Day Of Siege (Part II)
Ponyville Paintball
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter XI
“What was that?”
Rainbow Dash turned to Applejack. The farm pony was scanning the area around her with full concentration in that hounddog manner Rainbow had noticed about her friend.
“What was what?” Rainbow asked. As far as she could tell there was nothing alarming or relatively odd in the part of the Everfree Forest they were roaming in.
“That sound,” Applejack replied absently after a moment of silence.
“Uh, what sound?” replied Rainbow. She listened closely, but couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. “You think it could be Fluttershy?” she added after a few seconds. She knew that finding her was Applejack’s main concern apart from solving the mystery of her brother having an impossible twin. She immediately regretted asking her that question however, as Applejack darted like a hare at the mere mention of the pegasus. Her hat fell off and the red gun it had been carrying fell to the ground, but she didn’t seem to care about it as she put her hat back on before taking off once more.
“Hey! Wait for me!” shouted Rainbow as she flew after her friend.
* * *
It was as if turmoil were taking up every inch of space in Apple Bloom’s head and preventing her from thinking of anything at all. Her every movement was automatic as she held on to dear non-exclusion from the game.
Soon after the first shots had been fired, every pony involved had moved away from the clearing and retreated in the surrounding treeline to find shelter. The battle still raged on however, as the atmosphere in the clearing was reduced to a storm of paint rounds flying from everywhere and anywhere at once. So far Apple Bloom had only managed to get off by the skin of her neck as she struggled to take effective shots at foals she could only hope were not on her side. She was locked in survival mode, mixed with a growing fear as she witnessed the number of foals in either clan drop fast, the losses being all the more dramatic for her team which was clearly outnumbered.
An unruly symphony of gunshots and cries of war sounded painfully loud in Apple Bloom’s head, clouding her mind and allowing her to take in only the present moment. After taking a shot without any time to aim it, she ran for cover behind an oak tree. In the slew of little snippets of thought that managed to worm themselves in her head one moment only to disappear the next, she remembered Zecora telling her once about terrible cricket swarms that would often plague her native land. She wondered if what she was caught in at the moment was something similar.
Suddenly a filly emerged from the side of the tree, turning towards Apple Bloom in surprise. The filly raised her gun but Apple Bloom was quicker, and shot her square in the chest. The filly cried out in pain and fell to the ground with tears in her eyes. Apple Bloom cringed. She had nothing against her, and it wasn’t fair to have to shoot her down in this way, but that filly had simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Suddenly, Apple Bloom found herself overcome with guilt. In that one moment she no longer cared about who shot Miss Cheerilee in the first place, and wanted nothing to do with any of this paintball war business anymore. She needed to put an end to this.
Diamond Tiara.
The mere thought of that name sent a slow surge of anger coursing through Apple Bloom’s veins. It was as if it were seeping into her skin from the very earth below, making her see red. That ruthless brat had been the one at the start of it all, she was responsible for that poor filly being shot out of the game as well as many others, and it was with a newfound resolve that Apple Bloom decided she would give her a taste of her own poisonous medicine.
Apple Bloom was so lost in her thoughts of revenge that she almost missed spotting a figure approaching fast on her right. She turned towards the pony with a jerk and fired a shot without thinking. She was stunned to discover the pony she had fired at was none other than Rainbow Dash.
“Whoa! Watch it!” Rainbow yelled as she dived to the side just in time to avoid being struck by the yellow ball of paint that flew dangerously close to her wing. Apple Bloom’s surprise only grew when she saw her sister running at top speed beside the pegasus.
“Sis!” she cried in relief.
“Apple Bloom! Are you okay? What’s going on here?”
Applejack’s question was answered by two shots zipping past almost simultaneously on either side of the tree Apple Bloom was hiding behind, which made all of them start.
“Ya better not stay airborne, Rainbow Dash!” said Apple Bloom, who had to shout over the surrounding racket. “Everythin’s gone ta Tartarus over here!”
“Whaddaya mean?” shouted Applejack in return.
“There’s a war goin’ on! It was supposed ta be between mah side an’ the other one, but now everypony’s jus’ shootin’ at each other jus’ ta stay alive!”
Applejack couldn’t make any sense of what her sister was saying, so she asked the question that had brought her here in the first place.
“What about Fluttershy? Is she with you?”
“No, ah haven’t seen her at all!” replied Apple Bloom. Applejack cringed, wondering where in the world that pony had gone to and feeling anxious at the idea that she might be responsible if something were to happen to her fragile friend.
“Spike an’ Rarity are here somewhere though, an’ Babs as well!” shouted Apple Bloom. “But how did ya find me, sis?”
She looked at Applejack and saw that her sister wasn’t about to answer, gazing at something past Apple Bloom’s shoulder in disbelief.
About thirty feet beyond Apple Bloom’s hiding place, in the clearing, she could see the ground littered with groaning foals speckled with paint. There they lay like beaten dogs at the feet of the only pony still standing. Applejack watched as Pinkie Pie, standing on her hind legs, dressed in one of her kooky costumes, and armed with what looked like -- although it would be impossible if not in Pinkie’s hooves -- a pink minigun, prepared herself for another round of firing.
“Get down!” cried Rainbow as she pulled her friend to the ground with herself and behind a bush.
A deafening sound erupted in the forest as Pinkie fired her automatic weapon. She turned slowly on the spot as if on a central axis, her frame bouncing up and down with every shot she fired from the heavy gun. Hidden from her sight, the two mares waited anxiously for Pinkie’s frenzy to subside. Applejack could feel the skinnier trees behind her shaking in their roots from being repeatedly stricken by the gun. After the rampage was over, and the whirring of the gun’s engine had died down, the rest of the turmoil in the forest seemed almost faint in comparison to what they had just heard.
“Oh yeah!” yelled Pinkie in mad excitement. “Ain’t no half-baked shots around here, fillies! Who wants to get their share? Step right up, step right up!”
Applejack couldn’t believe her eyes.
“What in the--”
“The rage spell!” whispered Rainbow. Applejack turned to her.
“Huh?”
“This place! This is the place where you fought Zecora, remember? It’s making Pinkie go even crazier than usual!”
Applejack looked over to where Pinkie was standing, and realized that this was indeed the place.
“Well, what do we do?” she asked.
“What do you mean, ‘what do we do’? We dash!” said Rainbow, leaping upwards with a strong flap of her wings, only to be pulled right back down by the tail.
“Hold on there, Rainbow!” said Applejack with Rainbow’s tail in her maw. “Ah meant to ask how we deal wit’ this situation, and we’re sure as shoot ta be shot the second we startle Pinkie! We need ta plan our next move carefully!” She turned to her sister, who was still shaking behind her tree. “What are you gonna do, Apple Bloom?”
“Ah’m gonna find Diamond Tiara an’ give her the what fer!”
Applejack gave a short, exasperated sigh. “Can’t yer little vendetta wait until we figured out what ta do with--”
“Diamond’s the one who vandalized Sweet Apple Acres, and Pinkie’s on her side!”
Rainbow Dash stared at the filly, intrigued by what she was hearing. It was an intense situation they had suddenly found themselves in. Not hearing a reply from Applejack, she turned to her friend.
“Ok, so, what do we--”
She stopped as she saw that Applejack had abandoned her hiding spot and was running towards Pinkie Pie. Rainbow cocked her gun with a grin.
Now that’s more like it!
* * *
Further in the Everfree Forest, away from chaos taking place in the mystical clearing, there was a place where the ground rose up in small slopes of earth and grass. They were small hills of plentiful soil, crumbled and stuck under a carpet of thinning greenery, and strewn with crisp and long dead autumn leaves. It was a place where the wind always blew in gentle streaks, drifting along the uneven landscape.
Atop one of these mounds, the princess of the night sat on a large log that had fallen there. Its rotten bark was soft from years of moisture and was home to a great number of bugs and maggots, giving off a very natural smell nonetheless that freshened and purified the air around it. It allowed Luna to relax a bit from the recent events, as she listened absently to the sound of a running streamlet of water that had been flowing through the forest for several days now.
She had a lot on her mind. It was hard to believe only a week or so had passed since the first day of the game, and although she would know by now how to evaluate a long time without exaggerating it, that day truly felt like ages ago to her. She wondered with every passing hour why she was here. As time went by, away from Canterlot and the royal palace, she wondered if there was a point beyond a simple competition to this supposed game of her sister’s. Every minute she questioned its purpose, which remained unclear to her. Why this? Why paintball? She couldn’t think of any possible link between that and Celestia, and as things changed and shifted at every turn in the forest, she couldn’t help but to get ideas of higher purpose and such, and about her place in all of it.
She had survived this long. She was sure there had to be a reason.
But most all of, she dreaded the possibility that there might be no reason after all.
