CHAPTER 11: Whiplash
}"So it appears the corruption in Ponyville has been vanquished."{
["Really? That fast, huh? This guy's already proving to be a handful..."]
|"Does that mean Purple is done for?"|
="Spirits cannot die. Given enough time, he will rise again, stronger than ever before!"=
}"Indeed. He will return to aid us before long. We, however, need to focus on establishing our presence. Mr. Gray, anything to report?"{
~"I've spoken to our favorite Pokemon trainer and managed to recruit him to our side. He was quite easy to sway, given his history with the Knight so far!"~
_"You always were the best at seducing men."_
~"Again with the crude jokes, Lime? Don't make me sic Blue on you..."~
/"Blue does what Blue wants. Nubs."\
|"I'd be happy to silence him. Too bad I'm nowhere near any of you."|
["Man, those color codenames are confusing. Why are we using them, again?"]
}"We have to be as cryptic as possible on this line. You never know who might be listening in."{
_"You got that right! Someone might be reading this off the Internet for all we know!"_
}"Anyway, continue the plan. Mr. Gray, I trust you and your new cohort can cover for Mr. Purple until he returns?"{
~"Oh, don't worry, Orange. Me and the new guy make for an unstoppable duo!"~
["And a cute couple!"]
~"Et tu, Red?"~
="Your foolish banter will be the death of us all..."=
"Blahsadfeguie, it is morning. Please wake up."
Blah jolted awake, feeling like he had just been buried in a ton of bricks. Several distinct, colorful voices echoed incoherently in his head. Part of him did not want to leave that bed, and was perfectly content with sleeping another hour or so. "What time is it?" he mumbled.
"Seven forty five," Sera responded. "Ample time to get ready for the party."
"I can afford another 5 minutes..." Blah rolled over, burying his head in the covers.
"Perhaps so, but I would not count on it. Please get up."
"Listen to your mother, Blah," taunted Cody, still sitting in his corner, still reading his book.
Hearing Cody's voice, Blah forced himself to sit up. "Don't you ever sleep?"
"Don't you ever get out of bed?" Cody volleyed back, unmoving.
Blah reluctantly retrieved his glasses and slipped them on. He knew he didn't have a chance at sleeping as long as he was annoyed at Cody. He climbed out of bed, found his balance, and stretched his limbs.
"Before we get started, there is something I must tell you," announced Sera. "It is something I discovered last night while meditating."
"Can you wait until after the party to drop another bombshell on me?" Blah pleaded as he began to don his armor. "I have enough on my mind as it is. And it sounds like it might be most appropriate to bring up in front of Twilight."
"Fair enough," Sera abjured. "It can probably wait a few hours."
As Blah put on his helmet, Cody started to laugh. "What's so funny?" Blah confronted him, glaring sharply.
"That must be one heck of a party you're going to, if you need that much protection," remarked the guide.
Blah looked down at himself. "Well, once you get used to wearing this stuff, you kinda start to feel naked without it... and I mean, you never know what might happen in a world like this. Better safe than sorry, right?"
"Afraid Hailstorm might kill you if he sees you again?" joked Cody.
As the image crossed his mind, Blah froze for a few moments at the too-real possibility of it actually happening. "No, no," he denied, returning to gathering up his belongings. "I don't think Hail's the kind of guy who could kill anyone."
"From what I gather," added Sera, "he did threaten to strangle you once."
Blah froze again, turning slowly to look at the Abra. "How much of my mind have you been reading?"
"The answer to that ties back to the thing I discovered last night," she withheld. "I take it you still do not want to hear it?"
Blah's curiosity had nearly gotten the better of him. Whatever she discovered, he already knew that he played a major part in it somehow, but as much as he wanted to know what it could possibly be, he simply did not have time. "Yeah, just save it," he dismissed before he could think too deeply into it. Sera simply nodded in understanding.
Slinging his backpack around his shoulder, Blah caught sight of the Breaker sitting in the corner. He wondered how much it might weigh from inside his backpack, or if it would be practical at all to take with him. In Terraria, weight was never an issue as the inventory was just an abstract holding space for various items. He seemed to recall carrying loads and loads of freshly-mined ore from the caves, so maybe this would be no different.
