Chapters One normal peaceful night in this Ponyville.
She quietly jumps out of bed opens her door and closes it gently behind herself, walking into the hall when the lights turn on, and she hears some car sirens outside. Dinky walks down the plain hall, down the stairway which turns to the right. She almost doesn't notice her sleeping purple dog, Courage, she is so eager to go outside to see what's the matter and heads straight for the door.
As soon as she opens the door, moving outside into the cool spring air, she hears it. A whining whirring tone that sounds like one of those sounds of planets videos almost. She hears sirens down the street as well and without a single thought checks it out. She walks through the wooded street on a dirt road. Dinky sees a brightly colored mare, and some police-stallions blocking the side road.
Dinky doesn't need to ask to hear what's on this mare's mind.
"OH the horror~~~! The horror! Oh! Something fell from the sky! Whats going to happen!? I feel faint oh~."
Dinky hurries past the noisy lady and approaches the officers.
"Slow down lil filly, we are blocking the road because this meteor could've damaged something and we don't need a crowd coming in from town."
"Y-yeah." The other officer yawns. "What he said. Yeah. Uh, something fell and uh," He yawns again. "I could go for some coffee right now."
"Yeah too bad that wasn't a shooting-star-bucks."
"Imma see if I can get a different partner."
"Ha ha ha."
"One who makes less puns." Derpy starts trotting away.
Derpy continues walking back up the street and across the other way trying to spot the source of adventure's call.
"Did you hear that loud crash earlier? I think it must've been a meteorite." She noticed Dinky can barely contain her excitement looking about curiously and with gusto.
Dinky doesn't pay much mind to the officers on path to the meteor, they sort of help show her the right path in a way, probably related to what the other officers said earlier. Dinky looks back and notices she is ahead of Rose and happily trots forward.
Heading up the hill where the sound seems to be emanating from Dinky notices Daring Do's shack up ahead and approaches her.
"Oh hiya little buddy! A meteor just fell and there was a huge explosion and debri flew everywhere. I'd have got a good look at it by now but I wanna wait for the police to take off first. Not everypony knows I'm Daring Do, after all, wink!" She winks. Then hides in a bush.
Dinky quickly resumes interest and marches up the hill further... Until she no longer can.
In the distance Dinky thinks she might hear the officers being threatened that they'll lose their jobs. Poor officers. Dinky grumbles, then thinks to herself. What if I don't get to see it, and they cart it off to a lab or museum or something? Dinky looks up to the top of the hill wishing she could fly, the police would be too tired to chase after her for too long. That steady whine, an otherworldly sound. Something about it is incredibly curious and beckons.
Dinky trots the rest of the way back down the hill. She sees her mom, Derpy, waving at her from their porch then Dinky rushes forward opening her mouth to protest what just happened. "Now now muffin, no need to get so excited late at night, it'll make it harder to sleep!" Derpy says, Dinky unsure if Derpy is looking past her or not.
Dinky awakes. There's this loud knocking at the door. It doesn't seem to follow any discernible pattern, with various gaps between knocks, frequencies of knocks. When you expect a pause there's another quick knock or two, when you expect her to knock its a stretching silence. Something must be done about this! Dinky jumps out of bed mildly annoyed until she starts to get a little excited, wanting to sneak out and check to see if the police had left yet or not.
"What an annoying knock, wow! Something must be done about this!" Derpy struggles putting the right hooves in the right slippers for a moment or two then Dinky decides she is going to answer the door and trots downstairs.
Dinky trots past her dog when suddenly Bam! The door slams open and shut! And here standing before her is none other than Diamond Tiara.
"Hey! Blan-" Diamond notices Derpy trottin downstairs carefully in her slippers. She coughs. "Dinky you have to listen to me. I was up on the hill with Silver Spoon when the guards had finally left, then I looked and Silver Spoon was gone! Everypony knows its dangerous to go alone, so I'm making you go with me."
Derpy approaches. Theres a brief silence. "Muffin take Courage with you. Courage is the bravest dog. He needs to get walked more often, and can protect you. Seems like a win win to me, heh." Derpy smiles cross-eyed, glad her daughter can go and have some fun considering how excited she was earlier.
Dinky goes to leave when Derpy speaks again. "OH! I almost forgot! I did have a lot of left over muffins. But I kind of ate them. They were good." Diamond groans impatiently tapping her hoof. "But I figure you can bring this 'M-Magnificent Maid M-Mare's Magic Muffin, Makin Mix!' package with you on your way, in case you need a snack. Have fun, fillies!" You got a Magnificent Maid Mare's Magic Muffin Makin Mix! Huzzah! Its a box with a square metal tin inside and feels full.
Right when you are about to leave you hear a "Wait up muffin, don't forget your saddlebags!" Dinky puts it on, then notices Tiara glaring daggers at her.
"Are you peasants finished?"
Derpy replies, "We aren't birds silly."
"Thats a pheasant not a peas- ah!" Dinky pushes Diamond and Courage follows out of the house before she can argue more.
"Hmph! I didn't know peasants were this uneducated. I'm surprised you even understood what I was asking on second thought." Dinky glares at Tiara.
"Whatever lets go. I'm going to need to shower after this, the sooner the better."
Dinky knows better than to argue with her, and to not roll her eyes at her when she can see it. She argues like a cranky mother getting sassed. The trio trot out of the driveway when suddenly a wild dog appears, howling before them. Courage seems unsure so barks at the dog.
"Ew! The dog could have rabies! Hurry, do something!" Diamond pushes Dinky toward the dog, who flails n hits the dog with the package she is holding onto with telekinesis. The dog seems unsure of itself, but decides to bite at Dinky anyways.
"Eeek". Dinky leans back on her two hind legs and flails her hooves. The doggo takes a few hits and realizes it can't reach Dinky without getting hit so gets scared off.
"I knew bringing a ruffian along could prove useful."
Out of nowhere something zooms and smacks right into Dinky's eye! Ouch! Which begins watering so Dinky covers her eye and swings with the 'Magnificent Maid Mare's Magic Muffin Makin Mix!' telekinetically slapping it away. Then Dinky notices, its red eyes turning back to yellow after it got a good wallop then it flew off without a care. What's going on? But before Dinky can theorize, the meteor's tone catches her focus again.
