2 -The Peak of Frustration
"...how was work?" My father mumbled around a mouthful of squash.
I chewed carefully, intent on not causing myself to choke on my meal before answering. "It was fine. Rice Paddy twisted his ankle, he should be back in a week or two. Nothing else really out of the ordinary."
"You should send him a get well card. Or something," he muttered impassionately. I honestly would have been worried if he had said it with any emotion. That would have been a break from the norm. As it was however, It would be an odd occurrence to see his mouth deviate from anything but a straight, tight line.
"I'd rather not. He keeps trying to hit on me, regardless of how much I say I'm not interested. He just won't take a hint."
"Oh. Well that's nice."
"Something on your mind, dad?"
"...What?"
"You just responded to me saying that I was getting unwanted advances, by saying 'Well that's nice'. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but that kind of response usually means your mind is elsewhere."
"I...suppose it is." He got a far off look in his eyes, and I didn't even have to guess as to what captured his thoughts. My mother was on them, always. during the day, and in his sleep. At least it was some form of constant.
A high pitched buzzing interrupted our meal. The front door bell. Who the hay could be calling at this kind of hour? Didn't civilized folk realize that once the sun went down, they should just mind their own damned business and stay home?
"I'll get it..." My father lurched to his hooves, making his way down the hall to the front door.
He tromped his way down the hall, and I heard the door open. I saw no reason to follow, so I simply continued to eat. I finished, and cleaned my plate in the kitchen sink. I'd sit with my father when he returned, he deserved that much. I could hear him still talking with whomever was at the front door however, so I decided to make my presence known.
"...going to..." came the muted voice of my father. I didn't intend to eavesdrop, but the angry tone I heard issuing from his mouth made me pause. Who was he talking to, to get such a barely restrained response? I stepped as lightly as I could, creeping closer.
"...to get out of this dreary house, Pip. All you do is mope around all day, this isn't healthy!"
"This was the house she lived in...along with her mother and father. I'm not leaving this place."
"I'm not saying you leave it, I'm just saying that you should get out more, go see a play, ride a bike, something Pip! You're wasting away trying to remember something that's no longer there-"
My father slammed the door in the mares face with an explosive impact. He stood there for a few seconds, then turned to me with a small huff. Seeing me standing there, staring at him, he froze for a second. He averted his gaze, and scuffed a hoof across the floor.
"Who was at the door?"I asked.
"That...that was just an old friend of your mother's." he paused, and brushed past me on the way to the dining room. He nuzzled my side, and I returned it in kind. Any measure of comfort I can give him. "You've met her before, her name is Applebloom?"
"...The CEO of Sweet Apple Acres Unlimited?" I think I actually had met her before. A light coated mare with a ruthless business sense. She had singlehoofedly quintupled her family's profits when she had finally taken the reigns, for better or for worse. A slight lean more towards worse, if any of my coworkers were to be believed. A few of them had come from the labor lines, where if rumor could be believed they were forced to work until their hooves bled. Not that any actual evidence had been uncovered. More than likely, it was simply the lazy complaining about a simple days worth of work. This world came with all kinds.
"Yes...her. Your mother-" His face visibly brightened at just the thought of her," -was in a club with her and another filly. The Cutie Mark Crusaders, if I'm remembering the name correctly..."
"Cutie Mark Crusaders? You mean that help group based in Trottingham?" I'd heard of it before, but had never really pursued it. I found my cutie mark without any help, I was a competent little filly back before...Whatever. It doesn't matter.
"Yeah...that." He trailed off, sitting down at the head of the table. He started eating again, and didn't contribute anything further to the conversation.
I sat down, and kept him company as best I could.
~-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~
I couldn't sleep.
I bolted awake for the third time that damn night, the echos of a dream lingering at the edges of my mind. I didn't remember what I had been dreaming, only that they always ended with a frantic, frenzied drums, and the overpowering scent of unfamiliar trees.
I'd never so much as been in a forest. Why the hay was I dreaming of one? And why the drums? Surely those hooligan's stupid music hadn't made THAT much of an impression from the short duration of which I'd heard them...
*Da-ba-da-ba-da, Da-ba-da-ba,Da-ba-da-ba*
Celestia damn it, Now I was even hearing the drums while I was awake. Wait, what?
There was a deep, bassy beat of a drum, coming from outside my window. How the hay was nopony raising a fuss at this? If the Heartstrings twins so much as plucked a string after dark, half the neighborhood would've cried bloody murder.
I opened my bedroom window out into the biting cold of the night beyond. The drums grew louder still, as if in response to my attention. On a mental gaffe, I decided to test a theory.
