Pinkie & Eric's Bonding Jungle Trip

by ThePinkedWonder

Chapter 2: Are we there yet? (Bear!)

Four hours. Felt like Pinkie and I had slogged through this jungle the whole day, not just four lousy hours. It seemed my body was becoming a little used to its muggy air, so it didn’t squeeze so much now. It just felt hot.

If that wasn’t enough, it was getting b-o-r-i-n-g boring! Leaf-crunching under feet/hooves had lost its charm and catharsis factor.

Not surprisingly, Energy Incarnate was still as energetic and cheerful as ever. I wasn't aboard the “Pinkie Pie Express” so she was back to doing her signature hopping, humming under her breath, as she led us to our target fruit.

“Ugh. Pinkie, I already know the answer, but are we there yet?”

“Not yet! Why did you ask if you already know, Silly Eric?”

“Because I’m that bored. I didn’t think I’d want it so much by this point, but do something ‘Pinkie Pie’.”

She halted her hopping and turned back to me. “Uh, what?”

“Pie us in the face, give me jungle lessons, sing, anything to liven things up. In fact, if you sing, I’ll sing with you in a duet.”

Pinkie’s eyes sparkled. She sucked in a deep, and I mean deep inhale, followed by her lips curling into one of the biggest grins ever. “You mean it?! You want to sing?!”

Did I actually say “I’ll sing” out loud? Oops!

“No, no, that wasn’t–”

“Hit it, strange unseen music player! He’s finally ready to sing!”

*upbeat music plays*

“No, I’m not! No, I’m not! I don’t want to sing! It was a joke!”

“♪ No, you can’t take it back! It’s time for you to sing! ♪”

I took a page out of something I had used on Twilight a few times. I laid into Pinkie with my best “puppy dog” eyes. “Big sis” Twilight always caved, sometimes hard, when I gave her those eyes–karma for the many times she roped me into begrudgingly doing something with her impossible-to-say-no-to adorable/adorkable smiles and faces. Maybe Pinkie would respond the same way; like Twi, she is a mare who’s older than me.

“♪ Eric, no, don’t look at me like that! You are going to sing, sing, sing! ♪”

Cue pouring on the puppy-dog eyes tactic further.

The Pink One let loose one of the poutiest groans of all time. “Fiiiiine.”

*Upbeat music ends*

Heh, the batting average for the ‘ol puppy dog eyes tactic remained 1.000. AKA perfect.

“But I am going to hear you sing someday. Just you wait!”

“Not likely, and if you do, your ears will learn too late why my lips should never sing. At any rate, this heat is starting to wear me down again. Are there any caves in this jungle or some place that’s cooler nearby?”

As was common with thinking ponies, Pinkie rolled her eyes upward. “Hmm…yep, there’s a cave about twenty or so minutes away.”

“Twenty minutes? That’s not too long a walk, so can we go there for a while?”

“Fine by me!” she exclaimed with her typical smile returning. Safe to say she was over being cheated out of hearing me try to sing. “We can use them as a shortcut to the part of the jungle with the fruit we’re looking for anyway.”

“Wait, if it would be a shortcut, then why didn’t you lead us there on your own?”

“You didn’t ask me to, Silly Eric,” Pinkie answered in a lighthearted yet sorta matter-of-fact tone.

“But how…” I facepalmed. No time to get too annoyed over how she didn’t choose to take us on that shortcut from the start. “Nevermind. Just lead us to the cave. If you know of more shortcuts, leave me to them, even if I don’t ask.”

“Okie-dokie! Follow me! We’re going cave walking!”

---

“Are we there yet?” Pinkie asked

“No.”

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

Yes, you are hearing right. Pinkie is asking “Are we there yet?” as part of a half-game/half-joke she cooked up to keep boredom at bay. To be fair, it worked for the first five or so minutes. But those five minutes had been up for at least ten minutes.

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“We’re here now!”

“No–I mean, we are?” I smacked my head to knock myself back out of auto-answer mode. Indeed, the inviting entrance of a cave, digging into a mountain, lay before us.

“Yep! Let’s go in! I can already hear your soon-to-be fruit calling for us!”

