Last time on 'Third Time's The Charm' Quest:
>Woke up in the snow after fighting the Helmet Head.
>Went to find Twilight, but couldn’t find her anywhere.
>Broke into a random pony's house, raided the fridge and took some blankets.
>Searched the town hall; no one was there.
>Searched Sugar Cube Corner; Everyone was there.
>Assuming all the ponies were under mind control, you broke into the town joke shop and filled bags with sneezing powder.
>Tried sneaking around back of Sugar cube Corner, but ran into Rarity under mind control.
>Fought and failed to make her sneeze a couple of times.
>Eventually, you were able to throw a can of sneezing powder in her face, seemingly bringing her back to normal.
You are Rusty Shackleford, a human with no memory who has found himself lost in Equestria.
Currently, you are lying face down in the snow behind Sugar Cube Corner, having just brought Rarity back to normal. She seems confused and is fussing over you.
"Oh my, what's happened?" Rarity says, tip towing on her hove through the snow over to you. "Rusty, darling, where are we?"
Inventory check:
On the ground not far away is about 40 cans of sneezing powder in 2 saddle bags.
"Rarity!," You say, getting up and gathering some of the sneezing powder. "You were being controlled by the Helmet Head. I think the whole town is under its control and they're on the other side of Sugar Cube Corner!"
"What? No no, we were with Twilight and... and..." Rarity says, looking around, clearly perplexed. "We were just outside of Ponyville when... I... I don’t remember."
"The worst possible thing has happened." You explain, gathering up the packs. You check to make sure most of the cans are still there. "We're all that’s left. I have a bunch of sneezing powder and I'm going to do everything I can to try and make things right."
"I... OK," Rarity says, trying to come to her senses. "What do you need me to do?"
"Here, take these." You toss Rarity a few cans of sneezing powder and she catches them with magic. "You stay guard out here. If a zombie shows up, give them some of that or that sneezing spell."
"Right. But what are you going to do?"
You stand up with the backs on your shoulders. In front of you is the back entrance to Sugar Cube Corner, the source of all the trouble currently plaguing Ponyville. You turn back to Rarity.
"I have no idea."
Quietly, you creek open the back door the Sugar Cube Corner a crack and look inside. You can see the kitchen. There's a lot of damage from the fire the other night, but it's mostly intact. In the middle of the room is the Helmet Head, standing stock still in front of the baking ovens. They are all open and it looks like they're all on.
All around the kitchen are ponies. Some sitting, some standing, a few wandering around, all of them with blank expressions looking no where in general. None of them seem to have noticed you crack open the back door.
Some of the ponies you recognize, including Pinkie, Twilight and the Cakes, as well as their babies. But there's at least a dozen and a half ponies jammed in this kitchen and you don't know all of them.
You gently close the door and return to Rarity.
"What is it?" She asks.
"The Helmet Head is in there." You reply, keeping your voice down. "As well as Twilight and Pinkie and like fifteen other ponies."
"Oh no!" Rarity says, also keeping her voice down. "What are we going to do then?"
"I have an idea. I need you to make a bunch of snowballs, OK?"
Rarity nods an affirmative and gets to work, scooping up mounds of snow with her magic and forming them into palm sized balls. She piles them in a neat little pyramid on the ground. While she does that, you take out some cans of sneezing powder and do you best to coat them all with it. After a few minutes work, you have around two dozen of these sneezing powder snow balls, set in a pile in the alley.
You keep making snowballs with sneezing powder, considering doing a full frontal assault on the ponies in front of Sugar Cube Corner. It takes a while, but with Rarity's help you make around three or four dozen sneezing powder covered snowballs. You end up using a good chunk of the powder, leaving you with 20 cans.
You THINK this should be enough to take out all the ponies, assuming you don’t waste too many of the snowballs.
