in wonder. Why was there a tennis ball ghost inside of her ribs in her mind? Those were her mind-ribs, excuse you.

Izzy suddenly dismissed all of her tangled thoughts, leapt out of the tree in a panic, and ran.

A tennis ball phoomp'd into the foliage about where her ribs previously were. The tree shook like a doorstop, and after a pause, its leaves abruptly fell off in a sudden heap. The tennis ball rolled off, bounced down the branches, and vanished into the pile with a gentle, staticy swoosh.

But while a reader might pause to appreciate this forewarned imagery, Izzy felt she had no time to ponder it; she turned her head over her shoulder while running, to see a femme fatale with overdone mascara galloping heavily down from the crest of a not-so-distant hill towards her with bouncing hair, bouncing sunglasses, and a stoic frown. This strongly encouraged her to speed it up a bit.

Turning her head back forward, she gasped in horror and skidded to a stop as two ghostly Recalloids stood in front of her at the riverside, staring at the water. Something in her mind told her that she was trapped - if she continued forward along the riverside, the second would meet her around the corner. The river was much too wide for even her to leap over.

Without looking back again, she held her breath, ran between the ghosts - which poofed into mist at once - and dove into the water. After all, if they were to follow her, these ghosts would not be standing around. Right?

Izzy gently swam with the current for about thirty seconds before surfacing downstream, clutching at a big rock, gasping for air. Looking back up the river, she indeed distantly saw both Generous☆es standing exactly where their "ghosts" had been, staring at the water's surface.

Most ponies would require at least three incidents to conclude there was a pattern. And as Izzy scrambled out of the water and scurried around a corner out of sight, she hissed and stepped back before stepping upon the faint, flickering blue phantom of a gopher. As soon as she pulled her hoof back, an actual gopher darted out of the nearby brush through the phantom, took two steps, turned its head to notice her presence, then took many more steps very quickly and vanished out of sight into a nearby hole dug into the earth.

Izzy now had her three. However, she did not quite have her wits back - for what they were worth - and was not yet able to interpret any pattern. "Aw geesh..." she panted instead. "My mane must be a rat's nest..." She paused, shuddering and confused - and, steadying her breathing, she put one hoof in front of the other and went back to Maretime Bay.

---

Sunny's lighthouse had been restored very quickly after the Emperor Sprout incident. After all, it made ships not crash. Since she was remodeling it anyway, she'd taken the opportunity to add an outdoor balcony, to enjoy the weather on calm days.

And on that balcony, two earth ponies and a unicorn sat at a collapsible table on collapsible chairs, the former staring at their bowls of soup, the latter at the terracotta tiling that formed the balcony floor. Relaxing low-fi crooned from a cheap radio precariously perched on the balcony's railing.

Hitch had been the first to see Izzy. He had squealed, screamed something about a thing from the bog, and vanished. Sunny, however, had fussed over her, checked her for injuries, and insisted on bringing her to the lighthouse to clean her up. She must've gone to retrieve Hitch while Izzy was in the shower.

Izzy did a lot of thinking on her way to Maretime Bay. She'd run the shower cold.

"Izzy, what's wrong?" Sunny furrowed her brows. "You've barely said a word and you're not touching your soup. Did something attack you..?"

Izzy's eyes flitted up to glance at her and back away, her stomach queasy. "Y-yeah," she mumbled. "Robots..." She shuddered despite the comfortably warm air.

"What?" Sunny and Hitch returned.

Izzy sighed, feeling sick, rocking in her chair and worrying with watering eyes. What was she supposed to say? That she had re-kidnapped a kidnapping victim and endangered their best friend by exposing her to a great risk of the same? What would they say in return?

There was nothing Izzy feared more than arguing with her friends, but she'd made that bed and now she had to lie in it, since she couldn't lie to them.

"Izzy, what happened," Sunny asked softly, though her concerned tone and furrowed brows made it a gentle request.

"Are you in trouble?" Hitch ventured. "Do you need our help?"

Izzy slowly inhaled and exhaled. "I was chased here by Recalloids."

"What..?" Sunny blinked. She leaned forward with a harsh sigh. "You mean by Harmonoids." She said in a long-suffering tone.

"No!" Izzy said quickly, and shook her head. She's already mad, her mind told her. She already thinks I'm crazy. "I mean, yes, but they're a different model, way scarier, Pipp called them Recalloids."

"Pipp?" Hitch asked as they both stared in alarm. "Did these robots attack Pipp?"

Izzy swallowed. "N-no," she sniffed. "Pipp summoned them to attack me. I dove into the river to escape 'em."

They stared quietly. They think I'm making it up, she told herself. But when I convince them they'll hate me. She wiped at her eyes and struggled with herself before she shakily breathed in and out and continued. "Pipp summoned them in anger because I exposed her as a Twin Soul."

"Wait, what..." Sunny put a hoof to her temple. "A Twin Soul? A voice actress for the Harmonoids. Pipp?"

