CHAPTER 4: Ponies in Peril

'So it's really come to this. The tag team of the century. My big mouth, and Cody's big head.'

Blah had explained to Hailstorm on the way that mobility and teamwork were the two most important things at that moment - with their current gear, they'd have to step up their game if they wanted to rescue an entire village. And so, Blah had managed to convince Hail into, reluctantly, being his temporary aerial mount.

As a unit, Hail could pick off any monsters he could see, while Blah could easily knock away any foes that got too close. The duo soared over the land, rapidly approaching the dark backdrop, practically untouched in their determination and skill. It was a remarkable sight.

That didn't make Hail hate it any less, however.

'Blah could at least afford to lose some weight...'

As they neared the corruption, the ranks of eaters swelled in number. The two of them had little time to take in the sights, but what they did see only served to harm their morale. The field was covered in twisted, purple grass, its foliage replaced with tainted flowers and massive thorns. Many of the trees, their wood grayed and half-rotten, had collapsed under their own weight. Huge chasms of deep, purple stone were sparsely spread out across the ground, filled with nothing but darkness.

While Blah focused on covering Hail's immediate surroundings, the pony scanned the ground below for any signs of his home town. He thought he saw some natural landmarks that looked familiar, but it was hard to recognize them through the fresh coat of purple and gray paint. The deeper they traveled, however, the more uncanny the resemblances became. Hail became uncomfortable looking through the purple-tinted lens at the lands he once traveled above so frequently. It was the perfect setting for a nightmare.

And then, they saw it. Buildings made of rotten wood and sinister brick. Ponies tainted with blood-red and midnight black. What was once a lively, friendly community of ponies was now a lifeless wasteland full of shambling, soulless equines. The sight was enough to send chills down even Blah's spine.

"Maybe we should go back..." Blah muttered, his courage deserting him. In Terraria, he was completely fearless, but the game never featured large civilizations becoming zombified by a mysterious, malignant force. The image of himself in a similar, corrupted state plagued his mind, and he feared that this image would become reality. "Looks like it's too late for them..."

"Are you kidding me?!" Hail responded. "We came all this way, waded through demons and abominations, just to let an entire village of innocent people live a life of chaos and... well... corruption?! Celestia as my witness, I'm getting to the bottom of this, right now! And as long as you're on my back, you're going nowhere!"

He flew higher over the ground to emphasize this fact. Blah suddenly had heights to tack on to his list of fears.

"Aah!" he yelled, clutching the pegasus tighter. "Ok, ok, I'll help! Please don't do that!"

Hail lowered himself, putting Blah a little at ease. "Good, now we can't afford to waste any more time. Keep on the lookout for any clues as to the source... and for any survivors of this curse."

He flew over the rooftops as the two scanned the town for anything that stood out, all while knocking away the eaters of souls that had increased in quantity and ferocity. Occasionally, a corrupted pegasus would swoop in and assault the duo. Hail could not bring himself to fire bolts at them, so it was up to Blah to keep them at bay. Meanwhile, corrupted earth ponies and unicorns stared at the two with a similar hunger from below, wishing that the strangers weren't so far out of their reach.

"I don't know how much longer I can... ack!... hold out...!" cried Blah, as one eater struck him on the arm with its mandible before getting blasted to pieces by the warhammer.

"We're getting closer..." assured Hail, swerving away and striking another eater straight through its center. "Why would there be so many of 'em otherwise?"

The pair endured, pressing onward above entire blocks and plazas. Eventually, the buildings thinned out, making way for a vast expanse of trees that grew misshapen, molded fruits. So disfigured were the fruits that they were impossible to identify. "This is Sweet Apple Acres," Hail timidly announced. "Or what's left of it, I should say..."

A splash of red and a tinge of green caught Blah's eye. One of the barns on the farm had been completely untouched by the darkness, and it was surrounded by a circle of towering sunflowers.

"Sunflowers!" exclaimed Blah. "Corruption can't spread past sunflowers! It's a sanctuary!"

