Crashed Course
As he idly took in the sight of the unconscious bodies of the pegasi littering the clearing all around him with a very self satisfied smirk firm on his muzzle, Ganondorf calmly rolled his shoulders in order to make sure he hadn’t sprained anything. He was quite happy with the knowledge his aim hadn’t rusted overmuch in this new form. True, a few of his impromptu projectiles had missed the speeding targets, but in the end he had gotten them all, which he decided was a satisfactory result, all in all.
Satisfied everything was in order, he turned towards the only other currently conscious occupants of the clearing. A slightly bemused look briefly crossed his looks as he took in the two mares’ forms.
“That’s not possible,” Sure Shot woodenly mumbled in a barely audible whisper at his side, her head mechanically moving between the few remaining chunks of compacted dirt that had served the King of Thieves as ammunition, the downed warriors that had been hit by said chunks of dirt, and finally towards the deep fissure the Dark Lord had created in order to produce said ammunition, a look of utter shock on her features. “That’s simply not possible…”
Ganondorf paused for a moment to take in the ranger’s shocked mutterings, before he decided he would rather not deal with whatever her problem was now. A brief look of confusion passed across his features as he wondered what the mare’s problem even was, before he dismissed the thought as inconsequential altogether and turned towards Forest, intent on asking her what she had in her basket for dessert. A good fight always helped him work up an appetite, after all.
A green blur suddenly all but materialized right in front of him, as Link apparently decided to return to solid ground, causing him to stop short.
The King of Thieves took in the tiny frown marring the face of the Hero standing but a few inches away from him with keen interest. He knew that the Kid wasn’t usually one to wear his heart on his sleeve, so that tiny frown was easily comparable to an outright scowl when placed upon the green wonder’s form, which was highly unusual for the pegasus and made him question what could have caused it.
Though, now that he thought about it, could he even still use that expression when he hadn’t even seen a pony wearing clothing yet? Did the ponies even use clothing for that matter?
“Hi, Mister Ganondorf! How are you doing?” Singing cheerfully asked as she popped up from atop the lightly scowling pegasus, which made him shove that stray train of thought aside in favor of answering the adorable little fluff-ball. “Did you see how fast Link was flying? It was really fun!”
“Doing fine, squirt. And I bet it was,” he chuckled as he raised a hoof in order to lightly pet the filly’s mane, all the while conspicuously ignoring the pissed Hero that currently served as her steed. He would deal with that later, if he had anything to say about it. An angry Kid was even more annoying than an angry Princess, after all. “So, how did you enjoy your first battle?”
“It was awesome! Did you see when-” she started to answer, before an orange blur materialized next to her and interrupted the filly with a shout.
“Singing!” Forest shouted as she snatched the tiny filly off Link’s back and hugged her for all that she was worth. “Don’t ever do anything like that again! Do you know how worried I was?!”
“Forest, did you see how mister Link took care of those silly meany-pants? It was awesome! We were flying so fast, and they were everywhere, and trying to fly as fast as we were flying, but we were still faster! And then that blue one that was almost as fast as mister Link came and...” the yellow filly started to excitedly regale her older sister with the tale of the epic showdown between the Kid and the other pegasi, not really noticing her sister’s admonishments for being part of said battle.
Ganondorf took in the scene with an amused look for a brief moment, naturally one’s first battle was a memory to preserve and cherish, before he turned back toward the still unimpressed looking Hero as he silently bemoaned the loss of his tiny yellow shield against annoying talks.
“So Kid, what’s the problem now?” he bluntly asked as he decided to tackle the problem head on. Partly out of practicality, so that they could move on and deal with the problem and partly out of sheer curiosity, since he wasn’t quite sure what had annoyed the green wonder this time.
Link, for his part, simply raised an unimpressed eyebrow before briefly glancing towards the downed pegasi sprawled across the ground and the few remaining ‘rocks’ scattered to the side, before he once more focused his gaze upon the Dark Lord’s form.
“What? It’s not like you were in any danger of being hit! I knew you could avoid those attacks easily!” he firmly stated as he guessed that Link maybe hadn’t been amused by him joining the battle unannounced. Oh sure, he hadn’t purposely aimed at the Kid, but he also hadn’t truly bothered making sure he wasn’t inside the line of fire before throwing the damn things. Why would he bother doing so, when he knew that it would take something far faster than that to strike a ranged attack at the infuriatingly quick Wielder of Courage?
However, the lack of reaction from the Hero clearly showed that wasn’t the case.
As he tuned out the admonishment slash story telling happening between the Blossom sisters, he raised a hoof to his chin as he pondered what could be bothering the Kid then… until he suddenly realized that Link hadn’t exactly gazed at the pegasi as a whole, but at the azure coated pegasus that had been able to avoid his first onslaught specifically.
