Thunderlane absently bit his lower lip as he continued his observations. Rainbow Dash’s instructions had been clear: he wasn’t supposed to sound the alert until the main body of the fog started making its way down the mountain, which meant he’d have to stick around until the very last minute. The fog was now piled up extremely high, and he could see where the semisolid cloud that the previous day’s bonfires had created was starting to bend and bow from the strain of the fog building up behind it. Meanwhile, the very top of the fog bank was even less stable, as the north winds were starting to break off snowball-sized pieces that hadn’t fully congealed with the rest of the formation.
As these clumps skidded down the south face of the Unicorn Range, Thunderlane nervously double-checked to make sure that no rips or tears had appeared in his fog suit. He could tell that it wasn’t quite time to hightail it out of the area just yet, but even with his protective gear, he wasn’t too keen on being wrong. As much as he liked Flitter, he had no interest in joining her as another patient in the hospital.
Then again, it might be nice to have a chance to spend more time with her outside of work, he thought absently. Thunderlane shook his head rapidly to expel the idea from his brain. In all likelihood, Flitter was way too doped up on painkillers at the moment to appreciate the arrival of her special somepony as a fellow patient. And besides, if he was injured severely enough to be placed in the same ward as Flitter...
Thunderlane shuddered as memories of his special somepony’s mangled hoof floated back to his consciousness. He was fairly sure that Flitter wouldn’t fault him for not wanting to experience anything like that himself. Heck, I wouldn’t want anypony to go through something like that.
September 2 – 11:58 AM
A quick inspection of the trap revealed that everything was in good working order: absolutely nothing had happened to it in the previous three hours, and it looked like the Crusaders’ plan to trap a human would go off without a hitch, which was probably why Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were a bit perplexed by the rapid souring of Sweetie Belle’s mood.
“All that trouble, and we didn’t even need to leave the party,” the unicorn filly grumbled.
“Aw, buck up,” Apple Bloom said. “Now, we’ll be here to watch our trap in action.”
“No, we won’t!” Sweetie Belle shouted, leaning forward with a furious look in her eye. “In case you weren’t paying attention, there’s going to be an insanely thick fog rolling in! We won’t be able to see anything! Coming out here was completely pointless.”
“It wasn’t pointless,” Scootaloo insisted. “We had to make sure Mr. Shnookums was okay, didn’t we?”
“That hamster didn’t even need his food to be refilled!” Sweetie Belle yelled. “After what we did to Ms. Hooves, we’re probably going to be in more trouble than we’ve ever been in our entire lives, and there was absolutely no reason to do it!”
Scootaloo held up a hoof in protest. “Whoa, calm down—”
“I am not going to calm down!” Sweetie Belle retorted as she started pacing back and forth, shooting glares at her friends. “When our families find out about this, they’re going to completely flip out, and we didn’t even need to do it in the first place!”
“Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom said in her most diplomatic tone, “c’mon. Don’t ya think you might be overreactin’ just a little bit? I’m sure that Derpy’s gonna be okay, so what we did oughta be easy to forgive, right?”
“That’s not the point! You... you’re not even supposed to try to do what we were trying to do! It’s not right!” As Sweetie Belle’s pacing sped up, her mind was wandering far away from where she was putting her hooves, which might explain why it was at this point that she stepped on a stray sheet of bubble wrap, tripping and falling on her face as the popping noise echoed through the orchard. “Dammit!” the filly shouted through gritted teeth as she picked herself back up.
Scootaloo and Apple Bloom stared at her with their mouths agape. They didn’t remember Miss Cheerilee including that particular vocabulary word in their homework. “Okay,” Scootaloo said, “why don’t you take a few deep breaths before you go on.”
Sweetie Belle, however, only took one deep breath, and she followed it with a string of even more colorful vocabulary words.
