Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash shifted uneasily in their harnesses. Behind the Pegasi, Applejack squirmed in the driver’s seat. Further back, Rarity paced the wooden boards of the wagon, her hooves striking the wood with far more force than was necessary. Her restless steps rattled the bags of candy in the back of the wagon, which Pinkie Pie had insisted on bringing for “dramatic effect.”
“Do you think they’ll make it?” Rarity asked as her eyes were once again drawn back to the dingy shack. The wooden structure looked so harmless where it slumped lazily against the side of the mountain. Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie were somewhere in there, and so was it.
“Of course, Sugar Cube,” Applejack reassured the Unicorn for the third time in fifteen minutes.
“But what if they don’t? What if they’ve been,” the white pony tossed her head fitfully as she spoke, “gotten?”
“They ain’t gonna get gotten,” Applejack replied, drawing a wince from everypony in earshot.
“But what if they do go get gott-” Rarity was spared from her linguistic mutilation by the sound of the wooden door banging open.
Twilight barreled through the wooden frame, gripping a cloth bag in her mouth. She nearly collapsed against the side of the wagon, gasping for breath. Pinkie was in quick pursuit, the normally jubilant mare bearing an expression of determination. She slammed the door shut and produced a hammer, several boards and a mouthful of nails.
While the pink mare barricaded the door behind her, Rarity levitated the sack into the wagon.
“Don’t open it,” Twilight hissed between wheezes. The lavender Unicorn was an endurance runner, not built for sprinting, and certainly not for a running battle in a tightly confined space.
After the party pony had finished her makeshift barrier and bounced onto the wagon, Twilight recovered herself and the dramatic tension. Her duotone mane flipped behind her as she swung herself over the sideboard.
Behind them, the door of the shack shuddered. The boards splintered as another blow slammed into it.
"Floor it," Twilight gasped.
"Floor who?" Rainbow Dash asked, turning back from her place in the harness.
"Run really fast!" Twilight screamed as the door exploded in a hail of splinters. Black malevolence flowed from the depths of some forgotten place of suffering.
The two Pegasi took off at a gallop, their hooves clashing against the ground. The wheels of the wagon jatter-jumped off the uneven ground, spewing hot sparks and sending violent vibrations through the bodies of the ponies in the back. Twilight felt her teeth ready to bounce out of her head, and her eyes rolled like dice in a particularly vicious gamblers palm.
"Faster," she gasped, leaning past Applejack who gripped the reins of her friends, "faster would be a good thing to be going right now!"
The wagon barrelled into the narrow mouth of a canyon. The stone walls still bore the claw marks from the last time the thing had passed this way, almost a thousand years ago. The sound of spinning wheels and crashing hooves was redoubled by the tight walls around them.
"FASTER!" Applejack howled, snapping the reigns in a very impolite imposition on her friends. Rainbow Dash turned to protest, and saw the mouth of the canyon. Pure darkness reared into the sky, filling out the space behind them like a third wall. And it was gaining on them.
The blue pegasus turned forward, leaning her head into the bridle. Her wings pumped against her sides, striking her flanks. Faster. The masochistic prodding drove her onward. Parts of her brain that evolution had forgotten in its wake woke at the feel of panic and pain.
"Duck!"
Nopony knew who had suddenly spoken up, but the three in the back of the wagon hit the floorboards as several jagged tendrils tore through the air. The bags shredded under the assault, scattering white candy hearts and cherry drops across the wood floor.
Twilight ground her still intact teeth together. The thrusting appendages reminded her of a book she had read once on flatworms. It was not a comforting thought.
Pinkie Pie rose back to her hooves, looking into the blackness spilling out behind them. Her heart was calm. She smiled, watching the fringes of the thing stretching toward them.
"Rarity, pass me the cannon.”
Spear-like limbs carved at the stone, blindly reaching out for the wagon only to be reabsorbed by the mass. There was a definite rolling pattern, like waves crashing over the shore.