Blah shrugged. No harm in trying. He set his backpack down, carefully lifted the sizable slammer, and lowered it into the bag. He was quite surprised to find that the pack weighed no more than it did before!
Instinctively, Blah turned toward the guide, who had the smirk of a modern-day man who had just witnessed a caveman discover fire for the first time. Blah opened his mouth to speak, but Cody held up his hand. "Don't question it," he instructed.
"Are you ready, Blah?" Sera asked. "You have less than ten minutes remaining."
"Assuming you can teleport me straight to the party, I can afford to goof around for most of that," said Blah as he ran his hands through his hair in lieu of a comb. Or a mirror. "But we might as well leave now."
"Good." Without another word, Sera blinked on top of Blah's shoulders somewhat unexpectedly, causing the man to flinch.
'This must be how Hail felt...' thought Blah, already working out how best to apologize in his head.
"Save me some cake or something, would you?" Cody requested as he returned to his book.
"Oh, I'll save you something, all right..." muttered Blah as he and Sera vanished.
Once Blah had gotten accustomed to the sudden change of lighting, he found himself standing smack dab in the middle of Ponyville on a busy market plaza, surrounded by stalls, carts, and goods. Ponies of all shapes, sizes, and colors trotted about on various agendas, visiting stalls and casually chatting with one another. The new arrivals began to slowly attract attention and stares from the locals, making Blah feel more and more awkward.
'This doesn't look like the party,' observed Blah inwardly, hoping Sera would pick it up.
"I can only directly teleport to a location either of us has personally seen," Sera explained. "We also do not know where the party is."
Blah frowned. 'Oh. I probably should have asked Pinkie Pie when I had the chance...'
He cleared his throat, knowing he likely wouldn't be able to avoid talking for much longer anyway. "Hi, excuse me," he greeted, causing the chatter in the area to die down. "would anyone happen to know where Pinkie Pie's having the party...?"
About ten ponies pointed down the northern road at once, where he immediately noticed a larger amount of traffic going than coming. "Why, it's at Sugarcube Corner," he heard one of them say.
Blah nodded, recognizing the place by name as the bakery where Pinkie worked. "Thanks," he said as he briefly tipped his helmet and began to head that way himself, assuming a rather brisk pace.
It was difficult to keep a low profile when he stood two feet above the crowd, and even more so with the Abra still riding on his shoulders and adding another foot or so. A party-going pony would occasionally say hi, to which Blah would respond with a nervous smile and a light wave. One group of mares were fixated on Seraphina, admiring how cute she and Blah looked together. Sera gave a passing, quizzical glance in their direction, causing them to laugh.
The door to Sugarcube Corner was wide open, and ponies were piling into it. Blah stopped nearby, taking a deep breath.
But before he could make his way inside, he caught a glimpse of something yellow and hairy behind the building. Something which twitched occasionally, but otherwise was perfectly still. He leaned a ways to the left to get a better view of it, spotting the flank of a gray-coated stallion. A blank flank.
'That's that troubled earth pony from the other day...' identified Blah. 'He seemed to desperately want my advice, but I never got the chance to talk to him.'
"Hailstorm pulled him away before you could talk any further," Sera continued for him. "You never even got his name."
'Yep, that's... that's right.' Blah would have once again been concerned about how much Sera had been probing his mind, if he hadn't been reminded of how concerned he felt for this stallion. 'You go on inside, let everyone know I'll be there shortly. I'm going to nip this in the bud.'
"As you wish." In seconds, Sera had disappeared from on top of Blah, presumably teleporting straight inside.
Blah navigated his way around the building, netting him a few curious looks from the other ponies, but otherwise undisturbed. The earth pony was staring through the window of the bakery, watching the party with a hint of longing. His head notably bobbed in time with a pink bouncing blob on the inside.
"Hey," called Blah as benignly as he could, but it still caused the pony to jump. When he looked back and saw Blah, his eyes grew wide. "I never did get your name."