"You got a black eye just now ha ha! Kinda looking wimpy there." Getting frustrated with Diamond, Dinky takes the tin out of the box to look in the reflection of the silver bottom to see how bad it is. Then dinky tries to fix it with magic, her telekinesis covering her eye. Suddenly, sparkles appear and it works! Her eye gets better, Dinky smiles. Diamond looks at Dinky's feat with a frown but a determined look in her eyes, then smirks.
Trotting up the hill further past Daring Do's shack they see something in the grass approaching quickly.
"Ah a snake!" Diamond feigns fear.
"I can't do magic you need to do something about it!"
Tiara roughly pushes Dinky forward who falls into some dirt that must've been kicked up previously by a police vehicle, getting Dinky's coat dirty n lightly scraping her fetlocks. Dinky grits her teeth, remembering all the stuff her mother taught her before about how some ponies just take a long time to learn friendship. That's why she isn't getting even with Tiara, even though it'd be nice. Best thing to do is ignore it.
The snake approaches Tiara who then hides behind Dinky who is still pulling herself up. Courage notices they are in trouble, so acts. Biting at the snake's tail from behind a few times to distract it. It then coils up, hissing and launches out biting courage square on the snoot! Courage screams, flailing his legs around running in circles. Dinky tries gripping the snake telekinetically and succeeds in tossing it but it slithers back, so Dinky hits it square on the nose with the tin's corner. It earns a bloody nose then it scurries away. Courage then pants and drops to the ground trying to catch his breath, looking mortified. The filly looks at the tin and notices its got damage and no longer works and cannot produce a muffin.
Courage speaks.
Dinky stands there, flabbergasted, while Diamond acts indignant. "Lets get this over with, its cold outside."
Diamond and Dinky walk right up to the top of the hill and notice the glowing meteor that has crash landed... And theres Silver Spoon sleeping on the other side of it sitting under the shade of a tree whom Diamond is already trotting up to. Silver Spoon gets woken, whom notices Dinky then sighs then asks if they can ditch her.
But Dinky isn't paying attention to that. She hears the sound of something moving in the grass behind and a snake and a dog jump out at the fillies, both of their eyes glowing a neon red- When suddenly there is a flash of light and both the animals eyes return to normal! The snake scurries off confused and scared of the dog, while the dog barks at the snake as it leaves, a little dumbfounded, then heads down the hill sniffing about.
"What was that?" Silver asks.
"I am princess Luna" The stone glows as her voice is heard. "I may not seem like your princess of the night, which I am not, for I am a different princess of the night. I am from another universe come to make things right. I don't have as much power because I have not bode my time in this universe. The difference between this universe's Luna and I is that in this realm the power of their alicorn body has been absorbed into Negative Chaos. Chaos which is contrary to existence and is responsible for a number of manifestations on this realm's plane. Right now I must visit the shifting points of song. There are points of song in Equestria that drift about and cause ponies to sing and unite in harmony while in its presence. To make things right in this realm, I must call on the energies of these points. I can tell you more later, but, do you understand the urgency and content of which I speak?"
Dinky slowly nods. The other two fillies are silent.
Dinky speaks.
Author's Note
I may add or reference comment posters as NPCs, if they can guess the artist who produced the music my title is referencing. Won't let such things interrupt important parts however, but if traveling through an npc area or such relative to the game it should be simple enough.
Dinky smiles. She likes the idea of getting to do something important, and the sense of adventure. Luna buzzes around her and hides in Dinky's mane. Dinky starts to walk down the hill when she can hear Tiara yelling.
"Look what mess you've gotten us into! If you think I'm going to traipse about in the middle of the night, you are wrong! Take me and Silver back home this instant!" Dinky sighs and turns around long enough for them to catch up then leads the pack once more. On the way down the hill Dinky spots Daring Do happily waving her over, briefly looking almost too joyous. When Diamond and Silver come into her view her expression changes from bright and excited to a little apprehensive.
"Hey Dinky! I got something cool to show you. You, and specifically you. Nopony else. Something cool. Come by tomorrow would you? Gotta go!" Daring Do slams her door shut. For some reason Diamond seems very agitated. She doesn't speak up, so the group continues on.
Dinky looks around from behind trees on the way down the hill keeping her eyes peeled, but for some reason there's no wildlife around and its oddly silent. Diamond patiently waits because they don't want any creature to leap forth at them as happened previously. The houses are coming into sight, when suddenly there's a bright flash of light and an explosion before them! Diamond coughs from the dirt and mutters something about a shower, whereas Silver Spoon covers her face with her hoof and tries squinting at what caused the disturbance. The Lunasprite awakens having fallen out of Dinky's mane, now wide alert and 'standing' proud in front of the trio.
In the middle of the explosion, is what seems to be Twilight Sparkle. How convenient! But wait a second, there's something different about this Twilight. A red strand of lightning seems to be stretching off of Twilight's horn into a different space floating above her, and she appears to be making a very unfriendly expression. An ominous tone fills the air along with the faint crackling of the red electricity.
"Other entity, you will cease operations. If you do not comply there will be consequences. Will you cease operations?" The fillies all get confused and look to Luna and back to this otherworldly Twilight.
"What is this?!" Lunasprite exclaims.
"Will you cease operations?" There's a tense moment of silence while Lunasprite furrows her brow, and the stone glows casting a spell upon Twilight, which doesn't have any obvious effect. Twilight repeats herself.
"Its not this universe's Twilight!" Lunasprite shouts in realization. The Twilight realizes its ruse is no longer fooling anypony, and her eyes glow neon red and her horn crackles with intense red lightning shining bright enough to make the filly's eyes wince. Lunasprite's stone glows, suddenly projecting a barrier which softens the intensity of the light, and disperses a blast that was generated so swiftly the fillies barely recognized it aside from a new purple beam which seems to be refusing to get too close to the fillies, thanks to the barrier, and vanishes. The barrier glowing a mostly transparent navy would be rather hard to see at night if it were not for some faint star-like glowing spread throughout it like a thin cosmic veil. And that veil is shifting towards the fillies! All three wince and brace and close their eyes, then nothing happens, so they open their eyes. They are covered in this miraculous barrier! This means they can fight back!