Rarity levitated a metal object from the bottom of the wagon. Six cylinders attached to a wooden stock, with a mouth large enough to fit a bit into. Pinkie stared at the ridiculously overcompensating object for a moment.
"Not that, the party cannon,” the pink mare swatted the useless hunk of metal over the side of the cart.
Pinkie Pie gripped her happy howitzer between two hooves and rested the barrel on the back of the wagon. The tortured squeal of a kazoo filled the air as a burst of confetti and balloons filled the air behind them. Brilliant green streamers draped over alien flesh, forcing the monster back and buying the six friends a moment.
"We're all going to be hurt!" Rarity cried.
"Hurt? That's really the worst you can think of?" Twilight asked.
"Well, I kind of expect you to do something and not get us completely killed."
Rarity turned her eyes to the bag after she spoke, it continued to pulse silently in the air.
"You think I'd use that thing?"
"You have to!"
"I don’t have to do anything! You can eat a-"
"Former President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon!" Applejack pointed a hoof toward the canyon walls ahead.
The feral, former statesman clambered down the stony slope, loping hungrily toward the six equines. His jowls swung angrily, bristling with uncharacteristic facial hair. His eyes glimmered with madness as he closed in.
"What do we do now? Twilight, you have to use it,” Rarity pleaded.
"I can’t. There has to be another way.” Twilight struggled through her scholarly knowledge for an out. “His weakness is the 1972 Congress!"
"Oh, well that's fortunate, because I just happen to have that in my bags.”
Purple ears rose at the first good news they'd heard in the past two days. "Really?"
"Of course not!" Rarity snapped.
"Rarity," Twilight began, "I just wanted to say that I appreciate your input during group discussions and consider you a great friend."
The two Unicorns grasped each other in a tearful embrace, knowing it might be their last. The heartfelt display was shattered after a moment by Pinkie Pie tackling them to the ground. The sight of three mares filled with not complete loathing caused the charging human to stutter in his advance. Retching loudly, he retreated back to where it had come with a speed that defied both age and gravity.
The canyon walls on the right side of them fell away abruptly, leaving a steep, stony slope falling away into dusty nothingness. The wagon reeled along the dirt road, racking a wicked turn to follow the stone wall. For a moment, Rainbow Dash found her hooves gripping nothing as the sudden turn left her stranded in the air.
She beat her wings fiercely, turning into the harness, but momentum carried the right side of the wagon over the edge.
Pinkie Pie squealed in delight as the wagon leaned out into the abyss. The Earth Pony and the two Unicorns crashed into the side of the vehicle as it became vertical. The entire structure groaned in agony.
Blue wings pushed more furiously, and Rainbow Dash felt her shoulders twisting in their sockets. Suddenly, she felt her hooves jarring against the ground, sending crazed messages of pain up her legs.
The two Pegasi scrambled like cats against the dirt, hauling the wagon back onto solid ground. The sudden bump as the wheels returned from the void hurled Pinkie Pie from the wagon. With a smile and a wave, the pink pony vanished from sight.
The mass continued after them. Tendrils ripped out of the darkness, clinging to the side of the rock face and allowing it to make the turn effortlessly. It was gaining on them again.
"It's gonna get us!"
"We're-"
"The screws are coming loose!" Rarity interrupted. The right, rear wheel skip-tripped loosely on its axle. Another bump caused it to stutter and roll free. The wheel fled down the cliff face, bouncing and wobbling merrily in its flight.
The wagon reeled more noticeably now, its balance completely lost. The axle brushed the ground and twitched back upward, dumping out the party cannon and the last of the candy.
This time Rarity said nothing as her hooves scrambled for purchase against the floorboards. She only looked at the bag and back up at her friend.
Twilight reached out for the bag with her magic, maybe there really was no choice …
Her thoughts were interrupted by Pinkie's cheerful greeting as the bubbly mare arced through the air and landed in the bed of the wagon, gripping the lost wheel in her hooves.
