Insanity Reaches a Boiling Point: Invisibility at Random

[Lillian Tinkerbell]

Tink gaped as Rainbow Dash leaped out towards the boy. Sure, it looked like he would be made invisible if he didn’t move, but was that really worth the girl possibly hurting her ankle even more? Apparently so. She breathed a sigh of relief as the boy caught Rainbow and started spinning with her. Eventually, the pair stopped, and Tink rushed over to them, picking up the crutches Rainbow had dropped. She handed them to the rainbow-haired girl. “Are you okay, Rainbow Dash?” She quickly typed into her talking device before pressing SAY. “That probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do. You could have hurt your ankle even more.” She looked anxiously at the girl, hoping she really hadn’t been hurt worse. Sure, there was another person here now, but he looked pretty unable to carry Rainbow very far.

Speaking of the guy, he seemed to think he had formed a plan of sorts. Tink watched as he snapped his fingers as if expecting something to happen. “I don’t think we need a mirror, just something reflective, like a pair of sunglasses or a shiny coin or the back of my device.” She flipped her device over to show them the shiny, silver back. Sure, it was a bit smudged with her fingerprints, but she could polish it on her shirt. “Do we really want to do that though? Woulldn’t it just make the beam invisible? I think I’d rather be able to see it.” She glanced at the purple-pink beam then back at the hole. “Actually, why do we even have to do anything? I think the reason for the beam is done. It wanted to show us something, and now it has.” Tink pointed over to the large hole in the ground. “There’s a room hidden deep under the ground. I think it might be a security room. You can go look for yourselves though. I drew a picture as best I could to show to someone in charge. My point is we’ve seen it now, so the beam is probably just hanging around because we’re here.” She shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly and looked around again.

Tink’s eyes fell on Rainbow’s ankle. “Besides, Rainbow Dash is hurt. We really need to get her back home before she hurts herself even more. Maybe after we drop her off, we can come back and do something about the beam?” She was talking to the guy standing with them. It suddenly occurred to her that he hadn’t introduced himself, at least not to her knowledge. “Who are you anyway? I’m Lillian Tinkerbell, and this is Rainbow Dash.” She smiled at the rainbow-haired girl, hoping she didn’t mind if she introduced her. Tink had already said Rainbow’s name a few times anyways. It wasn’t like her identity was a secret now.

[NPC]

The overweight squirrel stalker cursed mightily as the beam missed both his rainbow-haired nemesis and its original target. The beam did an excellent job of rendering the exact patch of grass upon which Discord had been standing completely invisible. You could see straight down to the soil, which was the rough brown of natural ground. The plants were, of course, still there, but they were now as invisible as nearly everything else in the area.

The beam seemed slightly frustrated by this, or something. Because it wobbled in an erratic manner, almost as though whoever was controlling had just taken the lever controlling it and sort of jiggled it in an aggressive manner. What generally happened was a smear of invisible grass created across the lawn. It soon hovered in place for several minutes, likely as its controller breathed in relief. After those seconds, however, the beam seemed to return to its malevolence. It quickly jerked, going to render a tree invisible, and then another. However, this time, there seemed to be some kind of pattern, a recognition. Because no sooner had the tree been rendered invisible when the beam jerked.

And it was clearly dragging its way toward where the group was gathered. Because whomever controlled the beam had just decided that it would be wonderful if everyone in the area was rendered invisible. See them try to fix that problem.

Just to add further problem, the overweight squirrel, who had paused for a moment to chuckle in an evil manner, as squirrels do, leaped forward, aiming for Rainbow Dash, to begin exposing her to "squirrelly wrath."

[Rainbow Dash]

Well, it seemed things could have gone a lot worse. Rainbow was not injured any further, and she'd protected the guy from getting hit by the invisibility beam while avoiding getting hit herself. Lillian ran over with the crutches, too, which was good, because RD saw no way she was going to get up and hobble home without them.

"I'm fine," she said, reaching out for the crutches. "I'd worry about him more. I hit him pretty hard." Her actions might have been reckless, but she was trying to help. Wasn't she even going to get thanked for that?

The guy's attempt to snap his fingers and produce a mirror made Rainbow suspect even more that she was dealing with her old enemy, Discord. She narrowed her eyes and looked the guy up and down, but it really was impossible to tell without the horns and the feet and the tail and the...well, basically he looked completely different from the Discord she knew.