"Ha...CHEEEEEEW!" I fake sneezed, trying to make it as loud as I could so it echoed across the street.
...
...
...
"Ey, keep it down you meddlesome brats! Someponies are trying to sleep here, ya know?!!?"
"Sorry Mister Crabapples, just got something in my nose!" I lied.
So. It was only in my head. Wonderful. I swear, if I found out who did this, I'm going to make it so they can't walk from the pain. I'd been pranked like this similarly before, and spent three days thinking my mother was speaking to me from beyond the grave. Suffice to say, I wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep after this. I only knew basic levitation, and a simple shield charm. Breaking a spell or a curse like this was simply beyond my abilities. I'd either have to find the original caster, and get them to stop. Or go to the guard in the morning and have them deal with it. Either way, I wasn't getting any sleep any time soon.
The drums were coming from over...the direction of Rarity's boutique. Of course. The first place I had heard it. Whoever was pulling this manure, I was gonna mess them up bad when I found them. I was going to sodomize them with a cactus for this. They think they could just get away with this? With just a smile and a laugh?
This wasn't funny.
Not at all.
~----------------------------------------------------------------~
I stood inside the front door, easily enough opened with a simple application of force inside the lock. Locks were pretty pointless, actually. Especially to a unicorn. Any business owner worth their salt invested in a good series of anti theft spellworks. But this place had been derelict for ages, so I guess I couldn't really fault it for having such shitty security.
The moment I stepped inside, the drums had stopped their torturous succession. I was seriously going to hurt whoever was behind this when I found them. At least it was a slight reprieve. A dusty, dirty reprieve. Looking around the abandoned room, I was struck with a sense of...disappointment. This was the house of the mare I hated? It was all so...ordinary. Swathes of clothe lay strewn about under a thick layer of dust, along with tattered sheets of paper that looked to have designs on them.
I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, nor did I see anything useful. I didn't see any reason why I had been herded here either. If the drums had been set on me by somepony with some sort of unspecified grudge, they probably tried to lead me here to unsettle me. Then they'd probably try to trap me here, probably collapsing a section of the building so I couldn't leave for a short while. And yes, this kind of thing HAS happened to me before. A dunderhead of an earth pony by the name of Earnest Wiles tried to trap me in an old factory, so I would get fired and so he would get 'employee of the month'. I wasn't even in the top three, if he had managed to carry out his plan he still wouldn't have made it. Idiot.
Point is, I now had a specially made charm that would allow me to teleport to a safe area(my house) tucked tightly around my neck. Unless they had some sort of draining spell set up in ambush(a nearly impossible spell to set up...maybe one of the Princesses could do it without much trouble...) I'd be gone before they could say 'oh...shit.'
My suspicions weren't justified immediately, so I continued my inspection of the room. There wasn't that much to be seen besides what I'd seen already. A broken sewing machine. Musty, rotting cloth. A skateboard... a skateboard?!!?
I picked it up, to better inspect it. Colorful depictions of bull skulls on the bottom, the grip tape on the top torn up and well used. The wheels were brand new, the hard plastic of them barely even scuffed.
"Put down my board, harlot," came a voice from behind me.
I moved without thinking, leaping forward to put space between us, turning around to get a bead on my target. I charged a levitation spell, lashing out at the shadowy pony before me. He was dragged into the air, flailing his legs wildly, his now apparent wings struggling to break him free of my spell.
"Agh! Put me down ya narc!" he yelled, desperately trying to escape.
"Who are you, and why did you bring me here," I asked coolly, calmly.
"I didn't do nothin! It was you that brought me here!" he yelled, now having managed to twist himself upside down. "Those freaky drums! Why the drums!? Why'd you have to torment me with the drums!?!"
3 -If One Rolls, A Five or Eight
I stared at the struggling pegasus, taking in his features. He wore a ratty looking vest, its brown edges frayed and tattered. He probably fished it out of a garbage bin at one point as well, going by the smell.
His mane and tail were both cropped short, their blue tinged tips spiked outwards. His mane had been shaved into a popular style for hoodlums, a mohawk. Made him look like a damned fool. It didn't even match with his green coat color!
He said he didn't bring me here. Could be lying, of course, trying to shift blame now that I had him in my grasp.
"I didn't bring you here-" I started.
"Yeah right, you freaky unich's and your stupid magic, you're always the cause when things go wrong!" he claimed, having floated in my grip into an upside down position.
Great. Not only had I caught myself a hoodlum, but I got a tribalist in the bargain. Yaa~aay. I hated dealing with these bastards, going around, making trouble for the rest of us.
