Last time on 'I Wonder If I'll Kill Someone Off This Time' Quest:
>Got some sneezing powder from Cheerilee.
>Were able to find Sweetie Belle and get her to teach Twilight and Rarity a sneezing spell.
>Both got it down, although Rarity isn’t so good at it.
>Left Sweetie with Apple family, who are trying to save their trees.
>Ran into the Everfree Forrest to go save pony friends.
>Sneaked up to Zecora's hut, expecting the others to be around.
>When Twilight came over and gave some light, turns out its completely empty.
>No ponies, no mushroom, no furniture, nothing.
>All that’s left is a cast iron cauldron.
You are Rusty Shackleford, a human with no memory who has found himself lost in Equestria.
Currently you are at Zecora's hut with Rarity and Twilight Sparkle. The place is completely abandoned. You were expecting to find the Helmet Head monster and the ponies it had under control here.
"Where could they have gone?" Rarity says, looking around the room. "Why would they leave?"
You go out side and search for any clues or traces to where the mushroom and it's minions might have gone. Even here in the forest, the snow is coming down in heavy sheets of powder, making following foot prints practically impossible. Not that you see any in this darkness.
You take out your lighter to give you at least some illumination as you search around. It barely helps. You really don’t see much of anything, the snow is giving everything a clean, untouched look. There's a bush not far away that MIGHT have been trampled by some one or something, but you're just guessing.
"Find anything, Rusty?" Twilight says, coming outside.
"Not really," You say, walking over the the little bush that may or may not have been trampled. It's completely smooched and frosted over. "They might have gone this way and walked on this bush."
Twilight comes over, using her horn to cast some light. It doesn’t really reveal anything to you. You scrap off some snow, but it's just a bush. You're not a tracker... as far as you know.
"Hmm," Twilight says, looking from the bush to back the the hut. "If they went in a straight line... oh no!"
"What is it?"
"I think they're heading to Ponyville!"
"Rarity!" Twilight calls. "Come on! We got to get back to town!"
Rarity rushes out of the dark little hut and you all hot foot back through the forest, noisily crunching through the snow.
"What is it?" Rarity yells as you run.
"They're heading to Ponyville!" Twilight answers.
"If they left, why didn’t we run into them already?" You ask.
"Maybe they hid from us?"
Whatever the case, you thunder down the forest path for what must be at least the third time tonight. Nothing significant happens as you blast out of forest. Ponyville isn’t far away and you reach it in no time.
It's late now, but there are still a few ponies outside, either shoveling snow out of their doorways or trying to keep warm. Everything seems OK.
"I think we beat them here," Twilight says, huffing and breathing hard from all the running.
"Not by much." Rarity says, pointing. Looking where she's indicating, you can sees a number of shadowy figures creeping towards Ponyville in the dark. One of them is clearly much larger then the others.
"Twilight, you grab Snips and Snails!" You shout and rush forward.
You head into the darkness just outside of Ponyville, but then the areas is surrounded with light. You guess one of your friends is giving off some light but you're too busy to look back to see.
The helmet head is stopping through the snow towards Ponyville at a steady pace, the ponies under its control in a semicircle in front of it. As you get close, they converge as a group between you and the mushroom, still walking forward.
An aura appears over Snails and he starts floating in the air, upside down. You guess that was Twilight. Pinkie is the closest to you, so you pull out your little can of sneezing powder.
"Come on, Pinkie," You say, tapping a handful of powder into you hand and flinging it to her. "Snap out of it!"
Apparently, powder doesn’t travel very far when you throw it. It sprinkles in a cloud, falling just before Pinkie in the snow. She leaps at you, biting, making you retreat back a few steps.
Suddenly you can't feel your feet crunching the snow and you feel yourself being lifted in the air. You can see another horn glowing on the other side of the little attack party, probably Snips.
You are dragged up straight in the air slowly and then violently flung forward. You land prone in the snow and dirt full force. You cough the snow out of your mouth, trying to catch a breath and look up. The helmet head is standing directly over you.