"I agree that we don't want the beam itself to be invisible," Rainbow said after listening to Lillian's argument. "But I don't think we can just walk away." She looked over the drawing that the other girl had made. "I mean, sure, maybe this is what it really wanted to do, but that thing is still going. If we don't stop it, it's going to make the whole forest invisible! I don't think it's just after us." She glanced back at the beam, which seemed to be coming toward them. She hobbled a little further away on her crutches. "I really want to go look at this bunker thing, but first we're going to have to get rid of whatever's doing this. I'm not hurt that bad."

She winced a little when Lillian took the extra effort to introduce themselves. Of course, the name was already floating out there, but Rainbow had hoped that the guy wouldn't notice it. She wasn't really sure she wanted Discord to know it was her, if it really was him. But she didn't have a chance to either stop Lillian or to say anything afterward, since she was suddenly attacked by an invisible creature of some sort. As the squirrel ran up the back of her shirt, she shuddered, yelled, and dropped her crutches to try to get the thing off of her. She couldn't manage to balance on just one foot, though, so she ended up falling to the ground, the squirrel still assaulting her without mercy. "Get it off!" she shouted. "Get it off me!"

She no longer could concern herself about the invisibility ray. Someone else would have to take care of that, since she couldn't manage to get away what with the invisible attacker.

[Darwin Daugherty]

Darwin looked to the two as the rainbow haired girl was moved to a safe spot, relativly speaking. He stood there, just looking at the way the beam moved and tracked it toward it's origin point. It was coming from the sky. He heard the suggestions of the blonde haired girl. Heard, not listened to. But what he did hear was the girl's names. Pro Tip: Always be able to properly identify your victums. So the rainbow haired girl was Rainbow Dash. An evil smile crossed his face as he heard that. The Loyal Pony that gave him the least trouble at first but most later was right behind him. Guess there was no point holding back anymore. He looked ot tTink just as Rainbow seemed to be attacked by some invisible assailant. Tickle attack more likely. As she laughed, he did an extravagent bow to the two. "I am known by the suits as Darwin Ivor Sawyer Carlton Oliver Reginald Daugherty. I am quite famous where I am from." Standing up he popped his neck by tilting it side to side. Almost like he was stretching for some big movement. Most run in terror to safe hiding places when they see me. Some call me The Living Tombstone, not alot, like two or three. More simply refer to me as He as in 'He's coming for us!' or 'What is he going to do to us?' But most simply call me, Discord. Including the little Rainbow Haired Filly laughing her plot off on the ground over there."

It was at that moment the 6' 5" Darwin heard a commotion as the beam was coing closer. Not wrroying about other things he bent down, scooped up Dashie, wish he had a cardboard box right now and started running. His grip on Dash showed a bit of what he was thinking. Holding her like one would a small child being rescued froma burning building, Darwin ran behind trees and then suddenly jerked in a different direction, moving quite insanely before finding a big tree all three could hide behind away from the laser. He then set her down and took a look at the ankle. "I think I will activate that ability of mine to destroy this world." He gave a small wink to Dash as he walked towards the beam.

Standing in palin daylight, Darwin threw his arms wide looking directly at the beam. "Alright who ever is controlling the beam. I shall give you one warning. Make everything you turned invisible visible again or I shall activate a power that was not taken from me. My body holds my power in a finite place. However when I become transparent, my power emcompasses the entire world. So once I do so, I will find you, I will haunt you, and I will enjoy myself watching your torment for the rest of your life. Then I shall haunt your descendants, and so on for the rest of eternity. You know why? Because I am older than dirt, literally and I am bored." His face twisted into the evil smile and dark stare that could only come from a Lord of Madness.

[NPC]

The poor squirrel didn't have a chance, not really. It fought hard to keep attached to Rainbow, and managed for far longer than a squirrel had any right to. In the end, as Discord carried Rainbow away in a fine example of fleeing and dodging, the poor, chubby squirrel hit the forest hard. Likely somewhere there was a pink haired girl wincing for reasons she couldn't quite understand (though in actuality probably had not a bit to deal with said girl's own troubles with frustrating animals). The squirrel did let out squeaking noises that did an excellent job of confirming its existence, in case that was still in question.

The beam kept firing, aimed firing, mind you. It still moved far, far too slowly to be all that useful. The sudden dash seemed to confuse it, however, as it jerked in the general direction Rainbow and Discord had went, as if trying to decide whether or not it should follow. The movement caused the beam to shiver for a moment, the power flickering. It wasn't as though the thing had an infinite power supply, not in this world, at any rate. The thing sputtered, looking not unlike a flashlight. By the time it snapped back to full power, Rainbow was behind a tree and Discord was popping up again.