September 2 – 12:00 PM
Mr. Shnookums’ attention perked up immediately when he heard the distinctive sound of popping bubblewrap, but at first he hesitated. That noise was the signal for him to start running, sure, but he was under the impression that everything around him was supposed to be murky and grey and cold when that happened—that was why the fillies had gotten a heater for his cage, after all. Then again, the orange one had made it quite clear that there would be consequences for not fulfilling his duty, and since Angel Bunny had seemed respectful of the orange one after the negotiations were finished, Mr. Shnookums could only assume that the orange one shared his personality. That was enough to obliterate his doubts; it was time for him to start running in his wheel.
As the hamster spun his wheel as fast as he could, a length of twine wrapped around an extension of the wheel’s axle. Soon, all the slack in the string had been taken up, pulling the release on a latch in a trap door, and the bowling ball that Scootaloo had acquired from the stallion with the goatee dropped onto a long, curving ramp.
September 2 – 12:00 PM
It didn’t take very long for Apple Bloom and Scootaloo to tire of listening to Sweetie Belle’s extensive linguistic demonstration, mostly because they were on the receiving end of it. “Okay, how about you stop cussin’ like a sailor for two seconds an’ let us get a word in?” Apple Bloom said.
“Like what?” Sweetie Belle replied with a snarl.
Scootaloo stepped forward. “Look, Sweetie Belle, you’re right that it was a mistake to—”
“‘A mistake’?! You think it was just a mistake?!”
September 2 – 12:01 PM
The bowling ball reached the end of the path and collided with a bucket of sand, tipping it over and pouring out its contents onto a balance scale. As one would expect, this side of the balance descended as more weight was added to its pan, causing its lighter counterpart to rise. The scale bumped against a metal toggle switch protruding from a pile of pillows and blankets that had been wrapped around a bulky-looking object and tied to an apple tree.
September 2 – 12:01 PM
“That’s it! I ain’t gonna just stand around an’ listen ta you acting all high an’ mighty!” Apple Bloom shouted.
“Yeah!” Scootaloo agreed. “You could have said something before we gave Derpy that muffin, but you decided to keep quiet.”
“Oh, so now it’s my fault?” Sweetie Belle asked, though it was rather obvious that she couldn’t care less how her friends answered.
September 2 – 12:02 PM
The jackhammer had been muffled quite expertly by the Crusaders, which was probably why they didn’t notice when it turned on and began shaking the apple tree. After what amounted to several dozen bucks in a matter of seconds, the tree gave up its bounty and the apples fell towards the ground. Some landed in a basket perched on the end of a seesaw-like lever, which launched another apple sitting on its opposite side into the air. The apple landed in a smaller basket hanging over the edge of a table a short distance away. This basket, in turn, was rigged up using a pulley and a counterweight. As the basket descended, the spinning pulley wound up a toy robot on the table, which soon began to walk forward.
September 2 – 12:02 PM
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just head back to town and tell everypony what you’ve done!” Sweetie Belle said as she subconsciously adjusted her posture to make herself look taller and more intimidating.
“Well, for one thing, it wasn’t just the two of us that did it,” Scootaloo retorted. “You’re every bit as guilty as we are.”
“An’ for another, you’d just be snitchin’ on us to try an’ get outta whatever your family does to you,” Apple Bloom added, pointing her hoof at their accuser.
“You call it ‘snitching,’ but I call it telling the truth.”
September 2 – 12:03 PM
The toy robot reached the opposite end of the table, where a rolling pin sat precariously close to the edge. A few bumps from the mechanical plaything was enough to send it falling to the ground, where it rolled until it knocked over a plank of wood that had been propping up a sheet of plywood that had been balanced on its edge. The plywood toppled over, creating a gust of air that caught a paper sail attached to the paper clip portion of Scootaloo’s hoof-made “thingamabob.” This was enough to overcome the friction of the bobbin on the string zipline, and the thingamabob sped along its path until it hit a ball-peen hammer that had been attached to a fulcrum at its base. The hammer tipped over and pressed the ignition switch of a butane lighter, creating a flame.
