I had lost count of how long I’ve been in Equestria. Given that the seasons changed at the will of this land’s inhabitants, seasons could hardly be used as an accurate measure of time. Still, with the second Wither Wrap Up since my arrival in the history books, it was safe to say that quite some time had passed since that fateful night long ago.
A lot had changed since the hectic events following my arrival; and during the lull between the not-so-natural disasters known to plague the quaint town of Ponyville, everypony had fallen back into their normal routine. Unfortunately, no-one, or rather no-pony, had told me that these cataclysmic events were not a regular thing. So when something did happen, it was only to be expected that I would blow it out of proportion.
I was in my office, nursing the last remains of what used to be a bottle of the Apple Family’s finest cider. It had been weeks since the CMC thought that elephant riding was a good idea for a cutie mark. It had almost worked too; until the one Scootaloo chose picked up a magic feather and started flying away. It was almost time for them to get into trouble again. If anything, they were late.
I was wondering why everything seemed to be too quiet when there was a single knock on the door. Through the tainted glass, I could see the profile of a damsel silently wondering if I had already left for lunch. With nothing better to do, I downed the remainder of my drink and got up to open the door; fully prepared for the worse that this land known as Equestria could throw at me. What awaited me on the other side of the door however, was far worse than anything I could have imagined.
“Hey Mr. Mopey! What’s going on?” The Pink mare invited herself into the room quickly surveying the scene before her.
I sat down in the guest chair near the entrance to my office and kicked my feet up onto the coffee table. “Just enjoying the peace and quiet while it lasts, that’s all.”
“Oh come on, this place screams BORING! You need some Color in your life!” She bounded to the window on the far side of the room and pulled up the blinds, letting in the sun’s light in all of Celestia’s glory. The room's dingy hues were given new life as they were bathed in the unnatural beauty of her sun. “Besides, investigating things is my job, detective.” As she turned around, a plastic pipe could be seen firmly gripped between her lips; foaming profusely with white bubbles as she exhaled.
In my best imitation of a deep grizzly voice I grumbled, “All I have left after losing my wife and kid, is the bottle, and my job.” Unable to keep up the act, both Pinkie and I burst out laughing. Her high pitched squeals filled the room as the mood changed radically from somber to energetic.
We had planned getting together over a week ago, so I had set up the gloomy atmosphere to try and catch her off guard. It seems that no matter how much time I have to prepare though, she’d always be two steps ahead.
Must be nice having four legs.”So, what did you have planned for us today?”
“Wana go swimming?” She posed it as a question, but the bag overflowing with tub toys and flotation devices said otherwise.
“That sounds like a great idea, I haven’t gone swimming in ages.” Then a thought hit me, “I didn’t know Ponyville had a pool.”
Pinkie was now raiding the fridge, pulling out sandwich fixings and bottled beverages for our mid day excursion. “What’s a pool? We do have a lake though, I go swimming there ALL the time.” She paused half way through making a sandwich to point the knife at me in warning, “You have to be careful though, or else you might get attacked while you swim!”
“Attacked?” Despite my best efforts, my curiosity has successfully gotten the better of me, “By what?”
“The monster of Ponyville lake of course!” She rolled her eyes as if it were common knowledge. “It has blue scaly skin, big bulging eyes, and loves to drag unsuspecting ponies to their doom!!!” Pinkie waved her front hooves above her head before lowering the sandwich she had been preparing into her gaping maw with exaggerated sound effects. “You should be fine if you’re with me though; it listens to me.”
With this revelation on the forefront of my mind, it was hard to think of anything else as we made our way to leave the apartment. This creature sounds like a Kappa from Japanese Mythology… “According to ancient legend, I think we had those back where I’m from too. All you need to get rid of them are a few cucumbers.”
Caught off guard, Pinkie gave me an inquisitive look. “Cucumbers? And people say I’m random.”
I shrugged my shoulders before continuing. “You could always risk getting your insides pulled out of your butt. Me, I think I’ll settle for some sunbathing.”
“Are three bushels enough?”
I had only looked away for a second, but now Pinkie was hitched to a wagon pulling three overflowing bushels of ripe green cucumbers. “Huh, where did you get those…?”
She dismissed my question with a non-committal gesture of her hoof “I have gourds stashed all over Ponyville, in case of gourd emergency. But why Cucumbers?”
Do I even what to know? No, probably not. My face must have been all that she needed to see to read my thoughts.
“What? They’re tasty!” With a buck of her hind legs, a single cucumber leaped into the air and landed squarely in Pinky’s now drooling mouth. The successful feat of acrobatics was finished with a satisfying crunch.
“OOPS! Probably shouldn’t have eaten that, what if we don’t have enough now, my next nearest stash is on the other side of town, if I need to get more, we won’t have any time to swim, if we don’t go swimming, that will ruin the whole day, and if that happens we’ll-”
“Pinky!” I kind of felt bad for interrupting her, but given her history of exploding twice when things get out of hand, I felt my objection was warranted. “We should only need three or four. And if you are describing what I think you are; cucumbers are their second favorite food according to legend. So let’s go!”