"Charge!" Dinky yells, her heart pounding in her chest, and Silver follows. Diamond acts unamused and tries wiping dirt off of herself. Dinky floats her wrecked tin jabbing at the mare's glowing eyes with the tin who annihilates the tin with a blast, then Dinky keeps kicking her in the shins. Twilight backs up annoyed. Silver begins flailing at Twilight, who keeps her held away with a hoof. Lunasprite keeps strengthening the barrier around the group dissolving more of Twilight's attempts at magic.
"Stand back!" Dinky and Silver look at each other and leap away from the threat. Lunasprite's stone glows and dispenses a magic orb shooting at Twilight who gets hit with the force of a yeeted bowling ball, theres a loud crunch and a thud as Twilight falls back onto the ground her foreleg she used to brace limp and at an odd angle. Lunasprite charges another shot when with a flash of red thunder, the Twilight is gone, leaving behind some smoldering grass.
Lunasprite sighs and releases the magical barriers, Diamond's eyes look a bit panic stricken then furious as some of the smoke from the grass brushes along her coat as she works past it.
"It would seem we have not gone unnoticed." Lunasprite says. "This may not end well. I must have faith though for without it there will be no chance left. This Twilight was not your Twilight. She came from a parallel universe, similar to I. I believe she was acting as a medium for the entity of which I spoke earlier. Its the same entity manipulating the animals to attack us earlier. I was fortunate a parasprite was in my vicinity before all conduits fled and left me to lie in wait."
Dinky looks at Lunasprite, noticing the rock is glowing whenever she speaks. Dinky is a little confused, but, maybe Luna is the rock? Maybe the rock has magic energy to grant her to speak?
"We must go home this instant!" Diamond hurriedly waits for Dinky and the Lunasprite. Dinky nods and finishes escorting her to her location. The house has roses planted below its windows. Roses, not rose bushes, cut and put into flower pots. They were starting to look a bit sour.
Diamond opens the door stiffly and the four enter. Diamond's parents are awake and in their living room. Dinky was never in Diamond's house before, wonder why she was let in now. The four proceed into the living room, Diamond trying to go straight upstairs, gets spotted immediately, by Ms. Rich- Spoiled Rich.
"Do you have any idea what you did to us leaving up in the middle of the night!?" She grits her teeth loudly, speaking as loud as one can without specifically shouting. "Silver's parents would break off business ties with us! Or worse! Our reputation could be stained forever and never get another good business deal again! Do you want to live in hicksville for the rest of your life?! We are going to flip this property, and get out of dodge! But the police told us the hill property has got damaged! They will think we did it to devalue it! Now we are screwed!" Filthy Rich winces while Spoiled Rich nearly is shrieking at their daughter. Spoiled spots Dinky. And gets a little embarrassed then mad, but feigns normalcy. "Ugh, it has to be your fault then doesn't it? Leaving our poor Tiara out there!" Mare was she intimidating. "Guess she won't be treated too lax in the future.. Up to your rooms- Now!".
The two fillies rush upstairs, glad to get out of her sight. Spoiled turns on the spot presumably staring daggers at Filthy. Filthy sighs and gets up, taking his belt off and goes upstairs then Dinky can hear him belting his daughter.
Dinky is frozen in place in shock, disbelief, and fear. Lunasprite looks furious and buzzes through the air to try and put a stop to this child abuse or perhaps give him a stern talking to. Buzzing past Spoiled's ear, she reflexively groans in disgust, turning on the spot and crushing the parasprite slapping it to the floor.
"Disgusting thing, you brought in, hmph lower class.. Ugh! I'll get Filthy to clean it later. Time for a bath." She shivers in disgust. "Diamond really ought to know better. Maybe she needs more punishment to get it through her thick skull. Hmph!" She trots upstairs, as Filthy trots back down, sitting on the couch, and lights a cigarette now that his wife's out of the room.
Dinky has tears welling in her eyes but can't look away from Lunasprite. She hears Lunasprite whispering. Dinky gets closer embracing the fallen insect, listening.
"I.. I forgot the state I was in.. I got careless.. My powers are weak right now. The best I can do is preserve some of myself into this stone.. We need to.. This universe should get saved.. You will need to handle this task yourself, but you are too weak.. Presently.. My consciousness will fade.. For now. You need to. Bring me to the bearers of the Elements.. They will awaken psionic powers as they resonate with my stone and the points of song will increase our resonance.." Dinky sobs missing most of what Luna is saying.
"Do you need me to repeat anything?" The Lunasprite gasps and remains still, a glow moving from itself and embedding Luna's cutie mark into the stone which faintly glows.
"I-I didn't catch half of what you said." Dinky says, wiping her eyes. Filthy walks up.
"Hey kid, jeeze crying over a bug, here, forget about the bug," He dumps Lunasprites corpse into the trash bin. Dinky is still in shock.
"Take your little toy rock, and go. Tell your ma I said hi." He hands Dinky the stone, and closes the door behind her.
Dinky just sits. Processing what happened. Might have been ten minutes, twenty, maybe an hour. Dinky doesn't know, but the sun is rising. Dinky trots home, the sun illuminating the normal street. The sense of normalcy is almost a kind of relief. She trots up to her home's driveway when suddenly some Blue earthpony mare with a white mane and purple shades speedily trots into view speeding down the street.
" 'Ello zere pony. I vas vondering iv you knew where ze location of ze meteor iz. I am Photo Finish, a photograver. I normally take pictures ov poniez vut vork iz zlow."
Dinky sadly looks up at the mare. Sadly gesturing the way the meteor landed. The mare gasps almost immediately upon seeing Dinky's expression.
"Ach yes! Zat pose! Zat lighting! Ze location! Its brilliant! Brilliant! You look zo zad and 'elpless. I could ztart a charity! Ya! We could both get rich! Keep looking zad and pathetic! Zats it!" Photo snaps a photo. "Ach yes, this will do nicely! I'll split it 50/50. Vut vut should I call et? Vut were you doing out here?"
"I helped defeat a possessed evil pony, who teleported away. And it seems like only the beginning of troubles for Equestria. And the pony I was might have died!"