She had gone through many encounters with other ponies up until now, several of which she had pulled through by her own skill. At the end of the day, she wasn’t completely useless when it came to paintball. Though she had never played it before, her reflexes were sharp enough. But she knew the measure of her own skill alone wasn’t enough to last this long in such a ruthless game. She shouldn’t have survived long enough to still be here.
The only reason she still was took the shape of a small colt bathing in a part of the stream at the foot of her hill. She watched him worryingly as he checked his guns for ammo, sitting at water’s edge to dry himself off. He only carried two weapons at all times: one was his, and the other was that of the great and powerful Trixie, which he kept as a personal trophy.
When considering all the strange things that didn’t make sense in this game, Luna obviously couldn’t forget Pipsqueak. Even now she was hardly used to his happy-go-lucky behaviour, which changed the moment there was an opponent to be rid of. His skill was something of a magic trick to the princess, as she saw him do away with countless ponies in confrontations that never lasted more than a couple of seconds. All in all, he was so good at paintball it was almost eerie. Most of the time it was him that had bailed her out of situations where she would notice a gun pointed at her at the last second, every one of which would have made a successful shot if he hadn’t been there to act faster than she could.
And she’d been paired with him from the start. Nopony else. It only helped to reinforce her suspicion that there was a reason behind everything happening right now.
From the corner of his eye, Pip noticed Luna staring into space in his general direction. He looked at her from below, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Something wrong, Princess?” he asked.
Lost in her musings as she was, she didn’t notice him speaking at first. Eventually she shook her head as if woken up and stared back at the foal looking at her with his head cocked to the side. It was precisely that manner of his that upset her: she knew what skill lay behind that innocent look, and they were both very aware of how many ponies he had shot without even blinking or giving it a second thought before robbing them of their dreams of victory. And still, he looked at her now as if he couldn’t possibly imagine what could be wrong right now. She couldn’t stand another minute of it.
“How do you remain so calm?” she asked.
Pipsqueak raised a single eyebrow. “I’m not sure I follow?”
“It’s just… you…” Luna looked upwards and gestured with her hooves as she struggled to find the right words. “You obviously aren’t the average paintball player… I’ve been trusted with you since the beginning of this game and… I don’t know, it seems that there’s just no beating you at it… But why? I mean, how do you cope with all this pressure and… I don’t know, how can you take a bath at a moment like this?”
Pip simply listened to Luna while she spoke. When she was finished he looked at her with a completely neutral expression, even though her last words carried a notable frustration to them.
“Are you also worried about all the spooky things that are happening right now?” he asked softly.
Luna was caught off guard. Finally she was going to have an open conversation with the colt. She wanted to ask if he shared her concerns, but something told her he did as he looked back at her with a strange smile. It was as if he was trying to console her for some reason. In a moment of honesty she decided to give into speaking what was on her mind.
“... Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am. The weather’s getting worse, the forest feels even more odd than usual… I don’t know what it is, but I feel as though we’re meant to do something… important”
Pip nodded and gave a small chuckle. “I know what you mean. I’ve been wondering about that myself. I’m very good at paintball, you see. I suppose I was just taught well, but even so they always said I was the best in my class. So when Princess Celestia paired me up with her own sister to play against every pony in Equestria… I was sure there had to be some meaning behind all this! At first I thought she might have actually designed the entire game just for me, but I guess that’s not really true.”
Luna stared at her hooves, feeling disappointed. It seemed he didn’t know any more than she did after all.
“But you know… I think sometimes worrying only serves to slow you down.”
Luna looked back at him, intrigued. “What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s just something I picked up while playing paintball with the other foals. In the beginning I’d get very nervous about how carefully I should play and what my next move should be and such, and as a result I ended up playing very little and being clumsy because of my nerves. I figured that sometimes, you can’t really think about all that, because some things are inevitable and you’ll just have to face them anyway."
He smiled at her.
"I find that paintball is a good way to think about these things. You learn a lot that you can apply to everyday life. Sometimes you want to think things through a lot and not make a mistake. But why wait? You could end up having to face challenges and, ironically, you’ll have spent so much time trying to prevent them that when the time comes you’ll find yourself completely unprepared. When I see an opponent, I shoot them before they can shoot me. It sounds awfully cruel, but after all, is that not the actual goal of the game? I don’t think about it, because thinking when the time isn’t right only hurts my balance. I just block it all out and focus on that balance and on keeping myself ready to do what I need to do. So come what may in this strange game, I’ll just play it and deal with whatever it throws at me, you know?”
Luna listened to Pip speak with great attention. His words had a ring of truth to them that the princess found astonishing. Eventually she found herself seeing things clearly and feeling incredibly relieved as a result. She felt ready to face the task ahead, even though she didn’t know if there would even be one. She smiled back at Pip; she would have never guessed that this simple foal could be the one to shed some light on her worries and make them disappear. Perhaps her sister had known that all along…
Suddenly, Luna was hit with a strong wave of pain that made her yelp and buckle over. She gritted her teeth and cradled her head in her hooves, feeling as though it might burst open.
“Princess!” cried Pip as he rushed to the top of the mound to help her.
The sound of Luna’s frantic heartbeat pounding in her head blocked out his voice. She was blinded by flashes of light that appeared to her with growing intensity, as if something was trying to force itself in her brain with every flash. Suddenly she saw something, and the pain stopped entirely.
A granular, sepia-coloured vision appeared to her. She was still in the forest, although it was different. The trees were slightly thinner and the ground was flat. She was standing in a clearing of some kind with nothing but a lake in a bed of stone. There was no wind or sound here.
All of a sudden, the entire place burst into flames. The roar of a great fire tore through Luna’s head and she buckled over in fear, surrounded by the large flames that were lapping at their surroundings and slowly edging themselves in. Through the uproar she heard another sound that almost echoed that of the raging fire. It was a blood-chilling cackle that only rose in intensity until it was practically deafening, and when she opened her eyes she watched in horror as an entire army of Changelings swarmed into the clearing and flew straight through the fire towards her.
She shrieked, and her eyes flew open.
She found herself back on the hill. For a moment she did nothing, panting and staring at the ground that was inches away from her face. She then slowly lifted her head and saw Pipsqueak next to her. Both of them looked terrified by what had just happened.
“Did you see that too, child?” she asked.
“S-see what?” he asked in return with a shaky high-pitched voice.
Luna replayed the ghastly images in her head. She couldn’t believe what she had just seen. Had it been a dream? A vision of the future? Was she going insane? One thing was for certain: this vision was not to be taken lightly. She didn’t know much about paintball, but she couldn’t imagine that it entailed ominous and terrifying hallucinations. This had to be something much more serious, and though she wished it would have taken another shape, this was in a way what she had been waiting for.
Regaining composure, she got up and looked at Pip who was still on the ground gaping back at her as though he’d seen a ghost.
“I had… a vision,” she told him, taking care not to go into too much unsettling detail.
“A vision? Like… a vision of the future?”
“Indeed. Something diresome is about to happen and we need to prevent it. Grab your belongings and let us be on our way.”
“Where are we going?”
It was a good question. Luna wondered about it herself when, to her great surprise, she realized she knew where to go. She wasn’t sure how she knew, as she didn’t recognize the place in her vision, but she knew where to find it.
“We fly to some place in the woods… I don’t know how I’ve come to learn where this place lies, but I suppose that since I do, it must surely mean that we are meant to find it.”
Pip nodded and went down to the stream to grab his guns. He then frantically galloped back to Luna and jumped on her back as she extended her wings, and together they flew off at top speed among the trees.
* * *
The shot zipped through the air and scraped the side of a tree behind which Spike was reloading. He started as he felt paint splatter to his side, inches away from his face.
“Damn! We’re in a tight spot!”
Next to him, Rarity was crouching low behind a bush, covering her head as though bombs of paint were raining from the sky.
“Hang in there, Rarity!” said Spike as he put his back to the tree and readied his next shot. “We’ll be outta here soon enough!”
“No!” yelled Rarity to Spike’s surprise. She turned to him, seeing he was confused, and clarified her thoughts. “We can’t leave Sweetie Belle out here! It’s too dangerous!”
Spike nodded, silently pleased that Rarity was actually relying on him like a damsel in distress for once. “Don’t worry. We’ll get her out of there too. But we’re gonna need some kind of help getting through to wherever she is around here.”
Just then, as if on cue, the two of them felt a large shape swoop in right next to them. Rarity screamed and Spike turned around instinctively and drew out his gun to what appeared to be a dark-coloured pegasus spreading its wings and covering him in its shadow, which could only mean trouble.
“Wait! Don’t shoot!” said a voice.
The only reason Spike didn’t shoot is because the high-pitched voice, which sounded like a colt’s, was so mismatched with the figure standing in front of him that he couldn’t help being taken aback. His head having cleared a bit, he recognized the pegasus as Princess Luna, who looked almost as surprised as he was.
“Luna…?”
Suddenly a smaller pony came out from behind Luna’s wings, jumping off her back. He was a white-coated colt with strange patches of brown and a pirate outfit which Spike thought looked ridiculous, although he chose not to comment it seeing as how the colt was carrying two guns of his own.