---

Oh yeah, that hit the spot. Compared to the humid jungle air, the cooler, freer air in this cave…I couldn’t even think of a fitting analogy! The only downside was that the cheery overhead view of treetops with dots of blue sky was swapped with a view of the dim and rough brown ceiling of a mountain cave. The stalactites growing down from the ceiling added some variety to the scenery though.

“It feels g-r-e-a-t in here! How long will we have to travel down here?”

“About an hour, I think. But once we’re out, we shouldn’t be too far from where the fruit is said to grow.”

With Pinkie hopping in front, she and I made our way through the cave’s winding tunnels. Funny–the earlier leaf-crunching was soothing, but after becoming used to it, the lack of leaf-crunching in this cave became the new catharsis factor.

---

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“Are we–”

Pinkie’s mane flapped side to side four times. Weird, unless it was her Pinkie Sense going off.

“Uh-oh.” Pinkie stepped backward to stand beside me. Somehow, it felt like it was almost out of protection. “Eric, we’re in trouble.”

“Why? What do mane flaps mean in Pinkie Sense language?”

“It means ‘a bear is stalking us’.”

“Wh–”

*Roar!*

Pinkie and I spun around. A colossal, hairy bear stood behind us! Did its teeth and claws look razor-sharp or what?! How did that thing get so close or trail us without one of us hearing it?! It must have been sleeping or whatnot in one of the tunnels we didn’t pick when we had two or more options to choose from.

I tried to force my feet to run, but they might have well been weighted down by cement shoes due to paralyzing, heart-gripping fright. The hairy beast lunged, but that pesky fear shut down my whole body! Couldn’t even open my mouth to scream.

A shove on my side forced me off my feet and smack onto the ground.

*Scream!*

My eyes widened. I looked at where that scream came from. That bear was pinning down Pinkie!

*Roar!*

“Ahh! Help!”

No. No bear tries to hurt or eat Pinkie Diane Pie if I can help it. Adrenaline gave fear a pink slip and became the new boss. Its first demand: grit my teeth. Second demand: reach into my backpack and yank out my alicorn-brand baseball bat. It was Bear Season.

“Hey! Get off her!” I whacked that bear with my bat, and threw in two more whacks for good measure. It lifted its paws off Pinkie and reared up to face me, or rather to look down at me; it had a good two-head height difference. It snarled and held firm, holding its ground I suppose.

Good. It would make 'ol hairy an easier target for batting practice.

“Eric, get out of here! I take back my scream for help! I don’t want to see you get hurt!”

“Pinkie, I’m not gonna get hurt.” I pointed my bat at big, tall, and hairy. “That’s the job of the ugly bear with a death wish.”

Preemptive strike! I dashed to the bear and went to town with one smash from my bat to another while unleashing battle shouts. The assault could not let up or else I’d risk eating a counterattack. It roared with each hit, but as my batting practice raged on, they started becoming more and more like whimpers. A shot in its chest, and it fell to one knee. Yeah, as if begging would save it.

“You like that?! Try this on for size!”

I wound up and ordered all of the strength I could call for duty. My hands’ grip on my bat tightened.

“Batter up!”

I swung for the fences, as in I smacked that bear with the strength of two Erics!

Ooo, that felt and sounded delicious! Ugly went flying through the air and landed with a big ‘ol thud. I made a beeline to where it lay – my new punching bag wasn’t getting off so easy for even daring to hurt Pinkie – but it hopped to its feet and fled down a tunnel. I was so tempted to give chase and continue the no-holds-barred beatdown, but my brain gave my rage the order to stand down. Had to catch my breath anyway.

“Yeah, you…*pant*...better run, ugly! Lay a paw on my friend again…*pant*...and I’ll make you into a fur coat!”

After a few more seconds, the not-so-scary bear dripped out of view. I turned to Pinkie and asked, “Pinkie, are you–”

A pink blur rushed into me. Forelegs clamped down on my back and squeezed. Tightly. Crushingly even!

“Thank you thank you thank you, Eric! You saved my life! If it wouldn’t be weird for you, I would kiss you right now!”