"Hm yez. Filly fights evil! Starves on streedz! Vis vill do." Photo reaches into her pocket and gives Dinky a credit card. "Now, I go!" As quickly as she came, she is gone. Dinky sadly looks at the card considering tossing it, but keeps it because she will need it for the road ahead, dinky grumbles and goes inside, getting a bit frustrated.
Dinky walks into the house, opens the fridge and pulls out some milk. She goes to the counter pulling out a box of oats and fixes herself some microwaved oatmeal. And slowly eats it, starting to feel a little better now that she has something in her stomach. And just wonders over what happened.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Cocka doodle dooo~!" Derpy says in the hallway. "Rise and shine muffin! You have school!" Derpy opens the door to Dinky's room, she isn't there.
"Hm." Dinky trots downstairs and spots a tired filly slumped on the coach. "Something the matter?"
Dinky nods.
"Not in the mood for school?" Dinky nods again. Derpy reaches down and hugs and headrubs her daughter. Who relaxes some, almost slumping.
"Why not?" Derpy asks. Dinky feels better from her mother's affections but not all the way better. Her mom feels soft and warm.
"Long story. I have to go on an adventure." Dinky smiles.
"Oh an adventure huh? School might be able to wait. What's the adventure?" Derpy smiles.
"I have to help save the world!.. I think.. Its complicated." Derpy smiles brighter and hugs bigly.
"I'm so proud of you! Always feel free to come back and eat some muffins! Or say hi or rest when you need to. Adventure sometimes just happens. Its a part of life. And I know you will do good! Be good, and don't forget to have fun!" She nuzzles Dinky. Dinky smiles and nuzzles with, holding her mother. Then Dinky blushes and turns away some. Derpy looks at Dinky inquisitively.
"I'm a little tired.."
"Hehehe. Feel free to sleep in! I'll make some muffins for when you get up!"
"Thank you." Dinky trots up to her room, finally able to get some sleep, she plops into bed without washing up, and quickly falls asleep. Dinky's Luna stone glowingly pulsates.
Author's Note
So, ever see the Japanese version of earthbound for the Pokey returning home scene? This differs from that one too, though. And all of the filly abuse is now past us. I will continue to reference songs in the chapter titles.
Dinky wakes up. She stretches and yawns then falls back into bed. She knows she was asked to visit the real Twilight Sparkle, and something about points of song. She turns and looks at her bedside clock. Its about three in the afternoon. Maybe she could ask around or see if anypony knows what that is. Daring Do did want to show her something though and she was also curious about the meteor impact. Maybe she found something else related to it? Also Diamond Tiara's parents are the worst! Dinky thought. She can't stop thinking about Luna as well, wondering if she is alright. She pulls the stone out from under her sheets and looks at it. Dinky notices it has the Princesses' cutiemark on it, and its glowing.
"Hello?"
No response. The filly shrugs. She gets up out of bed, grabbing some things to get started on her adventure. Dinky grabs her saddlebags, enjoys a muffin, draws in crayons a strategy should wild animals attack again, packs some bandaids, enjoys a muffin, packs the credit card and Lunastone, and finally packs some muffins. Mom is at work. But what to bring for self defense? What if another possessed pony shows up? And what was that thing Luna did to stop some of the animal's eyes turning red? Dinky thinks a bit to herself. What sort of weapon will she need? She packs a thick dictionary into an open part of the bag. She doesn't want to damage stuff her mom might need, and its the only thing really with enough oomph in her room.
Time for adventure! First stop, Daring Do's house. Almost as soon as she leaves her home a snake lunges out and Dinky catches it with her magic! It squirms about, because Dinky can't hold stuff away from herself very far yet she seems a little panic-y. She notices its eyes are red, then decides to place the thick dictionary on it so it cannot escape. Phew, glad that worked out!
Dinky tries to do different things with her magic to break the connection. She makes silly noises from concentrating and straining in different ways trying to learn how Luna did it to some before. Eventually she doesn't produce a flash, but can produce color with her telekinetic grip in the air, and some patterns. Dinky soon forgets about the snake and has fun making some colorful effects. If she can make it glow tho perhaps that's a method. She tries to project the color into the snake's eyes from the patterns, and, then snake falls asleep! Dinky shakes its head with her magic waking it up. Its eyes are still glowing red, but it does look groggy and a little confused.
Dinky gives it a good bonk on the head with the dictionary, then the light fades from its eyes and it dazedly wanders off towards the woods. Dinky doesn't suspect this ability will do much in a real battle unless she surprises them in advance, because it took too long to do and took a bit of effort. Anyway, time to visit Daring Do! Dinky happily trots on forward. Then gets a little apprehensive. What if most adult ponies besides mom is scary, like Diamond's mom? Dinky quickly shakes the thought away, if that were true it would've been evident already.
Dinky trots forward when suddenly she sees a glowing pink butterfly. Dinky approaches it wanting to see it up close, then it floats about n lands on her nuzzle. Dinky looks at it cross-eyed thinking she hears some sound coming from it but can't quite make it out. A pink glow surrounds it... Then Dinky, and the butterfly vanishes along with the pink magic. Dinky suddenly feels less tired and worried. She happily bounds forward.
A dog starts howling at Dinky from the side.
"Not today!" Dinky whaps it aside the head with the thicktionary until its eyes stop glowing, then quickly forgets about it, approaching Daring's cabin and knocks on it.
"Oh hi Dinky! Come on in!" Dinky enters.
"What is that?" Dinky notices a blackness covering the vast majority of Daring's cabin floor.
"Its a hole." Daring says plainly. Cup of coffee held by one of her wings
"Well, yeah, I can see that. What's it doing there?" Dinky asks confused.
"Well I woke up this morning," She sips her coffee. "And there was a hole!"
"What are you going to do about it?" Dinky doesn't think she can even see the bottom of the hole from here.
"Well I put a rug over it. And yeah, it fell in the hole." Daring says casually.
"Should we.. do something about it?" Awkward.
"Naw, its our turn to go in that hole!" Daring smiles unnaturally.
"Uhh, what are you talking about?" Yikes.
"What I want to show you is in the hole! Silly." Daring finishes her cuppajoe and sets it down. "And I am only showing you, nopony else!"
Dinky thinks maybe she could use an adult.
"Well, how am I supposed to go down there? I don't have any wings." Dinky says. Daring squints at Dinky. Yup. No wings.
