*Pewbang!*
“Listen well now, everypony, and see the things I have in store.
Potions, powders, remedies, magic talismans and more.
My stand contains the whole extent of shaman knowledge of my tribe
Magic like this you will not find from any pony without stripes.”
Joxer stopped and adjusted his path to trot closer to the zebra’s stand, biting down on the last of his caramel apple. Having a special talent for teleportation, the bespectacled brown-over-brown unicorn had decided to make a quick trip down from Canterlot to spend his day off work at the Ponyville Harvest Fest. He’d been walking around the festival for a few hours and – according to the crude map he’d bought for half a Bit – he had now reached the stand of a mare called Zecora, who was selling “potions and other cool zebra stuff”.
He sighed and folded the map before levitating it back into his saddlebags. At least it was sufficiently informative, considering it had been sold – and most likely made as well – by some school-age colts who were barely old enough to have gotten their cutie marks.
The zebra caught his attention again, selling a few small bottles of potion and pouches of powdered herbs while showing off some of her rarer items that weren’t actually for sale.
“Now if you feel especially bold
I’ll show you what your future holds
The scrying pool shows crystal clear
What will be–“ She paused, frowning down at the basin of shallow water. “…oh dear.”
Before she could elaborate any further there was a low humming sound, coming from somewhere down the street and preceded by several ponies jumping out of the way. A young pegasus filly on a scooter passed the spot where they had been, pulling a cart with two more fillies the same age at an impressive and slightly unsettling speed. Sure enough, one pebble in the wrong place was enough to throw them off-course and send the cart careening dangerously past a few ponies until it slammed against the side of the zebra’s stand and came to a stop. This didn’t stop the bottles on that side of the stand to shake and teeter dangerously on their shelves, though. Out of pure reflex Joxer teleported under the shelf to catch one of the falling bottles; two more ponies from the crowd dove forward to save three more bottles, while the zebra herself caught three bottles and a small dish of red powder in an outstanding display of agility and balance.
Really, considering all that, the one flask that did hit the ground could be considered a minor casualty.
It didn’t stop the flask from breaking of course. In the way of exaggerated symbolism natural to magical concoctions (not to mention acts of comical destruction and Ponyville in general), the contents of the flask burst into a large cloud of shimmering blue settling over the stand for a few seconds before diluting into perceived nothingness.
The zebra looked around for a few seconds, then groaned. “Aw, consarn it. Now the Apple clan’s gonna give me that look again like Ah’m just tryin’ to make fun of ‘em.”
Joxer blinked, then looked around again. Several of the affected ponies seemed to have troubles of some sort, with several body parts being covered in blue spots. The three young fillies seemed to have caught the effects as well, as they were now–
“OhmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshI’MFLYING!”
The zebra sighed and watched the pegasus buzz around them, wings an orange-and-blue blur from how fast they were beating. “Ah reckon you are. And Ah reckon you won’t be able to land even if y’all wanted to. We should get you the cure just like everypony else, or Ah betcha ye’re gonna be sick of it in a couple’a hours… Oh Pride, Ah think the ack-cent’s gettin’ worse.”
“Augh! They’re back, they’re back!”
Zecora rolled her eyes and looked at the earth pony filly, who was covered in colorful and creative little pictures. “Don’t’cha worry, they’re not the real deal. Looks like the Cutie Pox, but without any of the compulsive talenting.” She turned her attention to the last of the three, the unicorn. “And what’d you get stuck with, Sweetie Belle?”
The filly looked away and folded her ears down in embarrassment. Joxer noticed that her fur had a light metallic sheen to it and was smooth enough to look like a solid surface, even before she opened her mouth to reply in an electronic, slightly metallic voice.
“I don't wanna talk about it...”
~~~~~~~~~~
“So… this happens often, then?” Joxer gave the pink filly a doubtful look. Pinkie Pie, as she had introduced herself, had appeared quickly after the accident to help Zecora herd up all the affected ponies and guide them all towards the local spa. What Joxer could gather from the filly’s unpunctuated record-speed talking, the cloud had been a generous dose of experimental Poison Joke powder. Why anypony would want to make an instant poison joke effect was beyond him, unless the zebra was a covert prankster.