"Yes," Izzy sniffled. "I, I wasn't completely honest with you when I asked for your tape player," she admitted. "I needed to play an a-audition tape for the Harmonoids. When Generous☆'s voice actress flubbed a line, sh-she talked normally, and it was Pipp." She waited. She's going to yell at me, she theorized.

"Wait here," Sunny pouted. "You left the tape, I'll go get it." She headed back into the lighthouse. Her heavy tread and swinging hips told Izzy she was anything but amused. Realizing that Sunny hadn't nosed in on the tape after she'd left it behind, Izzy felt even worse about her own deceit.

Sunny returned with the tape and the player, and the three listened quietly. Of course, Izzy already knew roughly how it went, but the others were stunned to hear Pipp flowing in and out between her natural patois and Generous☆'s more refined banter.

"So," Hitch summarized, "Pipp's been Generous☆ the whole time..."

"Seems like she is," Sunny sighed. "But Izzy... When you say you exposed Pipp, do you mean... in public?"

Izzy swallowed and nodded.

Sunny leapt up, her chair sliding back with a loud skrrtch, and smacked the table with both hooves, her bowl of soup bouncing up and clattering. "What were you thinking!" She sat back down and turned her hooves up in exasperation. "Don't you know Dahlia was kidnapped, and she's not even a Twin Soul?"

"Yes..." Izzy squeaked down to the floor, trembling with her ears low. During the walk back, she'd realized what a terrible and awful thing she had just done. She was expecting to hear horrid news any second, and she couldn't bear her friends' palpable displeasure with her right now.

Bad things always happen when you show up.

"How did you get the tape?" Hitch asked gently. He's disappointed, she repeated in her mind. Disappointed, disappointed. Ashamed of me.

Izzy closed her eyes in resignation. "I... interrogated her. She didn't find me very intimidating. Just annoying. She gave me the tape if I promised to go away."

They both blinked, their mouths hanging open in disbelief. "You..." Sunny struggled to process this. "You... YOU CRAZY IDIOT!" Hitch hissed in alarm, and Izzy recoiled, dots swimming in front of her eyes.

You crazy unicorn.

"You re-kidnapped Dahlia?!" Sunny repeated. "You exposed Pipp?! Why! Literally why would you do that!" She leapt up from her seat and began pacing rapidly along the balcony.

Why would you do that to everyone?!

Izzy sobbed into her hooves. "T-t-t-to find out w-w-what HarmoSync is plotting..!" she offered weakly.

"Plotting?!" Sunny Sunny turned and threw out a hoof in a frustrated wave. "What could they possibly be 'plotting'! It's a song and dance troupe!"

Why do you have to bother us?

"Sunny," Hitch gulped.

"A-a-aren't you suspicious?!" Izzy shrieked, her heart aching.

"We're having fun!" Sunny nearly snarled. "Is that a problem for you!? Enough you have to endanger Pipp?!"

We were having fun until you showed up.

"Sunny!" Hitch raised a hoof.

"No," Sunny pointed back at him, "You see where I'm coming from, right?" She leapt back into her seat and slammed the table again. "What is wrong with you?!"

What's wrong with you?

Izzy stopped crying and went completely still, her head down in her forelegs, her eyes wide despite staring only at the floor, feeling like she was about to throw up.

What's wrong with you?

The radio crackled. "We apologize for interrupting this broadcast," came the voice, "Princess Pipp of Zephyr Heights has disappeared from the castle."

Izzy pulled her head up. She wished she'd been surprised.

Did you get what you wanted?

Sunny froze for a few moments. She blinked in confusion, slowly turning her angry eyes towards the radio as though offended by it butting in.

"I repeat, Princess Pipp is missing," the voice continued. "Her disappearance comes soon after she was publicly revealed as a voice talent for the virtual performance group, Harmonoid. Authorities currently presume she has been abducted by a crazed fan, as occurred a week or two previous with another mare mistakenly identified as a performer..."

"That's..." Hitch furrowed his brows. "Izzy..."

Why do you always have to ruin everything for everyone?

"You were just there, weren't you?" Sunny scowled.

"I, I..!" Izzy stammered.

With your crazy ideas and your dumb smile.

"Just an hour or two ago, right?"

Nobody wants you around!

"You just exposed Pipp..." Hitch reminded her with a huge frown of his own.

Izzy's head buzzed, their faces floating in double vision, their words echoing and mixing with her own spiral of grief.

Get out of here, you witch!

Izzy jumped up from the table, sobbing. "I'm so sorry..!" she cried.

"Izzy..!" Sunny reached out.

But she twisted away, sobbing, and ran down the stairs.

Comments

[Tirimsil]

As foretold in the story description and possibly the comment I made earlier I don't remember, this is part of the obligatory "oh it isn't funny anymore" section of the story, which is maybe two and a half chapters.

I found it a bit difficult to return to clownery after this segment and hopefully have revised it enough to be presentable, but you won't be seeing whether that worked for another day or two, I guess!