September 2 – 12:03 PM
Scootaloo’s patience with Sweetie Belle had already worn away, but that unicorn simply refused to think through the matter rationally. “No, Sweetie Belle, you’re the one who’s lost sight of what’s important.”
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. “You mean our cutie marks? Come on, everypony around us keeps telling us that they aren’t everything. Maybe they’re right. Maybe there’s more important things in the world, like not poisoning innocent ponies!”
“For your information, I wasn’t talking about getting our cutie marks,” Scootaloo replied as she poked Sweetie Belle in the chest. “I was talking about protecting everypony from the humans. I say that keeping everypony safe is way more important than keeping just one pony safe.”
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said with a firm nod of her head. “Maybe you oughta try thinkin’ about somepony other than yourself for once.”
Once again, Sweetie Belle seemed ready to blow a gasket. “What?!”
September 2 – 12:04 PM
The rope had been selected for two properties: its strength and its relative flammability. Thus, it wasn’t long before the lighter’s flame burned through it, releasing Pinkie Pie’s reinforced disco ball, which swung on a pendulum until it slammed into Tom. The massive boulder was strapped to a pair of skateboards, and the force of the impact was more than enough to send him rolling down a wooden plank.
September 2 – 12:04 PM
“Well, if you’re so freaking offended, why don’t you just leave?!” Scootaloo shouted.
“Fine! I will!” Sweetie Belle answered. The unicorn turned and began storming back towards Ponyville. “Maybe I’ll just quit this whole stupid crusade, too!”
“Whoa, hold up,” Apple Bloom said, raising a hoof.
Sweetie Belle turned back around. “No, I’m serious. It’s just not—”
“No,” Apple Bloom said, shaking her head. “I think I heard somethin’ like a bang...” She looked in the general direction of where she’d heard the noise, and noticed two things. First, most of their trap’s components had already been sprung. Second, Tom had just rolled onto a makeshift wooden pressure plate connected to the trebuchet’s firing mechanism. As the hoof-knotted, pine-tar-coated net was catapulted in the air, Apple Bloom looked down and realized that she and Scootaloo were standing on top of the target that they’d etched into the ground when they were calibrating their trap. She had just enough time to say, “Oh, horseapples,” before the sticky net landed on top of them.
September 2 – 12:05 PM
The fog was close to its breaking point now—really close. Thunderlane was sure of it. It wasn’t just bits and pieces breaking off from the relatively unstable upper regions of the formation now. The chunks were starting to come out closer to the mountain’s peaks, and they were getting larger. Most were still the size of snowballs, but a few watermelon-sized globs of vapor were tumbling down the mountain. Even the fog near the ground was now undulating with increasing frequency. It was all creating an uneasy feeling in the pit of Thunderlane’s stomach, like an unpalatable cocktail of stage fright and indigestion. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt the urge to fly as far away as possible as strongly as he felt it now, standing alone on a treeless mountainside and staring at a grey wall that pulsated with indifferent menace.
Then, all of a sudden, it happened: a great tear formed in the fog’s edge to Thunderlane’s left, ripping the wall from bottom to top, and the contents which had been held back poured forth. Even with his fog suit, Thunderlane was nearly bowled over when some of the grey miasma clipped his wing. He managed to regain control of himself and took off for Ponyville. Powerful though it was, the fog was still slow compared to a full-grown pegasus flying at top speed, which was most fortunate; the morass now pouring down the mountainside was something that Thunderlane wouldn’t wish upon his worst enemy.
Gasp! Something has gone wrong with the Crusaders' plan! Who could possibly have seen this coming? :D
Oh, dear this doesn't look good, fog bank approaching and trapped crusaders.
Interesting to see sweetie as team conscious and that was quite some falling out.
Good thing this is marked "comedy" or else the Crusaders' life expectancy just dropped to minutes.
Why does all of there plans end with them being covered in tree sap?
Oh...my...