"Oh, uh..." It was clear that the stallion did not expect to see Blah again, and it took him a moment to remember his own name. "Light Star."
"That's a cool name," Blah complimented. "Sure beats mine by a long shot..." He kneeled down to the confused Light Star's level. "So it's her you're after, isn't it?" He indicated the pink pony at the center of attention.
Light looked away, an embarrassed blush playing across his face. "Y-yeah..."
"Have you talked to her before?" Blah casually asked, hoping to ease him into the conversation.
"A couple times..." Light did not elaborate, merely shuffling his hooves.
"Didn't go so well, I take it?" sympathized Blah.
"Not really..." he said, exactly as Blah had predicted. Just before Blah concluded that this conversation would go nowhere, Light continued. "I thought I had worked up the courage to speak to her once. I went up to her room. I knocked on her door. We locked eyes... and I chickened out at the last second, instead asking to borrow the first thing I saw inside. A trumpet." He looked down. "That was a month ago. Now I can't even show my face around her. I just know she's going to chew me out for it."
"Chew you out for what?" A bright and bubbly voice cut in before Blah could even begin to comfort him. Light bore a look of genuine terror and fled behind Sugarcube Corner like an insect scuttling away from an encroaching foot. He was long gone in seconds.
Blah, unmoving, drew in a deep, slow breath, and exhaled loudly. "Pinkie Pie. You have. The greatest timing. Possible."
Pinkie giggled, blissfully ignorant of the scene that she had interrupted. "I get that a lot. Hee hee!" Blah turned, about to make his qualms exorbitantly clear, but Pinkie was far from done. "Anyway your cute little mind-talky friend said you'd be in here soon but a lot of ponies saw you going behind the building and it's nearly 8:00 so we were wondering if you even wanted to join us in the first place and what you could even be doing back here anyway?"
Blah leaned around the corner, checking to see if Light Star was anywhere in sight. When he didn't see him, Blah gave a sigh of surrender. "Nothing important. I'm coming."
The excitable mare bounced several feet in the air. "Awesome! You're going to love who we got to do the music!"
Blah began to follow her inside, unable to pay attention to her exhaustive list of all the things she had gotten for the party. He figured he might as well get his speech over with first thing, and so he had to get in the mindset for it. "Is Hailstorm here?" he asked, cutting Pinkie Pie short.
She didn't seem to mind, though. "Oh, of course he's here!" she affirmed. "I invited him personally, so you can say whatever you want to say to him or about him! Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the cake!"
'That's a relief,' Blah thought. 'I was worried he would ditch the party out of spite...'
The human's entrance was met with a hearty cheer from the crowd. He waved. "Hello, everypony!" he greeted, hardly aware of his language. He scanned the area in search of Sera, and spotted her sitting on top of a table surrounded by a contingent of awed foals. Her face was expressionless as usual, but Blah could tell by her scrunched-up posture that she was feeling a little overwhelmed.
He also found Hailstorm in the corner by himself, giving him a semi-patient glare over a plate of cake. Blah nodded at him in acknowledgement, to which Hail rolled his eyes.
On his way to the front, Blah snagged an untouched glass of root beer and took a huge gulp of it to prepare him for his next course of action. He cleared his throat. "Alrighty, before we get into it," he began, stepping up onto the stage, "I'd just like to say a few words."
He had the attention of pretty much the entire room. He wasn't sure if he'd ever had this many eyes on him before. He took another swig of the soft drink, which seemed to quell the frog in his throat long enough for him to continue. "When the Eater of Worlds was defeated and the corruption faded, I was left standing in the midst of a cheering crowd. I let all the praise and attention get to my head, and accepted all the credit. The truth is, I wasn't the only one who fought the thing. I had the help of two very brave ponies, without whom I could not have even hoped to succeed. In fact, I probably would have died if not for their help." Hailstorm perked up. "Those ponies were Twilight Sparkle and Hailstorm. Get on up here, you two!"