Indeed, as Hail closed in on the location, he could plainly see normal green grass around the barn. He perked up instantly. If there were any survivors, they'd almost certainly be in there. With any luck, they might also know a bit more about how the curse started. "I'm on it!"

Hail made a beeline for the barn, lowering his crossbow. Blah continued to stay on alert, and it wasn't long before something alerted him. Before he knew it, a troop of three purplish blurs zoomed ahead of them with blinding speed, blocking them from reaching the safe zone and quickly surrounding them. Hail flapped his way to a sudden halt. These were pegasus ponies, undoubtedly corrupted like the rest, except their dark, full-body uniforms and goggles set them apart from the rest.

Blah and Hail simultaneously gasped, both of them recognizing the force that stood between them and safety. "Oh no, not the Wonderbolts too..." muttered Blah worriedly.

Hail would have been curious as to how Blah knew about the all-star stunt fliers, if he hadn't been fearing for his life. Hail brought out his crossbow again. As much as it pained him to take up arms against his fellow pony, he wasn't sure if either of them could make it if he held back.

All at once, the Wonderbolts charged. Blah swiped at one of them with his hammer, but she darted away skillfully and socked him in the jaw, making him nearly lose his balance. Hail fired bolt after bolt, each of which were easily dodged as one of the members slammed Hail in the gut. It took all he had to keep from falling out of the sky.

One of the former performers evaded both heroes' sights and bucked Blah square in the back, knocking him off of Hail. Blah was helpless against the pull of gravity while the other two Wonderbolts assaulted Hail, ensuring that he would be unable to save the human.

THUD! Blah cratered into the ground face-first. His nose was badly broken and bleeding profusely, and at least two of his ribs were painfully cracked, not to mention his mangled left arm. This was a level of pain he had never experienced before. Using what remained of his energy, he crawled towards the circle of sunflowers. He couldn't imagine what was happening to Hail right now, but there was nothing he could do to help. He could already feel the darkness intruding upon his exhausted soul, and he had to get out of there fast.

He brushed past the sunflowers, and as soon as he was free of the darkness, he rolled over onto his back, probably the least of his bodily injuries at the time. His glasses had fallen off somewhere in the tussle, but in the sky he could make out three dark figures swarming a helpless white one.

'Must... get up... and help...' chanted Blah in his head, digging into the backpack next to him in the hopes of finding a potion, or at least a mushroom, to stabilize himself. He had no idea what he was going to do after he got up, but he had to do something. Anything.

"Crap..." Blah weakly exclaimed, realizing that he had only made the one potion for Hail back at the shack. The mushrooms were all the way at the bottom, and his strength rapidly deserted him. Soon, the exertion overtook him and he found himself slipping out of consciousness.

"...ain't all dark and evil, so I reckon he's harmless. Strange, but harmless."

"Oh... you're probably right."

"Oh hey, he's wakin' up. Howdy, stranger, how y'all feelin'?"

Blah stirred and groaned. He was still in pain, but he felt a cast on his arm and his nose was full of cotton keeping it stiff and dry. He opened his eyes, still lacking glasses, and saw two brightly colored figures standing over him - one yellow and pink, the other orange and yellow. Just by the colors and the shapes, Blah could identify the figures easily.

"Applejack...? Fluttershy...?" Blah muttered, still not quite used to talking to non-humans.

"Uh... have we met?" queried Applejack, startled that a complete stranger somehow knew her and her friend's names. "Come to think of it, are y'all even from around here?"

"Nope... Not technically..." Blah answered, trying to find a position that didn't hurt. He only managed to hurt himself more in the process, so he gave up.

"So how the hay do you know our names?" the earth pony demanded, suspicious.

"I've watched your show," Blah simplified. "Don't worry, though. I'm not that kind of fanboy." He laughed, which transitioned to a cough.

