The Mushroom of Foal Mountain
"So, lemme get this straight," Applejack started. "Y'all collect mushrooms for your potions and whatnot, and all of a sudden a big and mean one on two legs chased you off?"
The stallion nodded with a shaky smile, adjusting his glasses. "Yes, and by golly are we glad to have made it out safe! It punched a tree in half!"
A beat of silence followed.
Hopping onto her father's back, his grey furred filly piped up, "And the next twenty beyond that!"
Another beat of silence. Applejack tilted her Stetson up. Rainbow yawned.
"I-It also beat up a lot of knights and Neighponese samurai?" the stallion offered, gesturing to a pile of thoroughly and definitely just knocked out bodies of the aforementioned.
"...Why did you leave 'em in a pile?" Applejack asked, blinking slowly.
"Why did we not notice that when we came here?" Rainbow wondered.
Both father and daughter shrugged. "It put them there." They chorused.
The shovels in the shed quietly cried foul in inanimate.
Shrugging it off, Rainbow grinned. "Still, sounds like he could give you a run for your money, Applejack."
Snorting, Applejack replied, "Pretty sure I'm stronger than some 'shroom on two legs, Rainbow."
"A-Actually, mushrooms don't have genders, either, it's more of a positive and a nega-"
"Don't care," Rainbow interrupted. Grinning down at her friend as she hovered above them, she continued to ignore the statement her mane made, "Whatsa matter, AJ? Scared some fungi will beat your record?"
"Now listen here, I ain't rising to whatever game you're playin', Rainbow-"
"Oh, so you're chickening out?" Rainbow pressed, lowering her altitude to maximize how wide her grin was in Applejack's point of view.
"I. Ain't no chicke-wait, why're there feathers in your mouth, Dash?" Blinking at the plumage stuck between her friend's teeth, she added, "Don't you use a cloud pillow?"
Cheeks flushing, Rainbow backpedaled as she landed on the ground. "N-No reason! It's nothing! Nothing at all! I just, uh, uhm, I just ate my pillow!"
A silence fell at that, before all but one pony present had darkened cheeks.
"Why would you eat your pillow?" The herbalists daughter asked, tilting her head.
"Dula!" Her father cried.
"What? You always said it was good to ask questions!"
"Th-This kind isn't one of them! It's a very private and personal question-"
"Ohhh, like those weird pink potions you keep trying to make in the basement with mommy?"
Head aflame with embarrassment, the bespectacled stallion stuttered and sputtered as he tried and failed to reply.
Applejack looked to Rainbow Dash, clearing her throat as she pulled her Stetson down over her burning face. "Where uh, where did ya say the 'shroom fella was again, Mr. Dill?"
Swiftly turning and facing her with a wide smile and blushing cheeks, Dill pointed west. "Just a mile or so that way! Can't miss it! Oh, but there are some rather large boulders and fallen trees, I can come with if you-"
"Thanks, but I think we'll be fine," Rainbow squeaked out. "R-Right, AJ?"
"Uh huh," Applejack replied, nodding, a burning still in her cheeks.
"A-Ah, well, let me know if you need anything!" Dill said, trying and failing to ignore how his daughter was throwing question after question at him.
As Rainbow and applejack made their way away from the herbalist and his family home, Applejack quietly asked, "Soo...musta been quite the fella to make you-"
"Pleasedon'tremindme," Rainbow squeaked.
Sadly, the cold, immeasurable feeling of the Bass Cannon and the behemoth of gold can never leave anyone's memory.
His pillows were nice, though.
"...AJ."
"Mhm."
"You ever seen a mushroom that big?"
"Eenope."
"Know what kind it is?"
"Eeenope."
"...Do you think it's matsutake?"
Applejack turned glacially from the six foot tall behemoth of oddly muscular fungi to stare at her friend. "Rainbow, it's red. And it's about to make sauce outta us."
"...Amanita?"
The mushroom stopped at that, fist once shaking with rage and power halting as Applejack's mind did. "...How in the name of Celestia do you even know what that is?"
"Hey, just because I don't read much doesn't mean I don't know things!" Rainbow protested, stamping a hoof.
"...You got that from the new Daring Do, didn't you?"
"No, it's from Daring Do and the Quest for the Saphire Stone!" Rainbow corrected.
Applejack slowly looked up to the mushroom. It, in turn, shrugged, it's two milky white eyes as confused as she was.
Growling, Rainbow retorted, "Well, how do you know what it is, huh?!"
The mushroom stared.
"Not you!"
The mushroom's eye creases creased further.
"I've had some before. The edible kind, at least. The spotted ones're right dangerous," Applejack said simply.
"...they are?" Rainbow blinked, tilting her head at her friend.
Neither noticed the further creasing of eye creases coming from the mushroom with more pectoral than a wall of granite.
"Sugarcube, did you even go through basic education?" Applejack tilted her head incredulously.
"Uh, yeah, I had flight school!" Rainbow said indignantly. "I'm not dumb, ya know!"
The mushroom clenched a fist packed with enough power to kill the god of sunlight.
"But not grade school?"
"Ew, bleh, no! Why would I? I'm too awesome for that!"
The farm mare's brows hiked up. "...Filly, you-" A small hand grabbed the mare's hat, swiftly squeezing and hoisting her up with little issue to see the absolutely hellish look of rage on the bipedal mushroom's 'face'. "...oh crabapples."
A few seconds later, in the House of Dill...
"I DON'T WANNA!"
"I DON'T EITHER!"
"WHY NOT?!"
"IT WAS A HUGE MISTAKE!"
"AND SELLING POISON TO NINJAS ISN'T?!"
"THAT'S ENTIRELY DIFFERENT-!"
"YAAAAAAAAAHOOOOHOOOOWEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" In the midst of a heated argument between father and daughter, a speeding orange cannonball crashed through their house.
Both father and child stared wide eyed at the brown Stetson that fluttered to the floor in the wake of it's passing, mouths both agape with retorts that swiftly left their lips.
A few birds chirped as both stared, mouths still open, at the Stetson.
Slowly, the grey furred Dula closed her mouth, cleared her throat, and promptly turned to the stairs. "I'll go pack my things."
Aromatic Dill snapped his own mouth shut as he adjusted his glasses, coughing into a hoof. "Ah, yes. I'll grab some bits for the train."
As both left the room, a small shadow in the corner opened it's eyes. "And I will very quietly leave and tell my clan of your leaving."
"SHUT UP, MUSKRAT!" Dill shouted from across the house.
"YOU'VE BEEN IN THE CORNER FOR WEEKS! TAKE A SHOWER!" Dula added.
"...What...?" The ninja slumped, staring blanky.
"AND FOR CELESTIA'S SAKE STOP ROLLING AROUND AT 4 IN THE MORNING! I'M NOT MAKING YOU THAT STUPID RING!" Dill finished.
"B-But...backflips make me more stealthy!" Muskrat pleaded.
"NOT IF YOU SMELL LIKE A PILE OF OLD USED BANDAIDS!"
The ninja wept in unison with a legion of dexterous masters.
And the masked giant on its way to ask for its pillows back.