The ponies were notably more surprised to hear Hailstorm's name than Twilight's, and the majority of their collective gaze shifted towards the pegasus, causing him to shrink away out of instinct. Twilight beckoned him over as she stepped up next to Blah. Regathering himself, Hail made his modest way through the crowd and positioned himself on Blah's other side.
With all three of the true heroes in front, the crowd began to cheer and stomp their hooves. All at once, Hailstorm felt the same admiration and gratefulness that Blah did the other day, and even though it was a day late, there was no denying that it was great. Hail may have been a pegasus, but this was the first time he could truly say he felt like he was on top of the world.
"Thank you..." he uttered, the only words he could manage to say.
"No, Hail, thank you," Blah echoed, regardless of whether the pegasus's thank was directed at him or at the townsponies. "Without your help, your specific advice, a lot of innocent ponies would have died as well. When I was being selfish, you kept me from doing something stupid. And, despite me completely stealing the spotlight when we were done, you decided to give me a second chance here today. I honestly could not ask for a better friend."
Hail chuckled. "Well, to be honest, it was Pinkie Pie's promise of cake that sold me the deal..."
"Are you sure you didn't have a change of heart after all?" Twilight playfully questioned. "I mean, let's face it, you did kind of overreact."
Blah smirked. "You mean he wasn't fully justified in keeping Light Star away from me?"
Hail sighed. "Yeah... I had a talk with Twilight as well, and she helped me realize that I was being a little over dramatic. Sorry about that."
"Hey, if you can forgive me, I can forgive you," Blah stated, his arms wide.
"You just have to understand that you can't exactly expect anyone to keep his cool going up against a giant, starving, demonic worm," asserted Hail. "I still can't believe how well you handled it."
Thinking back, Blah wasn't entirely sure how he did it himself. "I guess when you're in a life-or-death situation, you kinda have to keep your head in the game to survive. You don't really have time to panic or even think." Blah shrugged. "It just takes some people longer than others to realize that. But I'm sure you'll get used to it before long."
Hail took a step back with a nervous laugh. "I don't intend to do any more monster-hunting anytime soon."
"Oh, come on," Blah encouraged. "You have to admit, that fight was pretty awesome."
"It might have been 'awesome'," Twilight admitted, "but that doesn't mean you should go looking for trouble. The most important part of heroism is humility."
"Anyway, aren't we supposed to be partying?" Hail asked. "I kinda wanted to get back to my cake."
Blah resolved to save the rest of what he had to say for later, as he was also eager to get to the party. He smiled, patting Hail's head. "Go eat your cake, man." He turned to the crowd. "And what are you all staring at? Let's-"
"PARTY!" Pinkie Pie, sporting a colorful party hat and dual-wielding party poppers, dove in front of the heroes on her back knees and unleashed a flurry of confetti into the air. The music cued in as well, filling the room with an upbeat bass-heavy rhythm, already drawing out the high-energy dancers. In just two seconds, the party went from 0 to 60 and kept it there.
Blah made a beeline for the cake, as well as a refill of root beer. He was less interested in the dancing and more interested in the games, so as he ate, he casually made his way around, scoping the place out. A lot of the ponies he passed were quite interested in him, but he could barely hear their questions over the music. Most of the time, he just smiled and nodded.
Eventually, he found a group of unicorns, including Twilight, throwing magnetic darts at a dartboard. Just about all of them were very precise, but Blah wanted to see how he'd compare anyway. Only two of his darts even hit the board, but there were plenty of laughs and Blah had a great time shooting the breeze and sipping root beer between tosses.
As Blah reached for his next dart, something big, round, and yellow caught his eye. He looked up and saw what appeared to be a tall pony with a large afro standing in the distance. It was such an out-of-place, perfectly round hairdo that it sucked him out of the experience for a moment.
The vivid yellow coloration suddenly reminded him of Seraphina, and the fact that he hadn't even seen her since the party started.
"What's the matter, Blah?" asked one of the unicorns.
"I completely forgot about someone," Blah said, standing on his tip-toes and searching the party for anything else yellow and not a pony. Which was difficult, considering at least a third of all the ponies present had some sort of yellow on them somewhere. "Has anypony seen Seraphina...?"