"Please try not to laugh," advised Fluttershy. "Or breathe too hard. Also, um..." She looked away. "I'm sorry, but... what are you talking about? I don't remember putting on a show..."

Blah continued to laugh, despite the yellow pony's concerns. He couldn't help it, talking to what he recognized as cartoon characters, in the flesh. "Well, Fluttershy," he said, his tone becoming darker, "that's because they're filming you in secret. Every aspect of your lives, every incident, every action, every thought... they're watching you. They know."

"Every... thought...?" squeaked Fluttershy, slowly stepping back, looking frantically around the inside of the barn.

Unamused, Applejack approached Blah. "That's crazy talk! What are you tryin' to do, scare her?" She turned reassuringly to Fluttershy, who was still searching for the hidden, watching eyes. "Don't listen to him, sugarcube. Nopony's watchin' us."

"I'm only joking," Blah retracted. "It's a joke! Is it a crime to want to lighten the mood a little?" He figured attempting to press the fact that there was some truth to it would not help anyone at this point.

"You got a pretty dry sense of humor, then," scolded Applejack. "But nevermind all that. Do y'all have a name or not?"

"Blahsadfeguie, but you can just call me Blah," replied the human. Even he was starting to get used to introducing himself that way.

There was a brief silence. "Oh, that's another joke, right?" guessed Fluttershy, giggling slightly. "Heh heh... 'Blahsadfeguie'... that's not even a name."

Despite it not actually being his name, Blah still felt a little offended. "That wasn't a joke," he corrected. "It's my actual name."

Fluttershy shrunk away. "Ah... I'm so sorry, Mr. Blahsadfeguie... sir..."

Blah sighed. "Don't worry, I know, it's weird. But enough about me, please tell me Hailstorm is all right..."

"Welp... he's alive," answered Applejack, indicating a white grounded blob behind her, "but he's hurt real bad. Fluttershy's doin' her best to fix 'em right up."

"He'll be fine," Fluttershy added. "He just needs some rest..."

Blah was afraid to ask just how bad it was, and he was glad that his vision was too blurred to see for himself. If his friend was alive, however, that was good enough for him. "Glad to hear it..." he nodded. "So, this barn is completely safe?"

"It's the darnedest thing," said Applejack. "Them critters 'n zombies'll hunt you down like a hound hunts a fox, but they won't even go near the sunflowers. Good thing Fluttershy had a bushel of 'em handy, she planted them all around the barn before you could say 'apple fritter'!"

Blah nodded. Just as he thought, the sunflowers were able to completely hold back the corruption and its denizens. All that remained was to ask about its origins. "So how did the town get infected anyway? Where did it all begin?"

Applejack pawed at the ground and looked away for a moment. "I ain't really sure," she said. "Those one-eyed flyin' things seem to swarm around the ol' library where Twilight lives, so I reckon that might have somethin' to do with where the purple stuff came from..."

"Corruption," corrected Blah. "But yeah, sounds like a spell gone wrong or something... that would explain a lot. I hadn't considered the idea of the corruption being tied to magic before, and I feel like there's more to this story than just a magic misfire, but it makes enough sense." Blah was talking to himself more than the ponies now.

"Wait... you know about this stuff?" Applejack retorted, now glaring at Blah with accusing eyes. Fluttershy perked up as well.

"Uh... well, it's complicated..." Blah said nervously, not helping his case in the slightest. "I'm from a world where the corruption is just another biome, but I've never heard of whole towns getting corrupted before. I also didn't know My Little Ponies were real until yesterday."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like we're both fish out of water here... if y'all are telling the truth, that is." She was standing right in front of Blah's face now, staring him eye-to-eye. Blah had no trouble seeing the seriousness in the earth pony's eyes.

"If I were behind this whole ordeal," Blah snapped, "why would I have been attacked by the corrupted Wonderbolts?"

"He's right," said Fluttershy. "They only wanted to help us... so the Wonderbolts didn't want them to reach the barn..."