“Ow, how about less hugging too? You’re gonna snap me in half!”

Equestria’s strongest forelegs released their iron grip and I dropped to my knees. Yep, Pinkie – and ponies in general, especially earth ponies – is a lot stronger than she looks!

“Oops, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hug you that tightly.”

“Considering what almost happened to you, this is preferable.” I pushed myself to my feet and slid my bat back into my backpack. “But thank you for pushing me out of the way of Mr. Ugly when it tried to jump me, and we both can thank Twilight for making my bat have so much hitting power. My normal bat might not have been strong enough to own that bear, but you saw what I just did to it with my magic-powered one.”

“Yeah, you were amazing! I’ve never seen you like that before! You were a real badflank! Hehe.”

“Badflank” is close enough, I suppose. “Heh heh, what can I say? When we have our acts together and mean business, humans are warriors. Trying to hurt my friends is a way to wake up my warrior spirit.” I picked up my hat, which had fallen off my head when Pinkie shoved me out of bear-range earlier, stared toward a nearby tunnel, and yelled, “You hear that, bears?! If anybear nearby wants some, come out and get some! That first coward was barely a warm-up! I want a real bear of a fight!”

A new, big hairy figure emerged from deep inside that tunnel. Then a second one from behind it followed.

Oh, and then a third, fourth, and fifth figure crawled forward. Their eyes locked on me. Welp, that boasting sure backfired! Didn’t think there really were more bears so close, let alone several.

“Pinkie? I got a big mouth.”

“A very big mouth, but instead of rubbing it in, I’ll just tell you to board the Pinkie Pie Express again and I’ll RUN FOR OUR LIVES!!”

I hopped right on the Pinkie Pie Express and she sprinted down the caves with my "new challengers" chasing us. Man, those bears could run! They weren’t losing any ground.

There had to be some way I could help. Pinkie’s backpack caught my eye, and an idea popped into my noggin. I pulled out a sandwich from my pack, or rather half a one, and chucked it to the pony/human chasers.

No dice. They didn’t seem to even notice my sandwich. I threw out a couple of apples and a bag of chips.

Nada. Then maybe they’d bite on a granola bar. Nope, they ignored that too, and that was the last of my food ammo.

“Try throwing my food at them too! Throw it all if you have to!”

“How you know I’m throwing my food at them? You didn’t look back!”

“Eric, stop asking how I know things and just throw, throw, throw!”

I dug into and tossed out all the remaining food Pinkie had in her pack, which included two cupcakes, some cookies, and some strawberries. Better not tell Applejack about one of those things Pinkie had in her pack. The one thing I thought those bears would have the least interest in, a daisy sandwich, became the only thing they were interested in. They all stopped and sniffed said sandwich as Pinkie and I pulled further and further away. A wave of relief hit my muscles once they dropped out of view.

Pinkie kept running, just in case, and we reached an exit of the cave. But it led to a ledge that looked to be about four, maybe five stories from the muddy ground. I got off Pinkie's back and stared from the ledge–yep we were four or five stories from the ground all right. The outside heat slammed into my face, but there were bigger things to worry about.

“No!” I shouted. “We can’t jump from this high! Maybe–”

*Roar!*

I looked back. My stomach collapsed. Da bears popped back in view and were running toward us. So much of the idea of trying to sneak back that I was about to suggest.

“Eric, do you trust me?” Pinkie asked. I turned back to her and met her pleading eyes and frown.

“Huh?”

“I asked, ‘Eric, do you trust me?’”

“Y-yeah?”

“Then let me take your hand and jump!”

She curled her foreleg around my hand. She jumped off the cliff while pulling me with her! Was that crazy mare even crazier than usual?!

I barely got off a scream. Pinkie wrapped her forelegs around me and turned us in midair with our final position being her under me.

“Wh–”

Pony met ground, and Pinkie’s body was akin to a soft, pink pillow catching me. But despite Pinkie feeling like a living pillow, I bounced off her and landed beside her on my stomach. Both of us were decorated with mud we slammed into.

“Pinkie?! What were you thinking?! Are you hurt?!”