"You mean that psychic fox who came in shortly before you did?" questioned Twilight. "I was just starting to wonder about her myself..."
Blah carefully climbed on top of one of the tables, getting a better view, but before long, a large afro walked in front of him, blocking it. "Hey!" he shouted. "Do you m..."
When he looked down at the pony, he saw that it was quite clearly someone in a poorly-made horse costume. Even its cutie mark was a crude drawing of a unicorn.
"Do I mmm-what?" the fake pony responded with a startlingly deep, angry voice, staring at Blah with a stitched-up face and a droopy eye. "You got a problem with tall ponies, pal?"
"Yeah, do you?" came a higher-pitched, muffled voice from inside the oversized back half of the costume.
Blah had to wonder what the heck was in that root beer, and if drinking four glasses of it had any permanent side-effects. "I... no," he answered. "I just have a problem with ponies, or whatever you are, standing in my way while I'm looking for someone..."
"Looking for someone, you say?" the afro-sporting stranger said. "Maybe I can help! My name's Marshmallow Buttercup." A thick, tan human arm tore its way out of the horse costume to shake Blah's hand.
"And I'm Petunia Glitterbottom!" A scrawny white arm did the same from the horse's flank.
Blah shook both of the costume's occupants' hands uneasily. "Blahsadfeguie..." he introduced in a confused tone, looking at Twilight for guidance. She merely raised an eyebrow, as if Blah was talking to a perfectly normal pony and she had no idea what the problem was.
"Now," began Marshmallow Buttercup, "would this missing person happen to be a short yellow fox-like creature with psychic powers named Seraphina?"
Blah furrowed his brow. "What an oddly specific question. I haven't even told you anything about her yet." His confusion turned instantly into suspicion.
"Is that a yes or a no?" Petunia Glitterbottom prompted.
Blah scoffed, looking back at Twilight. "Come on, you can't honestly sit there and tell me there's nothing peculiar about this."
Twilight seemed taken aback. "What are you talking about? Marshmallow and Petunia are valued and respected members of the community. If anypony can help you find Seraphina, it's them."
"That is so typical of outsiders," Marshmallow sighed, turning away from Blah with arms crossed. "They just have to judge us based on our appearance."
"So much for being a great hero," Petunia chided.
As genuine as Twilight was, Blah once again began to doubt himself. 'Is this some kind of test...?' He shook his head. 'No... there's something weird going on and it seems only I can see it.'
He cleared his throat. "Alright, you two, whatever spell you have on these poor ponies ends now. Take this!" With both arms, he grabbed the tacky costume and yanked it off of the both of them in one swift motion. The party ground to a halt as the "valued and respected members of the community" were exposed for what they really were.
Out of everyone present, Blah was perhaps the most shocked. Before him stood a tall man with a muscular upper body, wearing white-rimmed shades, with the blonde afro presumably being his real hair. Behind him was a round, orange creature with multiple protruding spines, making him resemble a sun, and spindly white limbs.
Blah's issue was that he recognized both of them.
"Aw man!" exclaimed the sun-like creature who Blah knew as Don Patch. "He totally blew our cover!"
"You saw through our disguise like it was just a cheap halloween costume..." the tall man, appropriately named Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, observed.
Twilight finally managed to lift her jaw off of the floor and speak. "It was just an illusion this whole time..." she uttered. "The fact that they went by two different names probably should have been a huge tip-off..."
Blah was too busy freaking out internally to provide any snarky commentary on the matter. This was Bo-bobo and Don Patch, two characters from a bizarre Japanese cartoon that he particularly liked growing up. His obsession over it probably would have lasted even to the present day if the show hadn't been cancelled, but he was still shocked to see his childhood role models in the flesh regardless.
"Hey..." Don continued. "Do you think he could be... The Cosmic Crusader?"
"The Warrior of the Worlds?" Bo-bobo added.
"The Miner '89er?"
"The Extra-Terrestrial Terrarian?"
They both gasped in unison. "The Chosen One...?"
Hearing those words, Blah threw up his hands. "All right," he cried, "enough is enough."
