> Garfield: Friendship is a Big, Fat, Hairy Deal
>  by wingdingaling
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: Here Comes Garfield
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prologue

Here Comes Garfield


It was a beautiful afternoon in the forest wilderness beyond Muncie, Indiana. The wind carried the petals of flowers across the land as the days' last rays of light passed through the conifer pines, making a theatrical display of shadows not seen by city folk. It was a sight to be held in awe of anybody.

"AAAAARRRRRGGGHH!!!"

Anyone besides a certain fat, lazy, orange, striped cat with a hunger streak a mile wide that is. To him this escape from society was just that: an escape from society. From TV, from a warm bed, from central heating and air conditioning, from coffee. And most of all: from Pooky.
"I can't stand it anymore! Lost in the wilderness, miles from the nearest slushie machine! And Pooky! Will I ever hold my precious Pooky again?!" Garfield wailed.
"Garfield, we've only been out here half a day," Jon chided his pet as they walked along the hiking path.
The whole trip had been Jon's idea in the first  place. Somehow, he once again got it in his pathetic, barely-functioning head that there was something magical about communing with Mother Nature. However, every time that happened, Jon was chased by squirrels with tiny weed whackers, or Garfield would get dragged away by giant spiders, or it would rain until they packed up the car and went home.
"It's good to get away from society every once in awhile to get back in touch with the natural world," Jon continued.
Garfield could not believe what he heard. The idea of leaving behind the civilized world for this horrible place was one that couldn't be held by anyone. Not even that lobotomy patient Jon dated a while back.
"Yeah, it's a good thing! If you get tired of indoor plumbing, and want to get mauled by Bigfoot!" Garfield retorted. "I'm not even going to bother saying 'it can't possibly get worse!' It always does when you do!"
As if on cue, Garfield was suddenly showered by water, but oddly, Jon wasn't. Garfield turned to see that the source of the downpour was  the excessive panting and drooling of his yellow-furred canine companion, Odie. In his mouth, the dog held his ever present dingleball.
"Nevermind. I forgot we brought the dog," Garfield sighed, with his face in his hand.
Odie barked happily at the mention of himself, almost dropping his dingleball. The thing about Odie was that he always liked attention, good or bad. He even once returned a snowball to Garfield that he missed throwing at him.
"What do you want now? I already threw your dingle ball five times. It's not like I'm getting paid to do it," Garfield said, annoyed.
Odie dropped the ball on the ground and nosed it towards Garfield, asking him wordlessly to throw it again.
Garfield picked it up and heaved a sigh.
"Alright," Garfield wound up for a throw that would easily get anyone a quarterback position. "I'm really letting this one fly, Odie!"
Garfield threw the dingleball deep into the woods to the side of the trail.
Odie ran after it with blinding speed, and disappeared into the thicket.
"That'll keep him busy," Garfield thought, "Or get him eaten. Whichever."



Jon and Garfield returned to their campsite, much to Garfield's relief. Just as Garfield sat down to rest, Jon put Garfield to work.
"Garfield, I forgot to pack bottled water. Could you go down to the river to get some water for coffee?" Jon requested.
Garfield couldn't believe it. First the hike, and now forced labor! It was an outrage! Garfield stood up and hunched his back like a mad scientist's assistant, then grabbed the coffee pot for Jon.
"Yes master! I do as I am told master," the cat hissed, before he lurched off towards the river.
Jon got out the can of decaf coffee grounds from the duffel bag. Decaf for two reasons: the first was it was almost nighttime and the second was that Garfield wouldn't drink it. He looked through the bag for some sugar packets, but couldn't seem to find any.
"Odie, could you look through the other bag for some sweetener packets?" He looked around and noticed that Odie was nowhere to be seen. "Odie?" Jon immediately became frustrated. He knew exactly who was responsible for his dog disappearing. "Garfield!!!"
Garfield came lurching back with a coffee pot full of water. With an evil grin, he placed the pot of water on a tree stump.
"Here is the water you desired master," Garfield hissed.
"Knock it off, Garfield! Where's Odie," Jon demanded.
"I don't know. Maybe he went to make friends with a bear trap," Garfield said, dropping the Igor impression.
"Garfield, bring him back now!"
Next to camping, finding Odie was the lowest thing on Garfield's list of priorities. Instead, he grabbed a pack of hot dogs to tear open and devour.
"Relax, Jon. If he knows what's good for him, he'll hitch a ride back to the house," Garfield answered.
Jon wasn't usually authoritative, but even he had his limits, and getting Odie lost in the woods was well past them. In one lightning quick movement, he snatched both the pack of hot dogs and the hot dog Garfield was about to eat out of his hands before he had a single bite.
"Hey!" Garfield said.
"You're not having anything to eat until you bring Odie back," Jon ordered.
"Wasn't starvation a torture used by the Spanish Inquisition?!" Garfield responded incredulously.
"No arguments! Now go," Jon pointed towards the woods.
Garfield was fuming at the idea of going back into the woods, but he sarcastically gave Jon a military salute and marched forward like a soldier.
Jon shook his head and sighed as his cat left.



Half an hour passed, and Garfield still couldn't find Odie. The sun had gone down, but it was still sufficiently light out to continue his search.
"I don't believe this," Garfield said, as he stepped over a log, "As soon as I find Odie, I'm starting a workers' union against Jon. I'll make him give me a mandatory twelve hour nap time. And a mandatory twenty-four hour lunch break."
This motivated him to find Odie more. After all, he had better odds when it was two against one. He called Odie's name for what must have been the hundredth time.
"O-diiiiiieeee!"
But still no answer.
He wandered deeper into the woods, as the light of day slowly faded.
"I've gone too far. I couldn't possibly have thrown Odie's ball all the way out here," Garfield said to himself.
He was about to leave, but then something caught his eye. There, in a clearing was something small and round with red and yellow colors. When the cat investigated, he found it was Odie's dingleball. But, where was Odie.
"Odie? I know you're here somewhere. I got your dingle ball. Come and get it," Garfield said, as he gave the dingle ball a few shakes, making it make that annoying 'dingle-dingle' noise.
Garfield noticed Odie's tracks on the ground, leading to a hole in the front of a large hollow tree stump.
The stump itself must have belonged to the mother of all redwoods, because this stump was huge. At least the size of a small house. It must have been really old too, because it was covered in all kinds of moss, lichen and flower buds.
The last of the daylight faded and the flower buds on the giant tree stump opened up their multi-colored petals, disturbing a group of fireflies that started to hover around the stump like glittering starlight. Garfield only smirked at the sight.
"Nice touch."
He then approached the hole in the front of the stump to see if Odie was inside.
"Odie, come on out. I gotta boot you back to camp for my dinner," Garfield called inside.
Then Garfield noticed something odd. He felt like he was being pulled forward by some unknown force.
"Hey! What's happening!!?" Garfield exclaimed as he felt the pull get stronger.
He let go of the dingleball to dig his claws in the ground in an effort to resist the pull.
The dingleball disappeared into the darkness, which was slowly pulling Garfield in.
"No! I can't go! I'm too good looking to die!" Garfield shouted.
Garfield was slowly dragged into the darkness until it got too strong for him to hold onto the ground.
"I've never eaten in Paris!!" he yelled as he lost his grip and fell into the bottomless darkness.
As he fell, he could feel himself suddenly stabilize and he gained a sudden feeling of weightlessness. Garfield tried to rationalize his situation and looked at his back.
"No parachute," he said to himself, "So, what? Did my decelerators activate, or something?"
His mind wandered through more possibilities until he saw a small light pass in front of his face.
It was very small. Only the size of a pea. (Pea soup suddenly sounded good to him). Soon, it was followed by more lights until the tabby felt as if he was floating in the night sky.
Not sensing any immediate danger, Garfield reached out and lightly touched one of the dotted lights, and it began to flash many different colors. This set off a reaction to the lights around him, and they all started to put on a light show for the wayward tabby.
They danced and swirled, flashing their many colors and taking many shapes. A bunch of apples. A cloud with lightning. A group of butterflies Sparkling diamonds. And a festive balloons were the shapes they took. For the finale of their show, the five shapes moved to a pentagonal formation. In the empty space at the center of the pentagon, a bright, six-pointed star took shape, glowing with every color that Garfield had ever seen.
"Wow! It's an an epileptic's nightmare!" Garfield said as he watched the light show. "It's almost like one of my pizza nightmares, but less scary!"

"Garfield..."

"Wha!? Who said that? How do you know me? Am I famous in this patch of nothing?"
Garfield looked around for the source of the unknown voice. In every direction, there was nobody who could have said that. His attention returned to the star as its light became brighter.

"The harmony needs you...Please...Help them..."

The light became blindingly bright and Garfield gradually became aware of feeling heavier, until he abruptly landed on something hard. Garfield sat up and spat out a mouthful of dirt.
"I guess it's good to be back on the ground at least," Garfield grumbled.
The void with the lights was gone, and a quick look at his surroundings and confirmed that he was in a forest, but not the one he was in before. This forest was somehow different. The trees looked lank and some had vines growing on them.
The time was about the same as the other forest, so there was barely any light for Garfield to really see what was around him. But, what he could see was the dingleball only a few feet in front of him, as well as more of Odie's tracks leading away from him.
"Great," Garfield groaned, as he picked up the dingleball, "I've got a feeling that this is gonna be one heck of a night."
And he set, off following Odie's tracks deeper into the woods to an unknown destination.
> Chapter 1: One Serious Heck of a Night
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 1

One Serious Heck of a Night


Just beyond the forest was the town of Ponyville. A quaint little town with a tendency for bizarre happenings.
In the Golden Oaks Library, a lavender-colored unicorn named Twilight Sparkle was staying up late, looking through a book she just happened to find. Not that she was looking for it. She just happened to bump into the bookshelf as she was arranging it, and it fell from the top shelf.
She was instantly intrigued by the title: Myths and Legends of the Elder Beings. Twilight had never heard of these so-called elder beings, and wasn't sure just how many other ponies had. She made a note to put it at the top of her reading list once her work was done. At the moment, she was totally engrossed in her book when she was startled out of her reading by a child's voice.
"Twilight?" The voice asked, "What're you doing up at one in the morning?"
Twilight turned to see that the voice belonged to her assistant, Spike, the baby dragon who lived with her ever since she received him from Equestria's then only ruler, Princess Celestia.
"Spike," Twilight exclaimed, "I was just reading this book I found. What are you doing up?"
"I just woke up from a dream I was having, and I didn't see you in your bed," Spike replied with a yawn, "I thought I'd look for you."
"A dream, huh?" Twilight asked, intrigued, "About what?"
The dream Spike had was that he was a dashing, swashbuckling, roguishly handsome pirate and that his darling crush Rarity was his saucy wench. But, he'd never tell that to Twilight.
"Just dragon stuff," Spike said without thinking before changing the subject, "So, what's that book about?"
"Oh, this? It's nothing I haven't read before. Just some mythologies about past civilizations and the like. But it is interesting, since I've never read about this particular civilization before."
The idea of a topic that even Twilight didn't know everything about intrigued Spike. He pulled up a chair next to her, trying to read over her shoulder.
"What kind of stuff does it talk about," Spike asked.
"Well, this part I'm at talks about how the ancient Sumare-ians believed that in another world lived a great orange beast that would come into our world and devour everything in sight. The book also mentions how whenever it came, it was always preceded by its deceivingly innocent yellow companion to herald its arrival."
"Come on. How could anypony believe that?" Spike scoffed.
Twilight shook her head in disapproval at her assistant's comment.
"You know, Spike: Nightmare Moon and the Elements of Harmony were just a myth too. Maybe there's some reality in this one," she chided.
"Whatever. I'm going back to bed now. You should get some sleep too," Spike answered.
It was only then that Twilight realized that she was also very tired and yawned in agreement. She turned out her light and headed upstairs to her bedroom.
"An orange monster that eats everything it sees. Where do they come up with that stuff?" Spike grumbled as he curled up to sleep in his basket.



Hours later in the forest, Garfield had no luck at finding Odie. His tracks led off the trail and disappeared a while back, leaving Garfield to resort to shaking the dingle ball after every few steps and hope Odie would respond.
"Odie! Come on out, buddy! It's way past my bedtime, and I only had a bag of jerky for lunch!" Garfield called.
He gave the dingle ball a few more shakes, but there was still no reply from Odie.
"No sign of him," Garfield sighed "Oh well, I guess there's only one thing left to do: sleep through the night and keep searching tomorrow. Probably sleep through most of tomorrow too."
Garfield curled up in the grass and started to fall asleep, too tired to even think about any potential dangers that may have been lurking in those unknown woods.
He was nearly asleep when he noticed a foul smell in the air. A smell he knew all to well that made is fur wither.
"Ugh! Dog breath!" Garfield exclaimed. But then, he realized what the dog breath meant. "Wait: that means Odie's nearby. And the sooner I find him, the sooner Jon gives me dinner."
Garfield picked up the dingle ball and wandered off in the direction of the smell. The rumble in his stomach made him quicken pace.
"Odie!" Garfield called, hoping to hear him answer, "Odie, where are you buddy?"
Only, the response Garfield heard was a loud roar unlike anything he'd heard before. Garfield nervously hoped that maybe it was Odie who made the noise.
"You uh, trying out for a rock band there, Odie?" he asked.
What approached Garfield was not a rocked out Odie. What came from the woods was a group of three wolves who appeared to be made completely of tree branches and leaves. Their eyes were a malevolent green glow, but the most notable feature to Garfield was their horrible breath that could stun a dozen yaks.
"Did I just wander into Pinocchio's pet shop?" Garfield wondered, not believing what he saw.
The wolves eyed him hungrily, and stepped menacingly closer.
"Hey! Easy guys! I didn't mean it as an insult! We can talk over a pan of lasagna, can't we?" Garfield nervously asked.
The nearest wolf answered by lunging at Garfield, attempting to clutch him in its jaws.
Garfield may have been lazy and fat, but that didn't mean he wasn't quick when the occasion called for it. Normally he only moved this fast when the local "Eat 'Til You Explode" restaurant was having an open buffet. But, when he was on the menu...well, that did change things.
He quickly darted between the legs of the wolf that tried to bite him, only to put himself closer to the other two.
The other two wolves lunged at him one after the other.
Garfield dodged both of them, only to see the first wolf that tried to eat him jump over its companions to attempt another bite at Garfield.
The cat quickly scrambled over a large rock just as the wooden wolf crashed into, shattering itself to pieces.
The other two wolves chased after Garfield over the rock as their companion quickly pieced himself together.
Garfield needed a quick escape, and if these were anything like the dogs at home, they wouldn't be able to climb trees.
Wasting no time, he dropped Odie's dingle ball and scrambled up the nearest tree with all the grace of a hippo. But luckily, a fast hippo. He made it up just as one of the wolves nipped at his tail.
Garfield perched himself on a branch overlooking his three attackers. To his everlasting relief, he saw that they were not able to climb after him. This filled Garfield with a new found confidence.
"Ha! Stupid wolves!" Garfield taunted, "Just like the dogs at home! You can't get me now! And you know what? All your mothers had termites!"
The wolves all took offense at that statement, and they would not take it lightly. The three wolves all broke apart and scattered across the ground to Garfield's amusement.
"Playing dead now? Good! Now stay! Hahahahaha!" the cat guffawed.
As Garfield laughed at the wolves, their separate pieces came together to form a very large singular wolf whose eye level was the branch Garfield was sitting on. Garfield could only smile nervously when he noticed the death stare of the wooden monster.	
"Uh...did I mention that termites are all the rage in women's fashion where I'm from?" Garfield said, trying to lighten the mood.
This didn't work however. The wolf immediately chomped down on the tree, as Garfield quickly jumped away.	
"Head for the hills! Women and cats first! Sanctuary!"
These were the words Garfield shouted as he ran through the forest with the ravenous giant behind him.
Garfield had no trouble dodging the obstacles on the path ahead of him, be it a tree or a rock, because of the green light behind him. However, he knew that the light was a bad sign, because the brighter the light became it meant the monster was getting closer to him.
The chase led Garfield and the beast on a trek through the forest, which seemed to last forever, through the trees, over boulders, across streams until finally Garfield burst through a growth of foliage to find that the path ended at the edge of a cliff. Looking behind himself, Garfield saw the wolf walk out of the foliage with two other wolves just as large as itself.
"This can't be how it ends! Killed by a bunch of angry hedge trimmings!" Garfield thought.
The first wolf lunged at Garfield, making the cat dodge backwards. When he did, he lost his footing and nearly fell off the edge of the cliff.
Garfield clung to the dirt with his front legs, but it seemed the impact of the wolf's attack had another effect. The edge of the cliff started to crumble, making Garfield scramble to try and get back onto the solid ground.
The wolf tried to regain its footing as well, but only went further over the cliff.
Garfield tried using the wolf as a ladder by climbing up its body to the top, but his foot got stuck between two of the branches on its back.
He and the wolf both went tumbling down the cliff, bouncing off the rocks at the base. Garfield was spared most of the pain by staying on the wolf's back, but every time the wolf bounced, pieces of it started to fly off until they hit the bottom of the cliff and the whole thing shattered.
Garfield landed on his face in the middle of the wolf-debris. He looked up to see himself surrounded by the various twigs and branches that made up the monster's body.
"Wait a second! Twigs and branches?"
A revelation came to Garfield as he reached out for one the twigs. Though he had observed the fact earlier, it only now occurred to him the importance of it all.
"They're made of wood!" Garfield quietly exclaimed, as he snapped the twig in two.
The tables had finally turned in his favor. Garfield had tangled with the mightiest of couches and mangled even the most durable armchair. These rejects from a wood chipper would be a pushover.
Garfield heard two sickening crunches behind him, and turned around to see that the other two wolves had jumped down the cliff as well. As soon as they landed, the three of them began to reassemble themselves.
The one that finished first charged Garfield at full speed.
All fear had left Garfield's mind. He lunged through the air and flailed his arms, claws extended, yowling like a rabid animal.

"ROOOOOOWWWRRRR!!!"