"I should have a ladder in the back, one sec." Daring Do comes back in exactly one second. "I need you to help." Daring leaves the shack through the back again, and Dinky winces and scoots around the edge of the hole hoping the floor doesn't give out.
Dinky waltz out of the back of the cabin, looking around Daring's back yard. There's some exotic looking antiques, rope, and archaeologist tool kits. Daring motions over and Dinky sees her holding the back of the ladder, and helps it in with telekinesis, its quite a big ladder, thankfully Dinky doesn't need to help for too long, its end extends and slides all the way to the bottom, then the top bit locks into place from a mechanism on it. Daring flies down into the hole.
"Ok, you can come on down Dinky!" Daring echoes. Gulp. Dinky climbs down the ladder feeling with telekinesis on the way down to make sure its safe and when she feels the floor she jumps, turning around, and sees a spooky face lit up with some sparkling red standing out in the shadows!
"AHHH!"
With a lit flare!.. Its Daring Do.. Dinky got spooked. Daring turns on a lantern after.
"Scared you some? Heh. Well, c'mon! There's no time to time to waste!" Dinky follows from behind nervously, after Daring grips the lantern with her teeth.
They pass through what seems like fifty meters of tunnel, before Daring Do stops, placing her lantern down.
"So, Dinky, buddy. I found something awesome! Its treasure! And there might be a lot more where what I found comes from, come on, its right here!" Daring Pulls a sheet down from a tall object.
"AHH!" That's one freaky looking gold statue. It looks like a monster. A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. And it was faintly glowing in an odd pulsating way making it seem like it could almost come alive and start moving at any moment. In its right hand its holding a green pyramid, and in the other what looks like a squeaky toy of a weird chimera-like creature.
"Pretty cool right? AnD PrEttY pReTty!" Daring Do makes a creepy wide smile again. "But yeah, you should probably go I don't want you getting greedy thoughts. This is Daring Do's find, it'll make for an excellent book! Well, go on, shoo, I got some more work to do."
"Uhh okay." Dinky gratefully leaves, but is spooked whenever her back is turned to Daring Do, and gladly retreats.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dinky slams Daring's shack door as shut as it will close, and catches her breath. Well I guess I got some of what I set out to do accomplished. But that's clearly foreboding, and I don't know what I can do about it, the statue is too big for me to lift and Daring would probably assault me if I smashed it, if I could smash it. Best I can do now is look for Twilight.
Dinky trots at a respectable pace back to and then through her street the way the cops were blocking the other day to prevent, probably Photo Finish , from making a big deal of the meteor. The town might have good supplies anyway in the case I need to keep adventuring, and I should try to reach the library if I can.
Dinky walks through the wide dirt road sloping down past the side of the woods. She comes upon a clearing that leads into Ponyville, when she suddenly hears a lot of buzzing from behind her. Its half a dozen parasprites!
"Eep!" Dinky sprints ahead to avoid them gaining on her. Turning in place she whips out the dictionary and swats at them but its too heavy and misses them half the time! What makes it worse is if she moves it at certain angles it opens up and the pages make its maneuvering awkward and stilted. They swarm Dinky poking her in the eye or biting into her side. Dinky screws up her muzzle in agitation and starts flailing at them with her hooves to keep them away. Them keeping away long enough Dinky has better opportunity to swing her dictionary and without them being on top of her she can strike them more effectively. She works up a sweat, but they all go down! Dinky is proud of herself, if a little sore.
Deciding to rest Dinky lays in the shade of a tree just outside of Ponyville and opens her saddlebag pulling out some Muffins to snack on while she observes the town. Not much is going on, some ponies leaving the department store a ways away. Then there's a distant sound in another direction, almost like yelling. Dinky's ears perk up as she listens in. Its a little different from yelling, its more rhythmic and a controlled pitch. Its probably singing! Getting excited, Dinky gets up and shoves a half eaten muffin into her bag and trots toward the sound.
Moving beyond the road that leads to the department store, the song grows louder. This area is a continuation of the woods but at a different elevation. Dinky sticks to the road, but the sound goes off the road deeper into the forest. The sun is starting to go down. Perhaps now isn't the time to explore it? Dinky bops in place unsure of what to do, then decides to head into town to see if she can at least find a better weapon in the store. Kind of strange going to a store for a weapon though.
Then suddenly there's a mole with a mighty red and purple helmet standing in Dinky's way!
"Ahh!" Dinky swats at it with the dictionary and it dodges into the dirt.
"Whoa! slow down there, I'm just your average mole!" It popped back out in a new location.
"Moles don't talk!" Dinky gets ready to swing at it before noticing its eyes aren't red. Then she calms down some.
"Sure we do! We chat all the time. Norodent tends to ever speak much to a mole though. Anyway, name's Magneto, yours?" Dinky pauses confused at the use of the term norodent briefly before replying.
"My name is Dinky." Dinky slowly packs away the dictionary into her saddlebag keeping an eye on the strange mole.
"Good to meet you. Anyway, I couldn't help but notice you got ganged up on by a parade of parasprites." Dinky nods.
"Well, what if I told you there is a trick to dealing with that conundrum?" The mole's helmet is not put on right, its facing a bit to the left.
"Um, alright!" Dinky is half curious. It might prove useful.
"Well, when you face multiple opponents, what you want to do is deal with one at a time! This way none can pull your attention away and you will get harassed far less. Turning around mid fight also exposes your back." He fixes his helmet, sort of. Its rotated a little too much to the right now. Magneto continues speaking.
"Makes sense." Dinky nods.
"Think of it kind of like a numbers game. If you have a bunch of negative unipole magnets and one positive unipole magnet, that one magnet is going to have far less say on what's going on! If there's an even number of magnets it forms a line, like in movies when they say 'hold the line!'. Basically what you want to do, because you are bigger, is fight one at a time. Think of it like, even though you are one number, you are a larger number. But you can still get put into a pickle if your number is outnumbered by numbers!"
"Uhhhhh." Dinky is confused.
"Hmmm." He adjusts his helmet again. "I'll go find some better stuff to say. See you later, hopefully we'll meet again!" Then he vanishes into the ground.
