Swarm of the Sentry
by Present Perfect
Succulent mint and clover greeted Mr. Cake's nose as he opened the oven door. The cake within was puffy and browned on top, shining dully in the oven light.
"Ohh, this looks just perfect!" he cried, pulling the rack out with an oven mitt. Grinning, he gave it another long sniff, touching the top gently and watching it spring back. "It is perfect!"
With a song on his lips and a spring in his step, he pulled the cake pan from the oven and placed it on the counter. Still humming, he checked the recipe for the frosting he'd been whipping up when the timer rang.
"Let's see, I got the vanilla in, and the salt, and the powdered sugar... Oh, the currants!"
He poked his head into the dried fruit cupboard, rummaging through the boxes and tins. He moved to the non-dried fruit cupboard, his step springing just a bit less. He checked the sugar cupboard, the liquor cabinet, the sprinkles shelf, the backup sprinkles shelf, the pots and pans cupboard (Pumpkin liked to hide things there), Pinkie's Super Secret Experimental Cupboard of Experiments, ~~Keep Out~~ Be Careful (he emerged harrowed and drained of color), and the dried fruit cupboard one more time just in case.
Nothing.
"Honeybun, d'you know where the currants are?" He worried his lower lip. "Did we run out?"
Silence was not a sound he was accustomed to hearing in Sugarcube Corner, and it took him a few moments to recognize it for what it was. His teeth began to chatter.
"S-sugarlump? Are you in the bathroom?"
More silence. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down to the collar of his apron. He lifted his foreleg, glancing left and right.
"Pinkie, are... you there?"
His own scream broke the silence a moment later as everything happened at once.
The lights flickered. The front door slammed open. A harsh wind cut through the store. Upstairs, the twins cried in their room. A different scream pierced the air. And Pinkie Pie appeared from nowhere, shouting, "Mister Cake! It's worse than I ever imagined!"
Mr. Cake screamed once more, leaping onto the backup sprinkle shelf. The metal rack rattled in time with his trembling.
"Pinkie!" he shouted. "I thought I told you never to do that!"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Cake, but there's no time!" Pinkie slammed a mixing bowl, thankfully not the one filled with half-finished frosting, onto her head, adopting her Serious Look. "We have to act now, before it's too--"
"Carrot, help me!" came the cry from outside.
Mr. Cake's shivering ceased. His brows knitted. His jaws clenched.
"Hold on, cream bun, I'm comin' for ya!" he bellowed, charging from his high perch through the kitchen and out the door, Pinkie hot on his heels. His bravado proved momentary upon the sight of what had befallen his wife.
A dozen small creatures, the size, color and shape of peaches, with translucent blue wings, had surrounded Mrs. Cake and bore her skyward. She shouted Mr. Cake's name over and over, but it was too late. As they watched, she receded into the distance.
"It really is worse than I imagined!" Pinkie gasped. "Time to get Twilight!"
Mr. Cake fainted.
As was often the case on Sunday afternoons, Ponyville was in turmoil. Ponies ran through the streets, screaming their heads off, frequently bumping into one another and falling over, which just made things worse. Shop windows were boarded. Stalls folded up. Parents pulled their foals inside.
In one corner of the chaos, a mint green unicorn and a cream earth pony were about to kiss, when a cloud of blue-and-peach bug creatures swooped down upon the earth pony. As she screamed and kicked her legs uselessly, her partner could only stick out her lip, eyes watering and ears drooping, and watch her be spirited away. Thankfully, another group of the offending insects swarmed over her a moment later, and the pair were soon reunited in abject, screaming terror.
Inside the tree-shaped crystal palace that had recently sprung up on the north side of town (like ya do), four ponies tried frantically to wrap their minds around the situation.
"Is it parasprites?" asked Rainbow Dash, chewing on her hooves. "I hope it's not parasprites. I don't want to have to deal with those things again."
"They don't seem to be actin' like they did last time," Applejack observed. "I mean, even after Twilight cast that wacko spell on 'em, they weren't carryin' ponies off."
"Last time, they were all different colors," Fluttershy said quietly. "These all look the same."