However, it wasn't as though the controller of the beam could really hear anything, or at least, this mysterious being couldn't hear the various people. It went more for taunting images and such. So if it had noticed Discord at this time, it likely would have focused all its invisible making wrath. However, that momentary lapse in power had caused it to shift its intentions. After all, there was still one tiny blonde target within range, and the beam was definitely aimed straight at poor Tinkerbell.

[Lillian Tinkerbell]

Tink hadn’t moved out of the beam’s path yet because she was too busy thinking to realize she was in danger. They had to stop the beam. Sure, she was pretty sure it would eventually stop on its own, and the sputtering had proved her theory. However, Rainbow Dash seemed to be unwilling to just leave the beam alone, despite her injury. This was the main reason why the beam had to be stopped. Tink really didn’t care that it was making things invisible, that would probably wear off. No, what she cared about was Rainbow Dash. The other woman was injured but wouldn’t leave until the beam was stopped, so here Tink was, trying to figure out how to stop the beam.

If only I were a light fairy, Tink thought to herself. then I could stop it. After all, the beam was mostly just concentrated light, almost like a rainbow. Rainbow…. She thought as she stared at the beam. What was it Iradessa had told her about rainbows? That they could be created with water or crystal or glass, but you had to aim them just right so the light shone through them…. Had that been it? Slowly, the young blonde woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, plastic, bottle of water. She’d actually been intending to explore the forest before the whole weirdness started, and she’d brought along the water just in case she got thirsty. Now it seemed that the water might be put to an even better use than simply quenching her thirst.

A plan forming quickly in her mind, Tink started scraping off the wrapper on the water bottle, glancing up every second or so to see how close the beam was. It was getting closer and closer. With every inch it neared her, a nervous bead of sweat popped out on her brow. She knew the others thought being invisible would be fun, but she herself really didn’t want to be invisible. Still, she stood her ground as she continued scraping off the water bottle wrapper, her fingernails cracking and tearing as she worked. At the last possible second, the wrapper came free and fluttered to the ground. She stepped to the side, thrusting the bottle into the beam’s path with her right hand.

There were a lot of unknown factors to her plan. Maybe she didn’t have the angle right or maybe the beam was too big or maybe the beam couldn’t even be made into rainbows. If her plan worked, the beam would shatter out form the bottle, forming lots of little rainbows. Of course, this wouldn’t stop the actual beam, but it might buy the others time to figure out how to stop it. On the other hand, if it didn’t work, the water bottle and most of her right arm would be made invisible. It was a risk, but on she thought she had to take.

[Rainbow Dash]

Rainbow missed Discord's introduction for the most part, since she was still under assault from the squirrel. Though she would never admit it, she was crying as she attempted to grab onto the invisible beast, frustrated that she couldn't do anything and upset because the squirrel kept switching between running over a ticklish area and scratching her skin. Despite her agony, she did vaguely hear the guy actually say something about "Discord," confirming her suspicions. And she had every intention of giving him a piece of her mind, as soon as the squirrel was dealt with.

The beast was attacking her hair when Discord scooped her up and began running off. As soon as the squirrel fell off, she began screaming and kicking even harder than before, pounding Discord's back. "Put me down!" she shouted. "I don't need to be carried anywhere, and I don't need you to rescue me! Let me go! Right! Now!" She grimaced as he did put her down behind a tree and pulled her foot away from his inspection. "I'm fine. Just leave me alone! I don't need your help."

When she was left alone behind the tree, Rainbow banged the back of her head against the trunk, trying to think. She was injured, trapped out with someone who had once almost destroyed her and her friends, and there was an invisibility ray with a mission. Her new friend Lillian was still out there, with no real means of defense, and Discord was trying to use his magic, which would not be good if it did work and might still be bad if it didn't. What in the world could one former pegasus pony do, even Rainbow Dash?

"I wish Twilight were here," she said, tucking her legs up against her body and putting her head against her knees. "She would know what to do. And Applejack would have some sort of plan, and Pinkie Pie would just...Pinkie Pie, and everything would be okay." Remembering Pinkie Pie, though, reminded Rainbow of laughter, the element of harmony her friend represented. Was this a situation that you could just laugh your way out of? Well, nothing else seemed to be working...

