Unforeseen Consequences - Chapter 23

>One of the things Resonance loved to do the most, was to read. He had books about everything one could imagine. From nice fantasy stories, to complicated subjects that I couldn’t care much about. Sometimes he would read out loud stuff that he found particularly interesting.
>I remember him reading me once about ecosystems. About all sorta trees, plants and the colorful creatures that lived in them. In about a week, he memorized all their fancy names, and even went as far as to point them out in the travel magazines I picked from the garbage.
>We didn’t have any of that greenery back in the slums. Everything was covered in derelict roads, abandoned factories, and plastic. The best we could get were, at best some dead trees at parks that only thugs used, or patches of grass poking amid mountains of trash at empty lots.
>Maybe it’s just me, but this is why I found my current situation so terribly ironic. I was in the middle of a thick jungle, with all the exotic trees, weird animal noises and humid hear that he used to tell me about, only not quite.
>If anything, it was more like a caricature of a jungle, one made completely out of dust. As I said, it was Resonance who memorized the fancy names of the exotic trees, weird animals and big bugs, but I knew a thing or two.
>For example, that the creature currently chasing me at top speed was one of those very unique plants that feed on other living things. I also knew that usually, carnivorous plants ain’t taller than a house, have actual fangs, tens of large vines violently sprouting from them like possessed whips, and more importantly, they ain’t made out of dust. Guess this one was the exception to the rule, which in the Void was the rule itself.

“Oh, come on! Why the heck are you so fast?! You’re supposed to be just a frickin’ plant!”
>Of course, the only answer I got was another whip attack from the dust plant. This one actually managed to land a straight hit to the gut.
“AGH!”
>There’s something I gotta make clear. I ain’t the brightest bulb on the porch, but I ain’t stupid either. Of course I thought on magical ways to escape other than to float away for my life, there were just… complications that made them impossible.
 >Obviously I considered on simply flying out of my persecutor’s reach, however the treetops of these dust trees were as strong as iron and covered every single centimeter of space above me, kind of amazing that the place was better lit than a doctor’s office.
>I was also fully aware that I had reality-bending magic, which probably could’ve worked better than any weed-killer. After all, a huge explosion was one heck of a way to get rid of any pesky plant. Discord’s stupid non-destruction rule prevented me from doing that, though.
>What’s the problem, then? Just use my magic to teleport outta danger, right? Yeah, no. Running for my life is a plenty stressful activity. Can’t do any magic if I can’t focus. Heck, it was a miracle that I was still able to fly under this circumstances.
>On the somewhat good side, at least the ground was soft enough to cushion my fall. On the really bad side… I wasn’t able to get back up when the plant threw another attack. A powerful and swift bite that managed to grab me by the tail.

“Let me go, you stupid…! Whoa! Put me down! Put me down!”
>The plant flailed me around like a dog playing with its toy, only with the strength of a bulldozer. Luckily for me, the moment it opened its mouth again to eat me whole, the force of its flailing threw me a decent enough distance away from it.
>The dense foliage made it impossible to know where I was now, but the plant’s thunderous whipping could still be heard. So, instead of getting up and get a better sense of perspective, I stood low and crawled like a snake away from the sound as fast as I could.
>It was easier said than done. This jungle might be made out of dust, but the terrain was still as hard as navigate as Resonance’s books said. At some point, and after falling down a slope hidden by a particularly lush plant, I clashed against something.
>That something turned out to be the best news I had all day, not to say the cutest thing too: A dust bunny wearing some tribal accessories and riding a dust jaguar. I immediately stood up and sighed in relief.
“Oh, thank goodness! Listen buddy, could you be a pal and help a friend here? There’s like, this giant plant that wants to have for me dinner and I really, REALLY need a place to hide!”
>The tribal dust bunny ponderously tapped its cute little chin for a couple seconds, only for him to throw a high pitched cry. The jungle’s foliage rattled violently before a buncha his buddies popped out.

>I’m not sure how they managed to do it in such a short span of time, but each and every single member of this cute army was carrying spears, bows, knives, and a couple of particularly nerdy looking dust bunnies had bazookas.
“Or we could blow that dude to kingdom’s come. Either way works for me. So, let’s go and show that plant who’s boss!”
>In my mind, I had pictured myself leading an army of cute tribal dust bunnies to glorious revenge. I even imagined them throwing their own war cry and all of that. The reality was actually quite different, and it slapped me after marching for just a few meters.
>None of the bunnies were following me. No charge, no war cries, no nothing. When I turned around, the little fellas were still at their original positions, only thing that had changed is the way in which they were looking at me. It was serious, cold, and hella scary.
“Hey, why ain’t you moving? We’re totally kicking its butt, right? Guys?”
>At the high-pitched command of their cute leader, the dust bunnies started to threw everything they got at me. By some miracle, I managed to dodge every projectile, and even had the chance to angrily point my paw at them and yell.
“You double-faced jerks! You’ll pay for this…! Whoa!”
>I may not be the best at many things, but I was actually super good at running, especially from others. As more spears, arrows and whatnot rained down, I ran as fast as my limbs let me. More than enough to outpace the bunnies and their chubby paws. Just wish I had realized to where I was going.