The azure coated pegasus he had nailed straight in the chest as he apparently prepared himself for a doomed last stand against the Kid.
“Seriously? That’s what this is about?” he grumbled as he forcefully pointed towards the blue pegasus. The way that the green wonder very slightly narrowed his eyes told Ganondorf that he had hit the proverbial bull’s eye this time.
“Come on Kid! He was monologuing!” he firmly stated with a hint of exasperation. The Kid knew this stuff after all, so why was he being forced to explain this to him? “That’s basically asking for someone to hit you! You know that!”
If you started to monologue mid-battle you were either skilled enough to compensate for it and deal with the inevitable sneak attack that would surely follow, or you deserved to be hit. There was no third option, it was that simple! Everybody knew that!
They stared at each other for a long moment, before with a slow sigh the Hero gave a barely perceptible nod of his head as he acknowledged the Dark Lord’s words. Ganondorf nodded in kind with a small smile, before he noticed that the Kid was still sporting a small, barely visible frown.
“Really Kid, he can’t have been that good if he got hit like that,” he added, as he tried to understand why Link wasn’t letting the topic go already. “Sure, from what I saw he had a modicum of skill and lasted longer than the rest, but that’s not saying much.”
“He had some potential,” Link simply stated. The very brief answer actually managed to bring Ganondorf short as he gazed at the downed flyer with renewed interest. Link was easily the one with the greater martial knowledge of their dysfunctional little trio, so the Kid saying the stallion had some potential was basically the same as the Princess saying someone was moderately intelligent or him saying someone was kind of strong. In other words, a massive understatement.
“You!!! What the buck did you think you were doing dragging a little filly into that whole mess!?!” Sure Shot outright snarled as she all but shoved a steel tipped arrow between the green pegasus’ eyes, an action that sadly cut their previous line of conversation short just as it started to get interesting, to the Dark Lord’s slight annoyance. “And what were those pegasi doing here anyway!? What are you feather-brains planning!?!”
Well, at least she was no longer sporting the pole axed look she had acquired after he had thrown the first salvo of his attack. Though the look of apoplectic rage she was now sporting wasn’t much of an improvement, in Ganondorf’s opinion.
“I told the elder that you couldn’t be trusted!” she kept up her rant, not really noticing that Link was calmly stretching his wings in order to make sure he hadn’t strained anything during the aerial battle, and not paying much mind to the arrow less than an inch away from his head. “I don’t know what trick you are trying to pull, but-“
Thankfully her rant was cut short as an incongruous popping sound resounded through the clearing, an annoyingly familiar popping sound at that. The tiny sound somehow overtook all other noises in the clearing as it was clearly heard by them all.
He turned his head towards the origin of the sound, an action that was imitated by all his fellow ponies. The origin of the familiar sound actually was the azure coated pegasus that had grabbed the Kid’s interest. Or more specifically, the swirling pink fairy that was now swiftly flying all around his unconscious body.
Ganondorf watched with a raised eyebrow as the tiny familiar pink form started to swirl around the downed warrior faster and faster, before it finally disappeared from sight completely as it left nothing but glowing sparkles behind.
That, and causing the formerly downed pegasus to start to get up with a loud pained groan, as he started to massage his head as if to fight off a headache as he stood upon no longer broken legs.
The mares at his side reacted to the sight of the, apparently no longer injured, warrior returning to wakefulness with shouts of surprise, exclaimed curses, and the re-aiming of a bow and arrow towards a target against which the weapon could actually serve for something, besides amusing him that is.
But all that was but a brief flight of fancy that occupied but the tiniest of portions of the mind of the King of Thieves. The rest of his vast intellect focused instead upon a far more pertinent matter.
“Okay, how exactly did he get a fairy?” he bluntly asked as he marched towards the azure coated pony, an interested light in his eyes.
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As he massaged his brow in a vain attempt to alleviate the massive headache that was currently hammering against his brain, Wonder Bolt wondered what the buck had just happened.
He remembered being about to charge against Link, ready to put his all into a final clash he knew he simply wouldn’t be able to win, but refused to dishonor both himself and his opponent by fleeing from it. And then something large and brown had suddenly occupied the entirety of his field of vision, an oddity that was immediately followed by quite a bit of pain as he felt quite a few of his bones breaking like dry twigs, before he passed out.
Wonder Bolt let out a loud groan as he pushed himself back to his hooves. Though this groan wasn’t born out of pain, but of sheer embarrassment as he realized what had most likely happened. He had gotten so engrossed with talking with Link that he had completely forgotten that there was apparently a crazy pony down bellow that had already downed quite a few of his squad mates with thrown rocks, of all things.