"OK Rarity, here’s my plan." You say, putting one of the saddle bags on her and taking the other. "We'll attack them straight on from the front, hitting all the zombie ponies withe these sneezing snow balls. Between the two of us, we should be able to save most if not all of them. Aim for the unicorns first."
"Are you certain that’s such a good idea?" Rarity asks, making sure the saddle bag is on her. "This seems rather... dangerous."
"I know, but if we work together, this should work."
"Right." Rarity nobs determined with you. The two of you stand there in the dark alley for a moment with each other, unsure of what may happen in the next few minutes. The two of you are good friends now. If something were to happen to Rarity, you're not sure what you'd do.
Without a word, you and Rarity gather up the snowballs and go around Sugar Cube Corner and stand at the corner. From here, you can see the massive crown of ponies loitering around the front of SCC. You set the snowballs down.
"Rarity," You whisper to the unicorn. "Do you think you could take the sneezing powder we have left and drop it over the crowd with your magic?"
"I... suppose I can." She says, gauging the sprawled out crowd of ponies the the snow. "But then why did we just make all of these snowballs for?"
"They're... in case plan A doesn’t work." You back peddle the issue. "If we don’t get all of them, or the ones inside rush out, we'll get them with the snow balls. OK?"
"OK." Rarity says, opening her saddle bag. Using her magic, she pulls out all of her cans and shakes out all of their contents, forming them all into a big ball.
Slowly, she lifts these large pepper ball high into the air, positioning it over the crowd. You can barely see it in the dark and snow, but you can see the glowing aura around it. It goes back and forth in a large area above the crowd and then vanishes.
"That's it?" You ask. Rarity nods.
The two of you stand there at the corner, waiting. Nothing happens for the a while, which makes you nervous, making you think you've wasted almost half of your precious powder.
“AAAAAAAAACCHOOOO!”
“AAACHOOOO!”
“ACHOOOO!”
There’s a symphony of snot as ponies start sneezing throughout the crowd. From your little vantage point with Rarity, you see sporadic individuals clearly jerk their heads in a sneeze, followed by looking around bewildered.
You snack on the old pocket cookie you have as a silent reward. It tastes awful.
"Rarity, you gather the crowd. Warn them and get them out of here as fast as you can. Also take this."
You give Rarity one of your sneezing powder cans, leaving you with a total of 9 cans. Rarity nods and trots into the crowd, instantly making herself the center of attention.
"Follow me please," She says loudly, but not shouting. The ponies close to her, clearly confused, cautiously decide to listen and follow along. Soon she has a precession of ponies around her. "This way. Please keep calm."
You head straight for the front entrance. There’s a lot of burnt damage; nearly all of the wood has been scorched and chard badly. The front shop window is missing, leaving the shop open to the elements.
You peek around inside. You can see about six or so ponies milling around, doing nothing in particular. You spy Pinkie, Zecora and Fluttershy in here.
You take another can from the saddlebag and open it as far as it will go. Tossing it into the window is simple enough. You duck back behind the corner, just in case.
”AAAACHOOO!”
“ACCHOO!”
“AAACCHOOO!”
You take another peek around. The store is now full of a bunch of confused ponies, some rubbing their noses and eyes.
"What happened?" One of them asks.
"Does anyone have a tissue?"
"Psst!" You hiss at the ponies from you hiding spot. "Pssssst!"
"RUSTY!" Pinkie shouts out, bouncing over to you. You dependently keep making shushing noises and gestures as she comes over. "Where have you been?! For that matter, where have I been? When'd we get to Sugar Cube Corner? What happened to the others? Oh Zecora and Fluttershy are here too! Hi!"
"Pinkie!" You yell.
"Yeah?"
"Shuuuuush!"
Pinkie makes a zipping motion with her mouth and pretends to throw away an imaginary key. She stays there, being quiet.
Too late.
The door to the kitchen bursts open. Twilight is standing in the door way, the silhouettes of more ponies behind her in the kitchen. Her horn starts to glow...