The wolf's forelegs were reduced to sawdust and the remainder of it scattered on the ground. It tried to bring itself together, but was stopped by Garfield's relentless onslaught of scratches, swipes and general feline fury. In less than ten seconds, the entire wolf was a pile of splinters and sawdust.
Garfield stood in the midst of the carnage with his back to the other wolves.
The other two giant wolves looked at him. Though they could not see the cat's face, his heavy breathing and rigid fur suddenly made this simple house pet seem far more fierce than anything they had yet encountered. For their hunger, neither one of the remaining wolves was sure if they should try to eat him now.
They made their decision when Garfield turned to them, his fangs bared and eyes his brimming with wolf-slaying fervor.
The wolves turned tail and ran.
Garfield wasn't going to let them get away. He got down on all fours and chased the wolves with a ferocity he usually reserved for Nermal, the mailman or Mrs. Feeney's little dog.
He caught the wolves and destroyed them like a new couch, just as the first rays of sunlight were coming up over the horizon.
Garfield stood in the midst of the ruined wolves, stoked on his victory. He whooped, he hollered, he used more energy here than he had in his entire life.
"Yes! Down with the lions! Garfield is king of the beasts!"  Garfield shouted, pumping his fist.
He continued his victory celebration, until he noticed the dingle ball in one of the sawdust piles.
"Hey, look at this," Garfield said as he picked it up, "I guess it got sucked up when those first three wolves merged."
Garfield was feeling lucky. After all, he just survived a night of peril and defeated three giant predators And the good news kept coming.
As the sun came up, Garfield saw a town in the distance.
"A town!" Garfield exclaimed. "Where there's a town, there's people. And where there's people, there's food!" He looked at the dingle ball in his hand and was reminded of why he was there in that strange place, "And I guess that there are people who might've seen Odie too."
And he made his way as fast as he could to the distant town.
> Chapter 2: Disguises, Surprises and Pies of All Sizes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter Two

Disguises, Surprises and Pies of All Sizes


It was a usual morning in the Golden Oaks Library. But, there was something that was on Twilight Sparkle's mind as she walked downstairs to prepare her breakfast.
When she entered the kitchen, she found Spike was already having his breakfast: a bowl of deep blue sapphires.
"Morning, Twilight," the baby dragon said after swallowing a mouthful of jewels.
Twilight only responded with a quiet mumble as she looked through the cabinets for a box of bran flakes.
Spike knew that her response meant that she was deep in thought. 
"What's on your mind?" he asked.
"Hm? Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about something," Twilight said, once she was snapped out of her thoughts. She found the box she was looking for and grabbed a bowl with her magic, before pouring in the flakes. "It's nothing important, just..."
Thoughts about what had happened last night flashed through her mind, before she continued.
"Spike," she began, "Did you hear anything strange last night?"
"No," Spike said through a mouthful, "I slept soundly the whole night. Why? What did you hear?"
Twilight briefly thought things over in her head. Ever since she had moved to Ponyville, strange and interesting things happened to herself and her friends at least once a week.
"It's probably nothing. But, sometime around five or five-thirty, I heard a pack of timber wolves closer to the town than I felt comfortable with. It sounded like they were chasing something."
Spike poured the rest of the bowl of sapphires into his mouth as Twilight sat down in the chair across from him with her own bowl of food
"What makes you think that?" he asked.
"Because, they sounded like they were running really fast. But, that's not the strangest part," she grimaced contemplatively, "The strangest part is that after a while I heard a new noise. It sounded like the loudest cat I'd ever heard."
"But, timber wolves eating cats isn't really that strange. They eat just about everything, don't they?" Spike asked, as he took his dishes to the sink.
"That's not what's strange, Spike. What's really strange is that after that cat howled, the wolves started moving even faster toward Ponyville. Then, I heard a sound like a lot of wood snapping. After that: nothing."
It took Spike about a second to register what had happened in that time.
"So, what? The world's loudest cat took out a pack of timber wolves?" the dragon asked, before he started scrubbing his dishes.
"I don't know. But whatever it was, I don't think I want to meet it," Twilight said, before she took her first bite.
"Maybe it was the Sumare-ians world devouring orange monster," Spike joked.
Twilight shook her head and smiled, before taking the first bite of her breakfast.
"In any case, I think I'll go talk to Fluttershy about this. She'd probably know something about what happened last night, since she lives so close to the forest. Spike, put 'go meet Fluttershy about the noise last night' on the to-do list," she said.
Spike knew Twilight like she was his own sister. He was already finishing writing the objective down before Twilight finished speaking.



In a quaint little cottage outside of town, just on the edge of the Everfree Forest, there lived a yellow pegasus named Fluttershy. Fluttershy's dreams of living in  a world of only animals were interrupted by a soft thud on her bed sheets.
She woke up and looked for the source of the impact, to find her pet, the world's surliest rabbit, Angel Bunny, pulling on her hoof, trying to get her out of bed. It was not unusual for her to be awoken like this, but something in the little, white rabbit's actions seemed to carry a sense of urgency.
"Angel Bunny? Is something wrong?" she asked her pet.
Upon seeing that his owner was awake, Angel hopped off the bed and beckoned her to the door.
Sensing his distress, Fluttershy hopped out of bed and followed him to their destination.
Angel guided Fluttershy outside to the front lawn, where the outdoor animals lived. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first, aside from how many of the outdoor animals were gathered in a single spot.
Where they had gathered was around a hollow log, where a yellow dog with a black spot was caught in a most peculiar predicament: his head was stuck inside of it.
Out of her natural concern for all animals, Fluttershy trotted over to the log to assess the situation. Not knowing that this was only natural for a dog who once floated in the air due to a lack of an understanding of gravity, worry began to well up inside of her as she watched the dog struggle to pull its head loose. She began by meekly  announcing herself.
"Um, excuse me, Mr. Dog?" Fluttershy asked.
The yellow dog stopped struggling.
"Hm?" the dog answered.
"I was wondering if maybe you wanted some help?"
The log bobbed up and down as the dog's head inside nodded excitedly.
Angel Bunny rolled his eyes. Of course the dog needed help. If anything, it needed a brain transplant. How could any dog be stupid enough to get its head stuck in a log?
To Fluttershy and Angel, the dog seemed to be taking this situation far too well. Almost as if it had dealt with worse things. Or, more likely, it didn't understand just what situation it was in.
Suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, the dog's vastly over-sized tongue shot out of a knothole in the log, giving both Fluttershy and Angel a mighty lick that left them both soaked in drool.
Fluttershy took the dog's response as a 'yes' and moved to the other end of the log.
"Alright, Mr. Dog. Angel Bunny and I are going to pull you free," Fluttershy said.
Angel finished shaking most of the drool out of his fur and hopped behind Fluttershy, taking hold of her tail as Fluttershy herself took hold of the log.
"Okay, we're going to pull on three," Fluttershy said, "One...two...three."
As soon as she reached three, the dog only stepped forward, knocking her and Angel down. She guessed that there must have been a failure to communicate with the dog.
"You have to pull to, doggy," she said with a slight chuckle at the dog's delightful blunder.
The dog gave a bark that sounded strangely like the word 'right,' as if to affirm an understanding.
On the second attempt, it was established that they needed to pull in opposite directions. This time, the dog's head came free and the force of the release sent it tumbling backwards into a nearby tree.
The dog sprang back to his feet as though nothing had happened and ran over to Fluttershy to give her a 'thank you' lick, soaking her further.
"Well, it took a few tries, but at least you're alright now," Fluttershy said, not minding the sudden soak or the dog's ineptness.
Angel did, however. To him, this task should have only taken one try. Heck, it wouldn't have surprised Angel if it took this dog more than one try to learn how to breathe.
Fluttershy assessed the dog's behavior. It appeared to be very pony-friendly, so perhaps it belonged to somepony and had gotten lost. With her special affinity for animals, she decided to talk to the dog to see what she could learn.
"Mr. Dog, do you have an owner?"
The dog nodded energetically.
"Do you know where they are?"
The dog shook its head 'no.'
"Well, then would you like to live with me until we find him. I mean, if you want to."
The dog nodded again.
"Okay, doggy. Since I'm up, do you want to help me to feed the animals?"
The dog barked in affirmation and and enthusiastically ran off to start the chores without Fluttershy or Angel.
"Doggy, wait!"
Before she began running after the dog, Fluttershy noticed a small gleam just on the edge of her peripheral vision.
She turned to see that it was coming from the log the dog was just stuck inside of. Upon closer inspection the gleam turned out to be from a grime-covered stone. She took the stone in her hoof and wiped off the grime. Her breathing almost stopped when she saw the stone as it was.
The color was very unusual, being many shades of orange and red, and almost seemed to flicker like a flame. Fluttershy stared at it for a second, thinking her friend Rarity would love a stone this pretty.
She snapped out of her admiration when she felt a small tugging on her tail.
Angel Bunny had done so to direct her attention to the chicken coop, where the dog was feeding the chickens. However, he did so by grabbing them by the neck and pouring feed into their open beaks.
Fluttershy quickly ran over to correct the dog's technique.



Meanwhile, Garfield trucked on toward the town. Though it was a long way from where he started it only felt like a short distance to him. But, when he finally arrived in the town, he noticed something that was very out of place.
"Where are all the humans?" Garfield asked himself, quite astonished that there wasn't a single human in sight. Just ponies in every shade of color imaginable.
Another strange thing was their proportions: their legs were short and stubby and their eyes were huge. He also saw that some of them had wings, while others had horns on their heads.
This whole place reminded Garfield of the stash of books he once found hidden under Jon's bed. Hidden, that is, until Garfield told the press about it and had them broadcast the story on the evening news.
He noticed that each one acted like a human. Among them, he saw a gray, wall-eyed pony with wings delivering mail. Garfield was tempted to ambush her, but he was hungry and needed food. Plus, the mail mare wore no pants for him to steal.
His eyes scanned the area for food, when he saw what looked like a fruit stand loaded with apples. Garfield wasn't partial to fruit, unless it was covered in caramel, but he was too hungry to care.
He reached for an apple, but before he could take it, he was blocked by a very large, red pony with a yoke around its neck.
"Hold on there, critter. These here are for payin' customers. And I don't think you got the bits," he said, lightly chuckling at the last part.
"Hey! I'm starving and here you are keeping food from me! Animal abuse is a crime, you know," Garfield fumed at the pony. He didn't care how intimidating its size was, he was going to be fed.
The pony only chuckled more.
"Go on an' play with the other critters 'round here. I think Miss Rarity's cat'd like a playmate," it said, pushing Garfield away with its large hoof.
"Playmate my big, fat, hairy backside! Gah! Where's the ASPCA when you need them?!" Garfield said once the large pony stopped pushing him. There had to be a better way to do this. And there was.
Garfield remembered seeing that mail-pony from earlier.
As luck would have it, she was only a short ways down the street, wearing her funny-looking mail hat and carrying a satchel full of envelopes.
With all the stealth of a ninja in padded socks, Garfield quickly pulled her into the nearby bushes. The following struggle resulted in a fierce, one-sided battle with Garfield stepping out of the bushes carrying the bag and wearing the hat, both of which were to big for him.
"Hey, nice doing business with you. I never pummeled a mail-mare before," he said with a tip of his hat to his latest victim.
The grey pony hopped out of the bushes on her back, since her wings were tied to her sides and her legs were hog-tied. Her mouth was gagged with a huge stack of envelopes.
"Fanks foh wetting me keeh uh mayow, ki-ee cat," she said, before she hopped off to complete her rounds.
Garfield headed right back to the apple stand where he held a paw out, expecting an apple. He tried his best to fool the pony.
"Hey, pal. Heck of a day. I just went through snow, rain and dark of night all in one day during my rounds. How about an apple on the house for a free issue of Playcolt?" he asked the pony.
Garfield was sure this would work. His chummy shmoe routine worked plenty of times back home.
This pony was much sharper than any of his previous marks it seemed. The large stallion only flicked the hat off Garfield's head with his muzzle.
"Nice try, critter. But, you'd have to get up pretty early to pull one on Big Macintosh," the pony said.
"Yeah, my owner used to say the same thing. Until I glued him to his mattress," Garfield answered.

"WELCOME TO PONYVILLE!!!!"

The sudden ear-shattering greeting and whoosh of pink was too much for Garfield. The cat jumped six feet into the air with his hair on end.
The large stallion, however, remained stone steady.
"Howdy, Miss Pinkie," he greeted the pink mare, "Lookin' for somepony?"
"You betcha, Big Mac! My Pinkie sense told me that somepony new arrived in town. And it's up to me to make them feel welcome," the pink mare said as she picked up the orange tabby cat.
"Welcome!?" Garfield said incredulously, "I feel like I'm being abducted by the sugar rush that wouldn't die!"
"This is gonna be so much fun! I never get to have a party for animals!" Pinkie said.
"Then why start?!"
Pinkie threw Garfield into the air, and he landed on her back. Quickly, Garfield clung to her sides.
"Onward to Sugarcube Corner," Pinkie shouted.
"Did you take 'loud and obnoxious' lessons from Binkey the Clown!?"
"Hold on tight, kitty!"
As soon as she finished talking, Pinkie ran into the town at blinding speeds.
Garfield held on as tightly as he could. They ran through many streets, until he could see what looked like a house made entirely of sweets in front of him.
"There it is, dead ahead," Pinkie said to her feline passenger.
"I'm not going to find Hansel and Gretel's skeletons in the basement, am I!?" Garfield said, fearing for his life as the two of them approached the gingerbread house.
Pinkie burst in through the front doors with a shaking cat on her back.
A quick inspection, and Garfield was relieved to see that this place was a bakery. The smells of cakes and pies were absolutely everywhere. On display was just about every pastry he could name.
Garfield's joy overflowed way beyond normal capacity as he lunged ferociously at the sweets before him.
The next thing he knew, a pink hoof shot in front of his face, making him fall to the floor.
"Uh-uh, Mr. Kitty. Those are for the customers," Pinkie said with a crazy big grin.
"Customers get to sample, don't they?" Garfield said, dusting himself off.
Pinkie paid the tabby no mind and patted him energetically on the head.
"Wait here while I get your surprise set up. You can play with my alligator 'til then." And with that, she made a mad dash to wherever.
Looking over, Garfield saw purple-eyed alligator that was no bigger than himself. It just stood there, staring. Almost comical was its ability to stare.
"Alligator? You look like a pickle with legs," Garfield said, after appraising the small reptile.
"I like biting things. It makes my gums tickle," the alligator said, staring blankly ahead.
"Yeah, I like biting things too. Preferably if it's edible," Garfield said, now looking around at this wondrous place. Only in his dreams did he see such a paradise. His thoughts would have continued, if not for his reptilian company.
"The texture of food is enjoyable to bite," said the alligator, ever staring, never blinking.
Garfield groaned at his current company.
"Is this what it's like when I talk to my friends about food," he wondered aloud.
As soon as he finished speaking, the pink blur from earlier whooshed back into the room and stopped in front of a red velvet curtain that Garfield could have sworn wasn't there before.
Pinkie grabbed a golden rope that was dangling on the side.
"Preeeeeeesenting," Pinkie said, bravado filling her voice as she built the suspense until the reveal, "Your 'Super Special, Super Sweet, Super-Extra Fantabulous Welcome to Ponyville' party feast!!"
She pulled the rope she was holding and the curtains parted to reveal a sight more beautiful than any of the contents of the shop.
Behind the curtain Garfield was beholden to a very large, round table that looked like it was set up just for him. There were cupcakes with orange frosting and sprinkles on them arranged to look like his stripes, lemon squares, frozen strawberry squares, a whole assortment of flavors of ice cream to choose from, a towering cake that took up the center of the table.
This strange mare seemed to know about his affinity for Italian food as well, given the enormous bowls of pasta: spaghetti marinara, fettuccine alfredo and macaroni pesto to name only a few. Pizza upon pizza could be seen, rows upon rows of cannoli filled with every type of filling he could name, huge stacks of amaretti and biscotti were arranged to be the "corners" of this arrangement. To top this all off was the super-sized pan of lasagna with the words "Welcome to Ponyville" written in the top with mozzarella cheese.
Garfield's heart stopped for a moment when he saw this. In all his years, never before did Jon prepare a fest like this. Sure, he may have at some point, but Garfield probably ended up eating it all before he could start. As he beheld this spectacle, every bad thought Garfield had about this over-sugared beast suddenly melted away. Garfield now wondered why he ever wanted to leave this place.
"Come on, kitty! Me and Gummy can't start your party unless you party with us," said the pink mare. She was now accompanied by her alligator, and the two of them were wearing party hats.
"Please. Just let me appreciate this for a moment," Garfield said. And in absolutely no time after he finished speaking did he jump on the table and start cramming as much food as he could into his cavernous maw.
"Alright! I've never had an 'Eat as Much and Fast as You Can-Style' party!" Pinkie yelled with twice her normal enthusiasm, before she joined the tubby tabby in gorging all the food.
Needless to say, Garfield was pleased to see this.
Meanwhile, the Gummy only gnawed the table leg.
Garfield hadn't met a fellow hearty eater since Jon's four-hundred pound date, Bertha. In his short time with her, Garfield had more fun in one meal than he did during the whole of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now with this strange, pink pony, he felt like he could feel that way forever.
Pinkie sucked down a mass of spaghetti before letting out a tiny burp.
"Hmph. Amateur," Garfield scoffed. He braced himself and let out a much louder burp right in Pinkie's face.	
The force of the burp sent Pinkie's party hat flying.
Pinkie recovered from the momentary shock that the burp inflicted on her and put her hat back on, tilting it forward as she glared intensely.
"So! You dare to challenge the six year burping grandmaster? Well, here it is, kitty: my Super-Spicy-Gastro-Blaster!" Pinkie said to her opponent.
She reached behind her back and whipped out a bottle of hot sauce. From where, nobody could say. In one mighty gulp, she downed the entire bottle, and tossed it to Gummy when it was empty. She breathed deeply through her nose and her face turned deep red. Sweat formed on her forehead as though there was great heat and pressure inside of her.
After the build-up, Pinkie's mane seemed to suddenly inflate as her eyes flashed into mismatched colors while she let out all of the pent up burp in her body.
Garfield was knocked off his feet by the force of the blow, but he was determined not be out-burped by someone so skinny. Shakily, he stood up and prepared his body.
"Alright, Pinkie! I'm going to uncork a burp that's considered a weapon of mass destruction in some countries. Especially when I used it to devastate half of Siberia from halfway around the world. The burp that registered 6.2 on the local Richter scale."
Garfield dramatically raised his arms up and inhaled sharply for almost ten seconds as his hands folded into various symbols, not unlike the characters in the late-night kung fu movies he liked to watch on the All B-Movie Network. He finished and his eyes glinted.
"Prepare yourself, Pink One!"
Garfield thrust his arms down and his face forward. What happened next was a thing only described by people who survived a death metal concert. A rumbling so immense it could be heard all throughout the town of Ponyville as it generated a force that blew Pinkie Pie, Gummy and everything around them against the far wall.
Everything made of glass shattered, and the walls started to shake. When it was done, all of Sugarcube Corner was in ruins.
"Trifle not with me, mere mortal," Garfield said with a smirk.
Pinkie Pie eyed the destruction around her in awe. Not that she cared about it. She jumped out of the pile of rubble, candy and baked goods that buried her with almost three times her normal enthusiasm.
"THAT WAS THE BEST BURPING CONTEST EVER!!!" Pinkie Pie shouted, brimming with glee, "YOU'RE THE BEST BURPER WHO EVER LIVED!!!"
Garfield immediately let that go to his head. The only thing he loved feeding more than his massive stomach was his equally massive ego.
"And that'll only get more powerful until it loses momentum. You'd better warn the next few towns over if you know what's good for them," Garfield said.