“Aren’t you that kid from Nightmare Night?” Spike asked.
“Doesn’t matter who I am, mate,” said Pip, his cheer seemingly restored and unaffected by Spike’s remark. “All you need to know is that I’m help, and I’ve come to pull you out of this mess you’re in!”
“Oh really?” replied Spike, annoyed that he was being pushed away from Rarity’s spotlight.
Luna gave a long sigh.
“Well, this is certainly a strange surprise!” said Rarity. “Princess Luna, how did you find us?”
Luna turned to Rarity. “I… I had a vision of some sort… I can’t explain it, but I’m positive it meant to bring the young colt and I here.”
Her ears perked up at the sound of a distant gunshot followed by shouting. “What’s going on here?” she asked Spike anxiously, but he was too busy arguing with Pip about how best to position one’s self behind a tree in the event of a paintball shootout.
“To be honest, we’re not quite sure ourselves. It looks as though conflict had been brewing between two clans of Ponyville foals for a while… They started arguing, and now, well, everypony’s been shooting at each other for the past couple of hours.”
“But how did you find yourselves involved?” asked Luna.
“That part doesn’t make much sense to me either. We were walking somewhere else in the forest when we received this map of some sort, which led us here.”
Luna stopped to consider what Rarity had just said. According to her, she’d also been led to this place by some sign… Could it be just a coincidence?
“What are you going to do, then?” she asked.
“Whatever we do, we can’t leave. My sister is trapped in this battle as well, and we have to get her out of there.”
“In that case, allow us to help you look for her together!”
“Thanks for the offer,” said Spike, who had joined the conversation. “But before we can do anything, there’s something we need to take care of.”
“What is it?”
Spike didn’t answer, and peering into the forest with narrow eyes he raised a claw to signal the three ponies next to him to be quiet. Luna listened carefully. In the midst of the tense silence around them, she could hear giggling and snorting in the distance.
“Who could that be?” asked Luna, feeling a little creeped out.
“Pinkie Pie,” said Spike.
“Pinkie?” replied Luna. “Is she not a friend of yours?”
“Well yeah, she is…” said Spike, “But she’s siding with the enemy on this one, and we have no idea why.”
“That’s it!”
Luna, Rarity and Spike all turned to Pipsqueak. He seemed positively delighted.
“What is it?” asked Luna.
“Pinkie Pie! She’s my paintball teacher!” he said. “Remember how we talked about what our part in this game was? This is what I was meant to do!” He cocked his gun and flashed them a determined grin before adding “I’m going in.”
“No, don’t!” said Rarity. “This isn’t our usual Pinkie Pie! She’s obviously not in her right mind and she’s been taking out foals by the dozen with a pink minigun with infinite ammunition!”
Pipsqueak gave her a puzzled look. “... Sounds like the usual Pinkie Pie to me.”
“Are you sure about this, child?” asked Luna. “Something tells me this is a dangerous place to be in.” Images of her vision came back to her which she still wouldn’t let Pip know about.
“Don’t worry, Princess,” he said with a nod. “This is my purpose, I’m sure of it.”
“No way,” said Spike. “We’re not gonna let you face her on your own.”
“Please, I’m more than capable of handling myself!”
“That’s… not untrue,” said Luna. “If you’re absolutely sure, then allow us to at least escort you for back-up.”
Pip nodded and headed further into the forest, the other three carefully following suit.
* * *
Standing by herself in the middle of the clearing, Pinkie Pie was waiting for somepony to show up so she could treat them with her best cotton candy coated bullets. She knew that all the foals had gone into hiding in the woods, but at the same time she didn’t want to leave her spot.
Something strange was going on here, and she could feel it. Usually she thoroughly enjoyed paintball; right now however, she was on a whole new level, reveling in the feeling of power that came with every round she fired. Moreover, she knew what she was doing was questionable: this was no practice game, and yet at this point she knew she must have shot more foals than the Ponyville schoolhouse could fit. They just kept coming, and usually she would have stopped shooting them before it became insensitive to do so, but she found out to her delight that she couldn’t care less. It didn’t feel wrong to help Diamond Tiara. It was just too much fun to ignore.
“Hold it right there, Pinkie!” sounded a familiar voice behind her. It could only belong to one pony, so Pinkie didn’t lose her cool as she calmly turned around to face Applejack and Rainbow Dash, both of them steadily aiming at her with their guns. She flashed them a wide grin; things were taking a turn for the interesting.
“Well, lookie here. Sheriff’s in town, ain’t that just dandy!” she said in a playful imitation of an old-western villain.
The two mares opposite her, on the other hand, were dead serious.
“Pinkie, ah want you ta drop this whole act, as well as that obscenely large gun ya got there. It’s over.”
“It ain’t over ‘till the fat mare sings!” replied Pinkie, raising her minigun. “Or something like that.”
Rainbow Dash flinched a little, but Applejack remained perfectly calm. She took a single step forward.
“Ah ain’t playin’ games with you, Pinkie.”
“Yes you are,” chimed Pinkie. “Specifically, you’re playing Princess Celestia’s game, whether you like it or not. And according to those rules, I don’t have to do anything until I’m shot.”
She dropped her minigun and stood on her hind legs.
“So go ahead, Applejack! Shoot me down!”
It was a very tense moment that followed in the clearing. Slowly and all the while during their discussion, all the noise and commotion had died down into complete silence around the three ponies. Only the wind remained, blowing softly.
Rainbow Dash turned to Applejack in apprehension. The farm pony stood rooted to the spot, eyes narrow and her temples damp with sweat. The barrel of her gun was perfectly aligned with her target. Her hoof trembled almost unnoticeably.
“Well?!” shouted Pinkie in a sharp voice. Applejack couldn’t help but start, the only sign of which was a short blink.
After a few seconds more she slowly dropped her weapon to the ground.
“No,” she sighed, lowering her gaze in disappointment. “Ah won’t shoot you.”
Pinkie sniggered.
“Too bad. Seems like right now is the perfect moment.”
Applejack raised her gaze and looked into Pinkie’s twirling glasses, tears welling up at the base of her eyes.
“What’s gotten into you?” she whispered softly. “Why are you treatin’ us like we’re enemies?”
Pinkie said nothing for a minute. For a rare moment, she was absolutely calm and showed no emotion whatsoever. Eventually she shrugged.
“Meh, I’m just playing the game here, y’know. It’s not my fault if you can’t keep your emotions out of it.”
Rainbow Dash was silently stricken. She had seen the rage spell at work in this place, but this was nothing like her previous experience.
“Ah’m not gonna risk shooting the colt that’s been aimin’ at yer back for the last several minutes now,” said Applejack. She spoke in a serious and composed manner, although her voice still trembled a little.
Again, Pinkie stood still. But this time, a visible grin was slowly drawing itself on her face, only stopping when she spoke.
“Really, Applejack?” she giggled. “You’re going to use that trick against me? I teach paintball to foals, you know.”
She was expecting Applejack to reply and and defend her statement, but the mare said nothing. Pinkie saw in Applejack’s hard gaze that the farm pony was through reasoning with her, and that whatever she claimed, she would let it happen if that was the price to pay.
Pinkie slowly turned around, calm as ever. She came face to face with a young white and brown-coated colt she knew only too well. Standing at about the same distance as she was from Applejack and Rainbow Dash behind her, the colt stood on his own hind legs, steadily presenting her the cold darkness of his barrel with a confident smirk.
“Ah… my old master,” he said.
* * *
The three Cutie Mark Crusaders, who had found each other in the woods and had started walking together, came to a halt. They had arrived at the edge of the clearing. Neither of them said a word as they witnessed the still moment in which their gifted schoolmate Pipsqueak locked in on their silent teacher with his gun.
“Oh come on,” whispered Sweetie Belle in disbelief.
* * *
Not far behind Pipsqueak, Luna, Spike and Rarity were crouching low to the ground and hiding behind a bush in between two trees at the edge of the clearing.
“Do you think he’s bluffing?” whispered Spike. He was not answered, as the three of them watched the scene unfurl with held breath.
* * *
At the same time, a huddled group of surviving foals led by Babs reached the edge of the clearing, hearing that noise had ceased there and hoping that the place was safe. They stopped in their tracks as they saw the surreal tableau and whispered nervously amongst themselves. Babs watched the scene with a single raised eyebrow.
“What the…?” she muttered absently.
* * *
Pinkie simply looked back at the small colt opposite her with a usual little smile.
“Glad to see you’ve been taking care,” she said in a low and casual tone.
“Did you expect anything else?” Pip replied with a hint of cheekiness.
Pinkie grinned. “Of course not.”
They kept staring at each other in heavy silence, ignoring the mass of foals that had all slowly formed a circle of mute spectators all around them.
