Hollow Shades is quite a comfy, nice and relaxing place for most of the year, you know. All hidden away in the forest, beneath the shades of the trees. It’s neat.

For most of the year, anyway. And boy, you better believe things go south when it’s mango harvesting season.

Is there even a thing such as a mango harvesting season? Huh.

While they’re usually quite peaceful and cute, the local bat ponies are more than willing to turn the entire town upside down for their precious mangoes. Perhaps somepony should tell them that they could just send one or two of theirs out to buy some in the supermarket but... hey, not my problem. I’m just here to tell the story.

And you better believe me, these bats are more than willing to skree their way to victory. And with victory, I mean mangoes.

In case it wasn’t obvious.

Which it was.

Huh.

Things are a bit... different, this time, however. As in, “Oh my god, there’s a gigantic mango” different. You know, that sort of different.

Not to worry, though. The residents of Hollow Shades know just what to do with such an anomaly, and after a brief discussion, a lot of fighting and a tiny bit of arson and murder, they agreed on actually working together. For once.

Operation B.A.M. is on.

“Right,” Nightlife whispered, “is everypony present?” In front of him stood seven other ponies who had agreed to join him in Operation B.A.M. The rest of the villagers were, uh... temporarily unavailable. Yeah, let’s go with that.

The group of bat ponies nodded in response. “Good. Now, where is Doodle at?” Nightlife asked into the crowd, looking for the rather small, young stallion that was Doodle.

“Here! I’m here! Here! Here, here, here!” Doodle shouted repeatedly.

“Yes, we can see and hear you quite clearly! Thank you!” Nightlife responded, covering his ears. “Now, come here, little one.”

The young stallion quickly trotted over to his spontaneously elected superior.

“Doodle, you will be our scout for this one, alright?” Doodle nodded happily. “To aid and protect you, you will be given a camouflaged helmet, binoculars and a powerful slingshot.”

The crowd watched as Doodle was given a bright, red-painted bucket, a pair of binoculars of which one lense was already broken, and an ever so small slingshot. Truly, the equipment of a warrior.

“Are you ready to go?” Nightlife asked Doodle in a serious voice.

“Um, yes! Yes! Let’s go!” The young stallion exclaimed fanatically, beginning to run towards the crowd.

“Doodle!” Nightlife called him again, “Our target is... this way.” He pointed behind him, the direction where the mango was last seen.

“Oh, sorry. The Helmet was kind of blocking my sight there.” Once again, everypony present watched as the young stallion charged forward. Only this time towards his actual target.

“So...” a mare asked as Doodle ran off, “how long until he breaks something?”

“Not long,” Nightlife replied with a quiet grumble. “Last time he went off alone my house was set on fire.”

Only about a minute later, little Doodle had arrived. He slowly but surely stuck his head out of the bush that he was hiding in. There it was. The thing he had been told about by Nightlife and the others.

The Big Ass Mango.

“Woah!” Doodle gave out quietly. “That’s one big mango!”

Doodle froze as he inspected the mango, noticing its bulge owo perfect orange and yellow colour, its shape... it looked so...so...

“Yummy...” Doodle could feel the urge to ‘divert from the plan’ and instead attack the mango himself. Surely the others wouldn’t mind if...

“Doodle!” Nightlife shouted into the stallion’s left ear. Said stallion immediately fell off his hooves in response to the unexpected, rather high volume surprise.

“I’m innocent! I swear!” Doodle shouted as he laid on the ground, covering his face. “I didn’t mean to! I thought he knew how to swim!”

“Doodle, calm down! It’s me, Nightlife!”

“I’m sorry, Nightlife! I didn’t mean to set your dog on fire!” Doodle continued to scream.

“Doodle, calm - wait, what?”

“What?” Doodle asked back in a suddenly completely calm voice.

“You set my dog on fire?”

“Did I?”

“You just said you did!”

“Did I?”

“Doodle, you need to see a doctor, I think. You’re... seriously starting to freak me out.”

“Or perhaps it’s you that’s freaking me out.”

Both of them remained silent for a little while.

“Doodle, where is this going?”

“You tell me.”

“Ugh...” Nightlife sighed deeply, “can we just get on with it, please?”

“Sure,” Doodle replied innocently with a shrug.

“So, what did you see? Did it spot you, yet?” Nightlife asked, taking Doodle’s binoculars.

“Perhaps you could, oh I don’t know, help me up first?” Doodle asked grumpily.

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” Nightfall said, pulling his ‘partner in crime’ back up. “So, again. What did you see?”

“What do you mean? It’s a mango, what is there to see?” Doodle asked back.

“Well, just that! What did it do? Did it see you?” Nightlife asked as he began to shake Doodle back and forth.

“Nightlife, it’s just a mango. It can’t see. It’s an object.”

“You take that back at once, soldier! We’re at risk here” Nightlife yelled as he continued to shake Doodle.

“Have I mentioned yet that we are talking about a mango? You know, an inanimate object. That poses no threat. As in, we could literally just walk up to it and eat it.”

“Discipline, soldier! Discipline!” Nightlife yelled, slapping the young stallion twice.

“For your information,” Doodle remarked as he rubbed his cheeks, “while you’re busy shouting at me and slapping me, the rest of the band has already started nibbling on the mango!”

Both stallions looked up and back towards the desired mango, which, as Doodle had claimed, was covered with the rest of the hungry bat ponies as they dug their teeth into it.

“What was that about your so called ‘discipline’ again?” Doodle asked with a smirk as Nightlife watched the others eat the mango right in front of his eyes.

“Discipline?” he mumbled. “Who cares about discipline!? Into the fray! EEEEEEE!”

And so, for the rest of the day, they feasted on the biggest, most delicious mango they had ever come across.

Too bad only their small group of 8 was there to enjoy it. I wonder where the rest of the villagers went. I mean, there were at least 20 other bat ponies living in Hollow Shades. They can’t all have just disappeared, right?

Right, Doodle?

Author's Notes:

Hope you enjoyed this little story! Please leave a like if you did!

No seriously, leave a like, Doodle is gonna murder me otherwise.