"How did you-”
“Shouldn’t you be-”
“I thought you-”
"Don't you know? Pinkies bounce, " The party mare giggled, heedless of her plight. “I caught this on my way back up, I think you lost it?”
Applejack turned back to the wheel, and looked ahead at another oncoming turn. "Twilight, take the reigns. I've got an idea."
"What sort of idea," asked the Unicorn wearily.
"Y’all will think it’s-"
"This is jumbled," grumbled a brown stallion to his brother. They were both staring at the sign hanging outside of their modest restaurant located at the bottom of the Mountain of Bad Things.
"I think it is better that way."
"I told you to put up a sign advertising our specials, we don’t serve, 'Foam Slouk Curry.' Nopony serves that. It doesn't even make sense."
"It makes sense to me."
Their bickering was interrupted by a cry of, "look out below!" A pink blur fell from the sky, striking the ground and flying back up. If either of the brothers had seen a superball, they would consider it a disappointment compared to the sight they had just witnessed. Pinkie's momentary brush with the ground also served the purpose of dislodging the letters from the sign.
The brown stallion looked down where the letters had fallen into a different order.
“I get it now,” he said, nodding his head, “also, you’re fired.”
"You're right, I don't think this is a good idea," Twilight shook her head.
"Have y'all got a better one?"
The Unicorn sighed and took her friend's place in the driver's seat.
With Pinkie Pie and Rarity each gripping a leg, Applejack was dangled of the side of the wagon. The Earth Pony's pony tail dragged through the earth passing inches below her head, and her hocks drummed painfully on the rough wood. The taste of copper was bitter in mouth, because that's where she was holding them and some smart pony had decided to hold the wagon together with copper screws.
The wagon slalomed around the curve, dangling the naked axle and the pony over the void. Applejack swallowed, and thrust the lost wheel back into place. The ground was faintly visible, miles below her. Apples don't bounce, they bruise. Quite badly. Don't think about that. The first screw went into place and she gave it a quick twist. The second fumbled away, vanishing with a cheeky wink.
In a few seconds the wheel would meet the ground again. If her hooves were still on it when it started to turn ... Don't think about that. The third screw entered its place. The fourth was just inserted when the wheel returned to the road, spinning loosely, but in place.
Rarity and Pinkie Pie hauled their exhausted friend back into the wagon, and the three ponies collapsed.
“Never doing that again," Applejack gasped.
Behind them, the thing continued gaining. It was now only inches away, and Rarity looked up at the massive wave. Her eyes widened in terror and recognition.
"Oh, Celestia, it's made of-"
"Roosters," Fluttershy cried as she twisted to push the wagon away from a group of male chickens who had decided to stand in the center of the road.
The wagon tumbled violently, flinging its occupants away to roll across the ground. The two Pegasi found themselves hanging upside down. Rainbow Dash, though exhausted, still found the energy to cross her forelegs and roll her eyes at the yellow liability beside her.
Twilight looked up at the approaching mass. It rose before them like an irritable cumulonimbus that had been covered in black ink and decided to take a vacation on the ground. Also it had tentacles. Not very much like a cumulonimbus at all, she decided. Her addled mind gradually pulled itself back together enough to realize that this was it. She was out of options other than the bag and its throbbing contents.
"Mother-"
Back in Canterlot, Shining Armor was sitting with his wife and parents in the drawing room. The four ponies stirred cups of tea and idly discussed nothing of importance.
Shining's mother was stirring a lump of sugar into her cup when her ears perked up, twitching her duotone mane. She smiled, and said, “I think our daughter is talking about me.”
“No,” replied her husband, tapping his pipe against the side of the table, “I’m fairly certain she was referring to me.”
Shining Armor said nothing. Instead, he stood up very suddenly and left the room. Sometimes, colts do silly things.