She rubbed her head, but answered as she smiled, “I’m a little sore, but I’m fine. Are you hurt?”

“Nope, thanks to you.” I stared up toward the ledge we had just taken a leap of faith from. The bear brothers had reached it and growled at us, but soon went back into the cave.

If I didn’t know better, one of them flipped me the bird with its paws before it left.

“I can’t believe you used yourself as a living cushion for me. Thank you, Pinkie.”

“Aw, that was nothing.” She gave a friendly wink. “That fall would have seriously hurt you, but I can take falls like that, no problem. Besides, you saved me from being bear food, so playing ‘cushion’ for you was a no-brainer.”

It only sank in now that Pinkie had eaten falls like that before–mainly the time Iron Will tossed her off a cliff during Fluttershy’s…phase. All it did was make her mane wet from the mud she landed on.

“Even so, you still saved me. There’s also how you pushed me away when I was frozen in place, or I might have been the one pinned by that first bear. But, we better not go into any more caves, just in case, and…”

I clenched my fists. Shame over my bit of earlier cowardness drilled holes in my conscience. It should have me pushing Pinkie away from that first bear, not the other way around!

“What?”

“I can’t believe I wimped out and froze when that first bear charged, yet you didn’t freeze up and pushed me out of its path. I know I got it off you, but it still kinda–”

She scowled and raised a hoof. “No, no, no, don’t think like that. You might not look at me as a big sister in the same way you do Twilight and Starlight, but I am older and know a thing or two about being a big sister. Therefore, if one of us should protect the other, it should be me protecting you–and don’t argue.”

With Pinkie being Pinkie, it didn’t happen often, but she had the aura of a big sister when she said what she did. Thus my mouth refused to argue. Instead, I peeked into my backpack lying in the mud. Oh boy. It was wet inside, and the…shape of my water bottles gave a good hint of why.

“Uh-oh. Despite how you softened my landing, that fall still broke two of my three bottles. The one that wasn’t broken was already fresh out of water.”

Pinkie peeked into her pack lying by her. A gasp left her lips. “Uh-oh times two. My bottles are either broken or empty too.”

“And if that wasn’t enough, I threw all of our food at those bears to try to get them off our tails, so we’re waterless and foodless.”

Pinkie sighed, her ears sagging. “What do we do now? We’re only about an hour or two away from where the fruit should be, but I’m thirsty from being chased by bears and being your emergency pillow.”

“I’m thirsty too, but I can get us more clean water at least.”

“How?”

I put back on my hat lying in the mud, stood to my feet, and put back on my backpack. “First, we gotta find a river or some other water source. I bought some steel, flint, and a little pot in my backpack just in case a jam like this happened.”

---

Good thing I wasn’t too lazy to remember Dad’s lessons about the wilderness–not that he would have allowed it. The three pieces of wood I had collected appeared to be sufficiently dry, and the smaller, thinner twigs would make fine kindling. The little clearing in the jungle we were in at the moment was already making for a sweet brief camping spot.

Maybe due to being out of practice, it was tougher than I expected to start a fire. But after a bunch of tries, I finally got one going. Lucky I had wrapped the flint in some old newspaper when it was in my backpack, so some of it managed not to get wet when my bottles broke.

“I don’t get it,” Pinkie said as she leaned her head toward the boiling water. “Why are you going to boil the water? Doesn’t cold water taste better than boiling water?”

I set a pot full of freshly scooped-up river water over the new fire. “I would prefer cold water, but boiling water from the wild for a few minutes makes it safer to drink. I wouldn’t be too surprised if you could drink it safely as it is, but I wouldn’t be so lucky.”

“Oh, right.” Pinkie lightly smacked herself on her head, which screamed “silly me”, and giggled. “Maud told me about that once, so I’ll drink your boiled water too. Did Twilight or Applejack teach you about this? I bet they’d know this stuff.”

“Neither. I learned from my dad during our fishing trips. He even taught me about using a hole in the ground as an emergency pot if you had no other options.”