“Oh, gimme a break!”
>The giant plant stood right in front of me, eager to finish our business once and for all. The loud screeches of the dust bunnies could be heard behind me. I was trapped. It was just a question of who would get me first.
>Like lighting, the plant whipped me with its vines. The hit made me collide against a tree quite hard. Hard enough to make me body unable to stand up again.
>As I watched the plant readying to claim its meal, and the dust bunnies creeping out from the dust foliage, I uttered the only words I could think of.
“Gosh darn it, Discord. You better have some sick reward for when I’m done with this garbage.”
>Brave words, wish I actually felt like that. I rested my back against the tree, waiting for the final blow to be delivered. Thankfully, something else happened. A dust leaf fell on my nose.
“ACHOO! Dude, I hate dust. ACHOO!”
>The leaf disintegrated immediately, all thanks to me sneezing. I smiled and cackled. I had found the solution for all my problems.
“Hey, guys! I know this has been hella fun, but I’ve something that’s gonna blow you all away!”
>Curious how life can be at times. Who could have thought that my salvation would come in such a random manner? I just needed to not screw this up, and of course, focus on casting the right spell.
>I closed my eyes and inhaled as hard as I could. Then, I traced a circle with my paw and blew out until I my lungs were out of air.

>Like very few times since I got my magic, the spell worked perfectly and without a hitch! The air I exhaled came with the force of a hurricane, disintegrating the plant and like half the jungle in the process.
“Woohoo! I did it, I did it, I did it! A perfect spell, baby! Hah! Let’s see if I can pull it off twice. Good thing I have my good buddies to help me practice!”
>While the previous spell had wiped off most of the dust bunnies, there were still a few ones remaining at a spot near me. More exactly, right behind the tree that I hit a few moments ago. The suckers probably were there to finish me before the plant could.
>Sensing the danger of… well, myself, their feline-riding leader decided to change tactics. He dropped to the floor and put some incredibly adorable puppy-eyes. The rest followed its example immediately.
“Aw, ain’t you a buncha cute, little things! There’s one big problem, though!”
>I leaned closer to them with the most dead-serious face I could put up.
“You double-faced jerks gotta pay for that stunt”.
>I repeated the same process as the last time. In the blink of an eye, the thick dust jungle became the living room I knew and sorta tolerated, just not exactly. It was now more like a desert of dust.
“Guess just blowing won’t make the dust to go away, huh? Gosh darn it, next time I’ll sweep it under a giant rug or something.”

>I could see some dust bunnies poking their heads out of the dunes and running to hide in whatever tight space in the walks they could find.
“Who cares about them? I gotta clean this mess before some other random thing tries to eat me”.
>I casted a spell to create a giant vacuum cleaner. Lo and behold, the thing sucked out every speck of dust, leaving the living room like brand new. Maybe it wasn’t the most creative thing in the world, but hey! it did the job and fast. That’s all I really cared about at that point.
 “You know, I think I shoulda have done from the start, but who cares about the details? I’m finally done with the living room! AND I’ve a perfect record with my spells of today so far! Now I just gotta…! Do it all over again… for the entire house… crud.”
>Just like I always told my dork: If a job has some hella crappy parts, it’ll probably suck less if you start with those.  So that’s exactly why I went straight to the second floor. Better deal with those gross bathrooms now.
>A’ight, I had my plan set and my spirits somewhat lifted. There was a tiny problem, though. To get to those bathrooms, I first needed to deal with the super intricate network of cobwebs that plagued the entirety of the second floor’s hallways.
>Didn’t touch any of those things, but two things were super clear just by looking at them: They were incredibly thick, almost like the steel cables the company used to hold dragons with, and their stickiness was no joke.

>It ain’t a lie when I say that there were drawers, bookshelves, and even a cow trapped in those darn cobwebs. Whatever kind of spider made this, had to be really good at its job.
“Hrn, what can I do? It ain’t like I can just use a duster, and my hurricane spell ain’t gonna cut it for this one. Can’t be that hard, either. I mean, Discord went through all this with just a crutch, so I’m sure there’s gotta be a way… one that doesn’t involve burning everything to a crisp… that would be fun, though.”
>Upon further consideration that lasted a whopping 30 seconds, an all-time record for any of my plans, I realized that I could indeed burn the cobwebs down without causing any damage to the house.
>Well, not a major one, just small enough to not get my butt transformed into a toad. Plan was simple, but incredibly genius, or I thought. Supercharge the cobwebs with electricity until they are nothing but ashes, and then vacuum away their charred remnants.
>I’ll be the first one to admit that this wasn’t my most original plan, and that recycling ideas, at least the ones used in a single day, was something Discord heavily frowned upon. However, this time I had opted to follow one of Resonance’s mantras: “Doesn’t matter where it came from, what works, works”.
>He often used this phrase to justify bringing whatever piece of junk he found at garbage dumpsters into our home. I tended to complain at first, like, the place had already enough of my junk as it was.