All was quiet at Fluttershy's cottage. Too quiet in fact. All of the animal noises had stopped completely, as though they had all suddenly migrated. When Fluttershy investigated, she found that almost all of her animal friends had taken cover or ran away.
"Um, hello?" she called out in a voice just barely more audible than her normal speaking voice.
She looked around to find any traces of her animal friends, first checking on her pet rabbit, Angel. She peeked inside Angel's bunny house to see him cowering in the corner as if he'd seen a ghost. Or something just as scary. Lots of things were scary to her.
"Angel Bunny?" Fluttershy said gently, "Is everything okay? Everyone seems to have gone away."
Angel didn't respond in any discernible way. He only jumped out of his house, and quickly burrowed deep underground.
Fluttershy was taken slightly aback by this, but then noticed the yellow dog she had met that morning standing on the bridge over the river that ran by her cottage.
He was looking in the direction of the nearby town, panting and wagging his tail as if he had not a care in the world. Fluttershy walked over to him to see if maybe he knew what was happening.
"Um, doggy, do you know why everyone is hiding?"
The dog only shrugged and then went back to staring blankly. Clearly, he had no idea what was happening. Not that he seemed to ever know. Him standing on the edge of the table for Angel to boot him off three times just in the morning were testament to that.
That's when they heard the noise. Something which sounded like wood cracking as if all the trees in the forest were being knocked over.
Then the entire cottage was hit with a force that blew Fluttershy and the dog off their feet and into the river. Oddly, the force that hit them smelled like sweets.
The cottage itself shook violently, as the windows shattered and furniture could be heard breaking on the inside.
The force itself soon passed, leaving Fluttershy shaken and scared. She knew she couldn't stay in the river shivering, though. She had animals to check on. She jumped to her feet to begin taking role of every animal there.
"Come on, doggy! We have to make sure everypony is okay," Fluttershy said rushing to her house.
It seemed that the dog had other plans. He knew there was only one person (or cat, more accurately) who could produce such a force. His only thought was to run in the direction of his best friend, and hope he somehow had his dingleball.
Fluttershy turned to see the dog running in the direction towards town.
"Doggy! Doggy come back! We have to check on everyone!"
Fluttershy would have let him run off and checked on all of her animal friends if she wasn't convinced the dog would get himself hurt with his aloof behavior and apparent lack of intelligence. She decided to put Angel in charge of checking of everyone, before she flew after the dog in an attempt to guide him back to her house.
> The Adventures of Arbuckle: What Happened to Schnitzel-Fest
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Adventures of Arbuckle

What Happened to Schnitzel-Fest


"Garfield!!! Odie!!!"
As the hours passed on back at the campsite in the forests of Muncie, Indiana, Jon became increasingly worried about his pets. Jon had very little in his life: no girlfriend, no life, and most of all, no family of his own, and felt that it was his responsibility to look after his pets like they were his own children. His search went on and on, but still no sight of them. To aid his search in the encroaching nighttime he took out a flashlight, but it still did him no good.
"This isn't a problem. The boys have been lost before. And they always came back," Jon assured himself.
This did little to help his nerves. He would never forgive himself if he let anything happen to them. He'd feel like such an unworthy parent. But then, his search yielded results.
Though they were mostly blown away by the wind, Jon could very definitely see the impressions of cat and dog paw prints going into the hollow of the biggest tree stump he ever saw.
"Boys? Are you in there?" he called as he crawled into the hollow space.
Jon kept crawling in deeper and deeper. Much deeper than this tree stump should have been. There was a sudden drop off, and Jon yelled as he fell into an inky blackness.
Jon fell on and on, seeming to be nowhere near the ground. Stranger still, he didn't actually feel like he was falling.  More like floating underwater.
After a while of going on like this, Jon actually grew bored with it, floating in the dark with nothing to do. Even a change of scenery would have been nice.
"Can somebody turn on a light," he called out.
As if on cue, lights, like distant stars or fireflies started popping up around him.
"Thank you."
With the lights, came a new revelation."
Jon saw his hands as he fell, but they were not his hands. They were stubby, and tan in color. It almost looked like they were pony hooves. That sent shivers through Jon, as it brought up terrifying memories of the pony rides at the county fair some years ago. He examined the rest of his body to see if anything else had changed. Sure enough, his legs had become equine hind legs, and he had a curly, brown tail protruding from his brown corduroys.
Jon was relieved to see that he was still clothed in his usual blue, oxford shirt and pants, but became confused as to his sudden transformation. But, that had to wait. He still had his pets to find.
"Garfield!! Odie!!" he called out to the darkness, but still no response. He felt his four hooves land on solid ground, though none could be seen beneath him, just more dark with dotted lights. "Boys?" he called out once more.
Being in this place was unusual enough, but in front of Jon, something even more unusual began to happen. The dotted lights started to arrange themselves into a recognizable shape. They seemed to take on the outline of a horse, taller than himself, and with a horn protruding from its forehead. It too was clothed, but in a long, flowing robe, and a tall hat. Its face also had a long beard that reached the ground.
"Welcome, Jon," the stellar horse said to him, in a surprisingly deep voice.
Jon was confused as to how this living constellation knew his name, but concern for his pets took precedent,
"Hi. Have you seen my pets around here? They're a fat, grumpy orange tabby who's probably eaten local restaurants to ruin. And a yellow dog with black spots who's way to friendly and trusting for his own good," Jon inquired.
"As a matter of fact: I have," the horse answered.
"Do you have them with you?" Jon asked, hope and relief welling up within him.
"I'm afraid not. They were only passing through here before I sent them on their way."
"You did what!?" Jon asked incredulously. He couldn't believe that kind of irresponsibility. Who would let a pair of animals walk right by him without seeing if they have an owner?
"I'm afraid that they are needed elsewhere. As are you, Mr. Arbuckle," the horse answered.
Jon grew more and more confused by the second, but allowed the horse to continue.
"The Elements of Harmony are in peril, and they will need to be helped if our land is to be saved," the stellar horse said.
"So, you don't know where my pets are?" Jon asked.
The horse was sent into a mild stupor over the fact that Jon would hold his pets in priority over the fate of an entire land. But he smiled anyway, because behavior like that was to be expected from somebody like Jon. He sent a trickle of stars from his horn and created an archway, like a door, in the middle of the nothingness.
"That is the path to your precious animals," the stellar horse directed. "Follow it, and you will be one step closer to finding them."
"They're through there?" Jon wondered.
"Not exactly. But, there are others who have need of you there, and by helping them you may very well help yourself."
That wasn't exactly helpful, but it was all that Jon had to go off of. With slight hesitation, Jon stepped through the arch of stars and found himself walking down a long corridor. At the end of it was a wooden door, which he opened to find a blinding light on the other side.
"Velcome to Schnitzel-Fest!" a woman's voice with a thick European accent jovially greeted Jon.
When he took in his surroundings, Jon found that he was now standing in the doorway of a shop that seemed to exclusively sell sauerkraut. Outside, he could see a fountain plaza with a cobblestone road with festival banners hung up announcing the festival. There were tables laden with nothing but different varieties of sauerkraut that were being eaten by griffins whose colors were a variety of shades of blacks, whites, grays, tans, browns and beige. The sounds of polka music reached his ears, and before he could look at more, he then felt his front leg grabbed by presumably the owner of the voice.
As soon as he was pulled out, he found that the person who pulled him out was a black and white griffin, who was dressed in a dirndl. It was almost like those books that he kept hidden under his bed. He had often fantasized about being in their world, and now he was living that dream come true. But something seemed off to him. All around, the flags and banners read 'Schnitzel-Fest' but there was no schnitzel in sight.
"Feel free to join der celebration," the griffin said as she placed a plate of sauerkraut under his nose, "Vould you like to indulge in my vegetarian platter?"
Jon looked at the wilted vegetables before him, and was reminded why he chose to avoid cabbage altogether. Anything that could become even similar to sauerkraut was to be done away with. Especially if even Garfield wouldn't eat it if you made a lasagna out of it. Jon responded to her question with a gagging cough as the fumes from the disgusting platter reached his nose.
"Me neither," the griffin said as she chucked the platter over her shoulder.
At that moment behind her, another griffin was trying to work up the nerve to eat some sauerkraut of his own, only to have his face smashed into it by a plate hitting him in the back of the head.
"Sorry, but it's all ve have since Schnitzel-Fest vas changed to this," the griffin explained.
"But, if this is Schnitzel-Fest, where's all the schnitzel," Jon wondered, honestly surprised that there was a total lack of schnitzel. As he looked around, he could see the griffins who attended all trying to discretely dispose of the sauerkraut they were given by others. Clearly, nobody there was enjoying themselves.
"You are new here?" the griffin asked, almost too excitedly, before she let out a shrill, "Oooooooh! That means I get to give a lesson in the local culture! Follow me, please."
Instead of leading Jon anywhere, she opted to push him to his destination at the edge of the town. They stopped in a rural area where livestock roamed, bringing to mind the farm where Jon grew up.
"Do you see all der animals out there? Ve raise them ourselves to help feed many neighboring griffin settlements." She pushed Jon back into town, only now they were in an area where farmers were selling their livestock to other griffins. "Here, ve can see der transaction in action. Ha ha, that rhymes! Livestock is one of our main sources of income for this town to fund everything."
She pushed Jon in front of a small building.
"Der medical clinic."
She pushed Jon in front of a different building.
"Der music hall."
She pushed Jon in front of another building.
"And der school, vhere I vork, by der vay. How else could I be so knowledgeable? And every year--"
She pushed Jon back into the fountain square.
"--Ve hold a celebration to honor our hard work. But if we have a particularly profitable year, ve hold--

"--SCHNITZEL-FEST!!" the entire crowd shouted in unison.