So, the CMC’s human trap was a Rube Goldberg device, and all they actually caught was themselves? Figures.
oops the CMC are gonna be in for it big time when this is over and done with aren't they?
So many moving parts! It's a wonder the Crusaders' human trap didn't malfunction and spring itself. At any rate, the CMC subplot seems to have run its course and gone absolutely nowhere. Frankly, I think some of us were expecting it to throw a wrench into the fog disposal plans. Oh well, let's go back to the main plot.
This chapter was a thing of beauty.
It was worth it to see the Crusaders' plan go so spectacularly right at just the perfectly wrong moment.
What's coming next though...probably won't be so funny.
Or maybe it will....
4871570 Apparently not the Crusaders.
if Equestia had Walkie Talkies, Thunderlane would likely be SCREAMING into it with the Following Phrase: "THERE'S BEEN A CONTAINMENT BREACH! EVERYPONY TO THEIR ACTION STATIONS NOW!"
Run Thunderlane! Flee in terror from the dreaded VERY FLUFFY CLOUD.
A CMC plan failed? Say it ain't so.
I guess Sweetie's voice cracks sound like bubble wrap? That's adorable.
Also I admire your dedication to designing the Rube Goldberg machine. Gotta wonder how the Crusaders thought the humans would be captured by it, though. Maybe the sight of such a ridiculous machine was supposed to stun them in awe once they stepped on the target,
4871848 - No, Sweetie Belle stepped on some bubblewrap by accident at the beginning of the argument.
I'm more surprised that Sweetie Belle saw reason than the fact that they made a Rube Goldberg machine of that size.
4871851 Oooh missed that somehow. Sometimes I read too fast for my own good. I think my version of events is funnier, though.
4871737 Except there are 3 small fillies trapped out in a apple orchard with the worlds biggest and nastiest fog bank avalanching in with one of them in double trouble because of her pegasus nature.
Sweetie Belle fully came to her senses! She might be just about as responsible as Scoots and Bloom(but still not entirely so), but she at least understands what they did was wrong, whereas they are coming off as totally unrepentant and flippant about it. I'm firmly in Sweetie's corner on this one, the other two have just managed to irritate me. That being said, I hope the little punks make it out okay without anypony else getting hurt to rescue 'em.
Itsss, The Great Egg Race.
Whats a real pity is that they didnt dig a pit, with the sticky net, and lots of leaves. That way they wouldve been immobilised below ground with insulation and fog support, dispersal material. then again, given how thick that fog, cloud is, and the pit, people would be clamouring for the inches of rain to condense and start to fill said pit.
Scootaloo would be safe in the open, since she is repulsed by such fog, she would be pushed along in front, if not outrun it on a good road with her scooter.
Depends if Angel knows where Mr Schnookems is, or who else Fluttershy can ask to track them down.
Pfftahahahahahaha!
Very nice, very nice. How long have you been waiting to spring that old Tom-and-Jerry style trap? Genius!
I guess no one commenting has read carefully enough, but... only Apple Bloom and Scootaloo are the ones trapped in the net, not Sweetie Belle. In any case...
Sweetie Belle now has two options: stay and do what she can possibly do to save her friends (maybe grab Mr. Shnookums and the heater and bring them to the net?), or run and try to find a safety patrol and hope to get help in time.
Decisions, decisions....
4871609 Also, the fact that this is set between seasons 2 and 3, and they've appeared in several episodes after that. So they were always going to make it out of this.
4871948 - Scootaloo is safe because she's a pegasus? Uh, did you somehow miss the part where I tried to remind readers of what happened to Flitter? In case you've forgotten how bad a compound dislocation is, this is what it looks like when one happens to a human ankle. (Warning: you might want to skip that one if you have a weak stomach.)