"Listen up you little turd," I snarled, noting with satisfaction as he stiffened from my tone. "I didn't have anything to do with you being here. I don't want to have anything to do with you. I'm going to let you down now, and if you do anything to make me even the least bit nervous?" I drilled him with an icy glare, daring him to question my resolve to follow through. "I will do my utmost to continuously kick you in the head until you can't move any more. Understand?"
He swallowed loudly, peering down at me with a healthy amount of fear. You had to make ponies fear you if you didn't trump them in size. If somepony thought they could physically bully you, they usually would.
"Fine," he huffed, trying to save face as best he could.
I let him down, roughly dropping him on the ground. "Great!" I exclaimed with false cheer. "My name is Rarity, and you are trespassing on private property. Get out."
He glared at me for a couple seconds, before directing his attention to the surrounding room. "I'd say nice place, but this makes even my dive look like a shithole," he complained, sneezing loudly.
"If you don't like it, you can just leave all the faster," I rebuked.
"Fine! Just gimmie my board so I can go! Geesh!" he complained, louder than necessary.
I tossed the board in his direction, slightly grinning before I quashed that under a stoic expression due to him almost dropping it. I will admit, it has got to SUCK not being able to levitate stuff.
I started off towards the back of the store, lifting up stuff as I went and prying my way into disheveled piles. It had to be here somewhere, and it couldn't be anything too small or otherwise it wouldn't have drawn both myself and the dummy.
"What are you looking for, ya stupid bint?"
And to think, I almost thought he left. Nope, can't have anything nice.
"Weren't you leaving with your tail 'tween your legs?" I asked snidely, hoping he would take the hint and hightail it.
"Screw you, I aint scared!" he snapped back at me. "I ain't scared of nothin'!"
A great cacophony of booming sound quickly followed his declaration, sending him to the ground with a shriek of fright. He cowered with his forelegs holding his board above him, trying to shield himself from the ferocious onslaught of sound.
"Stupid coward," I said, my tone dripping with my disgust. I turned my head from side to side, trying to pinpoint the source of the drums as they continued ceaselessly, their tempo drumming out around me to a beat that felt surprisingly familiar.
I crept onwards, finally stopping in front of a door at the back of the shop. I poked it open, sighing in relief and then sucking my breath in at the sudden silence.
It led downstairs. The old stairs looked rotten and unsafe, if I placed my full weight on the middle of any one of them I would probably fall straight through.
"Hay! Wait! Where're you goin'?" came once again from the unwelcome sore upon my rump.
"Downstairs," I replied simply. I didn't have time to waste on this simple minded hooligan.
"But..." came the worried reply, and I felt rather than saw him sidle up behind me. "It looks dark down there. What if you fall and hurt yourself?"
I let out a short snort of derision, making my way carefully down the stairway. I was right in my assumptions regarding their stability, the wood splintering and trying to come apart even when I put my weight at the edges of the stairs.
I felt a sudden burst of warm air touch my dock, and after a second, another. This repeated several times, before I got fed up and turned around to show my displeasure fully.
"Get your face away from my flank you freaking mouth breather!" I hissed, watching as he flinched under the onslaught of my perfectly warranted ire.
His face scrunched up in momentary anger, lurching forward to retaliate. I knew the bugger was stupid, but I didn't think he was suicidal. The stair he oh so intelligently decided to place his full weight on crumbled like a weak bridge under the hooves of a fat earth pony, pitching him forward. This might not have been such a problem, but for the fact that said direction sent him directly into me.
Couldn't just kill himself and leave me out of it, could he?
We fell down the increasingly broken remains of the once upon a time stairway, an almost boneless tangle of legs and hair and scattered curses.
Finally all was silent. All was motionless. All was painful.
"Get... off..." I heard, strangled from underneath me. I realized the uncomfortable mass I was laying on just so happened to be the never once proud remains of the hooligan pegasus.
"If that's a crack at my weight, I will break you," I stated icily. I removed myself regardless, and he for once cleverly kept his idiotic mouth shut. I peered around, trying to find a light-switch. I hoped there was a light-switch.
"It's freakin' dark," he whined.
"Should have thought about that before you tried to kill us by throwing us down a staircase," I jibed.
"I didn't- You were-... Ugh!" he exclaimed, unable to think up an intelligent response. Actually, not speaking might have been the smartest response I got from him yet!
I primed my levitation spell, gently grabbing the hooligan around the midsection with a band of yellow tinged light that I tethered to myself.
"Hay! What're you doing?!!?" he shouted in panic.
I gave him a dry look, jabbing a hoof upwards to point at my horn. "You were just complaining about it being dark. Should I just turn this off then?"