Very slowly, Pinkie rested a hoof on the grip on her personal handgun. This elicited a small wave of worried whispering in the crowd, thinking the moment of truth had arrived, but it died down as they saw that Pipsqueak had chosen to wait and see before doing anything too rash.
“Looks like you want to give these people a show,” said Pinkie. “So go ahead… try your luck.”
“You can’t win, Pinkie. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful that you can possibly imagine.”
“Cheap movie line references are my thing, kid!”
More silence ensued. At this point the tension in the air was becoming unbearable to all but the two opponents at the center of the clearing. The wind caressed the surrounding ponies softly, many eyes there hurting from not daring to blink.
After a while, Pipsqueak carefully lowered his gun and holstered it. He then adopted the position of a bull ready to charge.
“I call for a joust,” he announced.
A hint of a collective gasp could be heard as the eyes of the crowd shifted from him to Pinkie Pie in an almost perfectly coordinated move. Pinkie, however, remained unfazed.
“Yeah, you were always more of a close-combat type of player, weren’t you…”
She crouched slightly, mimicking his pose.
“Okey dokey. Get ready, then.”
If possible, the air around the clearing became even more still. Everypony waited for one of the two, now ready to engage in battle, to make the first move. Pinkie and Pip were completely ignoring them, fully concentrated on one another, carefully studying the situation.
Suddenly, Pipsqueak darted forward towards Pinkie with something of a high-pitched war cry. Almost instantly, Pinkie followed suit and galloped towards the colt with a similar cry. Time seemed to slow down as they neared the point where they would both draw their weapon and fire a single possible shot in the same movement. They were mere inches away from each other.
Now!
In the blink of an eye, The two ponies jumped towards each other, and shots were heard in a resounding bang before their shooters fell to the ground and slid away from each other on the grass.
Nothing moved. Nopony spoke. All eyes were on Pip, laying on his belly with his eyes shut, and Pinkie Pie, who had finished her run sliding on her knees and stretching her forehooves out wide, one of which held a still smoking handgun. It was as if the entire world around her had disappeared. Her prop glasses had fallen to the ground, and she stared absently in front of her, her mouth agape as though a nerve in her brain had just snapped.
She had shot him. There was no doubt about it. She had felt the adrenaline rush up towards her head in waves as she charged towards him. Right now, she should have felt elated from her victory.
But she felt nothing. Or rather, she felt a curious sense of confusion. She couldn’t understand why she was feeling so unaffected by what she had just done. She felt neither joy nor remorse or any emotion at all, and that only served to confuse her. It felt like waking up from a dream, and as she considered it she knew something was not right about all of this.
Was that what she had heard as she jumped towards Pip? A single word… ‘now’. She heard it, but only now realized it wasn’t him or anypony else that had said it.
Feeling a faint tickling sensation on her belly, she looked down. There she found her sides adorned with two stains of paint; one orange, and the other sky blue.
Mechanically she turned towards Applejack and Rainbow Dash. The two of them were still in their spots, their weapons held out towards her. Both ponies had the same expression of utter disbelief in light of what they had done. Pinkie looked at them in surprise for a moment, before her expression softened and she gave them a weak but sincere smile.
“... Well done,” she said.
Her words seemed to break the silence around the clearing as the crowd broke out into loud and rapid whispering. Nopony was sure if this meant the end of battle or not. The whispering died down when Pipsqueak slowly raised himself from the ground with a groan. He stood on his hind legs for a couple of seconds, swaying in a daze in the aftermath of his confrontation with Pinkie. He then looked down to his own belly, where a large bright pink stain rested in the middle.
“Oh well,” he mumbled, before falling on his back and resting on the grass as he contemplated what was the end of the line for him.
Amidst new whispering, Applejack and Rainbow Dash rushed towards Pinkie Pie. Applejack crouched to look at her in the eye.
“Are you alright?” she asked with a genuine mixture of guilt and concern. Pinkie nodded, still smiling, and Applejack felt a different aura about her friend.
“Actually…” said Pinkie, “I’m fine. I feel great! It’s like… so much pressure off my back, you know?”
“Pinkie… ah’m a mite sorry ah had ta put you down like that. It’s jus’... you were under this spell, an’ you weren’t yerself fer a moment there… ah was afraid you might lose yerself in it and get hurt.”
“I did feel kinda strange… I mean, I was really into it. I dunno what came over me, but what I do know is that there’s no prize worth losing yourself for.”
Both her friends actually knew what came over her, but chose not to mention anything about it and were content to smile back at Pinkie and rest a friendly hoof on her shoulder.
From the corner of her eye, Applejack saw a group of ponies heading towards them. It was Pipsqueak, limping slightly as he advanced towards Pinkie, supported on either side by Rarity and Princess Luna and followed by Spike. Applejack couldn’t conceal her surprise at the sight of the unlikely group, but Pipsqueak spoke before she could say anything.
“I’ve come to pay my respects, as it were,” he told Pinkie. “Looks like the student can never truly outrun the master after all. But I guess that’s why they call you that, right?”
Pinkie looked back at him with her soft smile. “You’re in a league of your own, you know that, Pip? You’re very… grown up as a paintball player. More than enough not to give into the pressure like I did…”
“Yes, well… I gave into my gut feeling. I knew when I saw you here that there was still one more lesson I could learn from you.”
Luna looked at him in surprise. “Child… are you saying you knew that you were going to lose?”
“I remember Pinkie telling me once during training that when you mess up your cupcakes, there’s no use crying over the milk you wasted on them,” Pip said with a tired chuckle. “I guess that’s true, right now more than ever. I know I can’t possibly go toe to toe with my master and come out on top.”
“But what about the prize?” asked Rarity. “If you knew you were going to lose your chance to Pinkie, why rush to her like this?”
Pip turned to her.
“There’s a lot more to a game like this than just reward,” he said. “And when I saw Pinkie, I realized that some rewards don’t come out of victory. They come out of working together with your friends, no matter the outcome.”
There was another moment of silence in the crowd, whose attention had shifted entirely to Pipsqueak, although this time it was not a tense silence but one of collective realization. The foals turned to each other with various expressions, some of them relieved, others embarrassed.
“You know… he’s right,” said Scootaloo. The two other Crusaders turned to her. “I mean… look at us! Why are we fighting like this?”
“Yeah… all this time we’ve been divided over something so silly, when we all could’ve been playing together from the beginning!” added Sweetie Belle. Her words sparked a new wave of whispering in the crowd as the foals all began to recognize each other as being fellow players instead of enemies.
“Ah agree…” said Apple Bloom after a while. “This is stupid, an’ a lot of foals lost their place in the game ‘coz of us. Y’know, ah’m sure we can find Diamond Tiara and hash things out with--”
She was interrupted by a series of loud noises and a sharp pain in her back.
Everypony turned to the trio with a gasp, but Apple Bloom didn’t hear it. Her ears were ringing, and she simply watched the many stricken faces in front of her in a daze. She didn’t need to turn around to know what had happened, and that it had happened to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle as well.
Distant and muffled, the voice of Diamond Tiara sounded behind her.
“Hold it!” she shouted, cutting through the crowd from behind the Crusaders to the center of the clearing with her gun outstretched in front of her for protection. “Nopony move, or I swear I’ll get this party started again!”
All newfound merriment had disappeared as the bewildered ponies in the crowd gaped at the furious little filly turning around on the spot frantically and pointing her gun to all sides with a demented look. Applejack watched her too, and when the truth of what had just happened had sunk in of she suddenly got up and reached for her own gun.
“Why, you little pest…!” she hissed, advancing menacingly towards Diamond who spun round to face her. Applejack felt Rainbow grab her and pull her backwards, which she resisted with all her strength.
“No, Applejack!” said Rainbow, struggling to hold back her friend. “Don’t give in, or it’ll be chaos again!”
“She vandalized mah farm! It was her!” spat Applejack who was positively boiling with rage from the surrounding air.
“Stay where you are, or I’ll shoot another one and it’ll be on your hooves!” cried Diamond.
Applejack swore and eventually gave up struggling, staying where she was and boring holes into Diamond’s eyes. The filly felt somewhat intimidated, so she turned towards the three fillies she had just shot.
Apple Bloom could only stare back at her in disbelief. She didn’t feel sad because she had been shot; the game was all superficial to her now. What she was feeling was pity for Diamond Tiara, whom despite the happy resolution was once more in a panic, just like on the day she had aimed towards her teacher.
“D-Diamond…” she whispered. “Why are you doing this…?”
“You’re not getting away with this!” she shouted with a trembling voice. “You can roll about in all the mushy forgiveness you want, you’re not taking my prize away from me!”
Apple Bloom took a single step forward before stopping in her tracks as Diamond Tiara cocked her gun with a nervous jerk.
“Stay away!!” she yelled.
“Diamond, please… It’s over now! Ah don’t care if you shot Miss Cheerilee… We’ll never know who did it!”