Pinkie Pie for her part just shrugged and continued to bounce. “The poison joke in particular, not really. Maybe once or twice a year, when somepony stumbles into a patch by accident. But we are a pretty weird town, and something was bound to happen at a big shindig like the Harvest Fest.”
She turned her attention away for few seconds to talk to the spa ponies, then jumped onto the counter to get the small crowd’s attention. “Alright, everypony! We got the remedy you need right here, just go down the hall and jump into the bath. One good dunk and you’ll be just peachy again, if a little soaked. No charges, so just think of it as a free spa trip.”
She jumped back down and he followed her towards the bath in question. “Anyway, I’m still trying to figure out what it did to you. You got those blue spots on your horn just like Twilight did, but it’s not limp and wobbly like hers was, so I don’t know… Oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter much, I was just curious. I figure I’m not a cat, so I can be as curious as I want to be.”
Joxer blinked, then shook his head and simply skipped all the parts that didn’t seem to make sense. “Considering what you said about that stuff, I don’t think I’m missing out.” He looked down at the steaming water, then shrugged and decided to follow the lead of the other patients, simply jumping off the edge…
*Pewbang!*
What he landed on felt less like water and more like a massage bench, for obvious reasons. He looked up to see Pinkie Pie tilt her head at him thoughtfully.
“Huh… So that’s what it does.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“I really don’t think…“
*Pewbang!*
“…going to work…”
*Pewbang!*
“…away from the water…”
*Pewbang!*
“…wonder if Twilight actually has the copyright on that Twiliport(TM) sound.”
Joxer took a deep breath, then collapsed on the tiled floor, panting from exhaustion. Not magical exhaustion, strangely enough… All the teleports seemed to have almost no effect on his magic reserves.
“So, yeah, I don’t think this is going to work.” Pinkie nodded sagely. “And I think I should probably tell you about something now or the joke might get tired of waiting for its set-up…”
“And what would that be?” He looked up at her, raising an eyebrow.
“So far you’ve only done short-range teleports.”
“Wha–?“
*Pew*
~~~~~~~~~~
*Bang*
Joxer slowly looked around. All around him, he could see the trees of White Tail Woods and the empty planes beyond the forest, broken only by the odd village or the occasional farm.
He could see quite far, being stuck at the top of the forest’s oldest and tallest tree.
“Well, this sucks…”
*Pew*
~~~~~~~~~~
*Bang*
There was something inherently annoying in being stuck in a prison cell, not the least part of which was the familiarity and slight sense of deja vú. Still, as far as prison cells went the Appleloosan one was probably one of the cozier ones to be stuck in.
Joxer turned his head to see the blue-and-grey earth pony that had so far occupied the cell nod and raise his hoof in acknowledgement. “’Sup.”
*Pew*
~~~~~~~~~~
*Bang*
“…who are you?”
Joxer looked up at the pony in front of him. Then he looked up a little more to establish some semblance of eye contact and try to ignore the steel pipe between the stallion’s teeth. Joxer’s brain helpfully decided to name him ‘Brickwall’ until proven otherwise.
He looked at the dozen or so of other ponies behind the large one, all of them holding some variation of mob weapon and collectively giving off a ‘goon’ vibe, interspersed with some ‘petty criminal’, ‘low-level grunt’ and a hint of ‘cannon fodder’. “I’m sorry, am I interrupting something? I really didn’t want to be a–“
*Pewbang!*
“…bother.” He looked at Brickwall again, looking down slightly this time as he was now standing on the stallion’s back. By now the rest of the gang was openly glaring and crouching down to charge.
A pegasus mare with a really rather fashionable scar under her ear was the first to strike, charging towards him and swinging her crowbar like a baseball bat…
*Pewbang!*
As it turned out she had a quite impressive swing and steady grip, seeing how Brickwall went down and didn’t get up again. The whole crowd stared at them, blinked twice, then turned around to where Joxer was standing now.