"No! I mean uh... no, the lights fine, just colored weird," he sputtered, trying to save face.
The light was nice, but this way he couldn't just fly off back upstairs and leave me here. He broke the staircase, so he could damn well carry my non-flight enabled flank back up to the top. If he did so under duress, it wouldn't be any skin off my nose.
"Look around, see if you can see anything weird," I ordered. He wanted to follow me down here for seemingly no reason, so why not carry some of the weight? He probably wouldn't be able to distinguish a magical glyph or array capable of sending a telepathic message across great distances from his own tail hole, but more eyes couldn't hurt.
"Do you count?" he stated, probably trying to win me over with just how witty his insults were.
"Seeing a sheep of any kind down here where there realistically shouldn't be one would definitely constitute as something weird. Good job, so if you see any ewe, be sure to tell me, alright?" I asked snidely.
He looked offput by my false compliment, trying to figure out if I was messing with him. He finally gave up, breaking eye contact and looking around.
I followed this behavior, looking around myself. More stacks of cloth, more crumpled up and faded blueprints. More dust, more dirt, more filth. Ooh, a pile of rat turds! How exhilarating. There were a couple ponequins lying around, one was even standing up, what happy surprises next? No magic sigils scrawled on the walls in blood though, no little trinkets radiating magic, nothing immediately evident as the cause of the booming drums.
"Hay, bint!" he called out, once more trying his utmost to piss me off. "Is this weird?"
I rose to his bait, letting out a low sigh as I trudged over to him to see what the tartarus had caught his attention. He pointed at a damp bit of ground, the wall having long worn away to allow a mound of dirt to encroach inwards. Placed in said dirt at random intervals was some sort of mushroom. Looked harmless enough, white stem with dull blue spots dotting the cap.
"That's a mushroom," I stated dryly.
"Well, yeah," he retorted, poking at one of them. "But you said anything weird. I aint never seen this type of shroomie grow around here..."
"It's not what we're looking for," I said dismissively, turning back to continue my own investigation. "If you find some tubers or carrots or anything though, be sure to waste my time and tell me," I finished coldly.
I heard him softly sneeze behind me, then let out a bloodcurling scream. I whipped back around, watching in trepidation as he rolled around on the ground, pawing at his nose.
"Agh! AGH! Sodding 'eck! FAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!" he cried out, breathing heavily. "Bastard shroomie sprayed dust up my nose!"
I immediately relaxed. The idiot had sneezed, then breathed in dust. Moron. "Feel free to join me in searching again once you're through playing with the 'shroomies'," I said in a sing song tone of voice.
"Screw you!" he retorted, his voice strained as he tried to regain his normal breathing pattern.
"Stunning repartee, as always," I sighed. The sooner I could get out of here, the sooner I could never see this waste of space again.
"Your face is repper!" He replied, obviously not understanding my 'complicated words'.
He let out another shriek as the drums started up once again, backpeddling into me and getting a hard hoof upside the head for his freshness. The drums were louder than ever, drawing together into an almost ear shattering crescendo. I noticed the hooligan was trying to shout something at me, but the drums were simply too loud for me to make out what he was saying.
I winced at the pain the drums were causing to my ears, looking back and forth for their source. The sounds led me across the room, finally uncovering a rectangular box.
As soon as it was found, the drums fell silent.
"Son of a bint!" he mewled, crumpled on the ground with his hooves over his ears. "What the heck is it? Is it over?"
I shook my head, not bothering to respond. I turned to rectangular box over, noting that the title 'Jumanji' was carved deeply into the boxes lid. Surrounding the title was a writhing mass of carved vines, hidden eyes poking from every tangle. At the four corners of the box were four raised disks, each holding their own motif. The one in the upper right corner held what looked like a pair of eyes, surrounded by a haze of energy. The eyes looked cruel and sinister, and it wasn't long before I had to look on. The upper left featured some sort of horned being, one I had never seen before. Its head was large and misshapen, its eyes looking dull and unintelligent. The lower left had a pony, wearing a safari inspired hat. She had a regal, haughty expression on her face, looking out past the confines of the wood with an expression of condescension. The final space was the only one I couldn't be sure of. At one glance I could be sure it was a ball of twigs. The next second I was positive that it was just a face. The third it was a roiling stormfront.
I must have hit my head harder than I thought. Stupid stairs...
"Jumanji," I let out into the silent room around us. "Never heard of it. Sound familiar to you?" I asked. He shook his head to say no, opting to stay silent. "Well this is where the drums were leading us, but this isn't where they were coming from," I groused.
"What're you on about? All the freaky drums were coming right from here, so why-"
"There's no magic coming from it," I cut him off before he could befoul the room around us with his blatant stupidity. "That means it isn't what the sounds are coming from."