Diamond said nothing for a few seconds. Then, to Apple Bloom’s surprise, the pink filly gave short, nervous giggle and lowered her weapon.
“Please,” she said in a smug voice more like her own. “You don’t even believe that yourself.”
Something about those words rang ominously in Apple Bloom’s ears, and she felt a shiver run down her spine. “What do you…?” she asked, afraid to finish her question because of its possible answer.
“Come on, blank flank,” said Diamond. “We both know it. It was me. I shot Miss Cheerilee.”
The words hit Apple Bloom like a sledgehammer. She felt a cold ball of ice in her throat, and there were so many questions she wanted to ask, but only one she could put into words.
“But… But wh--”
“Because she was in my way!” yelled Diamond Tiara. “She was in my way from the start! ‘Whatever my heart desires’? Maybe you’re not good enough to understand this, but when I’m promised something, I get it! And I don’t care if it’s you, or Miss Cheerilee or anypony else, but anypony who gets in the way of that gets the same treatment!”
Tears were streaming down Apple Bloom’s little cheeks. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “B-but then why shoot us…?”
“Because, idiot! You wanna forget this, let it all blow over? Fine! But at the end of the day, I’m getting that prize, and I’m not taking any chances and letting you walk away from it all and get your hooves on what I want!”
Apple Bloom was at a loss for words, and still in shock she shook her head slowly at Diamond Tiara’s ruthlessness. Over the pink filly’s shoulder she could see her shock mirrored in the faces of all the ponies around, as well as hot tears running down Applejack’s scowling face.
Diamond Tiara started backing away from her and resumed pointing her gun at the crowd.
“Here’s what happens now!” she declared. “I’m getting the hell out of this place, and you’re all going your separate ways now! And whatever you do, if I see anypony come anywhere near me now there will be consequences!”
On that last word Diamond felt herself bump into somepony behind her. She turned around with a jolt. “Get away from--”
She stopped as she saw Pinkie’s forehooves, and raised her head to see Pinkie’s own. She had the strangest expression on her face, seeing as how it was her usual innocent smiling. She seemed to tower over the filly as she stared down onto her with disturbingly calm eyes. It was an awkward moment for Diamond, but she decided to brush it off.
“Oh… hey Pinkie, sorry, didn’t see you there. Now, if you could just--”
“You vandalized Sweet Apple Acres?” Pinkie asked casually. “I didn’t know that.”
Diamond put on a sheepish grin. “Oh, um… well, you know, it was really a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, and--”
She was interrupted as Pinkie took little steps in front of her that forced Diamond Tiara to back away.
“So, essentially,” Pinkie Pie continued. “You’ve been setting up all of this for your own benefit.”
“Well, that’s, um…” said Diamond, who was becoming increasingly uneasy as she stumbled away from Pinkie who wouldn’t stop walking in front of her.
“You started a war. You made up a lie, and let these foals shoot each other so that they wouldn’t be able to stop you.”
“Pinkie, what are you--”
“You asked me for my help. You bribed me, and turned me against my friends.”
“Listen, we can talk about this, just--”
Pinkie stopped walking, and stared at Diamond who was cowering at her hooves with that same unperturbed smile.
“You promised me that I was doing the right thing. You Pinkie promised, Diamond Tiara.”
Diamond felt a sudden surge of panic as the realization of what Pinkie was doing dawned on her. She tried to find a response, but all she could do was stammer nonsensically.
“I… Um, I… I thought--”
“BRING IN THE CAKE!!” yelled Pinkie gleefully at the top of her lungs.
All of a sudden, Diamond Tiara found herself being pulled backwards at full force. Before she could grasp what was going on, her back impacted harshly with the trunk of a thick tree, knocking the wind out of her. She looked around frantically to find she had been tightly attached to the tree by a rope, from behind which came Applejack, giving the filly a devilish wink as she strode by back towards the middle of the clearing.
At the same time, a few foals on the outer ring were knocked aside with grunts of surprise as from behind them rolled in a pony-sized cake on wheels at great speed, before coming to an abrupt halt right in front of Pinkie. Everypony voiced their surprise, although it was somewhat lesser for those that knew the party pony well.
Standing on her hind legs, Pinkie rubbed her hooves together before removing the top of the cake like a lid. She then bent down inside the box-like cake. “Now, let’s see here…”
Diamond Tiara watched in fearful apprehension as Pinkie rummaged inside the cake to the crowd’s astonishment, excitedly whispering amongst themselves about what kind of trick she was going to pull this time.
“Uh, Pinkie…?” she asked in a quivering voice. “What are you doing?”
“You made a Pinkie promise, Diamond Tiara,” Pinkie repeated. “You made a Pinkie promise, and you broke it. And now you’re going to pay.”
She got out of the cake and turned towards Diamond. She then walked towards her, holding a bite-sized cupcake with pink frosting. Diamond Tiara could hear her heart pounding in her chest.
“You know, it’s funny” said Pinkie as she walked towards a panicking Diamond Tiara. “Since the beginning of this game I knew there had to be some kind of meanie in the woods that I had to take care of.”
“What do want Pinkie, huh? More candy from Canterlot, is that it? I’ll have my daddy triple your order, just please--”
“Oh, you silly filly. You have no idea what you just got yourself roped into.”
“P-please!” Diamond pleaded. “Can’t we just talk about this?”
“The time for talking is over, Diamond. Now… cross your heart, hope to fly…”
“Pinkie, I beg you…!”
“Stick a cupcake…”
“Stop!!”
“In your eye!”
Diamond Tiara clenched her teeth and shut her eyes tightly as she felt something being smooshed against her face. She waited for a moment, expecting something worse to happen, but as silence regained its place in the clearing she tentatively opened one of her eyes. Pinkie was smiling at her kindly, and all the other ponies were looking at her in confusion. Diamond could feel something cold and soft over her left eyelid, but it was nothing to worry about. She was ok.
She started laughing, at first slowly and nervously; a laugh which grew into a full-blown cackle.
“Hahahaha! You… what, that’s it?” she sniggered, out of breath. “Are you for real, Pinkie Pie?”
“It’s an ongoing debate,” Spike whispered into Luna’s ear.
“What, you make a huge fuss out of a stupid promise and all you can do is--”
She was interrupted by the sight of the cake behind Pinkie falling to the ground with a strange mechanical sound. It revealed inside it a cannon at least twice as big as the minigun, pointed straight at her.
The cannon fired an enormous round blob of pink paint with a tremendous sound. There was almost no time between the shot, which whooshed past the surrounding ponies and blew their manes back, and the moment on which it wallopped Diamond Tiara and a good part of the trunk she was strapped to. It made an impressive splattering noise, and paint was strewn onto the ground and several trees around it.
Nopony dared to utter a single noise. They watched Diamond’s inert body, the silhouette of which was visible under the carpet of paint she was covered in. After a few seconds, she opened her mouth and gave the most shrill cry of fury anypony had heard in a while.
The crowd broke out in a cacophony of cheers. Everypony turned to each other with beaming faces, either to congratulate them of to apologize for everything. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were dancing around each other, not caring that they’d been shot. It didn’t matter to them anymore; the war was over.
Feeling a hoof on her shoulder, Pinkie turned to see Applejack and the rest of their friends smiling at her sympathetically. “Ya did the right thing, Pinkie,” said Applejack. She sounded grateful. Pinkie looked back at her with the same gratitude for having been forgiven by her friends, whom all huddled together in a moment of celebration. It seemed that for now, they would be able to put this whole game behind them.
From the corner of his eye, Spike saw a pony approaching their group slowly. It shouldn’t have been out of place, seeing as how they were surrounded by cheering ponies, but somehow this one caught Spike’s attention. When he turned around to see who it was, he felt a pang of shock that had become a habit lately.
The pony was a rather well-built stallion limping towards them with his head hung low. Spike could see the stallion gritting his teeth with every painful step. His white coat, matted all over, was speckled with both dirt and paint, and his mane hung over his eyes in loose blue locks like seaweed over a rock.
Spike turned to Rarity, his eyes still glued to the impressive display before him.
“Who is that?”
Rarity turned around in mid-giggle, first looking absently at Spike before spotting the stallion he was talking about. Her smile turned upside-down and her pupils shrunk as she recognized him.
“Fancy Pants!” she cried out as she ran towards him, making all her friends and several ponies all around turn their heads in surprise and in shock. Soon the entire group had gathered around the stallion, who could only stand up with the help of Rarity and Applejack at his sides.
“What in Equestria happened to you?” asked Rarity. Fancy Pants’s answer sounded through clenched teeth.
“Ugh… I was attacked…”
“By whom? Who could possibly take this game so seriously that--”
“It was… a beast. A beast with no shape and a heart of stone…”
Everypony was trying to figure out who or what Fancy Pants was referring to, except Rainbow Dash, who had figured it out.
“Discord!” she cried. The other ponies turned to her with genuine fear in their eyes.
“But the draconequus was reformed!” said Luna in disbelief.