“That’s Abso-lutely-tooly-amazing. I bet he’d be proud of you, so I’ll be proud of you in his place.” She petted me on my head. Yep, that’s something a parent might do to their kid, though I don’t think Dad ever pettted my head. He did sometimes rub it when he was proud or just out of fatherly affection.

“Thanks, but Dad knows a lot more about surviving in the wild than I do. Calling him a survival expert wouldn’t be inaccurate.” Memories of my trips in the woods with my dad when on our way to fish flooded my noggin. Father-son bonding he called our trips. I don’t remember the first time we went, but I remember that we usually went every two weeks and on occasion, he’d give a wilderness lesson, such as how to build fires. My two sisters still in my old world loathed fishing, so they never came with us. “But if he were here, he might get on my case over something I’m not doing quite right or should do better.”

“Hmm. He sounds like my dad. He could be tough on me and my sisters when we were farming rocks and the very rare gem as fillies, but he did it out of love.”

“Oh, speaking of gems, it’s a good thing Rarity isn’t out here with us. With how we lost most of our stuff, she’d probably scream ‘This is the worst possible thing!’” I grabbed my cheeks in grand drama queen/large ham fashion. “I’m doomed, darlings! Doomed, doomed, do-o-o-o-med!’”

“Ha ha ha! That’s mean, but that sounds just like something she’d say!”

“You like that, huh? Then how about this: ‘This is simply unacceptable! My hooves are dirty! A mare of class and beauty such as I cannot just drink water from the wild like some uncouth ruffian!" I threw myself to the ground. If only I had something I could use as a drama couch to jump on instead. "Too much more of this and I will be so-o-o-o do-o-o-o-med!’”

Pinkie fell on her back as her laughing intensified. She looked adorable laughing so hard. “Stop! It’s too much! Ha ha ha! Making ponies laugh this hard is my job!”

“All right, you ‘suffered’ enough. The 'Making Fun of Rarity Show' is over.” I picked myself off the ground and walked back to the pot of boiling water and looked it over. “After about another minute or two, the water should have boiled long enough to be safe.”

“Did your dad also give you tips on what we could eat out here, in case I get hungry before we leave?” She rolled off her back and stood on her hooves. “There’s no fruit, berries, or flowers around that’s edible for me.”

I tapped my chin. Of course Dad taught me about what’s edible in the wild, and some of it also existed in Equestria. Including one particular, drastic wilderness dining option that made me squirm when he first told me about it. “Well…he did tell me about one thing to eat that I could probably find right now. But, you’d probably faint if I told you what it is.”

“What? Come on, come on, tell me, tell me! I can take it!”

“Okay, but you asked for it. It’s fried worms, or at least fried earthworms.”

Pinkie’s mouth dropped as her pupils shrank. Hilarious! “WHAAAAT?! Fried W-w-w-worms?! Did you ever eat any?!”

“Dad did get me to try some once, but they’re really not that–”

*thud!*

Heh. I tried to warn her. While the fried worm-hater snoozed away, I poured the newly purified water into our surviving bottles and took a well-needed rest. Though, my rest was done while still awake.

After Pinkie finally came too, we left the clearing and resumed the fruit hunt. From what she said before, the hunt was set to be nearing its end!

---

Okay, maybe not.

We had been hunting all over the area Pinkie said that fruit should be growing. Yet even after two hours, all we found were fruitless but rose-filled green bushes, trees that only grew leaves, and vines hanging from said trees. The heat bearing down was as relentless a bully as ever. My muscles and feet weren't exactly happy about the soreness plaguing them either.

“Pinkie?” I wiped my head–it had called sweat to protect it again. “Are you sure we're looking in the right place? Maybe that fruit's in another part of the jungle.”

She yanked out her book out of her mane and skimmed through it. “Uh…according to my book, this should be where the fruit is said to grow.”

“Oh. Well, this jungle is big, so hopefully we just need to search a little longer, but it’ll be worth it once we find it. You said its spice can pump up the taste of any food, so have you ever used it before?”

“Nope.” Pinkie pushed her book back into her mane. "I've never even seen it. All I know about it is from my fruit book. Now that I think of it, did I tell you the fruit might not exist but is just strongly believed to exist?”

Author's Note: