Chapter 7 - Dirty Thieving Ponies
Pinkie looks forward. Still nothing.
They’ve been flying for what feels like ten minutes, and they still are gliding over a seemingly bottomless abyss below.
Thankfully, Trixie is able to illuminate the area around them, but all that does is let them see clearly how much they’re in the middle of nowhere.
“...Maybe there’s ground all the way down there?” Pinkie asks, trying to stay optimistic.
Trixie simply reaches into her pocket and pulls out one of her last remaining bits. She tosses it away.
The bit quickly disappears into the darkness below, and they don’t hear any sound whatsoever, even after about ten seconds.
“Or maybe not.” Pinkie says, dejected.
She begins to feel tired from her position in this ‘pony chain’, with her having to hold onto both the pegasus and Trixie with one leg each.
Even with above-average strength, and Trixie helping lighten the load with her magic, Pinkie is starting to feel the burn from having to essentially carry both her and Trixie’s weights with only one leg.
In hindsight it probably would've been a better idea to grab onto two of the pegasi's legs with both her forelegs, and Trixie could grab Pinkie’s hindlegs.
But considering she essentially pulled them both off the cliff with no warning, it’s a miracle that none of them fell to begin with.
Looking up at the pegasus, she isn’t looking too hot as well. Her being quite a bit slimmer than most pegasi isn’t doing anypony favors either.
She wants to talk to her, but distracting her right now might not be the best idea.
“You think you can levitate us more, Trixie..?” Pinkie asks, a bit weary.
Trixie glances up a little. “I could, but it’s awkward. Any more force I apply might begin to interfere with our hang-gliders wings.” Trixie says, sardonically referring to the pegasus.
Pinke puts her free hoof to her chin. “Hm… what if you dropped off and then flew yourself?”
Trixie snaps up. “Are you crazy? I can’t levitate for that long!”
“Well what else do you have in mind?” Pinkie asks, a bit desperately.
Trixie shrugs, at least as much as she can manage with only one free foreleg.
Pinkie bites her lip. She doesn’t know how much longer she can manage this… they might have to-
“Look!” The pegasus shouts.
Trixie and Pinkie quickly look forward, seeing a rocky cliffside in the distance, similar to the one they came from.
The trio give a collective sigh of relief. Pinkie hopes they somehow didn't make a U-turn on accident again, though.
After a minute or two, they’re finally close enough for the land to be below them, but it’s a bit too far below them. Definitely not a safe height to just drop down from.
“Okay! Can you uh… go down?” Pinkie asks towards the pegasus.
“I-I… can’t… my wings are… stuck.”
Pinkie looks confused. “What? What do you mean stuck?? Can’t you just descend?” She asks.
Trixie clicks her tongue.
“Pegasus wings can sometimes get ‘locked up’, making them stuck in whatever position they were at the time... but it only happens to inexperienced fliers, usually foals.”
The two look up at the pegasus, who looks down with a face of embarrassment and worry.
“I’m not a good flier, okay?” She says.
Pinkie tries to not groan.
“Uh… okay… so how do we get down?” Pinkie asks. They’re going further into land.
“I could try to control her wings, but it might be difficult from this position.” Trixie says. “And also it might hurt.”
“What?!” The pegasus says.
“Just relax! It’ll be fine.” Pinkie says. She truthfully has no idea how it will go, but better to keep her calm.
The pegasus sighs.
“Just do it.”
Her wings are enveloped in Trixies blue magic, and begin to bend a little. The pegasi's eyes immediately shoot wide.
“OW! Hey!” She yells.
“I literally told you it might hurt!” Trixie says, still trying.
“And it does hurt! Stop!” The pegasus says.
The two fight over the wings, making all three of them begin to dangerously rock in the air, rapidly decreasing and gaining in height. Pinkie just tries to keep everypony together, literally.
During the struggle, they hear a few pops from the wings. Trixie quickly stops her magic, cringing a little.
Pinkie expects the worst, looking up with one eye, but the pegasus doesn’t look pained, in fact she looks relieved. Her wings also look like they’re moving freely again.
“My wings aren’t stuck anymore!” the pegasus says, looking down with glee.
Pinkie sighs with relief. “Great! Now lets—”
The three yelp as a large stalactite whizzes past them. As they look ahead, they see they’re flying into a giant field of stalactites, and are high enough to hit them.
The pegasus tries to come to a stop as fast as she can, but veers dangerously close to one of the rocky obstacles. Trixie gives them a telekinetic shove away, moving them safely away, but accidentally causing them to lose control, death spiraling downwards.
The three scream. The motion doesn’t let the pegasus easily regain height, nor let Trixie keep doing her magic on her or Pinkie, meaning they’re falling even faster.
Pinkie looks down, seeing the ground coming closer. She bites her lip.
She lets go of the pegasus and trixie, the three splitting apart in the air. The pegasus immediately corrects herself in the air, beginning to safely float down, while Pinkie and Trixie plummet.
Trixie manages to slow her fall using her levitation. She wipes her brow as she floats to the ground safely.
She turns back upwards. She needs to help Pink—
Pinkie on top of her, the larger pony splatting Trixie onto the ground.
The earthen opens one of her eyes. She expected the landing to hurt a lot more.
“Trixie? Trixie, where are you!”
She feels a tap on her back-side. Pinkie turns around and sees the flattened Trixie looking back at her with mild annoyance and pain.
“Oh! My bad!” Pinkie says, quickly getting off the unicorn with a look of worry.
Trixie sits up with a groan. “Okay… that could've gone worse I guess. Where's the pegasu—”
The pegasus also lands on top of her, splatting her back onto the ground with another groan. Thankfully, she isn’t as large as Pinkie.
“Sorry… I got nervous while landing...” the pegasus says.
Trixie shakily raises a crooked leg in response.
The three dust themselves off. After a quick check, none of them are seriously injured, besides a few bruises and scrapes, almost all of which belong to Trixie.
Pinkie is about to say something, when the pegasus beats her to it.
“Can you now tell me who you two are?” she asks.
Pinkie remembers telling her ‘not important right now!’ in response to that question during the chase. Now’s a better time than any.
Trixie looks a bit hesitant for some reason, but Pinkie scoops her closer with her foreleg around the unicorn's shoulder.
“I’m Pinkie Pie, and this is Trixie. We’re a part of the Travelers Troupe!” Pinkie exclaims.
The pegasus looks confused.
“What is that?”
Pinkie’s jaw nearly hits the floor.
“YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF THE TROUPE?!”
The pegasus closes her eyes and leans back a little from the shout.
“No..?” she says, slowly opening one eye.
“It’s just the most popular and known traveling group in all of the Underworld! Nearly everypony knows about us!” Pinkie says, with glee.
Trixie frowns. “Yeah. They know about the Troupe. Usually for the wrong reasons.” she corrects.
“Not our fault if some ponies don’t know how to have fun!” Pinkie says, undaunted.
She turns back to the pegasus, who still looks confused.
“Now you! What’s your story? I assume you gotta have something good judging by your crazy clothes…” Pinkie says, pointing at the pegasi's strange plant-like dress.
“Uhm… my name is Fluttershy. I’m from Gaia’s Grove, birthplace of the Earth Family.”
Pinkie blinks a few times, slightly confused.
“Isn’t that like the mythical Earth Family promised land?” Trixie asks.
“Mythical..? It’s not a myth. I came here from there.”
“You sure you aren’t talking about The Stem? That’s where most of the Earth Family—” Trixie gets cut off.
“I don’t know any ‘stem’ besides the ones plants have. I said I came from Gaia’s Grove.” Fluttershy says, reaffirming her position. I'm the send-off for this century, and the tenth one over-all over the millenia." she says, as serious as possible.
There’s an awkward pause.
“Can you give us one second, Fluttershy?” Trixie says, pulling Pinkie about twenty feet away and turning away from the pegasus.
“Okay. This mare is very clearly crazy. I was already suspicious when she said she was in the Earth Family, but this is next level. She’s like crazy squared or something.” Trixie says to Pinkie.
“What if she’s just like… really enthusiastic about it all? They say religion has good morals, right? That’s good!” Pinkie says, trying to keep it positive.
Trixie gives her an unapproving look. “It’ll be positive until she starts trying to cut us open and sacrificing us to Gaia or whatever.”
“Well what do you suggest then doing then?”
“We could like, sneak away?”
“We just risked our lives to get her out of that auction and you wanna ditch her as soon as it gets a little weird?” Pinkie asks, bewildered.
“YOU risked our lives to save her. Maybe there’s a reason why she was in that cage! I mean look at her!”
The two glance back to see Fluttershy simply sitting and staring into the distance. She scratches one of her eyes.
“See? She has to be hiding something from us!” Trixie says.
“Oh come on! You’re just being a mean mule. Even if she’s a bit weird and or crazy, I promise you nothing will go wrong.”
Trixie remembers that’s exactly what she told Pinkie before everything went wrong at the market.
“Fine. But don’t complain once we’re having to fight some giant tree monster or something stupid like that.”
The two turn and walk back to Fluttershy, who just looks at them with a blank expression.
“Okay, Fluttershy. Let’s not talk about ourselves for now, alright? First thing we need to do is find a way back to civilization.” Pinkie says.
They look at the area around them. It looks like a somewhat mountainous area, with large mounds of rock jutting towards the ‘sky’, some of the largest ones even meeting the rocky ceiling above. There’s a few natural trails going in various directions.
“What’s wrong with staying here? It looks pretty similar to Gaia's Grove…” Fluttershy says, pointing towards the untamed wilderness ahead.
Pinkie glances over to see Trixie twirling her hoof around her own temple while making a stupid face, gesturing towards Fluttershy afterwards. Pinkie rolls her eyes.
“Uh… we cant because... someponies already live in that forest."
"I'm sure they wouldn't mind some more friends." Fluttershy responds.
"They dont want more friends! We need to... leave." Pinkie coughs a few times.
Despite her light hearted demeanor, Pinkie is starting to lose her patience a little. The last place she wants to be right now is in the middle of nowhere when it turns night.
Fluttershy doesn’t seem fully convinced, but obliges.
After a few minutes of walking, they come across a three-way split in the trail.
One path goes higher up into the mountains, another goes straight ahead, and the final one veers off into the woods.
“We should take the mountain path. It’ll get us a better vantage point of the area ahead.” Trixie says.
“No way! Let’s keep moving forward. It’ll be way easier than having to trek up the mountain too!”
“What do you care about it being easier or not? You’re an earthen, you could probably walk up a 90 degree incline.”
“Wouldn’t that just be a wall?”
Before the two can even begin to seriously bicker, they see Fluttershy beginning to walk towards the woods alone.
Pinkie nearly trips over herself running up to the pegasus, before flipping around and walking backwards at her side.
“Woah! Hey! Where are you going?”
“Into the forest. I know its embrace and warmth will protect me.” she says, not even looking at Pinkie.
“Erm… I know you have your whole Earth Family belief thing going on, but that looks like a completely untamed and wild forest to me. I wouldn’t—
Fluttershy gives her a side-eye.
“Are you going to put me in a cage if I refuse to stop?” Fluttershy says, clearly a bit agitated.
“...no?”
“Okay then.” Fluttershy says, continuing further towards the tree-line.
Trixie walks up next to Pinkie with an unsurprised expression.
“We can’t just let her go by herself, Trixie! Something bad will happen!” Pinkie cries.
Trixie shrugs. “If she wants to go, then let her go. At least she’s out of our mane, and we didn’t even have to do any morally questionable actions.”
She turns back towards the two other paths.
“Now then, as I was saying, the vantage point we could—”
Glancing back, she sees Pinkie running to catch up with Fluttershy.
“Oh, come on!” Trixie yells. She runs up to catch up with the duo as well.
As the trio walk through the forest, Pinkie is a little surprised at how it actually doesn’t seem so bad. It’s actually sort of nice!
Some good light, fresh air, and even the chirping of birds. Maybe she was just overreacting?
Her original thoughts are quickly validated as eventually the forest begins to take a turn for the worse.
The foliage becomes thicker and begins to wrap upwards, obstructing the visible light. The gentle grass and nice trees begin to become more dense and packed, and the chirpings of birds are replaced with both an eerie silence, and occasional unknown noises. Pinkie can’t tell which is worse.
Even the previously confident Fluttershy begins to look a bit worried. This isn’t similar to Gaia’s Grove anymore.
“S-should we turn back?” She asks, a bit fearful.
Trixie raises an eyebrow. “And get misdirected and lost? No thank you. We’ll keep moving forward, like you wanted, right?”
Fluttershy gulps. “Can we at least find some food?” she asks.
“Are you planning to eat rocks or something? There isn’t anything edible out here.” Trixie responds.
“What? There’s supposed to be all sorts of fruits and vegetables growing everywhere!”
Fluttershy lowers herself closer to the ground and begins to search around rocks and dirt, a bit desperately.
Pinkie and Trixie share a worried glance. Pinkie approaches Fluttershy slightly.
“Fluttershy, we can—”
Fluttershy suddenly screams in fear, suddenly scampering backwards. One of the rocks she lifted up has some black centipede-like bug underneath.
Pinkie, also surprised by the bug, immediately squashes it. She cringes as she wipes the bottom of her hoof clean.
Fluttershy looks appalled.
“Why did you do that!” Fluttershy cries.
“Wha—look at it! That thing is scary! Or at least, was.” she says, looking down at the now-crumpled bug.
“That doesn’t mean you should kill it!”
Pinkie looks bewildered. “You literally screamed because of it!”
“Because I was surprised! Should you destroy everything that surprises you?!" Fluttershy asks, noticeably heated up.
Pinkie looks over to Trixie. The unicorn looks equally as appalled.
“Pinkie… you shouldn’t have done that.”
“I thought you said the Earth Family was stupid like five seconds ago! Are you gonna lecture me about stomping on bugs too?”
“It’s not that you stomped on a bug, idiot! It’s what bug! That was a baby Death Crawler! Do you know how the adults find their prey??? Take a big sniff!”
The three smell the air. There’s a very powerful and pungent smell coming from the baby's crushed body.
They barely have a few seconds before they hear a large amount of rustling and skittering coming from behind them. It doesn’t take a genius to realize what that means.
“Run! Again!” Pinkie yells.
A gigantic black centipede bursts out of the tree-line, screeching. The three take off as fast as possible.
“What the heck is that thing?! Bug’s aren’t supposed to be that big!” Fluttershy screams in terror.
“Nothing is supposed to be that big!” Pinkie responds, equally scared.
Trixie tries to look around for something that could help them escape, but there's nothing except vines and trees around. Nothing to throw in the monster's way or anything like that.
“Can we fly out of here?!” Pinkie yells.
“I don’t think I can get high enough to get away in time with all three of us!” Fluttershy cries.
“Then fly away by yourself!” Pinkie says.
Fluttershy looks at Pinkie briefly, who just nods. Fluttershy whimpers a little, but does so. With a few gusts of her wings, she’s safely in the air.
Trixie looks at Pinkie with a scowl.
“Great! We’re gonna die while she gets away safe and sound!” She yells.
“Would you rather all three of us die?!” Pinkie retorts, still running.
“Well I would've at least liked to draw straws or something about who gets to live!” Trixie yells.
Her eyes widen as she sees the centipede charging at Pinkie.
“Watch out!” Trixie cries.
She flings Pinkie with her telekinesis, sending the pink pony tumbling safely away from the path of centipede. This, however, causes the beast to loop around and come back at Trixie herself.
Trixie gasps as she creates a protective bubble. The centipede slams into it like a train. She struggles to hold it. She’s never been the best at making barriers in specific, especially not now when a gigantic monster is trying to break through it.
Getting back up from the tumble, Pinkie sees the centipede wrapping its body around Trixie’s bubble like a snake, slowly adding more of its body-weight.
Trixie slowly makes the bubble smaller to try and conserve energy, but she’s slowly being crushed from the lack of space.
Pinkie looks in horror. She desperately reaches through her bag, for something, anything that could help.
The protective bubble, barely a pony-sized membrane now, begins to crack further. Trixie can’t hold it for much longer.
Suddenly…
POP!
The centipede shrieks in pain and writhes, body loosening away from Trixie. She looks up to see Pinkie threw a confetti bomb at one of its eyes. Besides covering the eye itself, tiny pieces of glitter slip into the various crevices in its carapace, causing agitation.
Pinkie frowns. She was planning to use that later…
The centipede, still writhing, is still a hazard due to its sheer size. Pinkie narrowly dodges being smacked by a part of its body, as Trixie levitates herself away to avoid being stabbed by one of its legs.
After some more writhing, it eventually re-focuses on the duo.
Fluttershy watches from above in terror, hooves in her face. This is all her fault! She can’t even bear to look.
The centipede shrieks once more, before charging at Trixie and Pinkie. Out of options, the two can do nothing but prepare for whatever happens next, bracing themselves while looking away.
After a few seconds, nothing.
They look back in surprise.
Not only did the centipede not attack them, but it looks like it's… fighting something else? Something in the trees?
No… it’s fighting the trees themselves.
Large vines and stalks begin to creep on and around the centipede from the nearby foliage and tree-line. It thrashes around, breaking many of them, but more come to replace the destroyed ones. They begin to wrap around the various parts of the beast, restraining it fully. It shrieks as it’s dragged away deeper into the forest from whence it came, out of sight and out of mind.
Trixie and Pinkie look completely flabbergasted.
Fluttershy descends from the air next to them, looking equally confused and also still scared, even babbling a little bit.
“I'm so sorry! I didn’t know any of this would happen! I made you guys—”
Trixie cuts her off.
“Apologies later. Let’s get out of here now before something even worse shows up.”
Pinkie and Fluttershy are all too eager to agree.
The three eventually escape the forest, coming back into a terrain Pinkie and Trixie are more familiar with, flat and rocky.
Fluttershy doesn’t click with it much, but she relents that this unfamiliar landscape is much better than whatever that ‘forest’ had going on. She still looks a bit shaken up, though.
Their whole days worth of mishaps has taken its toll. The three of them are exhausted and tired, and it’s even starting to become dark as well.
“We’re going to need to find somewhere to rest. Unless Fluttershy wants to go sleep in the forest?” Trixie says, glancing back the pegasus, who quickly shakes her head.
“Hey! Lay off. It was a simple mistake.” Pinkie says.
Trixie shrugs.
“Fluttershy, do you think you could fly up and see if there’s any sort of like… buildings or something?”
“You know, going up the mountain path and getting a good vantage point would've—”
“Shaddup.”
Fluttershy lightly nods, flapping up into the air. She looks around, squinting off into the distance, before spotting something and flying back to the ground.
“There’s like a… big… shack?” She doesn’t really know the right word. “It looks like it's… inside a cliff?”
Pinkie and Trixie raise their eyebrows. They assume there is some kind of building in the distance, but that Fluttershy doesn’t know exactly how to describe it or what it even is.
The trio cross over a small ridge ahead. Trixie's and Pinkie’s face light up.
It’s a tavern! Surely they can get some food and rest there.
Fluttershy doesn’t seem to have the same enthusiasm though, unfamiliar with the structure.
“What is th—”
She’s cut off by Pinkie and Trixie quickly trotting towards it. Fluttershy’s eyes widen as she rushes to catch up with the duo.
As they approach closer, they seem to realize what Fluttershy meant by ‘inside a cliff’. A sizable portion of the tavern lies within a carved out section of a cliff-side above the tavern itself. It’s sort of nestled into the wall.
They get to the door without much fuss, and enter it. Pinkie notices Fluttershy standing outside with a look of apprehension.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m… not familiar with this kind of place. What is it?”
“It’s a tavern, Fluttershy. You just hang out and relax and eat and drink and it’s nice!” Pinkie says.
That description seems to warm up Fluttershy a little bit, but she still doesn’t look fully convinced.
“Come on Pinkie, you’re letting the hot air out!” Trixie says from inside.
Pinkie grumbles at the remark.
“Just coooome on and you’ll see for yourself!” Pinkie says, pulling Fluttershy inside with an ‘eep’.
The trio look at the tavern around them. Tons of ponies sit at various tables or counters, with a few of them serving the whole mass. There even looks to be some sort of performing stage.
Fluttershy’s heart sinks at the sight of the stage.
“Am I going to be put into another cage?!” Fluttershy cries, a bit loudly. Some ponies give some strange looks.
Pinkie puts a hoof over her mouth quickly, chuckling awkwardly.
“Calm down! Whatever happened back at the other place was a super bad thing. I promise you it’s not like that here.” Pinkie says.
Fluttershy just looks at her, Pinkie's hoof still on her mouth. She simply nods a little. Pinkie removes her hoof with a small ‘pop’ sound.
Trixie scans the crowd, seeing a few unscrupulous looking characters sitting at further spots away from the door. Pinkie and Fluttershy don't seem to notice, but maybe letting them relax is for the better.
The three find a table for themselves, with Pinkie and Trixie pulling out some chairs and taking a seat.
Fluttershy looks at the chair on her side with some confusion, unfamiliar with the object. She looks at what the other two did, awkwardly and loudly pulling her chair away from the table, and carefully taking a seat. She then tries to scoot back to the table, just as loudly.
Trixie face-hooves, and levitates the chair slightly back to the table, with a bit of surprise from Fluttershy’s part.
An attendant brings them some menus.
Pinkie seems impressed. “This place must be nice! Usually they just make you have to guess what’s available!” She says, inspecting the options.
There’s various dishes like salads, pizza, vegetables, and pies. Pinkie licks her lips looking at some delicious and nutritious looking pear fritters.
Fluttershy tries to figure out what the correct alignment of the menu is, but also looks confused at the drawings of the food, even trying to grab one of the dishes at one point.
Trixie’s scans the options lazily for a little, before her eyes widen.
“Pinkie, do you see this? Look at the bottom.”
Both their eyes drift down, looking at a nestled away option.
Fish.
It’s apparently some sort of ‘dare’ item — “The Devil’s Catch”, fit with over-the-top red and orange streaks and visuals attached to it, like some scary face.
Trixie gags a little, but Pinkie looks slightly intrigued.
“Why not? Let’s try it!” she says.
Trixie looks at her like she’s insane.
“Ew! No! Why would you even suggest that?!”
“Come on Trixie, live a little! Try new things!”
“Yeah I’d like to live a little not die a little.”
“You’re just overreacting. You’ve probably eaten a fish in your life anyways! Experts say ponies eat one fish a year in their sleep.”
“That’s not true!”
“Ok yes, it isn’t, but still! Just tryyyyyy it come on.” Pinkie says.
Trixie groans.
“Fine. But you’re paying for it.”
The two realize the elephant in the room, or the pegasus more accurately. They look at Fluttershy still fumbling with the menu.
“What about her? No way she’s going to do it.” Trixie says.
“We’ll buy her a salad or something.”
“What if she freaks out about the fish?”
“Well let’s hope she doesn’t.”
Trixie can’t argue with that logic, so she simply shrugs.
Eventually, the attendant comes back to them.
“Hey, we’d like two of ' The Devil’s Catch's, one Mushroom Salad, and three waters please.”
The waiter looks at them with a sly grin and chuckle.
“Couple of dare-ponies, huh? I see…” he says, taking away the menus. Fluttershy, who finally figured out the correct alignment, frowns as it gets pulled away.
After a bit of waiting, the attendant brings back the dishes.
Pinkie and Trixie look at their plates with some worry, even with Pinkie being the one who wanted to try it.
It certainly doesn’t look like any fish they’ve ever seen, being entirely featureless, having no visible fins or extremities, and being a golden color. It looks a bit sandy. They do admit that it makes it a bit less intimidating considering they can’t even tell it was a fish, though.
Pinkie is the first one to take the plunge, taking a piece off and eating it cautiously.
Trixie looks with anticipation and a bit of fear. For all she knows, Pinkie could turn into some flesh-eating monster any second now!
The earthen chews cautiously, but she’s surprised. The meat is soft and actually pretty clean, being a shiny white instead of some bloody red. It’s a hard flavor to describe
“Hm… it tastes kinda like… ‘juicy’ bread? Bit salty.”
This description is enough to tempt Trixie, who takes a bite out of her own, cringing a little. She’s also pleasantly surprised.
“Hey, this isn’t half bad!” Trixie says. Pinkie nods, already taking more bites out of hers.
Fluttershy sitting on the other side of the table silently eats her salad, pretty content. Although she is curious what that weird yellow and white food the other two are eating…
As the three eat, Pinkie’s attention suddenly gets caught up by the stage in a further part of the tavern. She taps on Trixie's shoulder and hooves in the direction, both of them glancing over.
There’s some stage pony giving a stand-up routine, or at least trying to. He looks nervous, and the crowd around him doesn’t look very pleased either.
“S-so this one time I was over at the Terminus Guild right… man those guys love their trains. I was—”
“What’s a train?” Someone in the crowd asks.
“It’s like a big metal wagon thing that’s not important right now!” The stage pony snaps slightly, gulping his own tone.
“So I was on one of their trains, right… and they had like this little kiosk IN the train selling food? So I’m just like… hey! What’s the deal with railway food?”
There’s a horrible silence from every pony watching the routine, the only noise coming from the other ponies further away.
“Boooo!” One pony says, throwing a tomato. Other ponies join in pelting the performer who quickly gets ran off.
Pinkie blows her lips.
“That guy sucked! I could totally do that, easy peasy!” She says.
Trixie rolls her eyes. “Probably. But why bother? We should get out of here soon, I’m already feeling stuffed.”
Looking back towards her dish, her eyes widen as she sees Fluttershy nibbling on the fish. Fluttershy glances up awkwardly, noticing Trixie looking back at her.
“Fluttershy! What the heck!” Trixie says.
Fluttershy immediately recoils, looking embarrassed. “S-sorry! Was I not supposed to do that??? I thought we could eat each other's food…”
Trixie isn’t very mad about the food being eaten, more like what the food was.
Her and Pinkie share an equally worried glance.
“Fluttershy, do you know what that dish was?” Trixie asks.
“...no.”
“It was fish, Fluttershy.”
The two expect Fluttershy to react horribly, but surprisingly she doesn’t even blink.
“Oh. Okay. I haven’t heard of that before. Is it a fruit or vegetable?” She innocently asks.
“Its meat, Fluttershy. Meat.” Trixie says.
Fluttershy STILL doesn’t react.
“...is that a fruit?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
The two can’t tell if Fluttershy is messing with them, but they’re probably too deep anyway.
“Fluttershy. Meat is food that comes from a dead animal. It’s not a plant. You ate an animal.”
Fluttershy looks at the two of them calmly and blankly for a few seconds, the only change in her expression being her eye pupils unnaturally constricting slowly.
She suddenly begins to retch a little, like a cat with a hairball. Her eyes begins to tear up.
“Why did you tell her!” Pinkie says.
“What if we didn’t tell her and she kept going?!” Trixie says.
Pinkie tries to calm Fluttershy down, but she looks like she’s nearing a breakdown, even smacking at her tongue to try and get the residue off.
Pinkie physically has to grab her to stop her from making more of a scene. She’s about to put a hoof on her mouth again, when suddenly an attendant comes over with a small bill, putting it on the table. Fluttershy briefly pauses her break-down to look over at it, alongside Trixie and Pinkie.
“Wh—”
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Trixie shoots Pinkie a death glare. Fluttershy doesn’t understand what the problem is, but the glare itself is intense enough to make her stop freaking out.
“Ah… my bad…” Pinkie says, with a light but nervous chuckle.
“Pinkie! What are we going to do! We only have like, fifty bits combined!” Trixie says.
Both their thoughts immediately drift to ‘dine and dashing’, but after an entire day full of walking and running, the last thing they want to do is get chased by an angry mob again.
They wrack their brains for ideas. Pinkie lights up.
“Oh! Maybe I can do a performance and ask for them to wipe off the bill! Surely if I can do a good one, they’ll do it!”
Trixie grumbles. It’s an unlikely plan, but better than nothing.
“Just hurry up. Last thing I want to do is tell the attendants we’re a couple of bums.”
Pinkie runs off to find someone who she could make that deal with, while Trixie just awkwardly sits next to the still quaking Fluttershy.
“W-what… what was its name…” she croaks.
“It’s name??? Wha— Fluttershy. It’s a fish. Those things barely have brains.”
The explanation didn’t seem to do much to help, though. Fluttershy keeps shivering.
Trixie groans. “Just look, here.” She makes sure nopony around her is paying attention.
With a poof of blue energy, a fish appears in-front of Fluttershy, on the table. It flops around, but doesn’t appear to actually interact with anything around itself for some reason.
Fluttershy pauses her breakdown, looking at the fish with a mixture of confusion and intrigue. After a little while, she seems to calm down somewhat.
She can't "feel" anything from the fish. Not like the other animals at Gaia’s Grove.
Fluttershy still feels nasty for eating an animal, but at least it appears to not be like the ones that she knows and cares about.
With another poof of blue energy, the fish disappears.
Fluttershy looks at where the fish was with a bit of confusion. “How did you do that?”
“Just magic stuff." She pauses. "But please don’t tell Pinkie I can do that.”
Fluttershy gives a strange nod.
“Oh… kay?”
Pinkie goes towards the back rooms of the Tavern to try and find the owner or manager or something.
She passes by one room with a door slightly creaked. She unintentionally overhears a conversation inside.
“When is the shipments gettin’ here?” one voice says.
“Just wait on dude. Have patience, or else.” another responds, with some venom at the end.
Pinkie quickly walks away from whatever was happening there, not interested in getting wrapped up in something else new already. After turning a few doors, she finds someone who looks like the owner.
He looks back at her. “Hello? Who are you?”
“Hey I’m just gonna give it straight. Me and some friends came here to eat but we can’t afford the bill.”
The owner raises an eyebrow.
“Oh so you’re saying you’re some dine and dashers?” He says, reaching for a bat.
Pinkie holds her hooves up defensively.
“WAIT! No! I want to ask if I could… do some work?”
The owner looks skeptical,
“As in?”
“There was some pony on the stage doing a horrible stand-up routine. He literally got tomatoed off of it!”
The owner bites his lip.
“Bah! I knew I should've stopped selling tomatoes during the routine… Anyways, what's your point though?”
“I’ll do a free show for you. On the condition that if I do good, you’ll remove my bill.” Pinkie offers.
The owner looks amused. “Really? You’ll do a whole routine just to strike off a few orders?”
Pinkie doesn’t blink.
“Alright. Sure. You’ll be up in ten.” he says, waving his hoof.
Pinkie looks surprised that it actually worked, but then at the incredibly short time.
“Ten minutes?! I can’t—”
“You offered it, now do it.” The owner says, turning away to do something else.
Maybe she didn’t think this through fully.
Trixie and Fluttershy sit at their table, waiting. They see the stage being cleaned up from all the tomatoes.
“Why did they throw all those perfectly good tomatoes?” Fluttershy asks.
Trixie glances over.
“Oh. Uh. Ponies do that when they don’t like someone, usually on like a stage or something.”
Fluttershy looks confused. “Does it hurt?” She’s never been hit by a tomato, so she doesn’t know.
“Not… really? It’s more like a sudden and easy way to show everypony you think something sucks. It also stains your clothes really badly. Try cleaning out the whites when they’re covered by red. That's how you get a bunch of pinks.”
Fluttershy has no clue what those last two sentences meant, but nods anyways.
Trixie looks back at the stage. She assumes Pinkie managed to get the deal going considering she didn’t come back and make the three of them jump off another cliff or something.
After a few minutes, there's a small horn from the stage, a few ponies going up to watch. The owner sits at a distance as well. That’s presumably the sign that a new act is about to start.
A few seconds later, Pinkie comes from the side of the stage with a stool on her back, eventually placing it down and sitting atop it. She waves at Trixie with a smile.
A confused Trixie waves back slightly.
“What’s going on y’all? My name is Pinkie Pie! Nice crowd we got here!”
The group of ponies watching don’t react one bit. One of them does a dry cough.
“So. Back from where I came from, me and my folk used to farm rocks. They still do, though. It’s a pretty sedentary job. Me, myself? I’m more of a rolling stone. I don’t like to stay in one place.”
There’s a few murmurs.
“I honestly gotta admit I never understood the point of rock farming. Like… we’re in the underworld! There’s rocks everywhere. Although I guess it’d be like comparing a farmer's crop to just eating random roots in the ground or something. Ponies can get really particular about their rocks. When a customer gave us their preferences, it was basically set in stone. Trying to argue with them would get you nowhere besides rock bottom.”
There's a few chuckles, mainly from some earthen ponies. Most of the crowd doesn’t seem very convinced, though.
“This one time my father was trying to teach me the cut and dry ways of pitching a sale. I really was a chip off the old block of that old man. Steady as a boulder, but he did have a heart of stone sometimes. Thankfully, I was able to chip away at it throughout my years. Anyways, while we were trying to sell one of the rocks, the thing nearly grew a mind of its own and started to roll down a nearby hill! I Immediately ran after it, but there wasn’t exactly a rock-solid foundation below me. I tripped and took a bad tumble, getting buried in a big pile of mud. Family was only able to find me from my pink mane sticking out, said it was like a ‘diamond in the rough’.”
There’s a few more laughs in the crowd. Even Trixie gives a small smile.
“Me and one of my cousins’ were out exploring a cave. I will say though, that stallion was overweight. Looking at him without a good light you could confuse him for a boulder. Anyways, we reached a tight squeeze. I went in first, figuring that if he got stuck, I would be able to keep going anyways. Unfortunately, the squeeze ended up being a dead end. When I turned to go back out, I saw my cousin got wedged in anyways! You can call that being stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
There’s a good amount of laughing now. Trixie chuckles a bit.
Pinkie is about to keep going, when suddenly the doors to the tavern burst open.
“THERE SHE IS!” A familiar voice shouts. Everypony turns over to look from where it came from.
The auctioneer from the flea market, alongside a few lackeys.
Ok, maybe he didn't have a change of heart.
“That pink pony stole from me!” He yells, pointing a hoof.
“Proof?!” Pinkie yells.
The auctioneer stammers a bit.
“Wha— what?! You want me to have a lease or something? You stole from me!” He says again.
His lackeys all agree with murmurs.
“Hmm… did I steal from him, anyone?”
“Nope.” Trixie
“No she did not.” Fluttershy agrees.
The auctioneer growls, recognizing the two of them as well.
Pinkie gets off the stool.
“Okay well, I assume we’re done here—”
“Hold on there missy." The owner says, watching from a distance. "Show isn’t over.”
“Dude, I told like… fifteen jokes or something.”
“Yeah, not enough. Get back on stage.” he says, clapping his front hooves. A few of his own lackeys appear around the tavern, menacingly.
A few of the more normal-looking ponies begin to move away from the scene, some even leaving the tavern. A few of the dirty looking ones in the back begin to get intrigued though.
Pinkie is about to respond, when suddenly another group bursts through the doors, next to the auctioneer and his guys.
“There she is! That’s the pony that stole from me!” A stallion says, followed by a few other ponies
Pinkie and Trixie recognize them as the ponies they pickpocketed at the trail.
The auctioneer turns to the stallion.
“They stole from you, too?” he asks.
The stallion turns with a bit of surprise. “Huh? Yeah.”
“Oh come on! I'm willing to bet like at least half of you guys are thieves.” Pinkie says, hooving at the tavern now full of various suspicious characters.
“Yeah, but… you stole from ME. That’s by extension all of us.” The stallion says.
The auctioneer smacks his forehead. “THANK you! See! This guy gets it!”
The owner watches all of this with an eyebrow raise, but sees an opportunity for some entertainment.
“Well… it looks like we got ourselves some dirty thieving ponies! And what do we say to them?” he tells his goons.
“All dirty thieving ponies will be beaten senseless by every able-bodied patron in the tavern.” They say in unison.
Pinkie gulps. She tries to run for the door, but the auctioneer and his guys block her, throwing her back. She stumbles back to Trixie and Fluttershy, who have also gotten up and tried to move away.
From all sides, the crowd surrounds them, slowly approaching.
Pinkie reaches into her bag and pulls out a prop gun, waving it around like a real one.
A few ponies in the crowd pull out actual guns, now pointing it at the trio. Trixie and Pinkie put their hooves up, along with making a confused and scared Fluttershy do the same.
“Well that backfired.”
The crowd makes an impromptu circle around the three, hovering like wolves on the prowl.
“Okay. Gimme the pink and yellow one and I’ll be out of y’alls hair.” The auctioneer says.
“No way. The pink one is mine!” The stallion says.
“This is my tavern, you morons! The pink one has an unpaid debt!” the owner yells.
During the bickering, Pinkie suddenly lunges forward at one of the gun-ponies, striking him away and grabbing his gun. She now points the real gun towards everypony.
There’s a few shouts as even more ponies pull out guns, some even using silly things like bows or slingshots.
She glances over at the owner who has a double barreled shotgun.
“Wh— Hey! Why do you have a gun that good?!” She yells.
“I got it from a pawn shop, girl. There's a discount for owners of businesses. Now give up!”
Trixie and Fluttershy look at Pinkie fearfully, who shakily holds the gun around her.
One of the thugs suddenly looks somewhere else strangely. His eyes widen.
“What the fuck!” he yells, pointing his gun at another side of the crowd. The thugs on the other side point their gun back at him instinctively.
“Hey! Woah! Bob?! What are you doing?!” one of them yells.
“T-the pink pony is over there..! Oh god! Why is there multiple of them?!” he yells.
He waves his gun around crazily, as thugs react in kind. Some more of them scream out similarly, apparently seeing different versions of Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Trixie all over the place. Eventually the entire tavern is pointing guns at each other.
During the confusion, Pinkie glances at Trixie. Her horn doesn’t glow one bit, however she’s slowly but surely moving her hoof around in a specific motion on the floor. Dry-casting.
“Trixie! I thought casting spells like that was something super hard that only super strong ponies could do?!” Pinkie hurriedly whispers.
Trixie seemingly grimaces due to Pinkie noticing, but relents. “Not important right now! We need to get—”
Her whisper is cut off by a sound outside.
WHOOOOP
An amplified voice pierces through the tavern's walls.
“THIS IS THE JUDICAR ORDER. YOU ARE ALL UNDER ARREST. DO NOT RESIST.”
Everypony freezes, mortified.
“SCATTER!” One thug says, trying to run for the door.
The door gets broken down by a large fully armored stallion pegasus, staring him down. Before he can even react, he gets smashed into the floor
The entire tavern erupts into chaos as people try to escape or fight. Multiple windows break as Judicar ponies charge in, some walls even exploding as more fill into the building, and some gunshots ring out.
Pinkie, Trixie, and Fluttershy hit the ground, covering their heads. Pinkie rapidly looks around.
Trixie looks especially horrified. “I-I can’t be seen here… I’m sorry!” She yells to Pinkie.
Pinkie looks back at her. “What?! Trix-”
Trixie has completely vanished. But not like in the way they do their little pick-pocketing, she actually just has completely disappeared.
“Trixie!?” Pinkie yells.
She barely has time to react as she dodges out of somepony thrown her direction, the thug crumpling on the ground next to her.
Getting to her feet, she narrowly dodges being striked by another one of the thugs. She responds with a hoof to the face, before being tackled by multiple Judicar ponies, pony-piling on top of her.
Fluttershy meanwhile, still cowers on the floor from the chaos above. She notices the auctioneer crawling on the floor towards her with a crazed look.
“YOU!” he shouts. He pulls out a flintlock, aiming it at her in close range.
“IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU ALIVE, I'LL HAVE YOU DEAD!” He shouts.
Fluttershy can only watch with horror as he’s about to pull the trigger…
Suddenly, a gray blur whizzes between them.
An armored pegasus grabs ahold of the gun, wrestling it away from the auctioneer. He barely has time to look confused before he’s rapidly pummeled by a barrage of punches, being finished off with a spinning kick that sends him smashing into a table.
Fluttershy looks completely shocked at this display of violence. It was so fast she could barely even see what happened.
Her shock slowly turns into fear as the pegasus turns around, looking at her.
Fluttershy expects to see some scary looking stallion…
But she instead sees a… somewhat gentle face.
A light blue coat, and purple eyes. Underneath her helmet, Fluttershy can barely make out what looks like a rainbow mane.
The two make eye contact with their stares.
Inexplicably, Fluttershy feels some sort of… connection. It’s like the chaos around them has slowed down to a crawl.
Fluttershy looks and sees the pegasus putting her hooves on her, beginning to pull her closer…
What is she doing? Is she—
The pegasus suddenly spins around while holding Fluttershy, throwing her onto the wooden floor.
“GET ON THE GROUND!” She yells.
Fluttershy barely looks up, confused. “What?! I—”
“GET ON THE GROUNNNDDD!” The pegasus yells again, jumping on her and pinning her forelegs behind her back.
Fluttershy screams in pain and fear.
After the dust settles, the tavern is a complete wreck. Basically every window is broken, as are multiple walls. It looks like a mosh pit happened.
Outside, a large amount of armored soldiers stand around, patrolling the area. A few metal-reinforced wagons are parked around as well.
Everypony is brought out in chains and having sustained various injuries. The auctioneer in particular looks like he got hit by a truck, needing to be dragged away by two guards.
Pinkie Pie looks around, curiously. Some distance away, near a torn out portion of one of the outer walls, a few soldiers appear to be investigating some mysterious crates and packages. One of them tears a package open, a fine purple powder spilling out.
“Knew it. This place was a Syndicate loading depot.” A soldier says.
The owner of the tavern face-hooves as he’s led away.
Pinkie and Fluttershy get tossed into the same wagon, luckily. The back is sealed behind them. As they look around, they see multiple other prisoners in the wagon as well.
Fluttershy huddles next to Pinkie fearfully, as Pinkie extends a leg over the pegasus, ready to protect her for whatever is about to happen.
Besides a few short glances, the prisoners don't seem to care whatsoever. They simply close their eyes or stare blankly in front of themselves.
Pinkie lowers her guard, a little surprised. Fluttershy still quakes.
"W-why are we being taken?" She's asks, shakily. She's a bit bruised and scratched up.
Pinkie sighs.
"We were just at the wrong place at the wrong time." She says with a shrug.
With that, the wagon wheels away.
After maybe an hour or two of wagon travel, they come to a stop. There's some chatter outside.
Pinkie perks up a little, expecting for the ride to be over, and for them to be taken off.
However, instead, there's some more chatting, followed by what sounds like rocks moving and a moderate hum.
Pinkie and Fluttershy's eyes wden. They both recognize that noise.
A gateway is being turned on.
The hum turns into a full on storm-like cacophony, as the wagon begins to move forward once more. Other prisoners begin to look distressed or scared.
Pinkie looks worried as well, not due to anything relating to the gateway itself, but...
They're being taken to a different Pocket of the Underworld.
The whole wagon is bathed in light, and then everything disappears into darkness.
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Thanks.
I wonder if Fluttershy not “feeling” anything from an illusion sets her up for delayed realization when she meets a real fish… Or if it really is just fish’s stupidity.
Edit Suggestions:
^also has a weird straight quote, among other instances of such, although I wouldn’t have noticed had I not been staring at the sentence with the focus of a person developing random obsessions at 3 a.m.
11862755
Remedied.
Also, about the fish's feelings. It's an illusion, isn't it? :)
Feels a little dry. A little quip from Trixie could be added.
Shouldn't he sell even more tomatoes since he's making more sales?
Another faction? Don't get me wrong, having a lot of factions can work, but my main problem with your approach is that they pop out of thin air. We had no mention of the Judicar whatsoever before they came guns blazing into the tavern. This also happened with the other factions like the outlaws (the place where Pinkie and Trixie were at the start of their part) and the Gaia cult.
Another problem I have related to this is that the story doesn't feel like one world at all. It feels like Twilight's section has a totally different setting, plot and characters than Pinkie's section. I haven't yet seen both share something that isn't that they are underground. And while I know they were intendend to connect later on the story, they should have already have at least a little something connecting them, because right now, we are esentially reading two totally different stories in two different worlds that will eventually crossover, instead of one happening in the same world.
Anyways, Trixie was such a treat this chapter. I love your interpretation of her
11876954
The comment about how they shouldeve gone up to the mountain was meant to be like trixie rubbing it in
labor costs of cleaning the tomatoes vs the money gained from selling them hmmm
okay. this is a bit of a doozy and a bit to unpack here
I believe its more natural for some factions to just appear. in this world, people already know about some things, so it wouldn't make sense to randomly be expositing about some faction which has existed for 100s of years or something if its meant to be common knowledge. having them appear abruptly can either be a shock/surprise thing (As for the order, or just a nonchalant thing (as for the outlaws which arent really a faction and more like a type of ppl but still)
as for the 'two different stories' thing. yeahhh i know they feel a bit like that, and one of the main reasons i dropped the story is cause i couldnt think of a coherent way to make them refernece/detail/eventually combine later. the main idea i did this format is to show radically different POVs and perspectives of the world the characters live in. i didn't do the best job of making them feel like they're in the same world, mainly because i didnt do the best job at actually creating any unique or noticeable worldbuilding.
i hopefully improved both of these aspects in my new story, but ill let you be the judge of that if you decide to get to it.