“That monster…” said Rarity, close to tears. “To think he did this to you…”
To her surprise, Fancy Pants gave a brief, raspy chuckle. Rarity could see a weak grin behind his mane and a forehead that looked as though it was made of stone itself.
“Well that’s just the thing,” he said. “He did nothing at all. He spoke, but didn’t shoot.”
“Then who did this to you?”
“It was a mare… a friend of yours, I had seen her before…”
This time, it was Applejack’s turn to understand whom the stallion was referring to. She felt a cold ball of ice in the pit of her stomach. All this time, she had been looking for Fluttershy but had never expected to find her in these circumstances.
“That’s Fluttershy,” she said gravely. She had not raised her voice, but the reaction from her friends was twice as strong as when they had heard Discord’s name.
“But… wha…” Rarity was so shocked by what she was hearing, only minutes after they had been celebrating the end of one disastrous series of events, that she couldn’t put her thoughts into words anymore. Applejack took over.
“When and where did this happen?” she asked.
“It was yesterday… yesterday evening, I think… I can’t tell, everything’s just the same shade of gray these da--”
“Where,” asked Applejack in a surprisingly dry tone.
Fancy Pants was slightly taken aback. “I’m… I’m sorry, I wish I could help, but--”
“Tell me where she is!” roared Applejack, stunning the entire clearing. Rainbow Dash flew down by her side.
“... I’m sorry,” said Fancy Pants. With a jerk of the head he lifted his mane from his eyes, revealing a ghastly sight to the ponies before him. His entire forehead, stretching down over his shut eyes and to the tip of his snout, had been turned to stone.
“Even if I knew,” he said in a raspy voice, shaking from the knowledge of what they were seeing. “I couldn’t take you back there. I’ve been stumbling around like this since yesterday, following the commotion I heard over here. The beast, he said… He said I had seen too much.”
Nopony spoke, mortified by the sight of such cruel magic. Suddenly, Rarity screamed and broke down in violent crying upon the ground. Spike rushed to her side, trying his best to comfort her although he felt no different.
Rainbow Dash was the first to regain some form of composure. “Whatever we do, we need to get out of here,” she said.
“Ah agree,” said Applejack, still in a slight daze from the unreal sight of Fancy Pants’s mutilated face. She couldn’t bear thinking about what kind of things he would do to Fluttershy if she was with him… She shook her head, trying to push out some sinister thoughts and feelings, and focused on the present moment. “If… If we follow the path that Fancy Pants took ta get here…”
“We can retrace his hoofsteps!” said Rainbow. “I’ll fly overhead to see if I can spot that bastard from a distance!”
“Alright, but be careful now, ya don’t want him to see you too,” replied Applejack. She turned to the rest of her friends. “We need ta git organized here. Pinkie and Pip, you’ve been shot, so seeing as how ya can’t shoot yer guns no more, you two should take care o’ these foals. We don’t know what’s goin’ on here, so make sure none of them gets hurt or attacked.”
“Right,” said Pip. “We’ll stay here and keep an eye on--”
“No!”
All eyes turned to Princess Luna, who had blurted out the word. She looked as though she’d been petrified herself.
“Whaddaya mean, ‘no’?” asked Applejack with slight annoyance.
“They can’t say here! Nopony can!” she cried. “It’s not safe!”
“Well why dontcha stay with them?”
Luna cringed. She wasn’t willing to tell her or anypony else about what she had seen. It would be just too much to bear on top of what was already going on.
The truth was she had no idea who could be trusted and who couldn’t anymore. If by mistake, they left one of them with the foals… assuming they were all pony foals to begin with...
“I… I…”
The ponies watched her as they waited for an answer in growing anticipation of more bad news. Cold sweat was running down Luna’s temples, and her mind hurt with confusion as she struggled to find a solution.
“Is this about the vision you had, Princess?” asked Pip softly. Luna froze, and Applejack watched her in surprise.
“What? What’s this about a vision?” she asked. Luna cringed as she saw fear being replaced by despair in the eyes of some of the foals, who were no longer fearing simple loss of the game.
Luna swallowed hard, and after taking a deep breath, looked at Applejack straight in the eye.
“You need to leave this place, and find Discord. I’ll take care of the rest,” she said in a very serious tone.
Before Applejack could ask any more questions, Luna turned around towards the tree on which Diamond Tiara was positively covered in paint. Her horn glowed as a deep blue shimmer of magic enveloped all the paint there. Taking another short breath, Luna pointed her horn at the large paint stain, which suddenly burst out and struck all the foals around in tiny splatters.
The latter were too surprised to react, as they watched in disbelief their bodies speckled with pink paint. There was not a single foal that had not been struck.
They all looked at Luna, surprised to find paint on their Princess as well, who seemed to have deliberately eliminated herself from the competition.
Luna didn’t look back at Applejack and instead raised a hoof as she did when addressing a crowd. She had a way of making sure that what she was saying would be printed in everypony’s mind, not limited to those foals standing before her, but to the entire forest at large.
“Everypony, heed my words!” she bellowed in her royal Canterlot voice. “The Everfree Forest is no longer a safe place! These woods, as well as this game, have been contaminated by a great evil, as enemy Changelings have infiltrated the area!”
She paused, as she had to see whether one of these Changelings would in fact be hiding under the disguise of a pony a few feet from her. Turning around on the spot she saw no change in appearance other than the devastated and confused looks that everypony was giving her. She knew it was a hard pill to swallow, but she had no choice.
“Anypony still in the game is to leave these woods and return to their homes immediately! Mark yourselves in paint, or you will look like a target! It is highly possible that they have taken the shape of ponies close to you, so regain your homes by yourselves and be wary of other ponies!”
Before anypony could offer any sort of reply, Luna’s horn glowed once more and she instantly teleported the entire group of foals, as well as Fancy Pants, back to Ponyville.
The other remaining ponies stood rooted to the spot as Luna turned back to them with utmost seriousness.
“What the heck are ya doin’?” asked Applejack with more confusion in her voice than anger.
Luna walked over to them.
"All shall be explained in good time,” she said solemnly. “But it is most certainly the truth, and I needn’t stress any more that the situation is extremely dire. Nonetheless, I have to trust you. I have to believe that none of you are one of them.”
She waited for a response. They simply stared back at her, trying their best to show their Princess that they were who they claimed to be.
“There’s no way we’re Changelings!” said Rainbow. “Honest!”
“You can shoot us right here, right now if you want,” said Applejack with absolute resolve. “And not jus’ with paint, too. If you have any doubts, don’t leave anythin’ to chance now. But ya have our word that we’re the real elements of harmony.”
The rest of them nodded, Pinkie weakly and silently gesturing with her hoof to signify a Pinkie promise. Luna felt a genuine aura about these ponies that allowed her to relax a little. She turned to Pipsqueak.
“I’m also sending you back to Ponyville,” she said. “Tell the ponies what happened here, and have the foals vouch for you, even if nopony believes you. Show them this.”
Suddenly, a gun appeared to the ground before him. It was black chrome coloured, with a single mark of green.
“Do not hesitate,” she said. “If there are any Changelings there, even in the group I sent, you must find them out. Do you understand?”
Pip nodded again, and without a word more he was transported back to Ponyville himself.
Luna turned to the remaining ponies: Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie, Rarity and Spike.
“Find Discord and Fluttershy, and take care of the situation. I fear your friend might have been corrupted by his malice already, so if you wish to rescue her, this is something you have to do together as the elements.”
The others nodded and were about to turn around when something clicked in Luna’s head. “Where is Twilight Sparkle?” she asked.
The others were all stumped by that question, which had not occurred to them before. They had all assumed she was playing the game on her own and were too focused on the events at hand to think about her.
“I was with her… at the start of the game,” said Pinkie. “But I lost track of her, and I don’t know where she went after that…”
Applejack turned to her with a frown. “And ya didn’t try ta find her?”
“I’m sorry…” Pinkie said with guilt and shame in her voice. Applejack was about to retort, but Luna shook her head.
“No matter, now is not the time to be divided. I shall seek Twilight Sparkle and make sure she is safe from harm. Now go! Make haste!”
On that note, Spike and the four elements of harmony turned around and galloped on the path that Fancy Pants had taken while Rainbow flew overhead. Luna took to the air and flew among the treetops as she tried to find her sister’s protégé.
Underneath it was quiet. Finally, there were no more ponies in the clearing. It lay still and soft as ever, only a tree marked in paint and loosely wrapped in a lasso at the trunk, and a stream of water seeping from the lake between the rocks and towards the trees nearby. Somehow the place looked ancient and abandoned, as though it had all happened in a distant age.
Thunderclouds were growing thick and dark overhead.
* * *
Earlier
Twilight slowly opened her eyes in the dark.
For a moment she lay there, doing nothing but slowly breathing and staring into the quiet darkness around her with an empty mind. Eventually she shuffled on the spot and slowly tried to get up.