"Vhich ve alvays have, because ve raise der best animals." The griffin's smile became a deep frown, "But tragedy has struck our simple town and changed everything!"
She pushed Jon through the crowd, which parted around the two as they plowed through. They came to a stop in front of a building that was much larger, and much more imposing than the others. The overall feeling Jon got from the building was a sense of foreboding.
"Der new mayor is a miserable dummer kopf, who only ever thinks of himself above der welfare of others. He kept all der schnitzel for himself! Even der surplus that happens this time of year! Leaving us vith nothing but the leftover cabbages ve grow."
The door to the building began to open, alarming the griffin.
"Oh dear! Ve better move! Don't vant Knuckle Duster to catch us!"
Jon didn't have any time at all to ask who Knuckle Duster was, before e he was pushed back into the fountain square.
"Now, ve are left vith sauerkraut," the griffin finished up, using the final word contemptuously, "Despite how ve try to enjoy ourselves, ve are very unhappy. There used to be laughter and joy ringing from every street. But where is it now? It's all locked up in der mayor's vault, and whoever tries to retrieve any gets trounced by his goon." She paused for a second as she took in the information she just conveyed, before she turned back to Jon with a smile, "So, there you have it: the tragedy that was once Schnitzel-Fest. How did you like it?"
Jon was too stunned to speak. After what had just happened, he felt like he was Faye Wray in the clutches of King Kong, if Kong was an excitable griffin. Just then, he heard music play a much livelier tune. It was the kind of polka that made him want to get up and dance and embarrass his pets to no end. Despite his determination to find his boys, the music was weakening his will.
"Of course, they can never take the joys of song and dance avay from us. Vould you care to join?" the griffin asked.
Jon had to do his duty and find his pets, so he had to decline her offer.
"I can't. I'm actually here looking for my pets. And since they wouldn't eat sauerkraut if their lives depended on it, I'll have to look somewhere else," Jon politely declined. He started to leave, but the griffin stepped in front of him.
"Your pets are missing? That's terrible! Please, stay and maybe one of us can help you. In der meantime, you can enjoy vhat few pleasantries ve have left," she insisted.
Jon wasn't too keen to stay just yet. He had a responsibility to attend to, and declined the offer. Just as he was walking away, his steps slowed to a halt. The pull of the polka music was becoming much too great for him to resist. He decided that he could take a few minutes out from finding his boys before he cut loose with a mad schottische.
"BOOGIE! BOOGIE! BOOGIE!" Jon yelled as he got his oompah on. Even on four legs, Jon found his dance steps completely uninhibited.
He was joined by the griffin he met earlier who danced a schottische of her own beside him.
"This is not your first time dancing, is it?" she asked as she and Jon danced around the fountains square. "I'm Greta, by der vay."
Jon realized that he never told his gracious hostess her name, even though she was nice enough to show him around. "I'm Jon. Jon Arbuckle," he answered.
"How long are you staying?" Greta asked.
Jon saw where this was going. As nice as she was, he made it a point to not date outside his own species after dating Imelda the Alligator Woman. Or Kimmy, who was raised by wolves. He was usually on the rejecting end of things, but this time he had to come up with an excuse.
Jon looked back on the backlog of rejections he had heard, but Greta couldn't be as naive as he was to fall for something like 'No good, I have an appointment to get mummified that night.' He decided to simply tell her the truth that he wasn't going to stay, but before he could do so, a voice in the crowd shouted loudly.
"Over here! Georg's sharing his stash!"
All the griffins in the square, looked to where the shout originated, and saw one of the griffins handing out plates of schnitzel to the now-jubilant crowd. They gathered around him quickly, eagerly taking the delicious meat dish in favor of their plate of wilted cabbage.
Greta pulled Jon to the schnitzel haven with her.
"Come. Ve'll discuss your lost pets over schnitzel," she said to him as they both received their plates. "Now: vhat can you tell me, so that I can help?"
Jon almost answered, until Greta took his plate from him.
"Oops! How silly of me: ponies don't eat meat," Greta realized.
"Actually, I'm kind of partial to pork dishes," Jon answered.
Greta smiled as she gave Jon his plate back.
"Ah, a pony after my own heart. It's very refreshing to meet somepony who eats more than salad on der first date," she said to him, making Jon's inner dork gradually rise to the surface.
They were about to discuss Jon's missing pets, when the ground suddenly shook. It was a small tremor that was soon followed by another, and then another. Every one of the griffins was put on edge as soon as the shaking started. A few dropped their plates in terror.
"Knuckle Duster's coming!!" one of the griffins shouted.
Every one of the griffins scrambled into hiding, leaving behind the stash of schnitzel that they had.
Not one of them paid any mind to anything around them in their panic. Tables were flipped, the musicians dropped their instruments. An elderly griffin who needed two canes to hobble along dropped them both, deciding that hopping on the back of a younger griffin was a faster option.
In the pandemonium, Jon got trampled by the stampede of terrified griffins, leaving him twitching on the ground in agony. But, he still managed to hold his plate in his hoof.
The shaking got steadily more violent, and was accompanied by loud tromping noises, like somebody, or something was walking towards him, until it stopped in front of Jon.
The dork dared to look up, and what he saw was a gray-furred, very large, incredibly scary, two-legged bull creature. In one hand, he could see it carrying a baseball bat, adding to its imposing appearance.
"Uh...hey, big fella," Jon said, only half realizing the danger he was in, "Have you seen my pets around here? A cat and a dog?"
The large bull creature looked at the bat he held in his hand, and examined it carefully, until he found a tiny smudge.
"Hmmm...Fluffy tabby cat mit gray fur?" he asked.
"No. Fat tabby cat with orange fur," Jon answered as he stood up. 
"Then, no," the creature Jon assumed to be Knuckle Duster answered. He then observed the plate in Jon's hoof, then turned his gaze to the stacks of breaded meat behind him.
"Contraband," Knuckle Duster said grimly, before he looked back at Jon, "Have you been supplying der griffins mit schnitzel, vhich rightfully belongs to der mayor?"
Jon had no time to answer, before Knuckle Duster continued, patting the bat in one of his hands.
"Vithholding contraband is a serious crime, little pony. Very serious. Do you know how ve deal mit lawbreakers around here?"
Knuckle Duster gripped his bat, and wound up for a swing.
Jon barely had any time to duck, before the bat sailed over his head.
He scrambled away to a safer distance, but only ended up with his back to the buffet table.
Without anywhere to run to, Jon could only cower like a sissy at heart he was. But, not without a fight.
"Can't we talk about this over sauerkraut?" Jon asked, offering a plate to the minotaur.
"No deal, little pony," Knuckle Duster said, as he menacingly approached Jon with his bat at his side, "I vouldn't eat that garbage if you threatened to make a jacket out of me. Vhich you couldn't if you tried."
He wound up for another swing.
Jon dodged once more.
Jon was no fighter, and he knew it. Sure, he was on the wrestling team back in high school, but that was only because he was used as a replacement for a segment of the mat that got torn. There was no way he'd be able to stand up to this club-carrying beefcake.
The dork carried on like this, barely dodging any attacks, as Knuckle Duster rampaged after him through the fountain square.
The griffins in their homes watched as Jon faced off against the larger minotaur. Each one of them wished they could go out and help him, but they knew what happened when any of them tried to stand up to Knuckle Duster. The last griffin who did ended up getting batted high into the sky, and didn't come down for an hour. All they could do was watch and hope that the stranger got away safely somehow.
Knuckle Duster continued to swing at Jon, who started circling around the fountain, trying to keep the construct between himself and the minotaur.
Knuckle Duster wasn't going to let this keep up. He jumped over the concrete side of the fountain and cut through the water to get to his opponent.
When he reached him, Jon let out a scream that would have shattered glass if it went on a little longer.
Jon had to dodge another strike of the bat, which sent the sauerkraut flying.
He hid under a table to avoid the downpour of wilted cabbage.
Knuckle Duster flipped over the table Jon had hid under, sending him scrambling under the next one.
"Don't think that you can hide!" Knuckle Duster said, as he batted a table out of the way, "You've brought this wrath upon yourself! And because you vere supplying der griffins: they're all going to get a serious thrashing!"
Jon was hit with a pang on conscience. He was no stranger to bullies, and now he was going to bring one's wrath upon an entire town of strangers, who so far had been nothing but nice to him. Especially Greta.
His inner macho was beginning to kindle the same way it did every time before it got him publicly humiliated. This time, he didn't care what kind of trouble it would get him into. He made this mess, and it was up to him to own up to his mistake. But how?
A short look around revealed that Jon had everything he needed to take down the raging bull.
Knuckle Duster approached the table that Jon was under, and wound up to bat it out of the way.
"Say hello to goodbye, little pony!" Knuckle Duster shouted, as he wound up for the biggest swing he ever swung.
Jon burst out from under the table, and Knuckle Duster's face was plastered with a dribbling, putrid substance that filled his nose and mouth with a sour, foul, revolting excuse for a flavor.
The bull recoiled backwards and he wiped his face with his hand.
With his opponent distracted, Jon pelted him with more sauerkraut. This was going to be the bane of the bull. Jon scooped up another hoof full of the evil cabbage dish, and tossed it at the face of his bovine opponent.
Knuckle Duster wiped another handful of sauerkraut from his face, and charged headfirst with his horns aimed for Jon.
Even in the face of a charging bull, Jon knew he was on the higher ground. Back when he was a kid, he and his brother would play a game they called 'dodge the horn,' where they stood in front of a charging bull and saw who could let the bull get closest before dodging it.
Doc Boy won when the bull actually hit him and knocked itself out against his head, but Jon was always good at letting it get within a foot before he moved.
Jon picked his moment, and moved just before he was hit.
Knuckle Duster went headfirst into a lamp post that lined the square, bending it under the force of his charge.
Jon saw the bull's eyes rolling around in his head, and took the momentary stun to stuff another hoof full of sauerkraut directly into Knuckle Duster's mouth.
Knuckle Duster gagged, and spat out the devilish curds. He reached to the side, grabbed Jon by his neck, and threw him to the side.
Jon rolled to a stop against a table, and saw Knuckle Duster ready to charge once more. He reached up to grab plate after plate of sauerkraut to throw at his opponent.
Knuckle Duster charged without regard to the assault, batting an oncoming plate out of his way.
His horns were inches away from Jon, and knew he would run down this troublesome pony. But, there is that saying about those who do not remember the past.
As soon as Knuckle Duster was close enough, Jon stepped aside, allowing his opponent to charge, stumble and fall face first into an entire stack of plates heaped with sauerkraut.
Knuckle Duster was done with this. He retaliated by throwing a handful of sauerkraut at Jon, who was taken off his hooves by the force of the impact.
Jon spun through the air and landed hard in a puddle of of the vile cabbage. A softer, mooshier landing, but even the bare ground would have been more pleasant.
Looking up, Jon saw the bull jumping through the air with his bat raised over his head. He barely had time to roll out of the way, before the bat impacted with an earth-shaking strike.
The force of the tremor made many loose objects fall to the ground. Signs hanging from their shops fell off their hooks. Inside buildings, anything that wasn't nailed down rattled around. Outside, all the plates of sauerkraut present clattered to the ground, and spilled their contents all over, covering every inch of the ground with the horrid filth that they held.
Both combatants had trouble standing on the now slippery ground, but they managed to keep a foothold. 
Knuckle Duster slowly trudged toward Jon, using his bat as a support. To him, punishing a pony wasn't worth this much trouble, but he shuddered to think what the mayor would do to him if he didn't follow through.
As the bull got closer to him, Jon tried to run. But, with so little traction on the ground, he could only scuttle in one place. Soon, his opponent was upon him, making Jon desperately flail his hooves around in an attempt to escape.
Knuckle Duster tried to plant his hooves so that he could take a proper swing at Jon. He leaned on his bat as his hooves slid around and around until he found his footing. As he lifted his bat, his legs shook as his shoulders wound up for what was sure to be a home run hit.
Jon screamed as the bat swung at him. But, it was going to turn out much worse for Jon than a hit from a bat.
Knuckle Duster's legs slipped out from under him as he swung, making him do a painful split and sap the strength of his swing, so that he only hit Jon with dull momentum.
The hit from the bat sent Jon sliding away and into a wall, which he bounced off of like a runaway pinball, right towards the tables that were in the town square.
Jon barely had time to duck under the first one, and even less to shift his body out of the way of another tables' leg.
It seemed that the tables that had been tossed about during their fight had come back to bite Jon, as he steered himself this way and that to avoid hitting himself against any of them.
One that was on its side couldn't be avoided, and sent Jon careening towards a lamp post in the square.
As he sped towards it, Jon tried to come up with a way to avoid a painful impact.
A cane that was on the ground sparked an idea.
Jon reached a hoof out to grab it, only to fumble it around with no fingers to grip. After accidentally flinging it above his head, he caught the thing in his teeth, nearly spitting it out for the disgusting flavor it had. But. this was the only way that he could properly grip the cane to save him from serious pain.
Jon shifted his body and aimed the crook of the cane at the lamp post.
The cane hooked the metal pole, making Jon spin wildly around it.
He unhooked the cane, and went sailing back towards Knuckle Duster, who was just beginning to stand up once more.
Jon hooked the bull's leg with the cane, and dragged him behind him through the muck.
Knuckle Duster tried to hold his head above the filth as he desperately clawed the ground to slow his momentum down. This plan failed, and he looked for another way to stop this crazy ride.
Their trajectory took them to another table, which Knuckle Duster grabbed a leg, as his own leg slipped out of Jon's cane.
Jon turned his head to see where Knuckle Duster had ended up, but this kept him from seeing that he was about to hook the leg at the other end of the table with his cane.
When he did, he ended up spinning around the leg, causing the table itself to start spinning as Jon dragged it and Knuckle Duster around the fountain square, crashing the two of them into almost everything present.
One table that had its legs broken served as a ramp for Jon, who let go of the cane and went sailing through the air and onto the buffet table.
Not exactly on the table, since he actually landed on the large serving pot of sauerkraut, knocking it on its side and scrambling to stay atop it as it rolled across the top of the long table.
At the same time that Jon was sent into the air, Knuckle Duster banged his wrist against the leg of another table and let go, sending him sliding alongside the same buffet table Jon was on at the moment.
His trip was far less pleasant, as the contents of the pot Jon was rolling on was pouring its contents all over his face as he slid next to Jon.
Jon had much trouble keeping from falling off the rolling pot, the way the handles bumped every time that they hit the table. It seemed like those log rolling lessons he took were finally paying off. But, also like those lessons, he ended up under the object he was supposed to be rolling on.
Jon's extra mass to the pot caused it to bounce higher and higher until it reached the edge of the table.
The pot and Jon parted ways while in the air, with the pot landing over Knuckle Duster's head, and Jon rolling through the sauerkraut until he came to a hard stop against a door.
Knuckle Duster went careening into stage headfirst, the impact rattling the pot over his head.
This was too much for the bull. The horrible, foul thing that his head had been jammed into was overloading every one of his senses to maximum disgust. Soon, his senses faded as he dropped to his knees and fell unconscious to the ground.
Everything in the square had gone quiet.
For many seconds, nothing happened until one griffin dared to peek out of his door to see what was going on. After a brief scan, he saw the unconscious bull on the ground and flung his door open.
"Knuckle Duster's been defeated!!" he yelled loudly.
All the other griffins poured out of the buildings they were hiding in. Several of them brought out brooms and mops to clean the mess and prevent anymore slipping. Through it all, they wondered where the pony who stood up to Knuckle Duster went.
The last griffin who exited a building closed the door behind him, and found Jon plastered to the front of it, before he slumped to the ground.
After alerting the others to Jon's presence, the griffins all lifted him onto their shoulders and shouted praises for his deeds.
Jon could appreciate none of this for the daze he was in.
In his half-conscious state, through all the stars he saw, Jon remembered what he was told earlier about how the mayor was hoarding all the schnitzel for himself, and now helping others was the surest way to help himself. The one logical place for his boys to be would be where all the food was.
"I have to go to the mayor's mansion!" Jon declared, as he suddenly became lucid.
The griffins all dropped him as they gasped loudly.
Greta helped him to his hooves and tried to shake some sense into him.
"You can't go there! Knuckle Duster is one thing, but the mayor is something completely different! He's terrible! And evil! And vill devour you like a sausage link!" she said hysterically, hoping that her message would reach Jon.
"If he's that bad, then I really have to go. My pets might be there," Jon answered, clearly not going to be swayed by reason.
This did not sit well with his new friends, who all tried to talk him out of it, each one of them stating a different, terrible reason for him to not go. Things like how the mayor made joyful color drain as he walked around, and how he could turn milk into cheese by simply glaring at it.
This only served to strengthen Jon's resolve to save his pets, despite how one griffin offered to buy him a puppy to keep him from going to that terrible place.
"Vait," Greta said, quieting the crowd, "Any of us vould go if our loved ones vere trapped in the mayor's mansion, vouldn't ve?"
The crowd had to agree on that point. Then again, they had to kind of pity Jon, since it sounded like he only had his pets to care about if he was so willing to put himself in danger for them.
"Jon," Greta said as she turned back to her pony friend, "If this is what you truly vish to do, then I von't stop you. But if you go: you vill be the single stupidest pony I have ever met for villingly valking to your doom."
"That's alright. I took on a charging bull. How tough can the mayor be?" Jon tried to sound confident and macho, but the way the griffins looked let him know that what Greta said was true. The point was driven home particularly hard when he saw two griffins in the crowd: one carving his headstone, and one building a pony-shaped coffin.
"I-I'll see my own way there," Jon said, as he walked away on shaking knees.
The griffins looked on sorrowfully, wishing Jon what little chance he had.
After only a few minutes walk, Jon found himself back in front of the mayor's imposing mansion. He approached the door and opened it quietly, not even bothering to knock for fear of rousing the mayor.
"Boys?" he quietly, called as the door creaked shut behind him, sealing him off from the safety of the town.
> The Adventures of Arbuckle: Breaking the Schnitzel Bank
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Adventures of Arbuckle

Breaking the Schnitzel Bank


Jon's search around the mansion showed no signs that either Garfield nor Odie were anywhere near there, but he had to be sure. He was told by the stellar horse that by helping others he'd find them, but as he searched each room, he didn't find a single trace of them and grew more scared and desperate. He didn't even call out to them so that he wouldn't alert the mayor to his presence.
He hadn't actually seen the mayor since he arrived, but if what the griffins said was true, he'd be there somewhere, holed up with all the schnitzel he had been taking from them. Jon shuddered to think what kind of terrible person would take food from the people in the town he was running, especially when it brought them such joy at their festival.
The house proved much larger than he thought before, now that his search took him through several rooms without him finding his pets, and eventually, he got lost in the maze-like hallways of the house. He opened the next door, and discovered it to be the kitchen. Things seemed to be looking up for him now. Out of all the rooms, this was the most likely place for the boys to be.
"Garfield? "Odie," He whispered, hoping they would come out of wherever they may have been hiding. No response came from either of them.
Jon heard something fall down inside of a cupboard and got his hopes up. The cupboard slowly creaked open, but what came out was not either one of his pets. Instead, a can rolled out to the ground, followed by a tiny mouse who pushed the can away with its little front legs.
After the mouse was out of sight, Jon heard a new sound: footsteps followed by a clacking noise that were becoming steadily louder.
Jon knew he was trespassing, and didn't want to face the mayor's wrath, whatever it may be.
He first tried to dive under the table, only to realize he was perfectly exposed under there.
He came out and looked for another place to hide, when he noticed a gentle breeze.
Looking up, he saw a slowly spinning fan, which was high enough to keep him out of sight. He jumped a few times try and grab it to pull himself up, but it was too far out of his reach.
Jon needed a way to get up there. He stood up on the counter and jumped towards the fan, now grabbing hold of it. If he had any common sense though, he would have turned it off before he did. He grabbed the spinning blade with his teeth, but as he tried to grip the other blades with his hooves, one of them hit a small switch on the fan that made it rotate even faster. He spun around on the blades before he was thrown off them, landing hard against the fridge.
When Jon shook his head, he heard that the footsteps had grown closer now. He looked desperately for a new place, even going so far as to consider jumping inside a jar of biscuits the way Garfield would hide in the cookie jar.
The approaching footsteps made his decision for him. He stuck his head in the jar and tried to pull the rest of himself in, but he couldn't do it. That's what he got for not being a cat.
He blindly scrambled around the kitchen, trying to take the jar off his head until he ended up charging headfirst into a cabinet, shattering it. Then he heard the footsteps again.
They were now in the kitchen with him, far at the other end of the room.
Jon couldn't see the owner of the footsteps as he stayed hidden behind the counter, but he heard the steps growing closer to his position.
Without a single thought, he jumped inside the cabinet he was in front of, shifting his body to uncomfortable proportions to fit between the various utensils that were kept in there.
He waited and listened to what was happening out there. No more noises came, giving Jon the impression that whoever was out there stopped walking and was analyzing the room for an intruder. He opened the cabinet door a crack to see what was happening. Nobody was there, and the only thing in his view was the counter on the opposite side of him, and the refrigerator.
Suddenly, the refrigerator shifted to the side a small distance, only an inch or two. Then it shifted again.
Jon knew only one animal who would drag an entire fridge behind him, and he was about to beckon him into his hiding place.
"Filthy animal," Jon heard a dry, croaky voice say, "I'll teach you to steal from me!"
It seemed that the fridge thief had been caught. Jon recalled the terrible things that the griffins told him about the mayor, and wasn't about to let his pet get hurt. He burst out of the cabinet and rushed to the aid of his cat, only to feel something incredibly hard hit his head and knock him to the floor.
After Jon's vision cleared, he saw the mouse from before with the refrigerator cord slung over its shoulder, before it ran away to safety. When he stood back up, Jon found himself staring at the face of the single bitterest, meanest, make-you-run-for-your-life-screaming old creature he had ever seen. In one shriveled talon, Jon could see a wooden cane, most likely what had just hit him.
"Vhat are you doing in my house, pony," he croaked, disdain clearly evident in his tone.
"Uh...hi," Jon said, coming up short for what to say to the mayor.
The mayor's cane suddenly flashed in front of his face, hovering between his eyes.
"Don't 'hi' me. Vhat are you doing in my house," the mayor repeated.
Jon sweated nervously as he stammered before answering, "Uh--I--So, you like schnitzel? I know someone else who does."
This earned him a jab between the eyes from the cane.
"Do not think that you can appeal to me to share my schnitzel vith the others," the mayor spat to Jon as he took a step closer to Jon. Though the mayor was much older and shorter than he was, he still managed to intimidate Jon into backing away slowly a few steps. "In my long years, I've grown tired of all the things this world has to offer! It vas only vhen I came to this town that I found the one thing that can abate my sorrows. I saw the joys that the schnitzel brought to the town, and I vanted it all for myself. The process of lovingly making it, the smell of the finished product, and the sight of the perfectly prepared dish...It's almost as if I'm young once more."
Jon never met anyone who liked food that much. Maybe Garfield, but even he didn't like food the same way that the mayor did. While Garfield loved food because of the different ways to make it and the flavors that it yielded, along with a bottomless stomach. But the mayor had some kind of sentimental attachment to the dish that bordered crazy. He thought it may be wise to try and explain the situation to the mayor. 
"I'm not saying you have to share it. I mean that...I have these pets who eat me out of house and home. I thought that they might be up here, since you have all this great schnitzel."
"You vhat," the mayor growled, "You intrude in my home after you set your gluttonous animals loose in here!? I von't have it! I von't let you ruin vhat little joy I have left!"
He raised his cane high to strike Jon again, but this time Jon was ready for it.
As the cane came down, Jon dodged to the side so that the cane struck the counter, cracking its surface upon impact. Jon already knew that the cane was nothing to be trifled with, but seeing the damage it could inflict drained all the color from his face.
Jon dodged each blow as they sailed past him and destroyed everything around him.
Before long, Jon tried fighting back by heroically wielding a soup ladle against the mayor. 
But Jon wasn't a hero. He was a sissy. In no time at all, the mayor swatted the ladle out of Jon's teeth high into the air, which then landed on Jon's head.
"I have no time for you," the mayor said before he urgently left the room.
Jon saw this and knew exactly where he was going. It was his last chance at finding Garfield and Odie there, so he went with his only choice: follow the mayor.
Jon rushed out of the kitchen and saw the mayor's tail disappear around a corner. He followed in the same direction, but soon as he rounded the corner, he shrieked as he ducked under the mayor's cane.
"Turn back, pony," the mayor ordered, "I'll not have you invading my sanctuary!"
He jabbed Jon with his cane once more and ran away down the halls.
But Jon wasn't about to be deterred. He continued to chase the mayor through the various rooms of the house, no matter what the mayor did to stop him.
As Jon gained on the mayor, the elderly griffin tried to impede his progress any way he could. Any object, be it a vase, a painting or a candelabra, they were thrown at Jon as they made their way down the halls.
Jon was hit by every one of them, but no matter how much pain it caused him, or how ridiculous he looked with his head stuck through a painting of a griffin in a dress, flowers in his mane and candles stuck up his nose, he pressed on unfazed.
After their chase led them through another doorway, Jon was finally hindered when the mayor swung a low table at Jon's legs, taking them out from under him.
Jon did a graceless somersault and landed on his back, with only a second's notice that the mayor's cane was coming down on him.
He turned so that the cane struck the frame of the painting around his neck before he quickly scrambled to his hooves to face the mayor.
The mayor wasted no time leaving the room to rush to his destination.
Jon quickly shook off all of his silly decorations and continued his pursuit. No matter how the mayor tried to lose him, Jon was determined to keep up.
Soon, the surroundings grew familiar to Jon, and he realized they were heading back to the main foyer of the mansion. He followed the mayor up the stairs, but was stopped when he saw the mayor holding a marble bust of himself, ready to smash it on Jon's head.
In less than a second, Jon grabbed another bust and lightly tossed it to the mayor.
"Here! Catch!"
The mayor let go of the bust over his head to catch the one thrown at him, making it come down on his head, and momentarily stunning him.
As Jon looked for another way to attack the mayor, the griffin recovered and pushed him over the railing.
Jon barely managed to grab the rail and pull himself up to resume his chase.
At the end of the hall, he saw the mayor disappear through a door, which he closed behind him.
Jon burst through the door and cringed with his hooves up, expecting to be attacked. When nothing happened, he peeked through his hooves and saw no trace of the mayor, but he did find something more interesting.
The room was very large, almost big enough to take up the entire second floor, and had no visible windows anywhere, but most striking of all: it was filled schnitzel.
The breaded meat lined the shelves of the walls, and was placed on pedestals that were placed on either side of a red carpet. All manner of shapes and sizes of the dish were stacked in decorative ways that almost made the room seem like a temple, or a shrine of some kind.
Now Jon knew this guy liked schnitzel on a whole different level than Garfield did. Also evident was that neither of his pets were there. If they were, there would be no food left in the room.
Jon would have lamented his rotten luck if he hadn't noticed all the schnitzel in the room. It was plain for him to see that the mayor could have easily shared a fraction of his collection, and still have much to spare. But that didn't matter to him. All that mattered was his own happiness over others'.
He became aware of a clacking noise, and turned his head to see the mayor on his cane appearing from around one of the stacks. "It vould seem that my sanctuary remains so," he croaked before he turned to Jon. "Since there vere no animals in here to begin vith: I vill forgive your intrusion this one time. Now begone!"
"Okay," Jon answered, not wanting any further conflict with the mayor. But his mind was still settled on the food there.
He remembered the advice that the stellar horse gave him, and decided that it wouldn't hurt if he took just one platter to the griffins. Maybe it was bringing them just a small amount of joy that would be the key to finding his pets. "I'll just be going now, no harm done," Jon said as he tried to surreptitiously take a platter of schnitzel. Big mistake.
The platter he took must have been a load bearing platter, since as soon as he removed it, the entire stack came crashing down and blocked the door behind him. When the last plate fell, Jon could only nervously smile as the mayor glared murderously at him.
"Well, no sense letting this all go to waste. Why don't I bring it to the griffins in the town," he offered.
The mayor answered with a lunge of his cane, which Jon dodged by diving to the side, while the cane went through the wall.
"You are a vaste! You are a vaste of space, a vaste of air, a vaster of perfectly good schnitzel," the mayor growled as he continued to swing at Jon.
Jon tried to hide by jumping behind some of the schnitzel displays, only for the mayor's can to jab through the gaps and hit him in the chest. Jon recoiled backwards and tried to intimidate the mayor, "H-Hey, back off! I took down your bull with sauerkraut, so just think what I can do to you!"
The mayor wasn't easily intimidated though, "Knuckle Duster? Ha! I only keep that beef head around so that I von't have to leave my house!" He jumped over the display and swung his cane hard, cracking the floor when he missed Jon. "I can easily deal vith wrongdoers on my own! And since you crossed me: nopony, nocreature, vill find even a hoof clipping after I'm done vith you!"
Jon tried to defend himself by throwing plates at the mayor, only to see them caught in his free talon while he swung his cane at Jon with the other.
This was going nowhere. His three main objectives at the moment were to beat the mayor, escape, and then return the schnitzel to the griffins, but this was easier said than done.
Jon was pushed back against a wall, and the mayor thrust his cane towards Jon's head again, which Jon barely dodged as well. When the mayor pulled his cane out of the wall, Jon saw something through the hole it left: a knothole view of the town. A look back at the stacks of schnitzel in the room made something click in Jon's bean brain.
He was no fighter, but that didn't matter, because Jon was a dork with way too many hobbies and that was all he needed to be.
As the mayor swung his cane again, Jon put up his hooves, and took one fast step to the side, sending the cane deep into the wall. When the elderly griffin tried to pull his cane loose, he saw Jon, who was now pressing his hooves against an invisible wall with an exaggerated look of bewilderment on his face.
Many things annoyed the mayor, but none so much as a talent-less mime. Were it up to him, every sort of street performer would be put out of his misery by being thrown to the ursas. He pulled his cane loose, along with a small chunk of the wall, and swung with even more fury than before. But every swing he took missed its target, raising his ire every time his opponent made that overly-frightened face. Every swing and thrust was met with a hole in the wall, and more incessant miming.
After what seemed like a hundred holes had been put in the wall, Jon did a graceful leap away from it and the mayor swung at him again.
He hesitated, when Jon put a pedestal that had schnitzel on top of it between them. He tried to swing from a different angle, only to have Jon put the pedestal between them again.
Every angle the mayor tried, Jon moved his shield as if he were ballroom dancing.
Jon blocked another blow by dipping his 'dance partner,' making the schnitzel on top slide off.
The mayor dove to save the falling schnitzel, only for Jon to grab it and several other plates, and start juggling with them.
They mayor would allow no harm to come to his precious schnitzel. Hitting Jon would mean that he would drop the plates, so he tried to take each plate that Jon was juggling.
Even though he was able to recover some of the plates, Jon just picked up more and juggled with them. Soon, Jon began discarding them on his own and threw them into a circular formation on the floor.
Jon then moved to throwing entire platters full of schnitzel into the air for the mayor to catch, who stacked them in the circular formation. This kept up over and over so that the mayor was building an entire tower of schnitzel that reached to the incredibly high ceiling. Soon, Jon was tossing plates high into the air for the mayor to catch and gently place at the top of the schnitzel-skyscraper.
With one last toss, the mayor caught a plate and landed on the top of the tower, where he gently placed the plate. With a sigh, he was able to put his nerves at ease as he was able to save his hoard. But Jon had other plans.
With the mayor busy, Jon carefully observed the base of the tower and found the keystone plate.
"Yoink," Jon said as he pulled the plate loose. He took a small bite of the schnitzel, and remarked how good it was. No wonder the griffins loved it so much. Then he realized a very crucial factor: he was standing in the shadow of a collapsing tower of schnitzel.
With a completely un-masculine scream, the tower fell on him and brought the mayor with it, right into the wall that was full of holes.
All the holes that they mayor put in the wall had weakened it to the point that could not stand much weight to be pressed against it. The force of the schnitzel tower was more than enough to break through the wall and send Jon and the mayor sprawling through the streets on a wave of tasty meat.
After riding the pan-fried tide through the town, Jon came to a halt against the front legs of a griffin, which after his vision cleared, he saw to be Greta.
"Did I win," Jon asked as stars and tiny griffins flew around his head. The next thing he knew, he was lifted off his hooves as Greta tightly embraced him.
"You've done it," she excitedly shouted, "You've saved Schnitzel-Fest!"
The griffins all cheered for the stranger who saved their festival. So much so, that they didn't notice the mayor weakly crawl out from under the pile of schnitzel before passing out.
That year, the celebration was held with exponentially more joviality and laughter than any year before. That year, the schnitzel tasted better, the games were more fun, and the merriment was merrier than anything that could have been in all of the land. Even some new activities were added to the festival.
Bound, gagged, and suspended over a dunk tank full of sauerkraut, the mayor and Knuckle Duster struggled helplessly as a ball hit the lever that dropped them both into the vat of putrid-ness. One griffin's ball missed the target lever and instead hit the mayor in his beak. That would have normally been against the rules, but this year, the griffin running the game decided to grant six bonus throws to whoever missed the target. Were they not gagged, the two dunking victims would have screamed as a hail of balls came flying towards them.
Back in the fountain square, the music played on and the griffins continued their dance, though several of them gathered around Jon as he shared his story about what happened at the mansion. Sure, some creative liberties were taken, such as how Jon 'faced his opponent without fear,' but it remained true to the spirit of the story and would become a legend in the years to come.
His heroics earned him a peck on his cheek from Greta, which make him sweat profusely, grin like an idiot and drop to the ground. The resulting laughter rang loud over the joviality of the festival, but it all stopped when a gentle light shone in the fountain square.
From the light, stardust fell and created an archway like the one Jon took to come to this town in the first place. All around, concerned murmurs sounded about what the anomaly was. "What is that," asked one of the griffins.
"I think it's where I have to go next," Jon answered. He had done what he was instructed, and helped these griffins. So, maybe where he was going next would be where he would find his boys.
"But you just got here," Greta protested. She had only just met him, and wanted to learn more about him, but now he was saying that he had to go away. It wasn't fair to her.
Jon hated to have to leave, especially when he had just made a bunch of new friends, but he still had a job to do. "I'm sorry I can't stay, but I still have to find my pets. It's like you said earlier: any one of you would go if it were your loved ones. Well, those boys are all that I have in my life, and I don't know what I'd do if I didn't find them."
Jon's words sank into the griffin's minds. Sure, he was pathetic for only having pets in his life, but he was so earnest that they had to support his decision.
"Alright. But don't be gone too long. You still have to finish your heroic story for us," Greta said.
Goodbyes filled the square as Jon left through the archway, which closed up behind him. Many a griffin was saddened by his departure, but their sorrow was soon forgotten by the continuing of their festival, and the joy and laughter it brought them.