He stared at the box for a couple seconds, before a hoof snaked out to poke at what was quickly shown to be a lid. It opened down the middle of the box, separating into two half sized lids that framed the sides. What was revealed within...
"Parachutes and Ladders?" he dimly stated, causing me to wince at his observation skills.
"No you dolt, that's a completely DIFFERENT board game, that looks nothing like it!" I snorted derisively.
"Well excuse me princess," he snarled, reaching out once again to poke at the revealed board game.
Four branching paths snaked around the edges of the board, each traveling around to eventually meet up in the middle, which sported a half-dome of burnished green glass. Strangely, two pieces were stuck to the surface of the board. A white unicorn with their horn held high, almost contemptuously in profile. The other piece was slightly more odd. It was shattered, half of the piece broken off and missing. From what remained it looked like it might have once been a dragon, its purple coloring faded and worn away.
"Well that's weird," he spouted, poking at the unicorn piece. "It ain't moving! Is it stuck?" He continued poking at the piece while I puzzled over the board. Why bring me here? Why bring idiotic-mcstupidpants as well? What was their game? What did they want?
"Coool, hay look, there's two more pieces," he stated, drawing my attention back to his fumblings.
He held two more pieces (oh joy, he can actually count properly to two! Will the wonders never cease?~) in his hoof, shoving them towards my face. One was an verdant green pegasus, mimicking his own coat color. The other was a lightly pink tinged unicorn, echoing my own. Weird, but just a coincidence.
"Don't shove stuff in my face," I ground out, shoving his hoof away. The pieces fell from his grasp, clattering loudly upon the board.
"Holy heck!" he belted out, as the pieces snapped to position at the start of the unused paths on the board. "No magic huh? Then how'd they do that?" he asked, poking at the now stuck pieces.
"Magnets, you dolt," I reprimanded him, refusing to let him see that it had momentarily thrown me for a loop.
"Cooooool, hay, wanna plaaaaay~?" he queried, once more invading my personal space by shoving a pair of dice in my face.
"No you idiot! We still haven't figured out what was causing the drums and you want to plop yourself down on your flank to play a game, in the middle of the night, in a derelict old building?" I stated sullenly, slapping the dice out of his hoof. "Come on, I want to go home and sleep while there's still moonlight out. I've got better things to do than foalsit some brat in my aunts Celestia forsaken crappy old shack."
My voice fell silent, a quiet scratching filling out the space around us. I followed the sound, tracking my head until my gaze fell once more upon the open game board. I watched silently as the pale pink unicorn slowly made its way across the board, stopping four spaces from its starting position.
"Magnets, huh?" he snorted.
"Shut up," I cut him off, watching as the glassy orb set into the middle of the board slowly glowed to life, a turgid green mist tinged with yellow slowly forming within it. I still couldn't feel any magic in it... but regardless of what I was feeling... It was still doing what it was doing.
"They seem so safe and unassuming,
But you won't find them so amusing.
Yet they have such pretty lights,
How will you deal with flammus sprites?" He slowly intoned, reading the message that that had swirled to life within.
"Great, it spits out riddles. Looks like its missing whatever game cards or whatever else it came with that lets you know how to tplay the actual game part of it, so I guess we can't play. Too bad. Now come on and help me find whatever keeps making the stupid drum sounds."
He didn't do as I liked, instead pointing out another part of the board. "There's the rules right there, see? Jumanji," he continued, ignoring my short sigh of exasperation. "-a game for those that seek to find a way to leave their world behind. You roll the dice to move your token, doubles gets another turn. The first player to reach the end wins. Adventurers beware; do not begin unless you intend to finish, the exciting consequences of the game will only vanish when a player has reached Jumanji and called out its name. Sounds pretty simple to me."
I scoffed, cuffing the fool over the back of his head. "Those aren't game rules, that's just flavor text! And again, we have better things to be doing beside sitting on our rumps and playing a stupid game. So come on, forget that stupid thing and help me sear- AGH STARS ABOVE AGH AGH AGH!!!!" I leapt in the air, furiously swatting at whatever was avidly biting my flank. The only thing my hooves managed to connect with was my own flank, but after a few second the wild pain died down to a dull burn.
"What the hay was that for?!!" I snarled, fixing my attention on the hooligan. 'What' he had done to me, I hadn't the foggiest. But he was the only pony here, so it had to be him! Perverted pegasus.
He didn't respond, opting to only point a shaky hoof at where I had been sitting. I followed his gesture with my eyes, allowing them to fall upon something... odd.