She groaned. It was a painful task, and her whole body felt cramped as though it had been folded into a small box for hours. She tried to stretch her wings, and winced as she felt her bones crack there.
An inevitable question formed in her mind. Where am I? There was no telling in the pitch-black space surrounding her. It was cold, and had a musky smell to it. What time was it? Was it day, or night? Was she outside, or inside? She couldn’t tell.
“H… Hello?” she asked weakly. To her surprise her voice reverberated on what she assumed to be walls, indicating that she was in some sort of room. A sizeable one, judging by the echo of her voice.
She stood up, feeling that she was in a much less confined space than she would have thought. Slowly but surely, she took little hoofsteps forward to try to find something else than just empty space. The sound of her hooves on the ground below told her that she was treading on hard but smooth ground, possibly made of rock.
She was stopped in her step as she blindly walked straight into a hard wall. She cursed, feeling both foolish and impatient to find some sort of exit. She noticed that the sound of her face meeting unceremoniously with the wall made a different sound than the one her hooves made upon the floor. It was a creaking sound, softer than she would have thought, which her analytic mind processed into one specific possible outcome.
A door…?
Tentatively she put a hoof forward, finding the hard surface on which she had hit her head and pushed forward. What was indeed half of a large wooden door swung slowly forward with a sharp squeak, revealing a first gap of bright light that struck Twilight’s eyes sharply and made her shield them with a hoof. After a few seconds of adjusting to this new light she slowly stepped forward and edged the door open a little more to pass through it.
She found herself atop a staircase of worn marble, small enough for her to see the end of it as the last step slipped into the stony floor. She slowly walked down the staircase and through a large archway, which led to a very large room. As she saw the floor leading into other archways and staircases, and the grass and moss growing into the crackling rock from below, she recognized it as the main hall of the old castle of the Royal Sisters.
Surprised to find herself here of all places, she looked above towards the ceiling, which had long since eroded away and given way to the sky above. It was a gloomy and grey as ever, and the air was as silent and heavy in the castle as it was in the forest outside.
Rather than feeling worried at the idea of being in this desolate place, her curiosity only grew further. How had she gotten here? She couldn’t have come here on her own, that was for sure, or at least she didn’t remember doing so…
She felt a certain lingering pain at the back of her head that she had managed to ignore since waking up. As she rubbed it with a hoof, it all suddenly came back to her. Her going out to get some wood, her strange visions in the forest and how she had been attacked by an unknown assailant… She had lost consciousness…
She gathered that whoever attacked her must have brought her here, which at first made her flinch and look anxiously to her sides. However, she regained composure as she felt that for some reason, she was completely alone. She couldn’t feel a presence anywhere in the calm silence around her. It didn’t seem to her in that moment that she was in the Everfree Forest, but rather in the middle of nowhere in space, and the forest and rocky bluff were so far away.
But why? Why bring her here, in such a remote and abandoned place? There was nopony around to keep her prisoner… It was almost as if they wanted to…
She suddenly froze and her eyes flew open. She remembered the bluff.
Ditzy!
She understood now. She wasn’t being locked in. She was being kept out.
Without wasting a second more she rushed towards the main door of the castle, which was useless as the wall around it had withered away. She ran across the field to the rickety bridge a few feet away, which she leapt over with the help of her wings, and continued to gallop through the woods until she reached the edge of the woods, where she decided to fly among the trees in the hopes of avoiding any unwanted attention before it was too late.
* * *
Bang!
Another gunshot ruptured the quiet, heavy air of the world above the trees as Derpy spotted yet another Changeling from her post on the rocky bluff.
“Celestia dammit, where do these things keep coming from…?”
She was feeling mixed emotions. On the one hand, she felt quite pleased, almost excited, to be able to be of some use to the Princesses. It was what she dedicated her life to after all. But on the other hand, she felt concern that was only natural given the ever increasing gravity of the situation. She had never had to deal with two threats at the same time before… and they seemed stronger and more elusive than ever.
“See any more of them?” she asked Twilight. The alicorn did not answer, which was another reason for the pegasus to worry.
Ever since Twilight had disappeared, then suddenly reappeared back on the bluff, she had spoken surprisingly little and showed almost no emotion. Derpy understood that she must have been in shock after what had happened to her; perhaps to the point that she wanted nothing to do with Derpy’s business anymore. Nonetheless, there was a point in time after which Derpy’s empathy and understanding were replaced by worrying. Twilight felt so different, so much more distant than when they first met… Derpy hoped that nothing too traumatic had happened to her.
Everypony, heed my words!
Her daydreaming was interrupted by the clear, resounding voice piercing through the air and echoing in the forest. Instantly she directed her sniper towards it, though she didn’t need that fancy lens of hers to recognize that voice.
“Princess Luna…?”
She watched as Luna appeared to be addressing a crowd of foals, which although it was a bizarre scene in itself, didn’t strike her as nearly as odd as some things she had seen in her life.
The Everfree Forest is no longer a safe place! These woods, as well as this game, have been contaminated by a great evil, as enemy Changelings have infiltrated the area!
Derpy’s lens was so accurate she could actually see the foals’ jaws and ears dropping and their pupils shrinking to mere dots in their eyes. Even though unlike them, she was aware of what Luna was saying, she cringed nonetheless. Things had been taken to new level.
“News spreads fast, huh…” she said in yet another attempt to get a word out of Twilight, whom yet again did not answer. “Twilight, please tell me you’re hearing th--”
It is highly possible that they have taken the shape of ponies close to you, so regain your homes by yourselves and be wary of other ponies!
Suddenly, everything was quiet.
The voice was gone. Silence was restored.
Derpy, kneeling on one knee and holding her sniper on her right shoulder, did not move a single muscle. Only her mane swayed softly in the wind.
Her mind was drawing a blank. Her right eye was still glued to her lens, although she wasn’t actually looking through it at the moment.
Only one thought sneaked itself through her mind. And it wasn’t a pleasant one.
Very, very slowly she turned her head around. She stopped the moment she saw what she expected to find in the corner of her eye: a purple hoof next to her which indicated that Twilight was just behind her. Apparently.
“You know… I thought it was just me… But you never really did tell me how you managed to escape from those Changelings,” said Derpy.
Once again she waited for an answer, considering a strike attack if necessary.
“Don’t make a move,” said Twilight. Her voice was cold and deadpan.
The pegasus sighed. What a fool you are… Derpy.
Neither of them spoke or moved for what seemed like a very long moment. Derpy was just waiting for the right time to spin around and stick a chrome bullet in the usurper behind her. But she knew that not only would the Changeling be expecting that, but also that they were probably thinking of doing just the same and that they were in a much better position to do so. Time was ticking fast and any wrong move on her part would be her last.
“So what happens now?” she asked.
“... You’re about to find out.”
“Ditzy!”
Both ponies spun round towards the voice that had just spoke. Derpy witnessed in surprise as the real Twilight Sparkle came in galloping from below the trees, freezing at the foot of the bluff in shock of what she was seeing. It was then that the fake Twilight Sparkle fired an incredibly fast blast of green magic from her horn, which narrowly missed the alicorn and struck her paintball gun which had been resting on the ground nearby for several days now and which exploded upon impact. Twilight let out a cry as she was covered in paint and hit by fragments of the exploding gun, before falling to the ground. At the same moment, the fake Twilight burst into flame to reveal none other than Queen Chrysalis.
Derpy threw herself on her back and pointed her sniper towards her, but she was too late. Chrysalis, anticipating her opponent’s move, fired a blast towards Derpy, hitting her in the flank. Derpy cried out in pain as she fired a shot in the air and, pushed by the force of the blow, fell from the tip of the bluff, falling towards the trees below like a ragdoll.
“No!” shrieked Twilight. Struggling to get up, she fired up her horn for a strong magical attack but was cut off as Chrysalis dashed towards her with a swift buzz of her wings and pinned her to the rocky wall behind them.
Twilight winced and struggled madly against the grip that Chrysalis’s hoof held on her neck, but it was too strong. She forced an eye open to see the Changeling queen boring holes into it, a look of mad fury burning in her jade coloured eyes.
“You meddling rat…” she growled.
“Go on,” groaned Twilight. “Knock me out again, lock me up a thousand miles away from here if you want, but I swear I’ll come back to defeat you!”
“Oh no, I think I’d rather you keep me company this time!”
Chrysalis’s horn took on another green glow, and as Twilight struggled some more, she gently tipped the alicorn’s horn with her own. Twilight fainted on the spot, and Chrysalis let her slump to the ground unconscious.
She looked down on the listless pony with raw contempt, before turning her back to her and slowly advancing towards the tip of the bluff where Derpy had been moments ago.
She looked down towards the forest. The pegasus had fallen to her death for sure.
She then looked up and slowly raised a hoof. On cue, an armada of Changelings slowly rose from the treetops in a loud chorus of buzzing wings, an army which spread well into the broad horizon before her.