But of course, that little realization brought forth the very important question as to how exactly he was actually standing right now, apparently fine, save for the splitting migraine pounding against his skull, when he had been sporting broken bones moments earlier. And it was mere moments, he was sure of that, the battered unconscious forms of the rest of his squad all around him proved that.
“Don’t you bucking move, do you hear me!” an angry shout resounded far too close to his currently far too sensitive ears, which brought his former train of thought to a crashing halt in favor of far more important topics. “I don’t know what you and the rest of your feathered menaces were planning, but it ends now!”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Like the steel tipped arrow he could see was now pointed right between his eyes.
“…Okay?” the azure coated pony hesitantly answered as he did his level best to remain stationary as he took in the sea green earth pony mare that was wielding the bow. The way her eyes were twitching and their slight manic look easily convinced the pegasus scout that obeying her right now was probably a good idea.
“Well, I’ll be. Hey Kid, isn’t this one of yours?” a loud boisterous voice asked right next to him in a nonchalant manner before casually but firmly shoving him forward. This in turn forced him to stumble a couple of steps in order to regain his balance as he nearly fell right at said bow wielding mare.
“I told you not to move!” the ranger shouted once more as she grasped her bow with enough strength that Bolt could actually hear the wood groan in protest.
He felt cold sweat start to pour down his back as the nocked arrow wobbled one way and then the other as it came dangerously close to getting loose. But even as he gulped in worry, he started to tense his legs and wings. Sure, the arrow was way too close for him to do much of anything about it, but by the great winds he sure as buck wouldn’t simply stay still as a crazy mare turned him into a pincushion!
“Lady, give it a rest would you? And drop your little stick thrower before you poke someone’s eye out,” the same loud voice from before said in an equally nonchalant tone of voice. All the while a large brown hoof moved forward and pushed the bow downwards, so that the arrow was now pointed towards the ground.
Wonder Bolt followed the hoof back towards its owner, only to feel his eyes widen as he did so, suddenly finding himself gazing at what had to be the largest pony he had ever seen. A huge brown earth pony stood almost a head higher than anypony else in the clearing and sported an intimidating amount of muscle on his body.
That explained why the pegasus had thought he had briefly glimpsed what seemed to be a pony of all things throwing the rocks against him and his fellow flight mates as he dodged said rocks. Though at the time, he had dismissed the sight as a trick of the light caused by the high speed maneuvers he had been forced to undertake. No one could be strong enough to throw a rock that high without either a lot of magic or some kind of contraption.
That is, unless you were a mountain of muscle that looked capable of crushing a gryphon warrior in half with ease, armor and all.
“So, Kid, is this one of yours or not?” the intimidating large stallion cheerfully asked as he showed something that glinted in the light to somepony further behind. All the while he ignored the sputtered protests and curses the ranger threw his way.
The appearance of a known forest green pony as he approached to better look at the object was both a relief and a source of worry for the warrior of the Armada. On one hoof he knew the stallion to be honorable, so that was a plus if he was being taken prisoner or something. But on the other, he could barely keep up with Link even in the best of circumstances, so adding him to the mountain of muscle and the twitchy ranger meant that Bolt was well and truly done for if things turned violent.
Though the way the twitchy ranger was now pointing her bow and arrow towards Link’s form as she screeched at him was confusing. All the while he calmly talked with the mountain of muscle as if nothing was wrong. It made Bolt wonder if they were really allies or not.
That, and he questioned who exactly had had the brilliant idea of giving a bow and arrow to the clearly unbalanced mare that now had a vein pulsing on her brow as she clearly debated with the idea of shooting the arrow at the serene looking pegasus’ head.
Bolt stared with confused bemusement, and more than a little trepidation, as the two stallions kept talking about what he now could see was the bottle he had found earlier, though the pink light bug had apparently escaped somewhere during his crash landing. Well the big brown one was talking, Link basically just nodded and answered with monosyllabic sounds, both of them apparently not being bothered in the least by the irate armed ranger less than a foot away from them.
This was shaping up to be a very weird day.
“Hi, how are you doing? Your name is Wonder Bolt, right? That was what you told mister Link up there at least, so I think that’s your name! Unless you pegasi do it differently or something.” Until a tiny yellow blur suddenly materialized itself right in front of him and blocked his vision of the odd sight with its fuzzy bouncing form. “Do pegasi have more than one name? Does that mean that mister Link has another name too? Why would you do that? Sounds really confusing if you ask me!”