Garfield's entire body felt warm, and his head grew light. After a second of vertigo passed, Garfield let out an immense burp.
"Whoah. That was the weirdest gas I ever had," he said as he munched on another cannoli while Pinkie was cleaning up the mess he made from his monster burp.
"Come on, Mr. Kitty," Pinkie said giddily as she handed Garfield a broom, "You made this mess, so you have to help clean it up. It's all part of party etiquette, you know?" She stood there with a grin, as though she were expecting him to actually get up and help with the cleanup.
Garfield briefly thought about what she said. Pinkie had been nice to him since he arrived, and made him a huge banquet for the sole reason that he came to town, but his lazy nature won out as usual. "Sure, it's the polite thing to do, but in all fairness: the food was here first before the mess. And in the sense of fairness, I'll just finish this up while you keep cleaning."
He didn't even get to finish his snack when he was interrupted by a shrill, incredibly loud scream.
> Chapter 3: Together Again
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 3

Together Again


Odie followed the scent of the powerful force all the way to a small town that was only a mile or so away from the nice yellow pony's cottage. He kept his nose to the ground, finding the scent growing stronger and stronger.
The dog knew he was getting close to his friend. He hoped very much that he had his dingleball with him. Then the two of them could play all the games they loved, like 'hide and go away' (where Odie would try to count to a hundred and Garfield would take a nap) or 'pin the blame on the puppy' (where Garfield would set up a situation and see if Odie would be blamed for it).
Odie looked up from his sniffing and took a look at his surroundings. What he saw were a lot of ponies, but no Garfield. However, he still found a lead. What he saw was a hogtied mail pony, hopping around on her back with a mouthful of envelopes. Odie would recognize that handiwork anywhere. He was definitely on the right track. Once again, he put his nose to the ground and picked the direction the scent was strongest.
After some more searching, Odie knew he was hot on the trail. He saw a trail of destruction that ran through the town, one that destroyed windows and knocked over carts. His search brought him to an apple cart where he sniffed the fruits and caught a faint scent of fur and lasagna.
"Hi!"
Odie looked up from his sniffing into the panting face of a brown border collie, who was standing in front of two ponies who were picking up the mess.
"I'm Winona. I'm a border collie," she said, sounding genuinely enthused to meet a new dog.
Odie answered with, "Arf!"
"Hi, Odie! I'm helping my Applejack pick up her apples. What are you doing?"
"Arf!"
Winona stopped to think about Odie's answer. Even though he didn't speak the same language that she did, his message was loud and clear, "I don't know any fat, orange tabbies. But I know a fluffy, white persian who lives nearby," she said with her tail wagging furiously, happy to help a fellow dog in need.
"Arf!"
"You're welcome! I hope you find your dingleball!"
And Odie went back to following the smell of candy, aided by the trail of destruction.



Mr. and Mrs. Cake stood in the doorway of Sugarcube Corner, back from what was supposed to be a morning stroll while they left Pinkie to work at the bakery, and then turned into an effort to aid anypony who had been affected by the anomaly that plowed through town.
Needless to say, they were appalled at the state of their business. Mr. Cake expressed his horror in the form of the scream that was just heard, making Mrs. Cake slightly ashamed that she had a more masculine scream than her husband. When they left, the store was the same as it ever was, now it looked like a stampede ran through it.
"Pinkie, what happened here," Mrs. Cake asked, bewildered.
"Nothing much. Just a burping contest that got a teensy bit out of control," Pinkie answered as she swept up more of the mess on the floor.
"Pinkie, it's a mess in here," Mr. Cake said as he snapped out of his partial catatonia. In all of his years of work, the worst thing that had happened at Sugarcube Corner was that somepony once placed a cupcake on the same display stand as a regular cake. It took himself, his wife and Pinkie to fix it, and it was a miracle that they were able to handle that fiasco. Now this!? "One of us will have to call a S.W.A.T. team for this!!"
"Don't worry, Mr. Cake," Pinkie said as she stacked the fallen pastries up into her hooves and tossed them back into place on their shelves, "Me and my new kitty friend can take care of this mess in a jiffy. We just have to get him to stop eating first."
Then came another scream.
This second scream was much different from Mr. Cake's high-pitched, shrill, girlish shriek. Instead, it was very low and baritone. It almost sounded like Big Macintosh was in the kitchen screaming loudly. Upon investigation, they found Mrs. Cake staring wide-eyed at what had happened.
In the middle of the kitchen, Garfield lay content and satisfied, having eaten the entire contents of the kitchen. Never before was he so quickly filled up, given the sheer amount of food that was already on hand for him to munch down.
After eating the kitchen bare, he now sat with his back against a cupboard and he let out a small burp. "Oh, wow. You guys really know how to treat a guest around here. Hey, any chance of getting restocked by tonight? I might come back for dinner."
The state of the bakery, the kitchen in shambles; a fat, greedy pig of a cat! It was all too much for the cakes to bear, and they would not have one more minute of it.
With a powerful toss, Mr. Cake sent Garfield flying out the front door and onto streets. "And take your dingleball with you," he yelled, before slamming the door shut.
"Aw, you're mother wears army boots," Garfield yelled back as he shook his fists. He stood back up and quickly looked around for something he could do to cope with the eviction, seeing nothing of note. "Well, I can't picture anything else happening now, so I think it's actually safe to say that this can't get any worse."

"ARF!!!"

Garfield nearly had a heart attack when he heard that, but decided to ignore it when he realized what that meant.
Turning around, he saw the familiar sight of a bug-eyed, drool-faced, dingleball-for-brains canine. "Odie! Where the heck have you been this whole time," Garfield asked, though he only got the expected answer of 'SLURP!'
Soaked by Odie's drool once again, he just decided he knew what that meant, "You're right: it doesn't matter, because now we can go home, and you're going to give me your dinner when we get back to make up for this mess! But that leads us to the next question: how do we get home from here?"
"I know somepony who can help." Looking to the side, Garfield and Odie saw Gummy was now next to them, "I have a tasty friend who has a very smart pony. She may be able to help."
This news excited Garfield. Finally, he had a lead that would be a great first step to going home, "Great! Who is she?"
"I only know what she tastes like," came Gummy's frank reply. That was the only way that Gummy knew to explore the world: through biting. And if it couldn't be bit, it wasn't worth noting to him
As soon as he finished speaking, Twilight came galloping past them and into Sugarcube Corner. "Pinkie," she called into the bakery, "Something just happened in town, and ponies are saying that it came from Sugarcube Corner!"
"I know," Pinkie said as she came down from the ceiling after she finished repairing any damage that happened up there, "It was me and my new burping buddy who did it. It was the best thing ever!"
Twilight couldn't believe her ears. Pinkie was somehow responsible for an unnatural disaster that ravaged through the town, destroyed homes, injured ponies and blew all the branches off of her library!? And through it all, Pinkie remained as giddy as ever. Sometimes it irritated Twilight how Pinkie never acted like she took anything seriously. But that was just how she was, and--, "HEY!!"
Her train of thought was cut off when she noticed that Gummy was chomping on her leg. This was quickly remedied by Pinkie stuffing a cupcake in his mouth as he moved to bite her tail. "There you go," Pinkie said as she patted her pet's head, "That should stop his biting. And it's lucky you came by, since I could use some more hooves to help clean up this mess."
As Twilight protested being indoctrinated into cleaning, Gummy crawled back outside to talk to his two new friend. "I didn't even work up to her back, but I'm sure that's Pinkie's smart friend." Everypony had a distinct taste, and created a different feeling on his gums, and Twilight's was unmistakable. Nopony else in Ponyville tasted like old paper and ink.
"And you're sure she knows how to get us home, right," Garfield asked.
"I only know what she tastes like," Gummy repeated.
"Big help," Garfield thought. He would just have to find a way to ask her. That was going to be a serious pain, since he already had a hard enough time talking to Jon. Then again, Gummy said that she was smart, so maybe talking to her would be easier, if only slightly. They were then approached by a yellow pegasus.
"There you are, doggy," Fluttershy panted, exhausted from chasing after Odie. Not only that, but she had also stopped to help anypony who was hurt by the disaster that plowed through town. One was particularly difficult, since the poor stallion was put right through a wall. Then again, he wasn't too upset, since his front half was stuck over the butterscotch bin at the candy shop. "Why did you run off like that? You might have run into danger."
Odie responded with a series of barks.
"What do you mean 'friends aren't dangerous?'"
"It means this," Garfield answered. He then proceeded to turn Odie around so that his back was turned to him, wound up up his leg, and unleashed a kick that sent Odie flying down the street, through the window of a barber shop and out the window on the other side with a face full of shaving cream, which he happily slurped up.
His airborne trip sent him next to the market, where he bounced off of the many awnings that lined the streets. Soon, he was back at the apple stand, soaring over it as Winona helped her ponies with the mess.
"Hi, Odie," she greeted him as he sailed overhead.
Before he could greet her back, he hit another awning that sent him flying clear to the other side of town.
As Odie lost momentum, he began descending towards a well that had two mares standing in front of it. One, a yellow earth pony with a blue and pink mane, and the other a green unicorn with a blue and white mane. The two stared at one another in silence, until the wall-eyed male mare from earlier popped out of the well and interrupted them. This would not be the end of their annoyances.
Odie flew in from above, and his open mouth caught on the handle of the well, which pulled the bucket up from the bottom and smashed the poor mail mare's head against the top of the well. After spinning around the handle several times, Odie was sent flying back the way he came, which dropped the mail mare down the well, creating a mighty splash that soaked the two other mares present.
High above Ponyville, Odie passed through a flock of ducks who were passing through the town, only to drop one by one out of the sky when they caught a whiff of Odie's killer dog breath.
Finally, the airborne canine landed back in front of the bakery where his trip began.
"Oh no, are you alright," Fluttershy asked worriedly as she examined Odie for injuries. That was a nasty trip he had taken through town and all because of the mean spirited antics of a strange cat. Admittedly, cat and dogs didn't usually get along, but it was never as bad as this. "Why would you do something so mean," she asked Garfield.
Without even a hint of ire about what just happened, Odie sprang to his paws, and barked happily.
"Don't worry about it. I could flush him down the toilet with a bunch of angry king crabs, and he'd be happy just to get that kind of attention," Garfield answered nonchalantly as he held up the dingleball, "Watch this." He wound up to toss the ball, but before he could let it loose, Fluttershy said something that stopped him.
"Did you say something," she asked. It was the strangest thing to her. Even though she knew that animals couldn't speak, this cat's language was so clear to her she wasn't sure she actually perceived it. They were then joined by her two friends from inside the bakery.
"Hi, Fluttershy," Twilight greeted her friend, "What brings you all the way out here. I thought you'd still be tending to your animals so early in the morning." It was odd to see the timid pegasus out and about at this hour, given her aversion to the hustle and bustle of the morning crowds.
"Oh, I would, Twilight. But, I had to come here after one of the new animals ran away," she answered as she patted Odie on his head. "Then, when I found him, we ran into this nasty cat who kicked him across town and back."
Odie's response was more barking. Even though nopony else understood him, it was clear to Fluttershy what he meant, "This cat is your friend?" She couldn't believe that. Not after what had just happened.
"I thought you'd still be at your house, given the 6.3 earthquake that happened in town today," Twilight said.
"Personal record," Garfield said proudly. Now he had to work his way up to 7.0 and he'd be in the burping big leagues.
"Is that what destroyed my house today," Fluttershy asked. What hit her house certainly didn't feel like an earthquake. It was more like a waking nightmare. One that smelled strongly of sugar and tomato sauce.
"Your house was destroyed today," Twilight shouted in utter shock and disbelief.
In the back, Pinkie said nothing, knowing that she was partially responsible for what had happened by instigating and escalating the then-innocent burping contest.
Twilight knew that something had to be done about this. She would not leave a friend in need. "Pinkie, find the others and bring them to Fluttershy's house. We're going to have a big project today."
Fluttershy knew what she had in mind, and didn't want to trouble anypony. "You don't have to go out of your way to help me. It's only a few small repairs. I can do it on my own." But her protests did no good.
"Tell them to bring any tools they can carry: hammers, nails, screwdrivers, wrenches, and if necessary, somepony may need to get lumber," Twilight rattled off to Pinkie.
With a salute, Pinke was off like a shot to go get the others.
Twilight then went to her own house to get her supplies, while Fluttershy protested the entire time.
"Hey! Come back! I still need to ask you how to get home," Garfield said as he ran after her. Odie followed behind him, unaware to the situation as usual.
> Chapter 4: Open Buffet
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 4