A ball of fire sat there, a wide eye of different colored flame covering the entire front of it. It watched me as I inspected it, and I could swear the undulations that were shivering across meant it was laughing at me.
"Is that a ball of fire?" I asked, hesitant to approach for fear it might burn me again.
"Looks like it," he affirmed, stupidly poking at it. He immediately drew back his hoof, hissing in pain as he flung the burned limb back and forth. I almost laughed at his foolishness, but felt my attention better spent in other areas.
"It's so cuuuute~" I crooned, leaning down to better look at it closer. It was absolutely adorable, its 'eye' wide and curious. If it wasn't made of flames I might just cuddle the little bugger and never let go!~
"Are you sure you should be getting that close?" he asked, breaking me out of my reverie and forcing me to look at him.
"Its just a little ball of... fire? I guess? C'mon, look at the little guy!" I cooed, almost picking it up to shove it in his face. I managed to resist, thankfully for my unburned hoovsies.
"I dunno, didn't the board game say something about sprites or something? Flammus sprites? Maybe 'flammus' just means fire..."
"What, so the unmagical-magical board game somehow spawned this adorable little guy?" I asked, scratching my chin. Looking at the guy I saw that it had... grown larger? The little guy wasn't as little as he had been, that was for sure.
"Maybe you shouldn't be so close to it," he suggested in a worried tone.
"Oh please," I scoffed, "I'm not going to sit on the poor little guy again, it's not like I'm going to- WAGH!"
I barely dodged.
Let's see you dodge a gout of flames from only six hooves away, when they're aimed straight at your face.
The newly stoked flames splashed against a beam behind me, sending me scrabbling for safety. I set up a quick shield, just a small buckler half-dome that I could easily move around.
"I told you!" he crowed, inches from my ear. "I told you that thing looked shifty! Don't listen to me, I obviously don't know what I'm talking about!"
I restrained myself from physically or verbally berating him, instead locking my gaze on the once cute ball of fire. Its soft blue blaze had reddened, spreading to the burnable mass around it. A mouth of flames had formed under the eye, a cruel smile stretching across its body.
"That ain't friggin frackity right," he cried out, shaking a hoof in its direction. "Lets just get out of here!"
I hated agreeing with the hooligan, but I had been blinded by cuteness. "We still don't know where the drums were coming from though," I protested, keeping an eye on the shifting mass of steadily growing flame.
"Who cares! There is a ball of living fire right there that just tried to roast you!" he retorted. Again, I was hard-pressed to claim that he was wrong.
My choice was made for me, the living fireball attacking once more. It let out a stream of flame, arcing its way towards me once again. It splashed against the yellow glow of my shield, curving around the edge to attack me directly. I threw myself to the side, barely avoiding the blisteringly hot flames. As it was, they licked against the side of my face as they roared past me, searing the tip of my ear.
Another spurt of fire shattered my shield, and I frantically closed my eyes and threw my forehooves in front of me to ward off the encroaching flame.
A sudden jerk under my armpits, and I felt an empty sickness in my stomach. The world moved indistinctly around me, almost as if I were swimming. I cracked my eyes open to an odd sight. I was swimming, of a sort. Swimming through the air, the world around me whipping past my limply hanging hooves. Another burst of fire speared past me on my right, and I felt myself hugged tighter against the body I was suddenly aware held me tight against its belly as the hooligan tweaked his wings to seemingly jump to the side.
He flapped his wings desperately, barely staying ahead of the frantically reaching arms of flame that filled the air around us. With another powerful downstroke, we rocketed out the open door at the head of what used to be the stairwell. Out into the shop we flew, one second hanging in midair in the middle of the stores front room, the next we were crashing through the now shattered glass of the stores front window.
We collided with the ground, his hooves around me disappearing as he lost his grip. I skidded across the packed dirt and broken asphalt before I came to a stop sever seconds later.
I let out a choked groan, slowly rising to a sitting position.
"Fire!" I heard from... somewhere off in the distance. Kinda sounded like my old math tutor. I was having trouble focusing on my surroundings, my head fuzzy and thick feeling. "Somepony call the brigade! One of the derelicts is burning!"
I shook my head, trying to gain my bearings.
"C'mon!" came from the hooligan, suddenly in front of me and pulling me at what felt like a break-neck pace. "We gotta get away from here, the whole place is up in smoke and they're sure to got the fuzz comin'!"
I nodded dumbly, placing one hoof after the other as he finally stopped bracing my unsteady gait. A quick look over my shoulder saw an odd scene spread out behind us.
Her store was on fire, crimson red flames eagerly devouring what once had been pristine wood, holding what might have been the most up and coming fashions this side of Equestria. Now it was nothing more than fire food.