“My children!” she bellowed from her grand podium of stone, “let us march onto Canterlot, and claim this land as ours!”
The Changeling army erupted into a collective war cry in allegiance to their leader’s shared lust for blood.
Stats
Page generated in 0.047 seconds
Total duration
1,137 users online
2,393,198 hits today, 2,571,732 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Feces becometh the object of reality
4006842 SIR! WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF ELEPHANT SHIT TO SHOVE DOWN THEIR EARS!... I think we are also out of vuvuzela, batteries for the radio and pinkie masks
4006842 SIR I HAVE A REPLACEMENT FAN!
derpicdn.net/media/W1siZiIsIjIwMTIvMTAvMDcvMThfNTVfMjlfOTQ4XzExNjQ2OV9fVU5PUFRfX2Rpc2NvcmRfYW5jaG9ybWFuX3RoYXRfZXNjYWxhdGVkX3F1aWNrbHkiXV0/116469__safe_meme_image%2Bmacro_discord_chocolate%2Bmilk_anchorman_that%2Bescalated%2Bquickly.jpg
Good show old chap. Can't wait to see the next Act.
But then... Sombra.
'cause why not.
4006842
Additionally, said feces has impacted the air circulation device.
This just got really more epic.
Every time I see Rarity armed I think of this clip from Spaceballs. Warning for two instances of swearing and utter hilarity otherwise.
About to read this fic and it kinda sounds like that one independent film called paintball
You probably get this a lot, but this reminds me of Community, which I'm totally awesome with
4009616
Ugh, there were so many things wrong with that movie... Like... what the fuck...
Oh, Celestia this has such a good backstory to it! YOU ARE SO AWESOMMMEEEE!
You know, Pinkie was technically eliminated from the game when she fired that big cannon at Diamond Tiara. Doesn't that mean sDiamond is still technically in the game?
4009814 Here's how it is (keep in mind these are my personal rules): Elimination from the game, upon the simple fact of coming in contact with paint, means the pony's gun is now useless to them, they cannot shoot it (somepony else may, but if memory serves that's only happened once so far). So when Pinkie is eliminated, she can't shoot the pink, balloon-adorned paintball marker (of badassery) that was given to her at the beginning of the game. The minigun and the cannon are just props if you will, that just happen to be there because it's
time. 
4008545 Roger that, but be advised that since we've run out of batteries for the radio I've no idea what you're saying and I am currently shouting nonsense in this useless Playskool Walkie-Talkie, SIR!
4009812 Thanks!
4009814
If that's the case, so is Derpy (a pegasi falling to their death and you never disabled their wings? Ha! Nice try bug brain) and Twilight. Chrysalis wasn't a player so hitting Twilight with her own paint wouldn't count.
4011509 Actually it does. Paint stain means you're out, that's it. And yes, I realize that it sounds a bit too easy, but reality is so overrated here in the beautiful world of fimfiction. Besides, the phrase "no rules, no limits" has been around in the description since day 1
And it's official. Things went from bad, to just downright shit storm worse.
Very good suspenseful chapter, and I look forward to the next chapter.
~ Super-Brony12
4010289 check the description about the hunger games
CMC. IS. EPIC!
Diamon Tiara, you bitch!
Pinky is awesome! Never you broke one Pinky promesse.
Rares and Spike, so beautifull!
NOOOOOOOO
Never. Fucking. Break. A. Pinkie. Promise
4347179 I'm no native English speaker, but I'm pretty sure not even the most southern American folk pronounce "oraynge" or "the ringe". They don't match. Also, why are people trying to disprove me on this one? :p Think I didn't double and triple check?
4349078 Kinda like Rainbow Dash
...Pegasus.. wings. Hello?
4353033 Yeah that was the original inspiration for this fic ^^
4352305 No, why?
4352436 Not if the blast killed her...
4352070 Exept she actualy stop to talk instead of just flying off after shooting all the ponies.
Gives a better "What just happened?" effect when just flying whitout stopping after shooting em.
4012453 The limit is the treetops.
UMADBRO
4353885 That's not the limits I was talking about... More like limitations of what ponies can do, see?
4353429 You obviously din't read the comics, but the Changeling kingdom is in the southern mountains..
~http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/IDW_comics
If you din't know there are MLP comics. [AND THEY'RE CANON.]
~http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/005/8/7/my_little_pony_map_of_southern_equestria_by_plzwork112234-d5qkmq0.jpg
Map of southern Equestria [Changelings be under the bottom line just right of the place where it says "Elephants sightings reported".]
~http://i.imgur.com/nCdxvYu.jpg
The gates to the changeling kingdom.
[These houses used to be pink and purple whit little hearts, whit super cute fluffly cat thingies that lived there. Wrong spot.]
~http://yp1.pony.pp.ua/comic.php
And the comic archive if you wana read 'em. Issue 1-4 are those where Chrysalis tries to get revenge on Twillight. [And fails. But hey, details, right?]
And this is the official comics, so yeah, canon. And it doesnt hurt to change one little word now, does it? [If you dont im gona find you and kill you in your sleep.]
4353980 Hmm, I guess there's some sense in that.
4347534 Rhyme is whit the letters, no matter what the sound does, its the letters and just the letters.. Weellll, in Québec at least, you wherever you live could have some weirdo ohter rules for rhymes.
4353429
...Hum, wait.. if DERPY... you know, the derpy-mailmare-im-a-sniper-that-protects ponyville..
..Is dead... then..
...
......
IM MOVING TO CLOUDSDALE! :L
4354754 Wiki says it's a "repetition of similar sounds in two or more words, most often at the end of lines in poems and songs". But since everyone loves a wiki-skeptic, I took another definition from Oxford Dictionaries which says "Correspondence of sound between words or the endings of words".
I mean, I don't want to get into a silly internet fight or anything (and I should thank you for taking such a... "vigorous" interest in my story), vut I'm pretty sure that's always been the case, everywhere, ever. Even in Québec. Et même en France, même si vous nous considérez bizarre et vice-versa
4360720 Dude.. paintball in the hovers. CRAAASH.
Plus no space for it in the forest.
4362137 I forgot to mention that it is really agile. And sort of small.
4362588 Then i'd get my tank and shoot you down. Its a fast and agile paintball tank, tho. And since it fast it spamfire huge balls of paints like Pinkie's cannon. Also my gun is shooting 1 mL into it so it counts as still being paint from my gun
4369632 Um... A.) my craft has raritanium-class armor with light-bending abilities and B.) You have to shoot through the "hit me I'm here spot" in order to actually put me out. And only the small paintball pellets can get through it.
Oh, and 3.) I'm awesome.
4372664 Should I grab some popcorn?
4372664 Then i'd just go to Workspace > Models > Ponygood11 , Right click, CTRL+X. Then i'd go make a huge pool of paint and CTRL+V, then you'd be all painted and stuff whit your hovercraft in the middle of nowhere.
4372669 Go ahead.
4372690 But I am Discord's apprentice and I have learned some basic chaos powers, like blocking editing programs and folder files about me from being edited.
4372713 About YOU. Hovercraft... edit whit GIMP... Eraser tool... here.. now it wont hover at all. *CRASH*
4372759 Ooh guess what? I deleted GIMP before you even got to it thanks to a stable time loop I seem to have found. I deleted all the other editing programs as well. AND I made sure to put a super secret top secret ultra secret password into my hovercraft's files.
I'm just awesome like that.
4372928
Heeey Discord, popcorn rain please?
Hm.. But im friends whit a moderator. c:
/ban ponygood11
4373108 Sorry I took so long, I had to find a ban/unban site. I unbanned myself and I have banned the moderator who banned me. I, as a precaution, have also banned all of the other moderators, as well as anyone else who could be able to ban me again, except you.
4373758 I will not have comment 300 be ruined. Tis mine!
Lol carry on
4373758 Unfortunately for you he made me a OP, so i put a redstone clock linked to a command block :
/kick ponygood11 Umad
4373792 Ah, but see, I knew that this would happen ahead of time, thanks to my stable time loop, and so I put some lava where you were and then took that opportunity to change my name to yours.
/kick Magic_blaze
4373828 Thats just my nick, the username is something else. So then i built the Kick Machine, that kicks you and when you rejoin you get rekicked too fast! But then i got banned for lag machines and we're both stuck out of the server because i hid the machine in the depths of the bedrock maze, which is at the complete opposite end of wherever you spawn in the nether, and is also protected by a epic fatigue M potion effect, Thus making it take 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 Years to break it! [M = 1000 in roman numbers] And even if you did, i have a spare at the OHTER end of the map.
4373865 I give you a mustache for getting yourself banned.
Anyway, now that you are out of that silly game of yours, I shall use my ludicrous speed remote-control paintball sniper rifle that can lock on to you from anywhere in the universe to out you. And don't bother deleting it, I've protected it from change. You will only know it hit you because I told you it would hit you.