"Yeah," Twilight added, having shaken off the disbelief. "What I want to know is who you are and why you've been deceiving everypony for this long."
"And how, for that matter," Blah finished.
"Oh, have we got an answer for you!" Bo-bobo confidently replied, suddenly wearing a black leather jacket and gold-tinted sunglasses, as well as what looked like a literal ton of gold jewelry. Don Patch showed off a similar amount of bling as well as knuckle bracelets saying "COOL" and "YEAH". "Yo, DJ, give us a beat!"
A man made out of shaky, semi-translucent blue gelatin came out of nowhere and leaped onto the stage, shoving the flabbergasted Vinyl Scratch away from the turntables and kicking off a percussion-heavy backing track.
"Yo my name is Bo, to the Bo, to the Bo," rapped Bo-bobo, accentuating his lyrics with wild gestures.
"Patch, Don Patch, yeah you know how it go," rapped Don Patch.
'Is this really happening...?' Blah thought.
"Got a tip from the big guy, heard there was a new hero," Bo-bobo continued.
"So we went down to Ponyville, going in-cog-ni-to!" Don added.
"We had to wait, cause we knew he'd take the bait,"
"And once he did, we'd show him how to control his fate!"
"You see, magic is a tree, branches off in many sprees,"
"For the branch that we control, will-power is the key!"
"Cause our man Blahsadfeguie, through our disguise he did see,"
"With his potential, yet recessed, in the same magic as we!"
"You know, Don, your rapping is really weak," Bo-bobo shouted at Don, breaking the rhythm of his own song. The gelatinous DJ persisted, obliviously scratching the discs.
"Not as weak as that afro of yours, Disco Stupid!" Don barked back. The scratching accelerated until it was more scratch than song.
The two wannabe rappers gave their DJ the evil eye. "And Jelly Jiggler," addressed Bo-bobo angrily, "you're the lamest of them all!"
"Yeah, just face it," Don pointed at the quivering Jelly, "you'll never be as good as DJ, the real DJ!"
"But anyone can scratch a disc, see?" Jelly began to rapidly scratch the disc again, becoming more and more aggressive with it. "See?!"
"No, you're doing it wrong!" claimed Don, stepping up to the turntables and knocking the amateur out with an oversized boxing glove. "This is how you scratch!" He produced a set of claws, a wooden backscratcher, and a pool cue, proceeding to play the turntables like a drum set.
"Would you mind stopping this silly banter and explaining yourselves in a way we can actually understand?" demanded Twilight, but her words fell on deaf ears.
"From what I gather," Blah cut in before his idols could butcher another genre of music, "they heard about how great I apparently am and hid out here, waiting for me to show up and use my apparently latent skill in... uh..."
He knew the branch of magic they were talking about had a name, but he couldn't quite remember it, and the three stooges were too busy arguing to fill him in. "Well whatever it was, I used it to reveal them, and that's how they knew I was the one. And I guess they want to help me develop that skill." As he finished, the weight of what he had spoken suddenly hit him. Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, the master of madness himself, wanted to share his secrets with Blah. 'No way,' Blah denied. 'I must still be dreaming... I should've known by how well that speech went earlier...'
The idea of a branch of magic that Twilight had not heard of bothered her. "What sort of magic could go undetected by every unicorn in Ponyville for this long?" she pondered.
"Hajike is not really 'magic', per se," Bo-bobo answered while Don Patch and Jelly Jiggler fought over the turntables in the background.
Blah snapped his fingers. "Hajike, that was it!" he exclaimed. "Isn't it just... pure randomness, or something?" Blah realized that he never really understood how it worked either.
"'Randomness'? Pfffft." Bo-bobo scoffed. "That is such an umbrella term. Stop using it!" He whacked Blah over the head with a pink umbrella that seemed to have appeared out of thin air. "Stop it! Stop it!" He whacked him several more times.
"Ow, ow, I only said it once..." Blah complained.