Already ponies were arriving on the scene, some pegasi drawing clouds above the blaze while other unicorns were busy trying to summon up waves of water to douse it. Earth ponies were hard at work digging a ditch around the slowly crumbling shop, and that was the last I saw of it.
I stumbled to a stop outside my house, heavily breathing in and out. Trying to get over what had just happened. Trying to understand how it had happened. Trying to -
"This your place?" came the sudden voice from just out of my peripheral vision. I had a near heart attack as I swallowed a frightened yelp, desperately trying to claw its way up out of my throat.
"What..." I finally choked out, watching his expression turn to one of confusion. "I... you... did you follow me?" I finally settled on, trying to regain control of the situation.
"Follow? No. You just stopped here," he replied dumbly, peering at me with what I could only assume might be concern.
I let out a frustrated breath, resolving to try not to insult him further.
"I... thank you..." I whispered, hanging my head in shame.
"What was that? I can't hear you when you mumble like that," I heard him say, and when I looked back up I could see he had a hoof cocked in front of his ear. It actually looked like he was being genuine.
"Thank you," I said again, louder this time. His face lit up in surprise as I continued. "If it wasn't for you... I lost my cool, I couldn't even remember to..." I completely forgot about my necklace, and hadn't the wits to even use it. If it hadn't been for the hooligan, I might still be in the bowels of my aunts shop, my body slowly charring to ash in death.
"I couldn't just leave ya down there, Rarity," he mumbled in an embarrassed tone, absently scratching at the edge of his mane.
Crap. I hadn't ever even once asked him his name, and he went and remembered mine? Tally me up as a heartless pony. I had been nothing but cruel to him and then he went and... and he... he then...
"What are you doing?" I asked incredulously, watching as he unpacked a familiar rectangular box that he had slung through a strap on his vest alongside his skateboard. He plopped the game board down on the ground, quickly opening it as he replied.
"Whats it look what I'm doing? You went, now it's my turn!" he stated jovially, as if we hadn't just been running for our lives from a living flame. How could he be so carefree? We almost died! It must be nice to be stupid...
I prepared to berate him, before I stopped in my tracks. I let out a slow breath as I heard him exclaim in excitement, "Ha, got one space farther than you did!~"
My gaze snapped back down to the board, seeing that he had indeed 'gotten one space farther'. Why he had bothered to save this stupid game when he was also dragging me around as we fled for our lives was beyond me.
"My apologies, but I don't think I ever got your name?" I queried, trying to mask my own slip-up with thinly veiled politeness.
"What? Oh, Dust. Dust Devil," he replied, still peering down at the board. "Whats a manticore?" he asked, forcing me to crane my neck downward to look at whatever nonsense message had scrawled itself across the glassy globe.
"Spoken of in Equestrian lore,
Beware the deadly manticore.
Ware its claws and ware its fangs,
Ware the poison sting.
If you stumble, if you fall,
Then feast upon you it shall." I finished, furrowing my brow. "It certainly is longer than the other one. Well, a manticore was a beast that used to live in what used to be the Everfree forest."
"You mean the Everfree District?" he asked, screwing his eyebrow up. The Everfree District was mostly filled with warehouses, storage buildings, but there was a few housing districts here and there.
"Yeah. Anyway, manticore were some of the worst sort you could come across. According to my dad one would poke its head out of the forest every once in a while. Thankfully they're pretty much extinct nowadays, You'd have to go halfway across the world to find one now," I finished, watching his eyes grow wide as he looked off behind me.
"One of these... manticores," he started, loudly swallowing. "They wouldn't happen to be some form of giant cat, have wings, and a large scorpion stinger for a tail?"
I blinked, trying to process his words. "I thought you didn't know about them, and then you just up and describe one?" I asked.
He didn't respond, simply pointing a shaking hoof off behind me. Sure I was probably more than likely to not appreciate whatever this meant, I turned slowly.
A blast of hot air proceeded my discovery of Dusts 'giant cat'. It towered over me, a stream of thick spittle slowly draining from the corners of its mouth to splatter against the ground. From this distance I could see chunks of gore stuck between its teeth, and I could darn well smell them as well. Blood stained its teeth, and past its head I could see its eagerly twitching tail.
It looked like it was hungry, and the menu had only two options. Me, and Dust.
"Don't... panic..." I near whispered, anxious to not make myself look any more delicious than I probably already looked. "Get... ready...to..."
It opened its mouth to its utmost, letting out a titanic roar that left me insensate and dumb. I stumbled back a couple spaces, falling bonelessly to the ground. I saw that Dust had fallen much to the same fate, forming a limp pile next to me as well.