>Those petty complains stopped as soon as he knew how to read more “complicated material” than children’s books, which was terrifyingly fast now that I thought about it. A shiver ran down my spine at thinking what the company could have done with that kid, had they got their grubby hooves on him.
>Beyond whatever those creepily powerful “elements” were, Resonance had a mind like no other creature, and his skills with machinery were mind-blowing to say the least. Any well-seasoned engineer from a top-tier school would laugh at the busted and rusty tech, that Resonance always brought, and say it was unsalvageable.
>Not my dork, he never failed to bring that junk back to work, sometimes better than the much newer stuff the company sold in fancy stores. And when he didn’t repair something, is ‘cause he had assembled some new machine. Another shiver ran down my spine.
>The only thing that colt could never do, was something he called a “potato launcher”, and the only reason for that is ‘cause potatoes were deemed as illegal and stopped being sold before he was born.
>On this same note, I would’ve totally loved to use a potato launcher to get rid of my current cobweb problems. I didn’t ‘cause of mainly two reasons: I actually didn’t have the slightest idea of how a potato launcher was supposed to look like or operate, and ‘cause I was pretty sure cobwebs could beat potatos any day of the week.
>Nostalgia trip aside, I really needed to get back to this poor excuse of a training. The sooner I finished, the sooner I could go out and explore the Void a bit, or do another redecoration to my room, priorities didn’t matter in this.

>I placed my talons on my hips and raised my paw to do the familiar spell-casting circular motion, this mess would be finished in less than a minute. The cobwebs had a different plan, though.
“What the heck? Hng! I can’t move!”
>I’d like to say that I stayed perfectly calm at the realization that my entire arm was caught by a cobweb so thin that was nearly invisible to the naked eye, yet strong enough to stop a truck. I’m sure that it’d make me look like some fearless and strong heroine, but that’d be lying, and besides, I hated superheroes.
>What actually ended up happening is that I panicked, pretty hard if I have to be honest. Everyone usually does stupid things when they’re scared, that comes with the territory. I was no exception.
>In my frenzy to break free from the cobweb, I managed to get two other of my limbs stuck in the same cobweb. The remainder one was stuck by accident on a different one, leaving me trapped in a very uncomfortable, but I’m sure very funny position.
“Know what? This ain’t too bad. Should’ve brought the giant vacuum cleaner, though”.
>Right on cue, an army of probably tens of thousands tiny spiders emerged from the dark depths of the hallway. All of them moved along the networks of cobwebs with the precision and elegance that a young spider would.
>Unlike most creatures I’ve met, I actually didn’t hate spiders at all. I used to, until Resonance read me about how they operate, and more importantly, that they ate mosquitoes which I actually hated a fair bit. So despite the current situation, it was just natural for me to greet an army of spiders with a welcoming smile.

“Ah, there you are! I guess you’re here to kill me?”
>The young spider army came to a stop. There was a brief moment of silence, but finally they all spoke in a single voice, one that sounded like a small kind in an echo chamber, “Why you saying that, miss? We don’t want to do mean things to you. We want to take you with mommy!”
“You see, I ain’t gonna pretend like that isn’t the cutest thing I’ve heard all day, but there totally has to be a catch. Sorry if I’m being mean, it’s just that’s how things work in this place”.
>The young spider army giggled in a single voice, “What’s a catch, miss? Can you eat it? Is it yummy? Are you yummy? We want just the yummiest things for mommy! We want mommy to be full of yummy things so she’s yummy when we eat her!”
>Ah, yes! I actually remembered why despite my silent support for the spiders in their war against mosquitoes, I never actually allowed a single one to make a HQ in my home. They have this bad habit of eating their mothers, make a cobweb and then repeat the process again and again until the end of time, or mosquitoes, whichever came first.
“L-Listen fellas, I know you’re just doing what spiders of your age do, but maybe it’s better if you bring your mommy someone else. Like, I usually don’t tend to taste very…! AGH!”
>Something to respect about spiders is that, regardless if they are old or younglings, they were master artists in the craft of making webs. Such as the young spider army, who in merely twenty seconds, completely enveloped me in a cocoon of spider silk. I blacked out twenty seconds after the feat.