"well, that happened." Dinky turns, heading to the department store. Its not that big of a department store but its usually got a decent variety of goods. She starts thinking of all the ways the stuff in the store could be useful, then remembers she doesn't know if her card has any bits on it yet. Oh well, she can still try. Dinky pushes a cart along one hoof on the floor, the other three on the cart wheeling it around like its a skateboarding or something. Not many ponies are in the store right now so no worries about hitting other's carts, but she does get some funny looks from one of the employees.
Fertilizer, nope. A small spade shovel, yup. A baseball bat, yup. A bicycle, nope. Toys... Okay just one though. 'Metal Meringue Mare', she kicks flank, and makes pie, and is all out of pie! Fishing pole, nope. 'Neigh! Bug Away Spray', yup. Batteries? Nope. Spices? Nope. A hat? Nope. Some snacks? Yup. 'Chewy Berry Blueys'. She finishes doing a small lap through the store and ends up in line and puts her stuff on the counter. The middle-aged cashier mare gives her a brief look then shrugs and rings up her items.
"That'll be 54 bits." Dinky grins awkwardly, and levitates her card over to the cashier.
"I'm sorry, there's only 47 bits, you're going to have to put something back." The middle-aged mare looks at her watch, its closing time soon. Dinky pulls out her dictionary and puts it on the counter.
"How much for this?" Dinky grins hopefully.
"Does this look like a pawn shop?" The mare doesn't seem to be impressed. Dinky grins sheepishly and quickly takes the most expensive item out, being the awesome toy. The lady tries the card again, the total coming to 33 bits. She produces a receipt, which Dinky grabs and Dinky fills her saddlebags with her goods.
"Have a nice day. I gotta close up shop soon, mind scootin' along?" Dinky quickly leaves the store, the mare right behind her, and locks and closes the door. Then Dinky notices something is awry.
"Oh um, my dictionary! I accidentally left it in the store!" Dinky turned to the mare.
"Sorry kid, come back tomorrow, my shift is up." She pulls out a cigarette and lights it. Its smelly and Dinky doesn't want second hand smoke or to bother the lady so doesn't press it further. The dictionary was unruly anyway but it may prove useful! Who knows. Reorganizing her bag, Dinky leaves the baseball bat and bug spray in easy to access spots, one on either side of her.
"Well now I'd best get home before it gets dark." Dinky mutters to herself. She doesn't want to get into an ambush like earlier, but the thing about ponies is they can gallop pretty fast. Dinky gallops all the way home, whilst pushing and feeling around with telekinesis to make sure nothing surprises her.
Panting, she makes it up the slope on the side of the woods, and back onto that familiar dirt street, and into her home.
"Muffin!" They smile, Derpy is in the kitchen with a pink and white apron on, turned from the noise of the door and saw Dinky. Dinky and her mother hug and nuzzle.
"Just put some muffins in the oven. Tonight its cinnamon banana muffins and butterscotch kiwi muffins." Derpy and her daughter sit on the couch.
"Mmm. You look tired. Have an adventurious day?" Derpy asks. Dinky thinks.
"Some excitement today and some shopping. It wasn't a full day though, because I got up late. But I don't want to fight at night. Its spooky and there was something already spooky about today." Derpy nods in response.
"You know. When there are things that are spooky, you should realize. You can be spooky too. You might not notice it. It might happen on accident. But spookies are usually not as scary as we think. But if it is scary as you think, then its best to wait until you are stronger. Which will be soon! Because you are a growing filly!" Derpy rubs her daughter's back and the back of her head to help her get sleepy. Dinky already looked tired, now she is practically falling asleep on the couch.
"I think I'll head to bed, goodnight." Dinky yawns and heads upstairs.
"Goodnight.. muffin." The smell of exotic muffins fills the air.
Author's Note
The game this story is based on isn't entirely linear (if you count speaking to npcs) so considering dialogues and story progression suddenly got complicated, but I have alot of ideas.
Dinky wakes up raring to go. There was a lot she didn't get done yesterday! She quickly grabs some muffins for her bag, and eats one on the go. She hurries through the road leading into town, and suddenly skids to a stop. With her magic she pulls out some 'Neigh!' bug spray and quietly trots around the bend peaking around the trees. She hears a sound from deeper into some brush move toward her.
"AH!- Ha!" Dinky nervously jumps back, and sprays in the direction of the sound close to the ground while backing up. A snake flies out from the brush getting a big huff of bug spray and missing its target, its glowing red eyes watering causing funky illumination effects.
"Hiya!" Dinky twists and bucks the side of its head. The snake having been rattled, veers into the trees on the other side of the road swerving wide with its slitherings. Dinky stands proudly and awesomely. Maybe she can still get the jump on the parasprites if they are back from yesterday! She continues ahead brimming with confidence. She notices some tiny specs of red just further ahead and a soft buzzing sound. Dinky decides to sneak up on them, and moves through some brush. When suddenly there is one right in front of her face less than a centimeter away!
"Ah oh my Luna, its a parasprite! Ah!" She tumbles back the way she came through the brush trying to escape it, her bat falling out of her bag and spray can getting dropped someplace near. It was a jumbo parasprite. Instead of the size of a baseball its about the size of a cabbage. Dinky finds herself on the other side of the road, and comes up with a plan to get her stuff back.
"I was wondering what that buzzing was! Alright I'm going to do something I never thought I was going to do. I'm going to perform a tactical roll cuz I need the 'Neigh!' here alright. I can't see- that's 'Neigh!'- I have detected 'Neigh!' in the bush. I'll have to roll underneath the branch where the jumbo parasprite is looking at me. I'm going to grab my 'Neigh!', jump over the bush, then return to where my bag is." She sets her bag down, half talking to herself half talking to the Luna stone, tho she doesn't know if it hears her or not.
"Here goes." Dinky turns and psyches herself up, lowering her center of gravity and scraping the ground with her hoof, then charges for her spray can! Dinky yells as she runs past the brush under the branch the huge parasprite is in, grabs the can. At this point the parasprite pushes past some branches and leaves bumbling toward Dinky with some awkward momentum. Dinky grabs her can lifting it within her telekinesis range, and dives past the bush almost tripping over her baseball bat, it rolls toward her bag Dinky dives for. The parasprite thankfully seems to be caught in some leaves, its tiny wings don't help with its momentum she guesses. Dinky stands up noticing she was victorious again!