I tried to form a shield dividing me from the beast, with a single swipe my magic was torn to shreds. Nothing but yellow sparks remained to even tell of my attempt.
It wasn't fair. First the stupid drums, then the traitorous fireball which attacked for no reason, and now this? A mythical beast that shouldn't even exist anywhere near here?
It was that stupid board game. I had scoffed before, having felt no magic coming from it, but this was simply too much of a coincidence to be natural. If I got out of this alive, I would investigate the board game more thoroughly.
It didn't look like I would get that chance. I saw the beast raise a giant claw, ready to bring its claws down in a lightning quick strike.
I closed my eyes.
I heard the beast howl in sudden frustration, pain lacing its cries. To pair with the beasts cries, I also heard... something far more horrid. A wild beast! Ferocious and feral, its snarls punctuated the air around us. I feared for my life yet more, and forced my body to curl inwards upon itself to give a smaller target.
The strange noises continued, sounds of conflict all around me. It stretched on for hours, yet only took place in the span of a few seconds. When finally I gained the courage to open my eyes, I beheld a strange sight.
A unicorn wearing strange armor, covered near head to hoof in blood. The Manticores blood. Its still corpse cooled in the street, cuts too numerous to count piercing the monsters hide. Its throat was left open, nearly bisecting its head from its body.
Inspecting the unfamiliar unicorn further only left me with more questions. She wore some sort of hide for her armor, its surface colored purple and green. Patches of it were worn away, leaving sections of her uncovered. Her hood was fashioned to look similar to a dragons head, but there was no way it was possibly real.
Leading down her legs, the hide was almost skintight. All four ended in a dragons claws, the freshly spilled blood of the manticore staining the lengths of all four claws for each leg.
Her face was largely uncovered, showing that her coat was white under the multitude of dirt that stained it. The remains of her mane was patchy and where bare skin showed I could see the flesh was pitted with burns.
A large swathe of bare skin stretched from the edge of her chin, up to the tip of her right ear. Where it stretched across her eye, it had left said eye milky and unfocused.
"You," she ground out, her voice strained and sounding unused to talking. I flinched, backpeddling into the still cowering form of Dust Devil.
She stopped upon seeing my reaction, sweeping the hood from her head and letting me see more of her. Her mane was short, what was left of it. The purple mass was cut short, almost as if carelessly hacked off with a knife. All that was left was simply slicked into an upwards facing mohawk.
"My... my is Rarity," she grated out, catching my attention. "This... this Spike. Spike husband. He fearless," she continued, lovingly petting the hood behind her neck. I cringed, wondering what she was on about. "You is roll... five or eight?"
Author's Note
Happy Birthday to me, here's a present for all of you!
Hope you all enjoy the short chapter, I'd like to take the time to shamelessly plug my other stories, which also have a new chapter today!~
These are URL links
|
V
The Mechromancer; To Build The Best
To Echo A Mimic
Sword In The Stone: Courage To Be King
Applegate
Ready Player One
^
|
Those were URL links
Do you want a chapter focusing on how Spike and Rarity wound up in Jumanji? Or would you rather I do away with the flashback and just try to work in details as the story goes on?
HOKAY, so you might notice that this chapter is a LOT longer than the other ones that came before it. I am frankly ASHAMED that I actually published chapters that didn't break 1k, and even then the largest chapter didn't even break 2. I hate when authors do that, so to look back and see that I myself did so? I'm thinking about collecting them all into one chapter. Or maybe just leave the first one as is, but title it as the prologue instead of a full fledged chapter.
Generosity Rarity is back from the depths of Jumanji! Why is she calling her armor Spike? Is there some sort of budding romance growing between our two heroes? Will the shop ever stop burning? All these answered and more, next time!
In all seriousness though, for most of my other stories now I basically have a Q&A each chapter. Feel free to leave a question for the character of your choice down in the comments, I'll be sure to have them reply in the authors notes of the next chapter!~
Note that I am implying that you ask a question of the three characters most prominently featured, but that doesn't stop you from going and asking a question of Bulk Biceps or something. I don't know why you'd ask him anything, all he'd answer with would be 'yeaaaaaaaaaaaah' inspired...
Oh hey, looks like this story isn't the only Jumanji themed one on the site!~
Cosmonaught has a story titled ; The Greatest Game.
PressStart has a story titled ; Jumanji in Equestria.
Good news if you need that particular Jumanji itch scratched, both of these stories are marked as completed!~ Add to that they both have good thumbs up to downvotes. So it seems a fair amount of people liked them. Now you can too!~ GO READ THEM. I'll meet you there.