4871948 Bit of a problem there...
Even if she had her Scooter, Scootaloo is in the middle of an orchard. The fog mass pushing her will make steering very difficult, even if she's just trying to maintain a straight line to stay in the aisle between the tree rows. And the orchard itself covers several hills, some of which are very steep, which adds more hazards and makes it even harder for her to steer. Assuming she somehow passes those hurdles, there's the problem of where the fog is heading. The Everfree Forest, with its underbrush, unevenly spaced trees, and dangerous wildlife. On the very unlikely chance that she manages to avoid getting crushed to death on any of that, she will end up having been pushed dozens of miles into the most dangerous forest in Equestria, with all of that massive fog bank between her and Ponyville.
Granted, she won't be alone thanks to the net - Applebloom will be right there with her.
4871936 If there were a real threat, their argument would have some merit so I find it hard to hold that part against them. Of course, that is about the only sensible thing that has come out of them in this entire story and the entire foundation of that reasoning is based on one of their other stupid mistakes which kills its validity because it is built on a faulty premise.
Oh geeze, these cliffhangers are killing me.
Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong... was probably caused by the CMC.
Perhaps, but just because they didn't inflict Derpy with a life threatening illness, doesn't mean what they did shouldn't be held against them. If some kid poisoned me in a similar manner, intending no permanent harm, but nevertheless caused me to vomit my guts out, you can bet they and their parents would be getting a earful and a call to the police. Kids do stupid things in real life and in fiction, which is okay and honestly expected, but it still has to bite them in the ass so they can learn that what they did was wrong. Scootaloo and Applebloom at this point in time don't seem to grasp that particular fact just yet.
And now the dashing hero, that's Pencil if anyone's wondering, saves the Crusaders and wins the heart of the fair maiden, that'd be Dash. What a twist.
If I ever hear Squeaky Belle swear I hope some one is nearby to call an ambulance for me. I'll probably die laughing otherwise.
Okay, I have to admit, that wasn't what I was expecting to go wrong with the crusaders's plan.
So, basically, covered in tree sap.
For some reason, I'm expecting humans to end up saving the CMC
4873420
DIRECTED BY SHAMALAMADINGDONG
4873827 thetomface.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/what-a-tweest.jpg
Rube Goldberg would be proud. This, girls, is why you never build a trap you yourself can't get out of.
Looking forward to more, especially if we get more incredible Sweetie rage.
Sweetie as the voice of belated reason? Well done, little marshmallow!
Also, I hope I'm not the only one who was reminded of The Incredible Machine when the Crusaders' Rube Goldberg machine started rolling...
......Ohcrap.. *hits button*
[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5amecYDq-8]
4872191 That's Finagle's Law. Murphy's Law is "If something can be used or done a right way and a wrong way, and the wrong way will lead to catastrophe, it will be used or done the wrong way by the CMC."
Why are people suprised Sweetie Belle is the voice of reason? Did they forget Babs Seed?
4876355
Of course, in Twilight Time I recall her being the exact opposite. Same with sabotaging Rarity that one time.
4876460 Still, it's not unheard of, and she always wises up when things get serious... like when they've poisoned Derpy for no reason or ruined Rarity's reputation forever.
The CMC can't die! Please don't kill them!
Wow, Sweetie got MAD. I wonder where she learned those words?
And now she is free, while Scoots is in very real danger of getting crushed, and Applebloom is in danger of freezing. Hoo boy. No pressure Sweets.
4873827 Well, it wouldn't be the first thing he M.Night Shatapon...
4872210
Scootaloo's brain doesn't seem to be designed to process facts. After all, when being told that the ONLY way to get her cutie mark is through introspection and finding out what she truly excels at, she yaps stupidly about namby-pamby stories about introspection and finding out what she truly excels at because, well, she's rock feathering stupid. Apple Bloom, on the other hand, is simply too impatient to think straight most of the time.
4877144
Primus looks after fools and children and those three are both so they're gonna be fine.
4883877
Who's Primus? Anyway, they can't die, because then this story would have a lot of dislikes.
What happens next:
Sweetie free us! We could be killed!
Say that I am the smartest one here and that you should have listened.
WHAT!?!
4883877 - Huh... Les Claypool must be a busy man.