The orange pony sighed. "Oh, alright, we believe you," she surrendered. "But it ain't gonna matter if we can't find a way to get Ponyville back to normal again. Any idea how we might do that, Mr. Expert?"

"There are a few ways to get rid of corruption..." began Blah, thinking back to his Terraria days. "There's purification powder, but you need to get that from a dryad and we haven't beaten the Eye of Cthulu yet." The others were already lost, but Blah continued regardless. "There's also holy water, but we have to enter hardmode first and that would just make things worse. Of course, with either of those methods you have to hit every square inch or else it'll spread back. A Clentaminator would be extremely thorough and efficient, but that's a seriously expensive investment. If you ask me, our best bet would probably be bombs and dynamite."

"Whoa whoa whoa, now hold your horses, pardner," Applejack cut in. "We ain't blowin' up nothin'. And I couldn't understand a word you said before that."

Blah frowned. It seemed that conventional methods were simply out of the question, but since the circumstances themselves were by no means conventional, perhaps there was another way. He shrugged. "We could try working our way to the source of the corruption," Blah improvised. "Once we figure out what's causing it, we might be able to put a stop to it."

"But if we stay in that purple grass for too long, we'll get 'corrupted' just like the rest..."

"Which is why we'll dig an escape tunnel." Blah pulled out his copper pickaxe. "As long as we start the tunnel inside the sunflowers, and don't surface until we reach normal ground, we'll be untouchable! Then we can gear up back at my place and prepare ourselves for the massive battle that is sure to ensue."

"Oh, but you shouldn't be digging in your condition," Fluttershy chimed in.

"...oh, right, what was I thinking?" Blah reached into his backpack and pulled out a few materials - namely, some mushrooms, slime gel, and six empty bottles, which he had created along with the one used for Hail's potion, with the intention of making more on the spot. He had unfortunately been too distracted to finish the job at the time, but as long as he had the materials with him, it didn't matter. "You got a table I can work with?"

"Uh, right here," said Applejack, carting in a small workbench hesitantly, yet curiously.

Blah placed one of the bottles on the table without a second thought, and began mixing the ingredients into the other bottles. The process was slow and awkward due to only having one usable arm, but he still managed to impress the two mares with his efficiency. He ended up with half a dozen fresh, red potions, and wasted no time drinking one himself. Instantly, the bruises and cuts on his body began to recover, and his bones snapped back into place, causing a series of sickening cracks that made everyone, especially Fluttershy, wince. Blah was still a bit sore, but he could now stand up fully without extreme pain.

He removed the cast and the cotton and looked almost good as new. "Have Hail drink this when he wakes up," said Blah with a smirk, tossing the flabbergasted Fluttershy one of the healing potions with his previously shattered arm. Unquestioningly, she caught it with her mouth as she watched Blah carry the pickaxe just outside the barn.

"Oh, I almost forgot!" Blah heard Applejack call after him and turned around to see the farmer carrying his glasses. "We found these on the ground near where you crashed when we picked up Hailstorm. They don't look like they could fit anypony I know, so I thought they might be yours."

"You got that right," said Blah as he retrieved his glasses and slipped them on, glad to finally be able to see again. "And it's about time. I was this close to going into a blind rage." He chuckled to himself as he struck the ground, but stopped as he realized he was the only one laughing. "That one was a joke. You are allowed to laugh."

"Not if it isn't funny," groaned a familiar stallion's voice.

"Well, look who's awake," remarked Blah. "And judgmental. If you can't see the humor in my puns, maybe you need these glasses more than I do!"

"With you cracking jokes like that, it's no wonder the dead are restless," complained Hail as Fluttershy approached him with the potion.

"Yeah, those zombies want a piece of my brilliant brain," countered Blah. "Of corpse, I won't let them have it. Coming after me is a grave mistake. I'll slam them so hard, they won't know rot hit them!"

"Ok, that's it," Hail snapped, finishing off the potion. "As soon as I'm healed, I'm going to strangle him."