Open Buffet


Twilight made her way down the road to Fluttershy's house, making all kinds of plans to help fix it as she walked with her friend. During the walk, she pulled out a blueprint and began drawing on it.
Some, namely Fluttershy, would have said that she was going a bit overboard with the repair plans. But Twilight insisted on putting an observation deck on the cottage, stating that a clear view of her property from there would be ideal. When asked what it would be ideal for, Twilight only kept rattling off more additions to the house.
"So then we can put in a patio area next to the pool. But first, we have to calculate the space you have so we know how big to make both. That way we'll still have room to make an aviary for all of your bird friends." She was so caught up in her work that she didn't even notice the cat who was trying to get her attention.
"Hey! I'm down here! What does a cat have to do to get some attention," Garfield pestered her. This was going nowhere for him. "Alright, this calls for the big guns," Garfield said to Odie, before he spat into his own paws and rubbed them together before he began his work.
Quickly, he stepped in front of Twilight, got down on all fours, and rubbed his side against her forelegs, making her trip and fall. Garfield moved before she could land on him and moved in front of her fallen form. "Some cats around here are trying to get home," he said as he picked up Twilight's head in his paws, "A talking, purple-eyed cucumber with a teething problem told me that you were supposed to be smart, and I don't think it takes a Ph.D to give directions back to Muncie, Indiana!"
Odie interrupted with a bark, and despite the dog's thick canine accent, Garfield caught what he said.
"What do you mean 'cross-dimensional travel and fourth dimension particle shifts?' You don't even know how to spell your own name."
Twilight was a little more than taken aback by the rough way the cat was treating her. She always knew cats were fussy, but this one was more like a mafia enforcer with his treatment of her. "Fluttershy, what does this cat want," she asked nervously as she looked into his eyes.
"I don't know! Cat's can't talk," Fluttershy quickly answered. Even though it was very fuzzy, she could almost swear that the cat was trying to speak plain Equestrian, even if it was only expressed through his actions. It scared her slightly to think that she might actually be able to communicate directly with an animal, as opposed to the usual one-sided conversations that she had with them. New things were scary, after all.
It was strange to Twilight that Fluttershy couldn't translate what an animal was saying, but she couldn't focus on that at the moment: she still had plans to make for the house. "Alright. I guess he just wants some attention. Now, as far as visitors go: you need to be able to accommodate anypony who comes by. So your living room will need to be nice and roomy for all the guests you have over."
"It's nice of you to suggest it, but don't usually have guests."



When they reached Fluttershy's house, they immediately got to work on fixing the damaged property. Twilight started by assessing the area, but her concentration kept getting interrupted by Garfield pestering her.
"Hey! I'm a lost little kitty, who's miles from home! I'm cold and hungry, and I want to go back to my own house," he yelled at Twilight. She only acted like he was some kind of bother and used her magic to put him down somewhere else.
She did so with much difficulty, as it turned out that the cat weighed much more than he looked. After much sweating and straining, she placed him out of the way, and went panting back to work.
"How's that for compassion!? Does she do that to all strays!? P.E.T.A.'s going to hear about this," Garfield grumbled.
As the repairs went on, the others who Pinkie went to receive came to help with the project, and brought a cart full of supplies. After a look at the blueprints Twilight made, she assigned each one of them a job so the project would be finished faster.
"Hey, Twilight: I just finished the newest Daring Do book last night. Got anything to hold me over until the next one," Rainbow Dash asked as she set up a foundation for the observation deck.
"I'm so glad you asked that. I found the most interesting book last night," Twilight enthusiastically answered as she helped with the foundation. She moved the lumber she was lifting before Garfield could jump on it and pester her for information. "It's about ancient Sumare-ian culture, and I just got to a legend about an orange, world-devouring monster before I went to bed last night."
"Aw, I never liked history books. But that thing about the orange monster would make a great horror story."
"Save it for the book club! I need help here," Garfield interjected.
"You're right. You should try your hoof at writing a story sometime."
"I already did. I tried writing a Daring Do fanfic, but I got stumped before I finished the first chapter."
"You took up a hobby and failed, like so much Arbuckle! Now pay attention to me," Garfield shouted as he stepped into the foundation they were building.
Garfield was beginning to become a bother. Like any cat who wanted attention, Twilight knew he wasn't going to stop until he got it. Any other time, she would have been delighted to play with him, but she had work to do. She would have magically lifted him away, but after she nearly passed out from last time, she decided to leave that to somepony else. "Rainbow Dash, could you take the cat somewhere else? Maybe Fluttershy can figure out what it wants."
"Sure thing, Twi," Dash said as she flew over to Garfield and put her hooves around him. When she tried to gain altitude, she found herself weighed down by her furry passenger. Even though she flapped her wings as fast as she could, she felt like she was carrying an entire carriage that was loaded with passengers. Eventually, her wing strength gave out, and she had to push Garfield the rest of the way. Even then, it felt like she was pushing a house around by its foundation.
Fluttershy came into sight, as she, Odie and Rarity were putting the animal's homes back into place and salvaging the potted plants. Dash decided she was close enough, and stopped pushing Garfield, then went back to Twilight, heaving and wheezing.
Garfield knew when he wasn't wanted, and that purple unicorn obviously wasn't as smart as Gummy touted her to be. He decided that he had better try his luck with the yellow pegasus, since she seemed to understand him better.
"Oh, Rarity: I almost forgot that I have something for you," Fluttershy said as she reached between the feathers on her wings and pulled out the stone she found earlier. "I found this, and I thought maybe you could make something with it." She then turned her head so her face was partially hidden by her mane, "I mean...if you want to."
Despite the kind offer, the truth was that Rarity didn't want to. It was a very beautiful stone that would make a marvelous finishing touch to any dress that matched the beautiful spectrum of reds and oranges the stone had, but at the same time, there was something about it that she couldn't explain. She always had an affinity for jewels and precious stones, and knew a good one from a bad one. But she couldn't tell which one the stone Fluttershy had was. Whatever it was, it felt ancient and terrible, but why, she didn't know.
"Th-That's alright. You keep it." Rarity answered hastily.
"Thank you," Fluttershy quietly answered.
Any other time, she would have insisted that Rarity take it, since she knew she would be able to make something amazing with it. But not this time. Instead, Fluttershy felt a small, strange kind of relief that she would be able to keep it. She held the stone before her, and got lost in its vivid colors, which seemed to come alive and swirl before her. Soon, she was approached by another orange thing.
"Hey! I--"
When she was snapped out of her trance, Fluttershy answered with, "Eep," and covered her ears, so that she wouldn't have to hear anymore phantom voices from the cat. The more she heard, the more she doubted her sanity, and didn't want to be carted away in a strait jacket. Since her front legs were covering her ears, her chin dropped to the ground, so she could only use her back legs to scoot away from the scary talking cat.
"Does everyone around here hate animals," Garfield asked aloud.
Odie gave his usual barking answer.
"She was only nice to you because girls think stupid is cute."
"ARF!"
"Tell you what to say to her? That's so stupid, only you would think of it. We'll go with my idea where I ask you to translate for me."
Even Odie knew that plan was redundant, but he happily went with Garfield to try once more to talk to Fluttershy.
When they got to her, she was setting up a few of the potted plants that had been knocked over before Odie announced himself with a couple of barks.
"Oh, hello, doggie," she greeted him when he approached her. She became more apprehensive when she saw him accompanied by the orange cat from before, "Um...hello, kitty."
"Ask her if she knows how to get back to Muncie from here," Garfield said, starting with something simple and to the point.
Odie let out a single bark to ask his question.
Fluttershy only cringed as she faintly understood the cat telling the dog what to say. "No..." she answered with a tremble.
"Okay. Ask her if she's seen someone named Jon Arbuckle," came Garfield's next question.
Odie barked once more.
"No..." Fluttershy said as she slowly backed away.
"Does she know anyone who can help?"
Odie translated again.
"No..." It was too much for her. Not only was she faintly hearing a muffled statement from a cat, but the dog was translating what she thought she heard in a language that was much more clear to her. "Please, go play with the chickens," she whimpered before she shuffled off somewhere to crawl into a fetal position.
"Play with the chickens," Garfield repeated, intrigued by what he heard.
He looked over to the nearby chicken coop, where all the chickens inside reacted with a startled 'buck-aw!?'
It was too perfect. He had been handed the first ingredient for deep-fried drumsticks, and they were all trapped in a small, confined area for the fun to begin.
"It's like I died and went to Kentucky," Garfield said with a malicious grin. He opened to coop to enter it, but as soon as he did, the chickens inside ran out in a panic.
As usual, Odie was delighted by what was happening. Now the chickens were out and about for him to play with, instead of in a cramped pen. He chased them around the yard, crashing into anything and everything that was present, until one of them led him into a deep hole that was being dug by Applejack to make the pool, which made the farmpony jump high with a loud shout.
Odie then chased the chicken out of the hole and around the perimeter of it. As they ran, they knocked over all of the tools and supplies that were needed to finish Applejack's project into the hole.
Everything that fell, Applejack saved by putting it in its proper place. She laid the plumbing and set up the support walls as all the tools she needed to set it up fell.
When she looked ahead, Applejack saw them rushing to the cement mixer which was knocked over by Odie when he passed by it. She saved it by pouring its contents around the pool before it hit the ground.
When she was finished, the two animals ran off and she decided to go back to work. Looking back at her project, she saw what would have taken hours had been completed in a few seconds. Since that was finished for the time being, Applejack decided to do something else while the concrete foundation set.
"Gangway! Cacciatore on the loose," Garfield shouted as he ran after the chickens he intended to devour.
His chase led him into the area where the aviary was being built. Pinkie and Spike, who were in charge of that project, shouted loudly as the two animals began climbing the metal caging. They regretted making the aviary so big, now that they climbed far out of their reach, but Pinkie had an idea.
She erected another tall piece of caging and shouted to the chicken, "Jump! You can make it!"
The chicken, of course, didn't think it would do much good, but it sure beat being eaten. It fluttered from one piece of caging to the one that Pinkie held up, and held on tight while Pinkie lowered it down. As she did, Garfield jumped on as well, and brought the whole twelve foot panel crashing down on top of her.
Pinkie was alright, but the panel was balanced atop her head, and it wobbled back and forth as the animals on top of it ran about. She would have done something, but she was afraid if she moved, she might hurt one of them. All she could do was move from side to side as she tried to keep the panel balanced. "Spike! Do something," she asked in a panic.
Of course, Spike had no idea how to handle such an outlandish situation, so he went with his first instinct and jumped on with them. His extra weight only added more gravity to the wobbling panel, and Pinkie had to work doubly hard to keep everypony on top safe.
Meanwhile, the three on top bounced and rolled over one another in a mad jumble. Spike tried to catch either one of the animals, Garfield kept reaching for the chicken, and the chicken was determined to get away.
Eventually, the animals ended up on one side, and Spike had been pushed over to the other. He landed with such a force that he ended up making the caging panel spring upright with Garfield and the chicken at the top of it.
Garfield opened his mouth wide to take his first bite of the bird, only for his open mouth to catch on a branch of one of the trees. Meanwhile, the chicken fell off of the panel it was on, and saw that it had landed in the unfinished cage, which closed itself when the piece of panel it was balancing on landed in its proper place. Now safe within the completed cage, the chicken sighed as it could finally relax.
Garfield pulled himself onto the branch and was about to curse a blue streak until he noticed the tree he was in was loaded with birdhouses.
"A sparrow appetizer would nicely compliment a chicken dinner," he thought to himself as he reached inside one of the wooden houses. It was soon followed by a sharp pain as whatever was inside bit him, and with a scream, he pulled his arm out to find some kind of snake had latched onto his hand.
He ran around the treetops, knocking down any of the small houses up there as he tried to shake off the snake.
Down below, Pinkie and Spike caught any of them that dropped, and ended up arranging them in the style of an apartment building as they stacked them up.
On the other side of the house, Odie ran through the property as he chased after the chickens.
The one he was currently after had wised up to the game, and realized that as long as she kept running, Odie would keep chasing her. She came to a sudden halt, but that still didn't stop Odie.
No, the dog kept on running, and tripped over the bird, which sent him tumbling across the lawn and towards the fallen pots, animal feeders, and any other loose object that fell earlier that day.
Each one of them was pulled out of his way by Rarity or Fluttershy before he crashed into them, and was put in its proper place as they went.
Fluttershy gasped when she saw that Odie was going to crash into a tree, but her fear for his safety proved unfounded, as something much worse happened.
Odie rolled up the trunk of the tree, and his momentum carried him back the way he came, where he landed in a large, metal washtub. The tub ended up on its side, with him still in it, when he saw another one of the chickens. He began to run after it, still in the washtub, so that he became a spinning wheel of destruction when he ran.
He and the chicken ended up inside the house, with Fluttershy running in after them. There, she arranged all of the furniture so that they wouldn't break anything in there. She took the extra time to arrange it the way she had it before the disaster, but while her attention was turned, the two went upstairs.
Fluttershy chased them through the various rooms up there, all the while clearing a path for them. As much as she tried to politely ask them to stop, neither one of them listened, and headed right for a closed window.
Outside, Rarity could see the chicken going toward the window, and used her magic to open it, knowing that the dog was close behind it. Sure enough, the chicken came fluttering out for her to catch in her hooves.
Rarity tried to console the frightened bird, but the two began screaming when Odie's tub of terror came barreling out the window.
They barely had time to move out of the way when he came crashing down to the ground and took a splash in the river.
The tub landed on its bottom in the river, which allowed Odie to ride inside of it and peek over the side to look at the fish, otters and frogs in the water. He would have jumped in to make friends with them, but the fact that he was headed right toward the water wheel drew his attention.
Odie attempted to run from it, but that only put the tub on its side again, and made it spin in place as it drifted to the wheel.
Despite his valiant effort to escape, Odie got caught in the wheel.
The tub was flung away, and landed where Fluttershy kept all the other utilities. Meanwhile, Odie was spun around and around on the water wheel until he was sent back to the property in front of Fluttershy and Rarity, who he licked unmerciful.
Fluttershy would have stopped him from destroying Rarity's makeup and mane, but it kept him busy while she rounded up the chickens.
At the back of the house, Garfield had gotten rid of the snake, and was making his way to eat some robins. Even if the birds eluded him, he would soon find others and chase after them.
His progress was stopped when he saw a large eagle land on the branch in front of him, while the little birds all hid behind it.
The eagle glowered at Garfield, letting him know that if he wanted any of the smaller birds, he'd have to go through it. Its courage shook slightly when it saw the way the cat hungrily smiled at it.
Garfield had never eaten eagle before, and wondered how it tasted. His gourmand curiosity somehow crept its way into the mind of the eagle, and made the large bird sweat nervously as Garfield eagerly made his way toward it.
"Every bird for himself," the eagle shouted, and all the birds on the branch scrambled as Garfield pounced and missed completely, so he fell through the air.
The cat landed on the table that had all the supplies Dash and Twilight were using to make the observation deck, which sent them all flying into the air. On the ground Garfield saw one of the chickens from earlier and started chasing after it.
Twilight would have used her magic to save the airborne supplies, but she was tied up with stopping the cat. She was horrified to find that even though the cat was enveloped in her pink aura, the cat wasn't slowed down in the slightest. The cat's determination to catch its prey was too great, and she began to get dragged around behind it as she tried to stop the mad feline.
Up in the air, Dash put her flight speed to good use by saving the lumber the only way she knew how: mid-air flair with a special twist of cool.
She started putting the deck together piece by piece, and in record time, she had the whole thing finished. She landed on the ground, expecting to get some kind of applause for her work. Less than a second later, her eyes glanced upward as she realized she was standing underneath a finished observation deck, which came down on her with a loud splat.
Twilight wasn't having a much easier time. She felt like she had been dragged all around the property before Fluttershy interjected by picking up the chicken, and putting it back in the coop with all the others.
Garfield was finally stopped when his entire front smashed against the door on the coop, which was followed by Twilight sliding into him.
"This is a disaster," Twilight shouted as she stood up. The whole time, the yard was being destroyed by the running animals, and they seriously set the work schedule back.
Everypony was present to see Twilight flailing about, and Rarity couldn't agree more. She was right in the middle of a spa treatment when Pinkie got her, and it was all undone by a tongue with eyes.
"It's going to take us at least a week and a half to fix everyth--" When Twilight actually got a look at the damage, she saw that everything was in its proper place. Not only that, but most of the day's work had been done. The pool's foundation had been set, the aviary had been built, the observation deck was completed, and the entire yard had been cleaned up. "Well, I think we can get to the interior an the third story sooner than I thought," she said as a huge weight was lifted from her mind.
"We should let the chickens out again for that," Pinkie suggested.
She was only trying to be helpful, but everypony answered with a loud, "NO!!"
"Let's just finish what we have to do without anymore excitement," Twilight said as she tried to get her friends back to work. Except one of them was missing, "Where's Rainbow Dash?"
A quiet groaning led her to the observation deck, which she lifted with her magic to find Dash underneath in a daze.
"Oh, no you don't. You're not sneaking out of this work," Twilight said, admonishing her friend's lazy nature.
Dash had hoped having a whole deck crash down on her would excuse her, but it seemed she wasn't going to get off that easily. She crawled out from under it and staggered away to her next assignment.
They all would have went back to work, until Spike burped up a mass of green embers, which became a scroll for Twilight.
"Holy moly! What did you eat," Garfield asked in wonder of the spectacle.
"What's it say," Spike asked, eager to know what Celestia wanted.
After not even a second of reading Twilight answered, "We need to go to Canterlot immediately!"
"But why? What did the note say?"
"It said to go to Canterlot immediately," she said as she hurried her friends away.
Odie was going too, but stopped when he saw that Garfield wasn't coming. He whined quietly as he nudged Garfield in their direction.
"Forget it, Odie, those ponies are a dead end for getting home."
Odie tried convincing Garfield with a bark.
"What makes you so sure the princess would know a way home?"
Odie decided that he would have to find another way to convince his friend to go with him. He did so with a show of pantomime, where he stood up tall and regal, then started stuffing his face.
"Royal banquet, you say? Hm, I guess the idea has merits."
Without a second to lose, he grabbed Odie by the tongue and led him away after the ponies.
> The Adventures of Arbuckle: Welcome to Appleloosa
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Adventures of Arbuckle