Wonder Bolt wasn’t exactly proud to say that it took him a few very confused moments to realize that the little hyperactive yellow blur was the same filly Link had been carrying around during the battle as he faced off against his entire squad. He still wasn’t sure he believed it to have happened, despite the fact he had seen, and experienced, it with his very own eyes.
“So what’s your other name? Wonder Bolt is a nice name so I’m sure it’s very nice too! Oh, I’m Singing Blossom by the way!” the little filly continued in a rapid fire manner as she gave him a huge beaming smile. “Nice to meet you!”
“Nice to meet you too,” the scout confusedly replied in an automatic manner as he considered the whole situation, the apparently miraculous lack of other pain he was currently feeling, and the headache that still hammered his skull, and he wondered if perhaps he wasn’t suffering from a concussion.
“Singing, get back here this instant!” an orange coated earth pony mare hissed as she grabbed the small filly and put her atop her back. All the while she kept a distrustful eye upon the pegasus.
“Why?” Singing curiously asked as she popped up from the side of the mare’s neck, apparently not understanding that the older earth pony wanted to keep her hidden from view. “Oh, this is my sister Forest Blossom! Forest, this is Wonder Bolt!
“Or at least I think that’s his name. He may have another one, but it’s apparently a secret name, which is cool but also kinda weird!” Singing happily continued as she rested her chin atop one hoof as she thought about the mysteries of pegasus naming conventions, completely unaffected by her sister’s exasperated look. “But, even if that’s not his real name, Wonder Bolt was the only not meany-pants pegasus we met up there. So he is still nice, even if he won’t tell me his secret name!”
“What?” Forest Blossom simply asked, the look in her eyes clearly showed she was more than a bit lost. Wonder Bolt didn’t blame her though; he currently felt the exact same way.
“Oh, yeah, that reminded me! I wanted to ask you something!” she excitedly exclaimed as she all but jumped in place atop her sister’s back. “So, I was wondering: did being hit by that rock mister Ganondorf threw and then falling to the ground hurt? Because it really, really looked like it hurt! But now you are standing around just fine, so maybe it didn’t hurt that much?”
“…I guess?” he hesitantly spoke after a moment of silence, not really knowing how to answer the question. The fact that he himself didn’t even have the slightest idea of how exactly he was fine already after being hit by what felt like a siege engine and falling from the height he had been at really didn’t help in that regard.
Forest Blossom opened her mouth, either to retort his words or ask for further clarification, Bolt wasn’t sure which, before their attention was captured by a loud reverberating sound that echoed through the clearing. A sound as if a tense bow string was released, a sound that was immediately followed by an even louder manic shout.
“And how the buck do you keep doing that?!?”
He swiftly turned towards the clearly unhinged bow wielder, more than a little worried about what exactly he would find as he realized that she had just shot her arrow, only to stop short and blink in confusion as he took in the very odd sight before his eyes.
“What the hay?” he mumbled in a barely audible whisper as he watched as the mare ranted and raged at Link’s utterly unruffled form, his utterly unruffled form that was calmly holding an arrow on his left hoof. “Did he just catch that arrow?”
“Yeah, he does that,” Forest answered in an equally quiet voice, her own confusion clear in her eyes for a moment before she visibly shook herself as her eyes landed upon the openly smirking large earth pony who was apparently enjoying the show, at which point her confused look was replaced by a dreamy smile.
Wonder Bolt, proud scout and warrior of the Pegasus Armada, took it all in, everything that had already happened and kept happening, and came to a simple conclusion.
This was indeed shaping up to be a very, very weird day.
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A blue flash blinded everything all around him for a brief moment, and as sight returned to his eyes Old Oak confirmed that he was indeed at the small secluded clearing at the border between the village and the forest.
A clearing that was a good ten to fifteen minutes walk from his cabin.
“My word!” the elder exclaimed as he tentatively took a step forward. Confirming that he was indeed at the clearing, despite the fact he had been at his house mere instants ago!
When the Blossom sisters had rushed into his home talking about wounded pegasi at said clearing, Old Oak had immediately started to gather what herbs, tinctures and poultices he had on hoof in order to go and help deal with the situation. For even if the presence of the forces of the Armada so close to the village filled him with questions, he was still the only trained apothecary for several miles, and as such he was duty bound to at least try to help.
But, he had accepted a neatly organized and surprisingly well packed saddlebag that contained clean bandages and rags from Zelda, and answered affirmatively that he was ready to go, as she said she would take them to the clearing. As he answered affirmatively he had expected them to rush to the door, not for the unicorn mare to light up her horn and teleport them right to the clearing!