You have just enough time to take in a deep breath before it tenses up and...
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTT.
A cloud of spores or pollen or whatever you call it hits you from all over. You can barely see anything through it and the snow.
"Rusty!" You hear Twilight shout from somewhere behind you.
Keeping your breath held, you get up. The helmet head seems to ignore you, striding past towards Ponyville.
You spot Snips not far off, following alongside the helmet head. You lead over to him, using your free arm to try and grab hold of him. He bucks around and you see his horn start to light up as you shove the can of sneezing powder in his face. As you are dragged straight into the air, you see him start to make a silly face and...
“AACHOOOO!”
You fall back to the ground face first in front of Snips. He seems confused, looking back and forth in every direction.
"Wait, what happened?" He says bewildered. He then notices you and smiles. "Oh hi Rusty!"
You frantically wave and point at Snips and at the helmet head, who has already walked a ways off towards town. He doesn’t seem to get the idea and trots over closer to you with a stupid smile.
"Y-You're so tall! You're a giant." He says.
"Damn it! Get the hell out of here!" You shout at the little colt, waving your arms wildly. "Stay away from that thing!"
Snips has a blank look for a moment, looking between you and the giant mushroom and brainwashed ponies. Slowly, you hear an unlubricated wheel turning. Something registers and Snails runs off, heading away from the confrontation.
Turning back to the others, you see the helmet head and its remaining pony thralls advancing on Twilight and Rarity, who are backing away slowly. All of them are heading towards Ponyville
Taking note of the last remaining unicorn, you spot Snails and try to rush him. But you slip in the snow, landing face first. The sneezing powder flies free from your hand. You scramble up as fast as you can.
As you do, you see the others duke it out. Twilight and Rarity use their magic defensibly, trying to keep the others from getting too close. Snails tries his magic on them, but Twilight's ability seems too great for him to overcome. Every time he lights up his horn, a purple glowing snow ball hits him square in the face, making him stop dead.
You are now behind the helmet head and its minions. They all have their back to you.
Acting quickly, you rush Snails, knocking them with a full flying tackle. You blindside the little colt from behind and the two of you tumble around on the ground. Because you are considerably larger then him, it's relatively easy for you to overpower Snails. You hold him in a headlock, keeping a steady but not dangerous pressure around him neck to give you control and hold him away from Twilight.
You see Rarity, still held down by Pinkie and Zecora, as the helmet head stops over to her. She struggles and kicks frantically, but the other two have her completely pinned. The big mushroom stand over her, just as it did before and
PFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTT!
All three ponies are partially obscured in a little cloud of brown spores.
You keep your headlock around Snails. He kicks and bucks, tying to force you off of him. Every time his horn lights up, you give it a solid bop with your fist, which somehow seems to keep it from doing much at all. After what felt like ten minutes of this, Snails eventually goes limp in your arms. wasting no time, you toss him to the side and rush over to Twilight.
She's laying in the snow on her side, apparently unconscious. She doesn’t look hurt, but she's not moving and lying in a really awkward angle.
You also take the opportunity to look over at Rarity. She's still trapped under the others and a little brown cloud of spored covering over all of them. Rarity is frantic, waving her legs around, but cant seem to get out from under them.
"Twilight! Wake up!" You shout, shaking the little purple pony. She flops around in your arms like a rubber rag doll. She's out. You set Twilight aside and face the rest.
Seeing no other option, you charge the helmet head, hitting it with all the force of your body. You hit it from the side, sending it sprawling to the side, its top heavy body falling like chopped tree. Its arms and legs kick around randomly wildly and, oddly enough, it starts making a little screeching noise, like a wild animal.
Before you can attack it again, you're throw straight up into the air. Maybe a dozen feet in the air, you look down and see Rarity looking up at you, her horn lit up. The other ponies are now standing beside her, no longer on top of her.