Welcome to Appleloosa


Jon's walk through the tunnel was just as strange as the one before. It was the same starry scenery, but with it came a strange sensation of forward movement. Behind him was the lingering smell of schnitzel, but it was soon wafted away by a breeze blowing in front of him. The breeze started out very small, but the farther Jon walked, the stronger it blew.
To satisfy a small curiosity he had, Jon started walking backwards and the breeze became weaker.
He walked forward more, and it increased in strength again.
He took more steps back, and then many forward to the point the breeze became very strong.
He stepped back to where it was weaker, and would have kept up his goofing off, if it wasn't for a strong breeze that blew behind him and rushed him forward.
"Okay! Okay! Don't get pushy," Jon shouted to whoever was there.
He walked forward on his own, and the wind in his face grew stronger and stronger, along with the feeling of motion that started below him. The feeling soon enveloped him from all sides, and was joined by a new smell, like smoke.
The wind became so strong that it blew him back with its force.
Jon ended up crawling back the way he came toward the other end of the tunnel, and closer to the doorway at the end. He reached one of his hooves out to open it, but it disappeared before him and he found himself elsewhere as a loud whistle sounded off.
Instead of the starry tunnel, Jon found himself in a small compartment with seats arranged on either side of the aisle he was laying in. A chugging noise, and another whistle sounding alerted him that he was now on a train that was going somewhere.
When he got up and looked out the window, he saw that he was in the middle of some vast desert, and in the distance, he could see what looked like a small settlement town with an apple orchard behind it. Maybe that was where his pets were.
"Hey! Who the hay are you!"
Jon turned to the direction of the voice, and saw that the car he was in was also occupied by two other ponies. Both were dressed in old western outfits, complete with ten gallon hats and bandannas around their necks. And judging from the look they were giving him, they were none too happy to see him.
"Uh...It's a nice day for a run, isn't it," Jon nervously asked before he bolted for the door behind him.
"Get that stowaway," one of the other ponies shouted as they both ran after him.
Jon burst through the door, and stopped short when he saw that he was on the caboose end of the train, and was about to run right off it onto the tracks. His rear hooves barely stayed on the train, while his front hooves waved around while he tried to regain his balance.
As his front hooves flailed about, each one caught onto something behind him, and he used them to pull himself back onto the train. What he found he was holding onto was the bandannas of the two stallions who were chasing him.
"Thanks guys," Jon said hastily, and quickly proceeded to tie their bandannas to each other before he ran back the other way.
When he exited the car and crossed over the other, he quickly entered it and grabbed something to barricade the door with. Unfortunately, what he grabbed was another unhappy pony who was glaring intensely at him.
Jon looked back, and saw there were more ponies, all dressed in old west attire, who were ready to jump him.
"Do I need to show a ticket," he asked, shifty eyed. He knew he was in trouble, and needed an out.
Without thinking, Jon reached up to the luggage compartment to find something to drop on their heads, and maybe even something to defend himself with. Instead, he got a big surprise.
As soon as he opened the compartments, out fluttered a whole flock of ducks. It wasn't what he had in mind, but it was doing what he intended.
All the stallions stepped back as the frightened, agitated ducks flapped toward them.
"Aw, nuts! We just rustled those birds," one of them yelled.
Jon decided to see what other surprises were held in the compartments and opened them on after the other. Sure enough, out came more ducks, a bunch of chickens, and even a large turkey that had to squeeze its way out.
Despite the success of his plan, Jon got caught up in the pandemonium. He had no way of knowing which way he was going and which way he came from, not only from the fog of feathers around him, but also from the fact that the stallions were still trying to attack him.
Jon got past them easily enough, by pulling their hats in front of their faces, handing them one of the birds, or simply pushing past them. He almost reached the door, when he felt one of the grab his tail and pull him back towards them.
"Where do ya think yer goin' stranger," one of the stallions said as he pulled Jon back towards them, and they all proceeded to jump on him and beat the ever loving snot out of him.
Or they would have, if the turkey didn't jump into their midst, followed by the other birds. They soon became a jumble of ponies, ducks and chickens, and none of them could tell who was who in the confusion.
Jon took advantage of this, and simply crawled out from beneath the pile with the turkey perched on top of his head. He crawled to the door and left promptly to the next car. One of the stallions saw him going and alerted the others.
"He's goin' to the 'Stolen Bits' Car!"
They all started clambering after him, making Jon and the turkey scream loudly as Jon ran out the door, and tried to undo the coupling between the two cars.
The turkey on Jon's head gobbled urgently to hurry his progress.
"I'm trying! It's not as easy as westerns make it look," Jon strained as he struggled with the coupling.
When the other ponies all tried to get through the door at once, Jon worked doubly hard to separate the cars.
The turkey offered its helping hand by trying to peck it loose.
The pin holding the cars together started to loosen, and just as one of the thugs from the other car squeezed through the door, Jon finally pulled it loose, and the two cars started separating.
The stallion who was approaching them was in the unfortunate position of having his front hooves on one car, and his back hooves on the other. The two cars pulled apart, and the only thing holding them together was the length of the pony. One of the others tried to use him as a bridge, but Jon wasn't going to stay for when he crossed. He ran into the car behind him, and he found another surprise.
In this car, they found bags and bags of money. Some of them were so full that they couldn't even be drawn shut. Jon started to put what he had seen together.
"Wait a second: rustled livestock? Stolen money? Bandannas? These guys are bandits!"
The turkey dragged its wing down its face. It was a turkey, and it knew that!
Both of their attention snapped to the door as it opened, and one of the bandits stepped in.
Thinking quickly, Jon grabbed a bag of money and threw it out the window.
The pony who was coming through saw what was happening, and dove to save the loot. It was already out the window when he caught it in his teeth.
As soon as he did, another bag was thrown out that same window, and another pony dove out to save it, which nearly pushed the first bandit all the way out.
Jon continued to throw the money bags to keep them all distracted while he continued his way to escape.
Of course, so far, he only escaped into greater danger.
Sure enough, one of the bags he threw became surrounded by a yellow aura, and drifted over to a pony with a horn on his head, which was glowing the same yellow color.
Any other time, Jon would have squealed like a schoolgirl if he saw a unicorn, but not when the unicorn was swinging a heavy bag of coins like it was a blackjack at him.
Jon decided to use the one weapon he had at his disposal: being an utter dork.
He allowed the bag of coins to hit him, and at the same time, he jumped backwards so that he somersaulted and landed on his face, before springing to his hooves and leaving out the door.
"That worked out pretty nicely," Jon said optimistically.
The turkey on his head didn't share his sunny outlook, since it didn't particularly enjoy almost having its beak broken by a bag of coins.
"Don't worry, I bet we're safe now," he assured the bird on his head.
It then gobbed loudly as more danger approached them.
When Jon looked in the direction of its alarm, he saw two ponies flying out of the windows to get to him.
"Pegasuses! Pegases!? Pegasi? Pegusen," Jon asked, unsure of what the plural was.
As he was pondering grammar, one of them swooped in and carried him and the turkey off the train and high over the desert, likely to drop them.
It was just as Jon thought.
The pegasus let go of him, but Jon wasn't about to go so easily.
He grabbed hold of the pegasus's bandanna and held on for dear life. His dangling weight made flying difficult for the winged pony to keep his balance while flying, and the turkey pecking his head wasn't making his life easier.
The pegasus flew around blindly until his friend came in to help him, at which point, Jon let go and grabbed onto the pegasus's back.
Jon was barely able to cling to the pony's lower waist, and was being shaken hard so he'd let go.
The turkey on his head started pecking the pegasus's back, until Jon looked down and saw they were approaching the town he saw earlier, and an idea came to him.
"Work the wings, Gobbles," he shouted to his avian companion.
The turkey did as instructed and worked its pecking up to the pegasus's wings.
"NO! NO! DON'T WORK THE WINGS," the pegasus shouted in protest.
No good though, as the bird kept up its pecking, and made the pegasus lose some control over his wings.
Jon took advantage of that, and twisted his flier's waist so that he could steer him towards the streets of the town.
"WHAT THE HAY ARE YA DOIN'?!! STOP THAT," the pegasus shouted more. But Jon was determined to make a safe landing.
Meanwhile, the turkey kept pecking away. Perhaps a little too much, since all of a sudden, in one sudden wave, many of the pegasus's feathers blew off, and prevented him from flying.
Jon's first order of business was to shake the feathers off of his face (unaware that he looked like Albert Einstein before he did) and try to glide to a landing.
Thing was, they were gliding too fast to land without injury. In a last ditch effort, Jon let go of the pony and held onto the turkey, who fluttered hard so that he and Jon slowly floated to the ground.
"SORRY! HAVE A SAFE LANDING," Jon shouted to the pony, genuinely hoping he didn't get hurt too bad.
The pegasus hit a wall.
"Oof! I guess it's slightly better than hitting that cactus patch right next to it."
He and the turkey both landed safely in the town's main street, just as a train was pulling up. Through the windows, Jon recognized a few of the faces from before and alerted the town.
"BANDITS!! SOMEONE CALL THE SHERIFF AND GET A POSSE OUT HERE!!"
Instead, all the townsponies ran inside and locked their doors.
"What kind of western town is this," Jon asked, outraged by such a thing.
His outrage became fear as the bandits from the train all poured out the doors and windows, and started making their way into the town streets.
While most of them went about looting the town, two in particular made their way towards Jon, brandishing large clubs as they did.
"Well, lookee here: it's that stowaway from earlier," one of them said.
"We gotta pay ya back fer what ya did to our bandannas. Sure, they ain't expansive, but I'll be danged if ya didn't ruin a perfectly good accessory," the other one finished.
Fashion faux pas aside, Jon had to duck under a swing that was aimed for his head, while the turkey had to jump to avoid getting hit. Then another, and another.
It kept up until Jon decided to try the same strategy he used earlier.
The turkey saw that Jon was about to let himself get hit again, and fluttered off of Jon's head and away from the danger zone.
Meanwhile, Jon did what he did before, and jumped backwards as he got hit to escape with minimal harm.
It didn't work as well as he had hoped, since he landed in a blacksmith's open furnace.
With a shriek, Jon spread his hooves so that he landed safely on the stone perimeter of the furnace, but didn't have time to rest as the two bandits swung at his legs.
Jon avoided each hit by keeping in mind the tap dancing lessons from his youth, and quickly pulled his legs out of harm's way, followed by quickly replacing his foot on the solid ground.
Jon kept dodging in concert with their blows, and soon he began to actually have fun doing so, and added his own moves to what he learned as a boy.
One he added was when both bandits swung down at his sides, and he jumped on top of their clubs, which also put his hooves, and his opponent's faces over the red hot coals.
With a yell, they all jerked away, but Jon's hooves remained on his opponent's clubs.
They both swung their clubs out from under Jon, which made him only barely get a foothold on the edges of the furnace, while his face and body were dangerously close to the coals.
The two bandits continued to swing at Jon, who now arched and twisted his body so that instead of hitting him, they were hitting each other.
With one last jump, Jon dodged what was sure to be a crippling blow, and allowed his two assailants to knock each other out.
Jon returned to the street, and was immediately assaulted by one of the bandits. He was lucky enough to dodge the attack and put up his mime stance, remembering how effective it was against the mayor from before.
Miming being a boxer was not a smart idea on his part, since it oddly left him open to a series of sucker punches that ended with an uppercut that sent him flying onto a table that was loaded with every apple dish imaginable.
The bandit lifted Jon up by his collar to punch him some more, but jumped back with a startled shout at what he saw.
When he lifted Jon up, two apple rings were stuck over Jon's eyes, his face was dripping with applesauce, and he had three whole apples stuffed inside of his mouth.
Jon quickly spat out the apples into his attacker's face, and shook off the rings around his eyes. He was about to find a way to keep up his assault, but it was kept up for him.
An apple pie flew over his shoulder and hit his attacker in the face. It was followed by another one, which made the bandit recoil backwards.
For years, Garfield tried to convince Jon that apparitions that he called 'spluts' existed, and now the proof was looking him in the face. His side was joined by a yellow stallion in a hat and a vest, who was carrying stacks of pies on his back.
"Come on, stranger: quit starin' an' start splattin'," he told Jon as he placed one of his stacks on Jon's back. "Fight the good fight for Appleloosa!"
After taking a brief second to understand what was happening, Jon noticed that all of the townsponies who ran into hiding before were now in the streets fighting back with an arsenal of apple pies.
Another festival, maybe? Whatever it was, it was doing its job at keeping the bandits at bay. An approaching hoard of bandits forced Jon to join the action.
Jon's first instinct was to do what he did best: make a spectacle of himself. He started by bucking the pies on his back high into the air, and grabbed each of them as they came down one by one to thrown at them before they could loot anything. The final bandit was passing close by Jon, so he simply grabbed a pie and smashed it in his face.
The pony whose face he hit went stiff as a board, and when the empty pie tin slid off his face, it revealed his intensely angry visage.
Jon had seen that look plenty of times from women he dated. It was a look that said, 'If I see you again, I'm going to slash your tires, burn down your house and push you naked into a pool full of rabid wolverines.'
With a mighty buck, Jon was sent flying into the saloon, where he impacted two more bandits who were looting whatever was valuable in there, and took them both with him into the back room.
Once they all stood up to face each other, Jon found himself wearing a ruffled skirt, which gave pause to the other two bandits because of how ridiculous he looked.
After a brief chuckle, the two of them started attacking Jon, who fought back by swinging his billowy skirt in their faces.
In his head, Jon could practically hear the can-can playing as he redirected their attacks with his quick, loose movements that befuddled his opponents.
One of them tried to stop Jon's attacks by grabbing his skirt, which made Jon pull his skirt out of the offender's teeth and give him a dainty slap.
"Pig!" Jon yelled
Their fight took them out to the stage of the saloon where Jon's opponents were bombarded with pies that were thrown by the townsponies.
They started throwing them at Jon as well, until the were stopped by the stallion he'd met before.
"Hold yer fire! He's with us," he shouted to all the others, "Come on! They're headin' fer the orchard!"
With that, all the townsponies left out the door with Jon following quickly behind them.
Their attempts to stop the robbery of the orchard was too late.
As soon as they stepped into the streets, one of the bandits ran by with a barrel full of apples on his back.
He was unfortunate enough to trip over Jon's skirt and get his legs tangled up in it. After that, Jon and the other townsponies had their hooves full trying to stop any bandits from getting past them, but little good came from it.
Their ammunition had nearly run out, and the bandits were able to escape with a large part of the orchard's contents, along with many possessions.
They all shuffled onto the train as it began to chug away, until they were all aboard with their haul.
"See ya next harvest time," one of them yelled as their train pulled away from the town and disappeared into the distance.
But in their haste to leave, they left one of their own behind. It was the pony who had tripped over Jon's skirt, and was still struggling to free his legs from their entanglement. He began to panic when he found himself surrounded by the townsponies. Now there was no escape for him, which was trouble enough, but he knew he was in serious trouble when he saw the sheriff approach him.
"Get yerself ready, son. Yer in for a world o' trouble," he said before he pulled down the bandits bandanna.
When he did, the entire populace gasped at who they saw under it.
It was a young stallion with a red coat and deep blue mane, and he had a look of pure horror at having his face revealed.
"Fritter...I shoulda known you'd be hangin' 'round the likes o' them," the sheriff grumbled as he looked down on the cowering stallion.
The revelation sent a wave of murmurs through the civilians.
From what Jon could hear from them, they all knew him, and they all knew that he was trouble for years.
Through the crowd came the yellow stallion who helped Jon earlier, and he stared in disbelief at the revelation before him. "This...This ain't right. Of all the plum stupid things, I...You were my best friend! How could ya do this!?"
"B-Braeburn..." Without anything else to say, he only stammered his surely now-former friend's name.
In all their years together, Fritter was always something of a headstrong outcast who had his own way of doing things, and had a knack for getting into trouble. Most of the townsponies did their best to avoid unnecessary contact with him. But even so, he managed to keep a friend in Braeburn since they were both foals. Now, in one single moment, all that went out the door.
"Where's that train headed," the sheriff demanded to know.
Everypony there knew that the sheriff was not a stallion to be tested, and he didn't like to be kept waiting, but Fritter still hesitated to answer.
"I'm talkin' to ya, son. Where's that train headed?
"I-I can't tell ya that," Fritter said as he shrank to the ground.
"An' why not?"
No answer came after that.
"Get him outta here," the sheriff ordered his deputies.
The deputies stood him up to lead him away, but were stopped by Braeburn.
"Hold it," he said as he ran in front of them, "I know that Fritter ain't exactly the most sociable pony, but I'll be danged if he didn't have his reasons fer doin' what he did."
"You ain't exactly makin' a good case fer him," the sheriff snorted, "Besides that: even if he did have his reasons, he ain't tellin' us."
Even though they had grown apart, Braeburn was determined to not let anything happen to the pony who he shared his fondest foalhood memories with. "What if I found out why?"
"Watcha talkin' about, son," the sheriff asked, "Ya think ya can get him to start talkin'?"
At the sheriff's question, Fritter started to sweat nervously, and pulled his hat down over his face so that nopony would see him bite his lip.
"He ain't gonna talk to any of us. But I got a feelin' that the answers we want are wherever that train went. If I can find it, I bet I can get back all our stolen valuables, and and answer to why Fritter's with those thieves."
To the sheriff, this whole thing was ended. But even so, there may always be the chance that things weren't what they seemed. "Alright. I'll give ya one week to find anything." He then turned to face the crowd of civilians. "Anypony wanna accompany our friend?"
None of them answered, as they were all convinced that it was nothing but a wild goose chase.
Jon, on the other hand, felt like Braeburn had a point. He himself had put up with all kinds of grief at the paws of his unruly pets. From walks in the park that ended with a trip to the emergency room to remove a birdbath from his mouth, to having to pay damages after a riot at a candy store, Jon stuck by his pets like they were his family. That, and he kept in mind that he was told to help others to find his pets.
"I'll go," Jon said concisely as he stepped out of the crowd.
"Well, fancy that. The city boy stranger's gonna help track down a ruthless, violent bandit horde," one townspony in the crowd said.
Jon felt offended by being called a city boy, given his childhood on the farm. But at the same time, he was frightened of having to face the bandits again. This time, he may not have a can-can skirt at his disposal.
"Well, stranger: I say we get goin'. No tellin' how long it's gonna take to find those thieves," Braeburn said as he motioned for Jon to follow him out of town.
The two started following the tracks in the direction the train went, and soon left the town behind them.
"By the way: what's yer name."
"Uh, Jon. Jon Arbuckle."
"Well, Jon, before I forget: Welcome to Aaaaaaaaaappleloosa!"
> The Adventures of Arbuckle: The Next Best Train Robbery
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Adventures of Arbuckle