"And have you noticed they're only going after mares?" Twilight frowned, pacing back and forth between the thrones. "But not all mares, and no fillies. Ergh! Everything's happening so fast... I can't find any pattern to what's going on!"
"That's why I'm here!" shouted a fifth voice.
They all turned to the door, which had been kicked open by Pinkie Pie. She stood on her hind legs, huffing and puffing, the mixing bowl still perched on her head.
"They're not parasprites!" she cried. "And I should know!"
"Pinkie, what do you know that we don't?" Applejack asked, brows knitted in consternation.
"Yes, Pinkie," Twilight added, moving over to her, "your expertise was invaluable during the last invasion. Tell us everything you know!"
"I know..."
Everypony else leaned forward. "Yeees?"
Pinkie took a deep breath. "They're stealing waifus!"
Four ponies faceplanted on the cold, unforgiving crystal floor.
"Ouch," said Fluttershy.
"What's a... 'waifu'?" asked Rainbow Dash, rubbing her chin.
"No time to explain," Pinkie said, shaking her head, the mixing bowl ringing like a bell atop it. "Twilight, we need you to do your parasprite mind reversal spell on them like you did last time, pronto!"
Applejack and Rainbow Dash exchanged glances.
"But it didn't work last time!" Applejack exclaimed.
"Yeah, what's it gonna do?" Rainbow Dash added. "With our luck, they'd start eating ponies!"
Twilight's eyes had widened continually since Pinkie had announced her plan. Now she backed away from the pink mare into a throne, nearly toppling it over with the force of her retreat.
"Ohhh no!" she cried. "Nonononono! I know what you're getting at, Pinkie, and I won't do it! I refuse!"
Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Fluttershy looked at her in surprise. Pinkie seemed unfazed.
"You know what I know now, Twilight Sparkle," Pinkie said, lowering her head. "You feel it in your heart of hearts." Her voice became a whisper of epic mysticism. "You know what you must dooooo!"
"No!" Twilight said, a hysterical giggle at the edge of her voice. "I'm not gonna, and you can't make me!"
"Twilight, Twilight!"
The sixth voice was Spike's, as he too burst in through the front doors and charged at full speed across the throne room floor, all the way to Twilight. He slid the last few feet to her, wrapping his hands around her forelegs.
"Twilight, you have to help her! They took her!"
"Took who?" Applejack asked, looking to Rainbow Dash, who only shrugged.
"Oh dear," Fluttershy said. "Does anypony know where Rarity is?"
Her question was answered by a muffled yet elegant scream of fright from outside.
"They stole her from me," Spike said, looking up at Twilight with tears in his eyes. "Please, you have to stop them like you did last time!"
"B-but it's not the same as last time..." Twilight muttered, trying to look at anything but Spike.
"C'mon, Twilight," Pinkie said, zipping up beside her, "you're Rarity's only hope now! You have to cast the spell!"
She grabbed Spike's head in her hooves and smooshed his nose up against Twilight's so she got a front-row seat to his impending emotional breakdown.
"Can you say no to a face like this?" Pinkie asked, smooshing Spike even harder against Twilight's face. "Well, can you, Miss Princess?"
"Okay, fine, I give in!" Twilight shouted.
Spike was tossed unceremoniously across the room, where he landed in a heap, shivering and weeping. This was unusual only in that it was Sunday, and not Thursday.
Now it was Twilight's turn to leak saline moisture from her ocular sockets. Her head hung low as she addressed her friends.
"Just... What I have to do, girls..." She looked up at them, with the face of one helpless to avoid the gallows. "Promise me you won't think any less of me when I do it. Promise."
"Cross our hearts and hope to fly, stick some cupcakes in our eyes," they chorused, hesitating not a second in performing the chant.
Twilight let out a long sigh, closing her eyes and wiping the tears away. "Thank you, girls. Follow me. I'll... need the moral support..."
They let her lead them down to the castle's entrance, step by dragging step, saying not a word the whole way. When they stepped into the sun, Twilight took a deep breath, looking up at the sky where a dozen mares screamed for their lives, surrounded by tiny blue and peach monsters.
"I-I'm not ready," she mumbled, taking a step back.
"You can do it, Twilight," Pinkie said, putting her hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "I believe in you."