It was a long walk, but the time passed quickly as the two of us discussed tactics on how to take down the creature that plagued Ponyville’s lake. We ultimately decided on using the cucumbers as bait on the end of fishing rods. This would prevent either one of us placing ourselves in any more danger than was absolutely necessary.
Executing this plan however, was easier said than done. To say that finding a way to bait a hook with a 6 inch gourd was challenging, is an understatement. The surface of the lake was already littered with half a dozen forlorn cucumbers, and a dozen more had been eaten as rejects. Maybe we will need three bushels.
“Oh, it fell off the line again… :(“ How she was able to verbally voice out an emoticon was beyond my comprehension, but the fact remained that she was indeed correct.
“I wouldn’t worry about it, I think we have enough-“ You are interrupted by a sudden draw of breath from Pinkie.
“The Cucumber… It’s gone.”
A brief inspection of the lake discovered that she was in fact telling the truth. Where should have been 6 cucumbers, there were only 5. My heart began to race at the mere thought that the monster of Ponyville lake being real. “It probably just sank to the bottom, yeah, that’s it.”
“But, don’t cucumbers float?”
Fear started to work its way into my voice. “It must have been stale, let’s try another one.” After taking several deep calming breaths, I was able to successfully rebate the hook with another cucumber. Almost immediately after Pinky cast the line though, an eruption of blue engulfed the cucumber and ripped the rod out of her hooves. “Did you see that!?!”
“I saw it, I saw it!!!” Putting her arms out as wide as she could, she continued, “It was THIS big!!!”
“Quick! Place some cucumbers in a trail to the lake, maybe we can get it to come out the easy way.” As the two of us laid out the line of bait, the remaining cucumbers on the lake disappeared in violent flashes of turbulence.
In the excitement, it became a struggle to keep my breath steady, “Okay. So, we will wait for an hour, then we go to Plan B”
“Plan B, what’s that? Oh, can I wear a mustache!?!” Not even waiting for an answer, Pinky donned a fake mustache.
Finally, Pinky’s compulsiveness works in my favor! “I am SO glad you volunteered. Plan B is where we use the Kappa’s most favorite food, the butt.”
“The WHAT!!!” She tried to escape from my grasp, but was too slow.
Before she could get too far I was able to wrap my arms around her midsection, and held her tail over the surface of the water. “Don’t worry; I have a really quick reaction time.”
“Then I should be holding YOU, not the other way around.” Somehow she shook herself loose from my grasp and jumped behind me. When I turned around I found myself staring down the barrel of her party cannon. “Now, put your butt to the water! And when it comes out, I’ll blast it!”
If I had known that going swimming with Pinky would involve a cannon being pointed at my unmentionables, I would have never entertained the idea. As it was though, I was squatting by the lake’s edge trying to lure out a mythical creature that wants to eat my colon. All while being stared down by a mustached pink pony with cannon pointed squarely between my legs.
Apparently Plan B now involved me listening for the sound of the water moving, and then jumping out of the way so that Pinkie could fire the cannon at the monster. Having never seen Pinky Pie sit still for anything, the concentration in Pinkie’s eyes was frightfully intimidating. She seemed to be hiding a smile, as if she enjoyed the thought of shooting the beast.
Lost in my own thoughts, I almost failed to notice a change in the color of Pinkie’s light blue eyes. They seemed to have more blue than they did a moment ago, and… it was moving!!! I jumped with all the force I could muster, mere fractions of a second before Pinkie fired the cannon.
“BOOM!” Despite my best efforts, the pressurized blast of confetti and streamers caught my feet and sent me flying head over heels. Fortunately, it also caught the creature straight in the face, sending it sputtering back into the lake, safely away from my rear.
As I tried to regain my bearings, I laid on my back looking towards the lake. My heart stopped as the creature started to walk out of the lake, looking angry as well as hungry, it let out a low rumbling growl. Strange, it almost looks familiar, and it almost sound as though it growled, “Pinkie Pie.”
The creature then lunged at Pinkie Pie, who happened to be laughing like no tomorrow. It probably didn’t help that the blue pony shaped figure was tickling her, wait what? “We were supposed to get HIM, not ME!!! What the heck!”
Pinky was barely able to speak in between pained gasps for air, “HA HA AH, I’m sorry, HA HA, I couldn’t help it!”
Realizing it had been Rainbow Dash the entire time, I couldn’t help myself from doubling over laughing too. It was a good long while before any of us were able to stand again. Even then, we were still prone to random fits of laughing.
“Thanks girls, that was a lot of fun. Now what do you say we get some swimming in before the sun goes down?” The three of us make a mad dash for the water and crash into it with another thunderous explosion of laughter. Once again, it was just another day in paradise.
Author's Note
I was replaying The Witcher when I noticed that the enemies referred to as Drowners seemed to have been influenced by Japanese mythology. Given their color variation from all shades of blue to green, I thought that Pinky and Rainbow Dash teaming up for a prank on the main character would make an interesting story. I then decided to pull a bait and switch where the actual prank is being played on Rainbow Dash.
I think this one shot came out pretty well. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments.
PS.
Sorry if I over did the opening; I did cut out the terrible "I mustache you a question" pun though, so I consider it a fair trade. Cudos if you got the reference for the need of additional color. See you next time!