"Ah ha! Got you now, you motherbuck! Ye-heh-eah~!." Dinky lifts up her bat with her telekinesis, noticing the branch is in the way of knocking it down so it can get a good spraying.
"I'm going to gently touch the branch." She swings at the branch smashing it down, and the fat parasprite makes its way back to her slowly gaining momentum. Dinky runs back to her spray bag, and turns facing it.
"There he is!" She fumbles for her spray accidentally knocking it under her bag, not seeing it.
"Where's my spray! Where'd I put the 'Neigh!'! Oh-oh there it is!" She panicked as its moving sorta fast now its momentum having caught up with its aggression.
"Ha! I gotchu now!" She jumps to the side, sidestepping it and it slides past her unable to turn quickly.
"Mother bucker you wanna come to me and buck with me!" Once its nearly stationary from redirecting its movement she pulls down on the spray and accidentally sprays it into the wind some getting into her face. She coughs briefly and quickly adjusts her spray angle and it gets a blast of it in the face and looks sickly and cries.
"Oh yeah! Yeah, baby! I gotchu now! Ah ha ha! I got the weapon, mare!" Dinky sprays it again.
"Yeahhhh!" It bumbles away, eyes still red as it flees back into the forest.
"Yeah you better leave! And don't come back!" Dinky makes her way back to the bag.
"Oh my Luna that was a bunch of buck. I didn't get him but I threatened him enough for him to leave." She puts her saddlebags back on, and pulls out some muffins.
"Oh, Luna, victory, baby~." Dinky noms some muffins. They are pretty good.
When she is done, the other parasprites she detected seem to have left for now.
Dinky makes her way past the town toward the lower forest where she heard the odd music coming from yesterday. Sure enough she heard an odd melody. Following the sound from the road so she doesn't get surprised in the tight passages of the woods just yet. She hears a digging sound and sees a pile of dirt open up before her.
"Heya, its Magneto again." He adjusts his helmet again.
"Hi." Dinky considers digging him up and taking his helmet. She is going to need all the stuff she can get if she needs to take on the world!
"Couldn't help but notice your little fiasco and talkin' to yourself earlier." Dinky blushes and acts insistent.
"I wasn't talking to myself!" Hmph!
"By now you probably realize some area is better to fight in than others. Trying to ambush them is good 'n' all, but freedom of mobility is important. You always need a place to escape to, or to have advantage in. A far simpler way of saying it than yesterday I do believe so myself." There's an awkward pause.
"I see you're eyeing my helmet." Dinky turns away and blushes guiltily.
"M-maybe." She bats at the ground.
"I'll give you this helmet, on one condition." He holds a digit of his paw up.
"W-what is it? I'll do anything!" It would look so cool zooming around with this helmet, ha ha! Dinky thinks.
"Make some friends." She pauses her excitement and looks inquisitively.
"There's a treehouse just over there. There are some ponies there that would be glad to help you if they saw how cool and brave you are." Dinky blushes again.
"Your helmet is as good as mine!" Dinky excitedly makes her way in the direction the mole was pointing, forgetting her tasks temporarily again.
The filly walks through the woods following a path, looking up for the tree house and occasionally looking around to make sure nothing is headed for her. She spots a surprisingly slim subtle path ahead and approaches it. A figure emerges from the shadows blocking the path.
"What's the password?" The figure becomes visible as Dinky nears, a colt tall for his age, and older than Dinky.
"Uh, password?" Dinky asks.
"Correct." The colt gestures. Dinky facehooves.
"But I cannot let you in that easily. First you have to earn our respect. We don't know who you are. You could be incredibly lame." He continues gesturing. Dinky gets annoyed.
"I'm not lame! I can prove it!" Dinky stamps a hoof down.
"Then prove it you shall. The town has had a bit of commotion lately and we can't enjoy the arcade lately. You see, lately there have been a group of ponies who have been causing trouble... lately." Dinky grumbles at his word choices.
"Ok, whatever! I'll get that helmet! You'll see! Hah I'll take on the whole town if I have to!" Dinky's annoyance quickly becomes anticipation.
"Uhh, ok. Well, if you don't hurry it might just BE the whole town. Anyways can't have you loitering, bye bye now!" He gently and easily pushes Dinky out of the vicinity.
"Fine!" Dinky huffs, then smiles, and gallops into town to investigate. Trotting down the street she spots some ponies, then hides into a bush. She starts commenting to the Luna stone mutteringly.
"The commotion is a group, Luna. That group is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the ponies we are trying to save. But until we do, these ponies are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy." A woman carrying her groceries past the bush Dinky is in hears her and hurries along faster thinking she is crazy or perhaps, one of them Dinky thinks scratching her chin.
Dinky hides in a trash bucket, she sees a perfectly good half eaten piece of pie get tossed into, and eats it as she peaks out. And what she sees will shock you to your core!
Tiktokers! Memers! Ponies in Spandex! Ponies wearing pogger masks! They harass any normal pony trotting by then dab, dance the floss, or tip their fedoras.
"We can't stop here, this is bat country! And by that I mean these ponies are absolutely batty." One in a Batmare costume trots by and she hides further in the trash bin and quiets until they pass.
"I don't know what the source of this problem is, Luna, and I don't blend in. I'm going to need a disguise!" She says in a hushed voice. Then she gets an idea. She finds a paper trashbag in the trash, and pokes holes in it for her eyes, slips it over her head and her horn pokes through. Oh, a Morioh Katsu sandwich! Trash food for the win! Dinky bites into it, but theres something plastic in it. Its like a claw with five prongs. Maybe its some weird memorabilia. She casually exits the trash can, having painted in ketchup the abbreviation 'YOLO' across her 'mask'. From there she heads towards the source of the commotion.
Dinky spots the weird ponies entering and leaving the local arcade, but something else catches her eye. There's a flier up on the wall. She pulls it down to read it.
"'Trixie's terrifically tantalizing tales! Talks of tempests, terrors, travesties, travels. Tantamount to tragically tender touches. Tuesdays only.' But Tuesday is not tue-day! Hue." Luna would be sighing. Its Wednesday.