And so, almost maniacally, Rainbow began to laugh. She threw back her head and guffawed until she was gasping for breath. Maybe the pain was just starting to get to her, or the stress of the situation, but oddly enough, laughing did seem to help Rainbow feel a little better, even if she didn't have any friends to share with. She turned over onto her hands and knees and stuck her head out from behind the tree.

"So how's it going out there?" she asked. "Is that thing shut down yet?"

[Darwin Daugherty]

Darwin noticed a couple things. First it flickered as he moved. The random movements seemed to be putting a strain on it. Second it was moving away from him. Even to himself it was pretty hard to beleive that ploy worked. There had to be another reason. It was heading towards Lillian. She seemed more than capable of moving on her own, but she was fidgeting with a bottle of water. She had it held out and just standing there. What could the little blonde be thinking?

At that moment he heard Dashie bursting of laughter behind the tree. So this makes her go insane and chocolate rain doesn't? He needed to step up his game. Taking a deep breath, he knealt down and placed a hand on the ground, for no reason seemingly. The shape made it look like it was an ramp inviting some invisble creature silently to board his shoulder and join him in further chaos. His eyes staying on the beam.

"Lillian. We have to make it use up it's power. It seems to be tracking those closest to it. So run around like a scootaloo with her head chopped off." With that final word, he took off in a sprint diving behind tress and moving towards the beam hoping to catch it's attention. If they could wear it out, maybe the invisiblity would be worn off to.

[NPC]

The beam was already starting to slow. It clearly hadn't been designed to run continuously for as long as it had, and was starting to show. Worse, it seemed like the people were starting to figure out its secret weaknesses. For example:

water bottles.

The foul contraption worked almost too well. The beam hit it, just as Tink planned, and then went scattering out in several directions. The ray split into exactly three different colors, all variations of red and blue, which clearly made up its coloration. The deep red beam hit a few flowers, which instantly seemed to camouflage. Not turn invisible; they could still be seen, but they instead seemed to blend in and take on the appearance of everything about them. A bright purple beam in the middle spiraled out and seemed to make things slightly opaque, see-through but still obviously there. A tree suffered that particular indignity. The last beam was a deep blue, and it made whatever it hit seem almost brighter, almost more vibrant.

The ray shuddered for a moment, and seemed to try and swivel. When Discord finally ran out, the beam seemed almost too eager to swing his direction. Though its slow movements meant that a granny pushing an apple cart probably could have outrun it. It still tried though, and seemed to do so with great fervor. You know, for a beam that was beginning to blink on and off and spark a little.

And no, the scenery around wasn't changing. Don't you know anything about science?

[Lillian Tinkerbell]

Tink smiled brightly as her plan worked perfectly. Sure, they weren’t rainbows exactly, but the beam had split up and was no longer making stuff invisible. It was also now flickering and moving a lot more slowly. She felt certain that in a mere few minutes it would cease working completely. Then they could leave and get Rainbow some help.

Speaking of Rainbow…. Tink swivled when she heard a bout of insane laughter coming from behind the tree where Rainbow had been set down. Was the rainbow-haired woman all right? Or had the events caused her to fall into madness? Tinkerbell really hoped not. If so, they really needed to hurry up and get her out of here. A few moments later, Tink saw Rainbow stick her head out and ask how things were going.

Of course, the former fairy couldn’t answer her immediately. Her talking device was still in her pocket, and she had to keep the water bottle still. However, when the beam moved away, so did she. She raced over to Discord with her arms held out before her to warn her of invisible trees. She handed him her water bottle while pointing at the beam and nodding emphatically. She wasn’t sure if he had seen the beam split up, but hopefully he understood her either way. She was gone before he could comment though, gone to Rainbow Dash.

Tink flopped on the ground next to Rainbow Dash, breathing heavily from running around. She had some scratches on her hands and arms and also feet and shins from where she had brushed up against invisible branches and bushes, but otherwise she was fine. She took out her talking device and began typing out a message to Rainbow Dash. “I think we almost got it.” The device said as the blonde woman grinned. “It’s flickering and moving really slowly, and when it hit my water bottle, it split up into three different beams.” Her expression then changed to one of concern. “Are you okay though? Do you want me to take you home now? I doubt the beam will last much longer. That Discord guy can probably handle it by himself.”

[Rainbow Dash]

As was probably to be expected, Discord began running around willy-nilly after making a horrible comment about cutting off Scootaloo's head. Rainbow Dash shuddered; it didn't look like this Discord was reformed at all. He was probably just not destroying the world because he didn't have his powers.