“That was awesome!” Singing joyfully exclaimed from her perch atop a surprised looking Forest. The older Blossom sister quietly mumbled about something the old stallion could barely hear, though Old Oak could discern the words ‘impossible’ and ‘trio’ amidst whatever she was mumbling.
“Zelda my dear, you truly are a mare of many talents, aren’t you?” he half asked, half stated, as he took in the fact that the white coated mare wasn’t even sweating after casting a spell the elder knew that very few unicorns even knew, much less could actually cast without passing out: Teleportation.
“Time is of the essence when dealing with those injured by accidents or in battle. And so, even if the initial report states there are no critical cases, it is best to not tarry,” the mare answered in a very professional tone of voice, as she started to trot towards the center of the clearing where the other ponies where situated. Meanwhile, she gave him a small smile and a short apologetic nod. “Though, that does not excuse the lack of warning prior to me casting the spell. Not seeking your prior agreement was quite rude of me. You have my sincere apologies.”
“They are unneeded but nonetheless accepted, my dear,” the stallion answered with a small smile as he trotted after the unicorn. “For you are quite right that the faster we can aid the injured the better.”
“Nice entrance, Princess!” Ganondorf loud boisterous voice resounded in greeting as he lazily nodded towards their group as they approached. A large smile was firm on his muzzle. “I see you haven’t lost your aim with those fancy tricks of yours!”
“It’s not like you and Link are even trying to mask your presences, Ganondorf,” Zelda drily replied with an eye roll as she stopped in front of the large earth pony. “The mere fact that you’d imply that I could ever miss such an obvious target is an insult.”
“Oh, I would never insult such an august mage such as you in such a manner! After all…” the King of Thieves shot right back as his smile somehow grew even larger despite how his words garnered an outright scoff from the unicorn mare.
Old Oak stopped next to the odd duo as he gave a small nod of greeting to a placidly waiting Link, an unknown but clearly confused pegasus and a rather frazzled looking Sure Shot. A part of his mind pondered about prescribing some calming teas to the ranger, the mare looked like she needed it, even as a larger part of it took in the easy back and forth banter between the unicorn and the earth pony with delighted incredulity. It was something that always happened as he saw the strange trio friendly interacting with each other without a single regard to their different tribes.
“…but that’s irrelevant, and you know it,” Zelda finished with a tone of finality and a small glare for good measure, before she once more adopted a more professional tone of voice. “Very well then, Ganondorf, what exactly did you do this time?”
“Why do you immediately think this is my fault?” the Dark Lord loudly protested, though Old Oak easily noticed from both his tone of voice and body language that he wasn’t even remotely offended by Zelda’s words.
Instead of answering, the Wielder of Wisdom simply looked first towards the destroyed and cratered earth, and then to the dozens of large and very heavy looking chunks of earth neatly arranged as if waiting to serve as ammunition and finally to the beaten and battered looking pegasi who were scattered all around the clearing, before she turned back towards the Wielder of Power and raised a single unimpressed eyebrow.
“Okay, point,” Ganondorf grudgingly conceded before continuing to banter and argue in the manner only old time friends could. “But I’ll have you know that I didn’t start it this time! By the time I joined in the fray the Kid had already downed a few of them! So there!”
Zelda kept her gaze locked with Ganondorf for a moment, before she tilted her head slightly to the side in order to look straight at said green pegasus in silent question.
“They were quite rude,” Link calmly replied with a small nod and a serene smile on his muzzle, as if the short answer explained everything there was to be explained about the whole situation.
“Of course they were,” Zelda agreed with a long exasperated sigh, the look on her face showed that she didn’t know if she would rather laugh at the whole mess or facehoof at it. The feeling was apparently shared by the azure coated pegasus next to Link.
“Very well then, let’s see what we have here,” the unicorn stated as she clearly pushed the whole situation out of her mind, turning towards the downed ponies, and bathed both her horn and their bodies in the blue glow of her magic.
The elder simply stood there and watched with wide eyes the show of magical skill and might for a moment as he idly wondered how many arch-mages could replicate the arcane feat Zelda was so effortlessly doing before his very eyes. It was only a moment before Ganondorf’s gruff voice brought him back from his musings.
“What’s it, Kid?” Ganondorf curiously inquired as he gazed at Link, as the green pony stared towards the northwest with a hint of curiosity in his eyes.
“It has gotten colder,” the pegasus simply replied, as his eyes never strayed from the cloudless horizon. And, as he heard the words, Old Oak realized that the young one was right, there was indeed a chilly breeze coming from that direction.
As he shook his head in sadness, as he pondered what this new cold snap could mean for the harvest, Old Oak proceeded to try to help Zelda with the injured, if in a little more mundane manner.