“Oh ponyfeathers…”
~~~~~~~~~~
*Pew*
The two mares slowly stepped out of their hiding spot to inspect the damage. Most prominent was the unconscious manticore of a stallion who was indeed named Solid Brickwall and was the one-pony-army and second-in-command of the Trottingham Mafia… up until now, that was. Behind him were the dozen other grunts from his group, each and every one of them knocked out by their partners in the fruitless attempt to catch the mysterious unicorn. Watching the last three go down at the same time had been particularly interesting.
“So, what are we going to tell Mr. Service?” asked the first mare.
The second one grinned. “We tell him that we took on half a mafia circle and knocked them out without breaking a sweat, of course.”
“Wonderful. And I presume that will lead to us being blackmailed – I’m sorry, ‘commissioned’ – to take out the leader as well, while we’re on a roll.”
“I know, right?” Vinyl grinned even wider. “I wish our honeymoon could’ve had an awesome spy adventure like this.”
Octavia gave her a flat look. “This is our honeymoon, Vinyl.”
“I just wanted to hear you say it again.”
~~~~~~~~~~
*Pew*
The gruff old earth pony stallion grumbled to himself a few more seconds, adding some entirely justified curses about pegasi and unicorns. Then he pulled out his flag, grumbled some more and rammed it into the snowy and frozen ground of the mountaintop, several feet from where the hoofprints of that darn unicorn were still mocking his hours of work and weeks of preparation.
~~~~~~~~~~
*Bang*
Joxer stared for a few seconds at the large white alicorn sitting to his left. Then he slowly turned his head to stare at the slightly less large blue alicorn sitting to his right. Finally he surveyed the various parts of a balanced breakfast, all but one tastefully arranged around him on the ancient oak table.
Maybe he didn’t panic because of all the other strange situations he had already gotten into that day.
On the other hoof, he was probably still catching up to the fact that he was sitting in an estimated three gallons of fresh butter.
*Pew*
The two royal alicorn sisters stared at their dinner/breakfast table for a moment, and at the imprint the unexpected visitor had left when he departed.
Then they looked up to stare at each other for another moment.
Luna glanced down again, then slowly lifted a hoof. “Could you pass me the butter?”
“I think it’s time for you to start dating again.”
~~~~~~~~~~
*Bang*
He had to admit, in between all the screaming and awkwardness… The Equestrian Waterslide Contest really was the logical follow-up to getting his rump covered in butter.
*Pew*
~~~~~~~~~~
“Oh hey, you’re back.”
Joxer stared at the mare for a few seconds, then gave a slow nod. He didn’t question why or how she was waiting in front of his house in Canterlot.
“You’ve been gone for a while, you really must’ve gotten around.”
Another nod.
“Did you bring any souvenirs?”
A short pause, before he slowly pulled out the bag of fortune cookies he’d picked up in Neighjing and held it out for her.
Pinkie Pie snatched it away and opened one. “’A journey of selfdiscovery awaits you.’ Hmm, must be a day old already.” She shrugged and tossed the piece of paper away, then pointed towards the small foals’ pool that had been dragged in front of his house. He didn’t question that either. “I brought you some more remedy.”
He looked at the pool, then nodded and walked up to it. In the dark, the water was barely visible in the pool…
*Pewbang!*
He stared at his front door for a few seconds, then gave a defeated sigh and unlocked it, dumping his saddlebags in the hallway and making his way straight to the bedroom. He barely took the time to kick off his hoofshoes before he climbed onto the bed and collapsed on top of the blanket. Maybe tomorrow he could find a way to–
*Pewbang!* *Splash!*
On the plus side, the remedy water wasn’t freezing and didn’t feel any different from normal bathing water. On the other hoof, he had just faceplanted in a foals’ pool.
“I knew it! You just needed to wait for a sufficiently funny situation!” The pink pony’s voice was slightly muffled through the water in his ears. “Towel?”
~~~~~~~~~~
“Come on, Scootaloo, slow down! We’re supposed to go to the spa and get cured!”
“Augh! Ah just got another chasin’-down-pegasi cutie mark! That’s the fifth now, and we’re not even any good at it!”
“I’M FLYYYYYYYYYYING!”
Author's Note
Twilyport(TM) and all associated sound effects are ~~shamelessly stolen from~~ the mental property of MrNumbers.