She smiled gratefully at Lillian. "I'm fine. My foot's not even that bad. It just hurts to walk on. And I guess I'm a little upset because I can't do anything. But really, I'm fine. And I don't think we should leave Discord here by himself. Who knows what sort of trouble he can cause, even if he just had a little of his power."

She pulled herself up against the tree. "I can do a lot of hopping, really. And if you say it's going slower then it shouldn't be that big a problem. I'm just not ready to leave yet. I want to know what's going on here. What's causing that thing? Is anyone directing it? Where is it coming from? What was it trying to do?" She balanced on one crutch against the tree, waving the other one around as she talked. "If it's almost done, then maybe we should stick around and see if we can figure out more of what's going on. Is there any way to figure out where the light is coming from? Maybe we could get close to it."

She poked her head around the tree, trying to check on Discord. "Hey, your goatliness, can you tell where that light is coming from at all? Or do you have any idea what might be doing it?" He was an expert in weird and chaotic powers, right? Surely he'd know something.

[Darwin Daugherty]

Darwin grabbed the bottle. One thing about controlling chaos, was that one had to be observant, so random ducks didn't hit you in the head. That was why he wasn't hitting any of the invisible trees in the area. His eyes caught small tell tale hints that an object was there, like randomly hovering branches, since the entire tree was not made invisible.

As he ran by the invisiblity beam, he ran the very opaque cap of the water bottle through the beam leaving a clear area completely around the water. If it was to work, why restrain where it went afterwards. Stopping just a few feet from the beam, he raised a hand and gave a kung-fu style come get some, gesture. Water bottle readied behind the back. Unlike the blonde's example, he was going to try a narrow end. Thus why he made the cap disappear.

Then he heard Dashie's question. He thought for a moment. "If I get rid of it, you gotta say pwetty pwease for the next week." The moment the beam got close enough he would shove the bottle right into the beam and adjust it until the refracted beams went back to where it was directed from.

[NPC]

The beam was really, really not doing good at this point. It mostly came down to being defeated by a water bottle. No doubt the owner wasn't comparing this to something that happened to him nearly every time he tried something like this, because that would just be silly. No, the controller was just thinking about how he was beaten by a clever looking girl, probably some kind of super genius. Though now it seemed that the girl had swapped out for the darker boy, which really wasn't making things any easier for the beam.

It spat and sputtered, the cap working more to dim it than to actually split it. It was just opaque enough to not quite split things, but it was working as something of a shield, and the guy using it was doing a decent job of blocking. Suddenly, a very loud noise rent the air, sounding like gears grinding together or perhaps a squirrel being electrocuted (no, Rainbow, you're not that lucky). The ray then shut itself completely off, whining, and what looked like a circular disk was suddenly quite visible in the air.

Why was it hard to see while the beam was going? Who knows. It looked quite visible now, hanging in the sky and all.

[Lillian Tinkerbell]

Tink was actually becoming really annoyed with Rainbow Dash. The girl was hurt and in at least some pain, but she just insisted on hanging around. Who did that? If you were hurt, you went to get help; you did not just stick around and risk getting hurt even worse. She did her best to hide her annoyance though, with only a slight pink tinge in her cheeks that could have been from running around so much. She started typing out answers to some of Rainbow’s questions on her talking device. If the other woman was so insistent that they figure out what was going on, she wanted to get it done with as quickly as possible.

However, before Tink could finish her message, she jumped, startled by the sudden whirring sound, and dropped her talking device. Instantly, the screen went black. She pouted as she bent forward to pick it up. She tried pressing buttons, but nothing happened. She hoped it wasn’t broken, but she wasn’t too worried if it was. She was a tinker, after all; she could probably fix it. Failing that, the suits would probably give her another one. Unfortunately, that would have to wait until later, which meant she no longer had a way to communicate with the others around her.

Not that Tink could think of anything to say anyways. After she slipped her defunct talking device into her pocket, she looked around the tree. To her pleasant surprise, the beam was gone. She waited for a moment to see if it came back, but when it didn’t, she moved out into the open. Had the beam stopped working? Was that what had caused the whirring sound? She glanced over at Discord. Had he actually stopped the beam? She gave him a smile and a nod of gratitude. Maybe now Rainbow Dash would leave?

Or maybe not…. Tink looked around her, hoping that the invisibile trees would become visible again now that the beam had stopped. (Remember, she still had an invisible pinky.) It was then that she noticed the huge disk just hanging in the sky right above her head. She could only stand there and gape at it, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.