"Me too," Rainbow said, mirroring Pinkie's motions.
"And me," Fluttershy added, doing the same.
"We know you got it in ya, Twi," Applejack finished, hugging her.
Twilight smiled at them. "Thank you, girls. I couldn't do this without my friends. All right... Stand back!"
As her friends took a step back from her, Twilight charged up her horn. With a grunt of effort, she projected a long wave of energy into the sky. At first, it seemed nothing had happened.
They slowed, and stopped. After a few moments, they looked at each other. And then a dozen mares fell screaming to the ground, saved from untimely deaths by Rainbow Dash and a few other quick-thinking pegasi.
For a time, all was quiet. Then new screams filled the air, much deeper and more resounding than the former. Mr. Cake, sitting on a small cloud of parasprites, went sailing over their heads.
"Oooh!" said Pinkie, looking through binoculars. "I think I see Rarity's dad over there! He's got like a zillion of the things carrying him!" She snorted and giggled. "I guess somepony needs a diiiieeeet!"
"Well, I don't see what was so bad about that," Applejack said, "but now the problem's pretty much the same."
"Wait for it," Twilight said, so quietly that they were unsure she'd said anything.
Twilight steeled herself, moving into the middle of the street. She posed as if in mid-stride, closing her eyes and tilting her head up. As she spoke, she swayed her hips and head in opposite time.
"Flash Sentry is the pegasus who's better than the rest of us, the greatest pony that you'll ever know."
She kipped up onto her hind legs and spread her wings. As she continued the chant, her friends looking on in slack-jawed horror, she fluttered her forelegs under her chin, batted her eyes, and clasped her hooves together as if ready to swoon.
"He's handsome, clever, and so smart, so strong of wing and brave of heart, he is my one and only husbando!"
The pegasi had to zip back up into the sky as the stallions had a turn falling to their almost-deaths.
The parasprites looked at each other. Their little bodies buzzed, not from their wings, but from them vibrating in place so fast they began to blur. They dove on each other, mouths open, swallowing one another whole. The ponies on the ground gasped in awe and a bit of horror (Fluttershy had to turn away) as by twos and threes, the little creatures consumed one another.
The mass of parasprite grew bigger and bigger as they chowed down. Eyes, legs and even wings faded into an amorphous peach-colored mass hovering in midair above Ponyville. (Those long of memory could recall that happening but once before. It had occurred on a Tuesday.)
The peach blob moved slowly downward as the final parasprites glommed onto it. When the last one had assimilated into its mass, there was a flash bright enough that the ponies had to shield their eyes.
When it cleared, what remained was a bipedal creature clothed in black and grey, with a shock of vivid blue hair on his head.
"Oh yeah!" he shouted, pumping his fist in the air. "I got you to say it! In your face, Twilight Princess! Haha, whoo!"
He jumped around in a circle, laughing and cheering as the ponies watched, jaws slack. Then, after a moment, he stopped and looked down at himself.
"Hey, wait a minute... Why am I humaAAAAA--"
A small black vortex opened by his hand, and in the blink of an eye, he was sucked into it like a turd down a drain. It closed with a burp and a ding, and then all was still once more.
Twilight's expression went from shame, to slack-jawed amazement, to creeping, giddy joy.
"I never anticipated destructive temporospatial self-realignment!"
Now it was her turn to prance in a circle, cheering, whooping and giggling.
"Gotcha, bitch!" she crowed. "Gotcha, gotcha!"
The other ponies looked at each other and shrugged.
"Unh! Yeah! Who's the Princess?"
Twilight thrust her hips in the air, waggling them at where the vortex had appeared. And with a whip-crack of her tail, she sauntered back into her sparkly princess tree-castle.
The End
Author's Note
Been a while since I wrote an honest shitfic. It's like a disease, I tell ya. I came up with the idea, wrote and edited it in less than eight hours today.
This story was inspired by this story, via some convoluted logic chain that I can't even explain. I wrote a large portion of it while drunk. (Thanks to Obselescence for edits, not to mention the title!) By the way, if you liked this story, check that one out too, for it is every bit as silly.
Also thanks to Quilled Inc for mocking up the Flash Sentry-colored parasprite for me to shop the face over. :B