Gravity reasserts itself and you plummet to the earth, hitting it like a stone. You head bounced against the frosted ground like a basketball, leaving you dazed and in pain.
You jump to you feet and rush to Twilight. Again, you shake her around a little , trying to make her wake up.
"Twilight! Twilight!" You shout tying to get to do anything.
Nope.
You gather the pony up, holding her in your arms. Not far off, the pony thralls are gathered around the helmet head, helping it back up to its feet. Once it gets its balance, all the ponies face you at the same time.
Twilight is in danger, being helpless like this. You run back to town as fast as you can manage in the snow. It's practically a ghost town at this point, but that’s not surprising considering its the middle of the night. You set Twilight down against a doorway, hoping she'll be OK, but you don’t have time to do much more then set her against the wall.
As you turn back the way you came, the helmet head is practically at the edge of town with the others. Desperate to keep the menace out of Ponyville and to protect all the ponies asleep in their homes, you bound over the snow. You cleanly leap over Rarity and the others, hitting the giant mushroom again.
It falls backwards in the snow, again, but now you're right on top of it. Using instinct more then anything, you use your nails and fists and elbows, laying into the fungus with everything you have. Its flesh is really soft, just like a normal mushroom. Chunks of it tear off under your assault, clear ooze seeping out from its body.
It cried a horrible screeching sound, wild trying to knock you off it.
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTT!
You are hit, point blank by its spores, covering your senses in a chocking brown cloud.
You continue to beat into the monster with your bare hands, tearing and punching off chunk after chunk of pale white fungus. The helmet head's screeching rivals nails on a chalk board and the spores are making your eyes itch, but you won't be stopped. Everyone is counting on you.
You don’t know how long you were there on top of the mushroom, trying to beat it to death. But before you could do as much as you wanted to, the force of a freight train hits you in the back of the head. Your visions momentarily cuts out in a flash of light, followed by blinding pain, followed by your face falling into the snow. Just before you black out, you see the helmet head stir, the ponies under its control helping it back to its feet again. Then nothing.
...
When you wake up, the first thing you know is you are FREEZING. It's still dark out and you are half buried in snow. Every single part of you is cold and that fact is the foremost thing on your mind. All your skin is numb.
You sit up, brushing the snow off of you, but still shiver violently. It's still the dead of night and you don’t seem to have been moved since where you fell in the snow, just outside of Ponyville. But you are completely alone. There’s not sign of the helmet head or the ponies. How long were you out?
You check your hands, but it's too hard to see in the night. You blow on them to warm them up. The heat hurts so bad, like you are breathing fire. So you stop.
You shlep back into town, retracing your frantic run back and forth in the fight. You left Twilight sleep by the house at the outermost edge of town. But she's not where you left her. You try to look fore foot prints of hoof prints, but the snow is completely flat everywhere you look.
The house itself seems dormant with the lights off. Either its occupants are asleep or not at home, though you guess its possible they took Twilight in for shelter.
You are so cold.
You try the knocking on the door, but are surprised when the door swings open with a long creak as you hit it. Inside the house there are no lights or sign of activity.
"Hello?" You call in, but there’s no answer.
There’s snow drifting in through the door and the inside doesn’t feel much warmer then the outside. You're so cold, it's all you can think about.
"Twilight. Find Twilight."
You trudge through the town, alone and in the snow. The little walk areas the ponies had dug out all day earlier have already been snowed over, so you have to just leg through all of it.
It took you the better part of an hour of the grueling frost to make it to Twilight's. As you approach, you see the lights are on, but the door is ajar.
You push the door open and close it behind you. The clime in the library is practically tropical compared to outside.
"Twilight!" You call. "Spike?"
No answer.
There's a few candles burning down on a table in the middle of the room, the only source of light inside. Along the opposite wall, there’s that board Twilight was setting up. Taped to the top center is your drawing of that crazy pony, staring menacingly down at you. You try to ignore it.
You're still cold, but now that you're inside, also feel tired, like you haven't slept forever.