"Oh, sorry, I was talking to myself." He put the umbrella away. "I get carried away and have to tell myself to stop sometimes. Anyway, Hajike draws its energy from the subconscious mind." As he explained, his twitching left arm slowly reached behind himself for the umbrella again. Nonchalantly slapping his left arm with his right, he continued. "There's a lot of untapped potential in the dark corners of the brain. The art of Hajike is learning how to utilize and control it." His arm crept back again, only to be thwarted once more by his other.
"For someone who claims to be an expert on the subject," Twilight cut in skeptically, "neither you nor your, er, accomplices, seem to be able to control it very well." She leaned around the tan human, watching Don and Jelly engage in an epic slap-fight.
"Well," Blah defended his idols, "when you open your mind to chaos, you're bound to have to make some sacrifices. Like sanity. And a bit of self-control."
"I never said I didn't want to do any of this!" shouted Bo-bobo, now wielding an umbrella in each hand and pointing their previously unseen gun barrels directly at Blah. There was a burst of panic between Blah, Twilight, and the other onlookers, until the two umbrella guns started firing peanuts. Slow-moving peanuts that barely made it halfway across the room before bouncing on the floor.
"Five-second rule!" cried an excited Pinkie Pie as she mopped up all of the peanuts like a vacuum cleaner.
"You too, Pinkie?" sighed Twilight.
"You know, it wouldn't surprise me if all of Pinkie's antics turned out to be Hajike as well..." Blah mused to himself.
His speculation was cut short when he felt a tap on his shoulder, causing him to jump. "Uh, Blahsadfeguie, sir...?"
He turned around to see Fluttershy standing rather scrunched up behind him. "Jeez, don't sneak up on me like that," snapped Blah. "When did you get here, anyway?"
She seemed taken aback. "I'm so sorry... I've, uh, been here since the party started..." she quietly explained. Blah narrowed his eyes, mustering up the patience to listen to the shrinking, shaking pegasus. "I understand you're excited about this, um, Hajike thing, but have you already forgotten about... you know... Seraphina?"
Blah's eyes widened. He slapped his forehead. "Crap, I forgot about her again..." He pointed an accusatory finger at Bo-bobo, who was now shooting peanuts directly into Pinkie's mouth. "I blame you for distracting me. Didn't you say you knew something?"
"Oh, yeah," Bo-bobo said, nonchalantly sticking a finger up his nose. "Some guys with weird hair dressed in white snatched her up while everyone was listening to your speech. They're escaping in that balloon." He pointed out of the window where, sure enough, a hot air balloon was visible in the distance.
Everyone who was still paying attention rushed outside to get a better look. Blah could barely make out that the balloon was shaped like a cat's head. "Team Rocket? Seriously?" Blah shot a burning glare back at Bo-bobo. "Why didn't you tell us this sooner?!"
"We had that rap on our minds and wanted to focus on perfecting it," the Hajike expert shrugged.
"Oh, pardon me, that time was certainly well-spent!" yelled Blah. "How are we going to catch up to them now?"
"Don't worry, Blah." Glancing over, Blah saw a familiar white pegasus taking to the air, crossbow at the ready. "You've still got me." He zoomed off towards the balloon as fast as his two wings could carry him.
"He's had that crossbow on him the whole time?" questioned Blah. "Also, he could've brought me with him..."
"I don't think that would've helped his speed," Twilight pointed out. "Anyway, who's Team Rocket?"
"They're an organized crime syndicate bent on stealing rare and powerful Pokemon. I can see why they'd be after Seraphina..." Blah laughed. "They're incompetent idiots, though. Hail's got this in the bag."
No one had any reason to believe Blah didn't know what he was talking about, so they watched as the crossbowpony closed in on the criminals' balloon. A loud CRACK echoed through the town, to which Blah smirked. "And that'd be their balloon popping. Team Rocket's blasting off again!"
"In that case..." a concerned Twilight argued, "why is Hail falling out of the sky?"
"What do you-" Blah started, but cut himself short when he realized Twilight was speaking the truth. The balloon was undamaged, and Hail dropped like a rock. Blah's heart rapidly sank as he realized that the loud noise was not the balloon.
It was a gunshot.