"Well, time to do the improbable." Dinky enters the arcade. The sound of many classic games can be heard, and many modern games. Bright flashing lights everywhere, different cool stuff to look at. Dinky looks at a game or two and heads to the counter once she remembers why she is here. Some green colt with purple short curly mane has his rear hooves up on the counter behind the glass, and is wearing a yellow poggers mask that is incredibly distracting.
"What can I do for you? We are all out of red poggers masks, we got fidget spinners, we got 'I love Trixie' pins, Trixie T-shirts, regular arcade stuff. Oh and we are all out of Hasbro Play Doh Slime, which was our best selling product, but we got in some My Little Human figurines. Based on a new show. Most of the ponies here only like it ironically, but I like it genuinely. Can you just imagine having hands?" He throws little bits of trash across his station to a trash bin but keeps missing.
"I got some questions! What's the deal with all the activity here lately? Its not even Tuesday!" He doesn't look particularly disruptive, and there is buck-proof glass between us so I think its safe to ask.
"Are you buying something or what, kid?"
"Will you answer me if I buy something?"
"Sure." She pulls her card out.
"Gimme, uh.. Um, a green poggers mask!" Dinky pays for it, and gives the clerk her 'mask', which he proceeds to miss throwing it into the trash bin, while she puts on her new disguise.
"Well. Since last night's show, it seems like some ponies were behaving brashly. My manager says not to worry about it, cuz sales have gone up ridiculously. It was ever since police closed off that road up the hill past the woods to the north side of town. Speaking of the police they haven't done much of anything about it lately either." He pulls out a fidget spinner and starts spinning it absentmindedly without looking at it. Somehow it spinning makes it hard for Dinky to pay attention and honestly its kind of demotivating . Dinky has trouble putting her card away with telekinesis suddenly, then she realizes- the fidget spinner is impairing her magic! She puts it away with her hooves, getting a little worried, starting to sweat underneath her mask. Tho maybe that's because its a bit obstructive. Despite the mask having a large mouth, there aren't any breathing holes just holes for her eyes to see through.
"Um, thanks I gotta get going." Trying to remove herself from the vicinity of the fidget spinner as fast as she can. This place is dangerous. As she turns she bumps into a pony wearing a clumsy t-shirt. Yes the shirt is clumsy its not me.
"Oh, we are pushing each other, is that what we are doing? Or are you wondering where I got these guns." The colt has shades on, upon closer inspection the shirt says 'Trixie Simp' and he has cheap colorful bands all over his arms and a tattoo of a kiss of lipstick on his bicep, which he promptly flexes.
"This is where Trixie showed appreciation to my bicep. Haven't washed it since. These are great biceps. Only Trixie treats them right. Their names are Sharon and Chevron." Dinky behind her calm pogger exterior is having a dire crises, she has to eugh~, blend in. Dinky clears her throat, struggling but succeeding to produce sounds of speaking.
"Uh, yeah, radical uh, bro. Trixie Simp for life! L I E F. Heh." Dinky's mask slips a few times from the sweat, and she struggles to readjust it, leaning on the counter next to a slurpee machine to hold it up, then casually takes somepony else's slurpee and chugs it trying to cool off to not sweat, also to act cool. and ends up with brain freeze.
"Hey you just stole that colt's drink... Uncool." He lowers his shades, and the rest lower their masks. The pupils of their eyes glowing cyan, the irises glowing neon red. Dinky gulps, and immediately dumps the slurpee in the Simp pony's face blinding him, remembers Magneto's advice, and sprints upstairs. There are more outside than inside, and only one can chase me up the stairs at a time. Some of the closer ones give chase, the rest put their shades and masks back up. Upon reaching the top of the stairs Dinky turns around and immediately begins throwing stuff from her bag out at her pursuers. She tosses and telekinetically pushes her shovel at one pony climbing the steps, the sprint getting her some gusto and her magic warmed up. Dinky starts to shiver with adrenaline, and swings her bat straight down on anypony entering within pony-length of her at the top of the steps and they struggle to get past each other. Dinky breaths heavily, her chest heaving, then, it slowly turns into badassery. She bashes some more ponies over the head, one tackles her to the ground and tries to club against his head with a telekinetic grip on the bat.
"Its going to take more than that to take me down!" She notices some ponies standing up, Dinky tenses. But they look confused. Maybe I hit them too hard?
"Sorry, I don't know what came over me. I was acting very poorly. And honestly. I was cringe. I apologize." Dinky wonders.
"Its that mare! She bashed me over the head with a shovel, get her!" They tackle past the pony-turned-normal trampling him. Dinky continues thinking. She clobbers the pony again, but this time with the bat.
"Ughhhh my head..." The cyan and red lights fade from his eyes.
"Oh! My magic cures them?" Whenever a unicorn grips an object with magic it tends to be fully encompassed unless there's multiple holding the same object, then magic dispels other magic and it becomes polarized, one holding each end. It must be similar with these ponies.
"They are in the grasp of another's magic, and to loosen that grip.." She tightens her grip, and knocks some more skulls around. Her grip isn't deep enough to reach another pony's mind yet unless its accelerating with an object. Kind of like that fat parasprite from earlier overshooting with its momentum. They put up some resistance, and eventually help her fight off the trouble-makers as she normalizes more ponies who just want to get on with their lives.
Dinky slurps a juicy slurpee indubitably. She looks at the doors leading to the back end of the arcade, leading to Trixie's outdoor stage. She noms a muffin. She uses her healing magic to recover from bruises and sore muscles. Soon she will have to face the crux of cringe. The master of madness. The obfuscator of obtuse oddities.
"Trixie!" Dinky bucks the doors wide open. Ok that kinda hurt.
Nothing a little magic can't fix~. Trixie turns and looks at Dinky, hanging out on her stage, getting pedicures from Simps.
"On behalf of the moon! I shall right wrongs, and triumph over evil! And that means you!" Dinky poses enthusiastically, all the awesome going to her head because her willpower was weakened by the power of cringe, and the awesome force of adrenaline! Trixie is unamused.
To Be Continued.
Author's Note
Make Something Spin -1 PP
I figured fidget spinners are fitting for that. Kind of not the move-set from in the game, but its kind of fitting, and I have my own plan for how the story goes anyway.
The time for memes is soon at an end~