The Next Best Train Robbery


After what felt like days in the desert sun, their skin began to turn red.
At least, Jon thought it did. He couldn't tell underneath his or Braeburn's fur.
Their mission was simple: follow the tracks and find that train full of stolen goods. But so far, their search yielded no results, and the tracks only led in one direction.
Besides tracking the train, the two stallions' time was occupied by idle conversation. Mostly, Braeburn talked about his life in Appleloosa and the time he spent with his friends.
Jon, on the other hand, had no such life to talk about. He mentioned a roommate he used to have, who left him abruptly some years ago, leaving him with only his pets, who tortured him to no end. He also talked at length about his disastrous dating life. At that moment, he was just wrapping up a story about an incident with a salad bar and a fat woman, which ended with a trip to a chiropractor.
"All that from droppin' a crouton," Braeburn asked in disbelief.
"I guess it's one of those 'butterfly effect' things," Jon answered. Now that he thought about it, his whole life was one big butterfly effect. He bought a cat, he got a lasagna with fur and fangs. He got a roommate, he ended up with a dog that  mistook dynamite for 'fetching' sticks. He finally got a date with Liz, his shoes ended up on fire at the end of the night. He went on a camping trip, his pets go missing, he turns into a pony, and ends up in a John Wayne movie after defeating a bitter old griffin and his enforcer.
"Shoot, I wish my life was as excitin' as yours sometimes," Braeburn said with a chuckle.
"Do you want it," Jon offered, hoping to have the simple life of an orchard worker as opposed to his dull, undate-able, painful- misadventure-every-week life.
"Absolutely, if it means I get to date as much as you do," came Braeburn's answer. Jon nervously rolled his eyes, since he hadn't told him about some of the scarier women he dated.
They followed the tracks more, which seemed to go on forever.
It had been hours now, and there was no end in sight for them. After so long, another complication arose: the tracks split off into several different directions.
"So, which way do we go," Jon asked.
Such a silly question, since Braeburn had exactly the solution to the dilemma: spin Jon around like a top and wait for him to stop. When he did, Jon was facing the left direction.
"Thattaway, buddy," Braeburn answered as he walked toward the direction Jon stopped.
Jon had to wonder about the kind of logic it took to make an important decision based on something like that, and could only compare it to something that Odie would do. Then again, that dog once finished a sudoku puzzle in under ninety seconds, so who was he to question Odie logic? Heck, it may very well be the way that led them to where they needed to go.
The stretch of train tracks went on until the junction was out of sight behind them.
Even though Braeburn was sure that this was the right way, Jon thought it was going nowhere. Not only was he finding no clues to the whereabouts of his pets, but Braeburn had a friend who's life was on the line. A friend who may not be worth saving, after what he had done. Of course, Jon could identify with a dilemma like that.
Only he would be able to put up with pets like his for so long. And even though they drove him nuts, they had far too many moments together that he wouldn't trade for the world, and he knew his pets felt the same.
Even Braeburn's attitude reminded him of his dog. In all the years that Garfield had abused Odie, that dog remained optimistic and upbeat as if Garfield were his best friend, never once leaving his side through thick and thin.
Now that Jon thought about it: Braeburn was very Odie-like. Almost like he was Odie in pony form, but that would be ridiculous. Wouldn't it? When Jon arrived in that strange land, he turned into a pony, so how far-fetched would it be for the same to happen to his pets?
"Were you ever booted off a table by a fat, grumpy orange tabby at several points in your life," he asked, just to be sure.
"Naw, but when I was a foal, I licked a doorknob that had too much static electricity on it. The doctor said I had nerve damage that gave me two smile modes: reeeeeeeeal big, an' none at all," Braeburn answered with a smile.
It was a longshot, but Jon was still slightly let down by the fact that he hadn't found his pets.
"Hey, Jon: ya hear somethin'," Braeburn asked after a bit of walking.
Jon didn't actually hear anything, but he became aware of a vibrating sensation under his hooves.
What was going on? It wasn't like there was a herd of stampeding buffalo or something behind them, was there?
No, just a train that was careening towards them at an unsafe speed.
Now that he thought about it, it was going way too fast to be any passenger train. The closer it came, the more Jon started to think that the only reason a train would go that fast is if it were making a getaway from somewhere, and only one reason came to mind for it to make a getaway.
"Braeburn: we should really get off the tracks now," he said as the train got closer.
"Way ahead o' ya, partner," Braeburn said before Jon turned to see that he had already gotten off of the tracks.
A split second after Jon looked back, the train was now dangerously close.
In such a dangerous situation, Jon did what he did best: run away and hope something would save him.
After the train nearly caught up with him, he finally started using his brain and veered off the tracks to run alongside it.
As the engine passed by him, the engineer looked at him and whistled to someone that Jon couldn't see.
Before he could think more on it, a pegasus, who was riding on top of the front car flapped into the air and swooped towards him.
Jon ducked under his attacker, but that didn't seem to be what he was trying to do.
He looked behind himself and saw the pegasus yelling into the cars, which was followed by more bandanna-wearing ponies sticking their heads out the windows.
It seemed that Jon and Braeburn had succeeded: they went looking for the bandit's train, and instead, it found them.
Jon would have felt like it was a lucky break, but it would have been much safer if the bandits hadn't seen them.
With a yelp, the cartoonist had to start jumping to avoid the knives that were being thrown at him.
After the knife-thrower passed by him, a new danger reared its head in the form of a unicorn a few windows down, who started swinging a sledgehammer at him.
Jon weaved back and forth to avoid the attacks, and in a desperate move, he leapt forward and grabbed the hammer's handle in his teeth.
Now Jon was completely off the ground, and was floating side by side with the train he was trying to find.
The unicorn deactivated his magic, intending to leave Jon in the dust, but Jon grabbed onto the outer frame of the window he was next to. And, in a lucky break, it was open for him to climb through.
As he boarded the train through the window, he could see Braeburn on the other side of the train, dodging a lasso that was being thrown at him.
It seemed that he had the same idea as Jon to grab hold of what he was being given and board the train that way. He caught the lasso, and after a brief period of being dragged through the sand, he quickly climbed up it, boarded the train, and bucked the lasso's wielder into Jon as he was about to climb completely through the window, which sent him sprawling back out, and off the train.
Thinking quickly, Braeburn threw the lasso out the window and caught Jon by his front hooves.
Jon was then dragged through the sand, and had to roll to the side to avoid hitting any big rocks or cacti that came his way.
"Hang on! I gotcha, buddy," Braeburn yelled as he reeled Jon in.
When Jon was close enough to reach the window, the unicorn with the hammer tried to swing at Braeburn.
In order to dodge, Braeburn let go of Jon's rope, and sent him sprawling back into the sand.
After the blunder, Braeburn grabbed the rope just before the entire thing went out the window and left Jon behind.
Once it was in his teeth, he resumed reeling Jon in, but his attacker kept him from doing so efficiently.
He pulled Jon in, but whenever Jon got close to climbing aboard, Braeburn had to slack up the rope in order to properly dodge a blow.
As time went on, Jon felt like he was being teased with being able to climb aboard, but his annoyance became sheer terror when he saw that the train was heading toward a canyon with no bridge.
Jon screamed, and let go of the rope, but his momentum kept him sliding forward toward the edge of the canyon. He stopped just shy of the edge.
With a relieved sigh, Jon looked over the edge, and thanked whatever force was looking out for him, and keeping him from tumbling to the hundreds of feet below.
Said force must have been on vacation, as a rampant tumbleweed pushed him all the way over.
In the meantime, the train kept going toward the cliff at a speed that was too unsafe to stop at.
There was a hidden switch off the side of the tracks that a pegasus flew off the train and activated.
The sides of the cliff opened up and mechanically placed tracks for the train to safely chug to the bottom of the canyon.
While Braeburn was holding his own against the bandits on the train, Jon was falling towards something he didn't expect. Below him was a rocky outcropping in front of a cave, where two low-level bandit grunts were emptying barrels full of trash over the edge. The two were wondering when they were going to get their promotion in the gang, but their conversation was cut off when Jon landed in one of their barrels and fell over the edge in it.
"OW--OOF--GETTING--DIZZY--BLACKING--OUT," Jon shouted with each bounce down the tracks.
Eventually, his bouncing ended, and he only began rolling down the tracks. Soon after, the train caught up behind him.
Both the barrel and the train safely reached the bottom of the canyon, and followed the tracks until one of the walls opened up for the train to go inside of, and into the bandit's lair.
Jon's barrel began losing momentum, and the train bumped it from behind, making it fly forward through the lair and coming to a sudden stop against something.
Jon cautiously poked his head out of the top of the barrel, and came face to face with the stallion who bucked him into the saloon earlier that day. Even though he hadn't gotten a pie in his face, he looked even more angry than he did the first time.
Without a word, Jon shrank back down into the barrel, hoping that maybe he wasn't seen.
The stallion bucked Jon's barrel away, where it broke against a stone wall, only to reveal that Jon was not inside of it.
All around the stallion were more barrels, loaded with stolen loot, and Jon's head came popping out of one of them next to him.
That barrel was bucked as well after Jon ducked back inside, only to have him pop up again in another barrel.
After a subsequent buck, and Jon reappearing in another barrel, Jon decided he'd better explain how his trick worked, in an attempt to ease his opponent's building rage.
"These barrels have little doors in the side," he opened the small door in the side of the barrel he was in to demonstrate, "See?"
Neither one of them could think of a conceivable reason that there would be a door there, other than to create a sight gag for anyone in their one in a trillion circumstances. And all it did was enrage the stallion further, who bucked Jon's current barrel, this time before he could duck out, and sent him flying towards the train.
Back on the train, Braeburn had his hooves full with a bandit who was clinching his front legs, and another who packed a really mean punch.
"Is that all ya got," he said after the first punch to his face. Braeburn had been in plenty of saloon brawls, and while this guy ranked up there in heavy hitters, it was nothing he couldn't handle.
Until the second punch hit him.
"Is that all ya got," he repeated, slightly more dazed, and was punched again. "Is that all ya...ggooott...?"
The altercation ended when the bandit holding Braeburn became aware of something to his side that was flying toward them outside the train. He didn't even have time to register what it was when it broke through the side of the train, hit them, and carried them all out the other side.
They landed hard, and Jon crawled out of his barrel in a daze.
"I'll have the salad with chocolate sauce..." he slurred as he tried to get on his hooves. After so many barrel rides, he was almost on the verge of passing out, until he saw Braeburn on the ground near him. "Hey...how's it going, Braeburn?"
"Pretty goooooooood..." he answered, drawing out the 'o' sound. He then indicated the two bandits who were whaling on him in the train, "I got me some new buddies I want ya to meet..."
But the two bandits had no intentions of making friends with them, which Jon and Braeburn quickly caught on to, the way they both picked up weapons that were lying around and made their way menacingly toward them.
"Uh-oh," Jon said as he saw one of them wind up for a swing, and that Braeburn may have been too dazed to move in time.
He put his hooves on his friend's shoulders, and pushed him down so that he ducked under it.
The next hit was aimed for Jon, which Braeburn returned the favor, and pulled Jon to the side so that he could avoid getting hurt.
The two stallions continued to push, pull, drag and lift each other out of harm's way all around the bandit's lair. They even got a few good hits in, the way they used each other's dead weight to counter their opponent's attack.
"What the buck is goin' on here," a new voice yelled loudly over the action.
"Aw, shoot. Boss's comin'," one of the bandits mumbled to the stallion next to him.
The bandits all stopped their attack, and parted as their leader approached the intruders. When Jon and Braeburn saw her, they almost didn't believe that she was the leader, the way she looked. To them, she looked more like a southern belle the way she was wearing a silk gown and a sun hat, topped off with a gold necklace. The only un-ladylike thing about her was the lasso that was fastened to her sash.
Up until now, she had been in her personal quarters, devising the gang's next big heist, but her concentration kept getting broken by all the noise that was coming from outside to the point that she decided to investigate. She was most displeased to find that it was intruders who were making all the ruckus.
"Who're they? Filly scouts goin' door to door," the boss asked after appraising them and wondering how they of all ponies could have found their way in.
If there was anything the bandits didn't want, it was to get their leader in a temper, so one of them tried to explain the situation. "Sorry about the inconvenience, Miss Rose, but...Well...It kinda wasn't our fault they got in."
"'Kinda wasn't,'" she asked incredulously before she threw her lasso so that it practically weaved through the crowd to loop around the neck of her malcontent, and she pulled him toward her. When she retrieved him, she undid the lasso, grabbed his collar, and gave him the evilest eye he had ever seen her give, "There ain't exactly a doorbell fer them to push and get somepony to open the door! So, which one o' ya let 'em on the train!?"
As the leader was chewing out her subordinates, Braeburn's head started to clear up, and he was able to figure out a little bit of what was going on. "Oh. Thing's kinda make sense now: this here's the Rose Gang."
Upon saying the name out loud, he and Jon both started giggling like a couple of schoolboys, but Braeburn quickly finished up his explanation, "They're notorious for their fast, brutal waves of theft so they folks don't think they're sissies, 'cause o' their name. That, an' they're led by Desert Rose, who's world known fer her skill with a lasso, an' her borderline psychotic temper."
"Ohhhhhh," Jon said as if it all made sense to him now. It took about a half second for what Braeburn told him to sink in, "Oh! Jeez, that's bad, isn't it?"
"You know it, buddy."
"Ah-ha...So, what do we do about it?" Jon had asked a question like that before, and in return, he got an unorthodox solution.
This instance was no different, when Braeburn took hold of Jon's collar, and his belt, then charged forward with him in front.
"GANGWAY," Braeburn shouted as he plowed through the crowd with his screaming battering ram. His plan was to get past the bandits, get back to Appleloosa and get every available lawpony within fifty miles to handle them.
Sure, by that time, the bandits would likely have cleared out, but they wouldn't be able to take all the loot they had in the lair, and somepony may have been able to find something that would save Fritter's hide.
They were in luck that the door to the lair hadn't been shut when they arrived, since all the bandits were busy taking care of the two intruders. It made their escape that much easier.
"We made it," Jon yelled as relief washed over him when they got past the entire gang and were speeding towards the door.
His declaration was premature, as suddenly they both saw a length of rope come down in front of them and then felt it tightly wrap around them and made them tumble forward. When they stopped, they were bound back to back, and saw themselves getting reeled in toward Desert Rose by the length of her lasso.
Even at the distance they were, they could see that she had no intentions of letting them leave the lair alive. But Jon and Braeburn weren't about to let that happen. As long as Fritter was in trouble, and Garfield and Odie were missing, neither one of the guys was going to give in. The only plan that they could come up with, though, was to flail like mad and hope to wriggle out.
Naturally, it did no good, and they were only dragged closer and closer to their demise.
"I can't go out like this," Jon thought, "I'm too good looking to...I'm too much fun to...I make too much money to..."
Okay, if he was being honest with himself, he couldn't think of a reason not to die, but he still wasn't about to snuff out so easily.
The two stallions were now being dragged back through the crowd of bandits they had just charged through, and they were running out of time to save themselves.
With only one option, Jon flung his and Braeburn's weight at one of the bystanders, and got him tangled in the rope with them.
The bandit struggled to get out, and his cohorts moved in to release him from his entanglement. Jon and Braeburn caught them too, creating a mass of ponies who couldn't tell who was who in the muddle.
The extra weight was slowing down their dragging, but it wasn't enough. They needed something that would stop it entirely. Sure enough, in an old cave like that, there were plenty of stalagmites that were  lying around.
The guys shifted the weight of their mass of ponies, getting a wave of alarmed protests, and were able to get it to roll and wrap around the one, sturdy looking stalagmite that was nearest to them. They spun the rope around it one last time until they were tightly secured, and Jon and Braeburn could wriggle out. But even then, Desert Rose wasn't about to give up so easily.
If there was anything that she hated, it was when things didn't go according to plan. She had meant to reel them in so she could haul them away for the vultures to peck at. Now they were delaying that objective! It was an outrage! She wouldn't stand for it!
Her rage built so suddenly, it could have powered the train, and with a mighty pull of her rope, the base of the stalagmite started to crack, and made all of the struggling ponies stop.
"Uh-oh," one of the bandits said, "Boss's in a real temper this time."
"We're gonna get it now," another one added.
Desert Rose yelled like a viking when she mustered her surprisingly vast strength into one final pull that tore the stalagmite from the ground and sent it, and the mass of ponies flying towards her.
The pointed end of the rocky structure was coming towards her, forcing her to duck, and allow it to fly safely over her.
The stalagmite broke against the wall it impacted, and released many of the ponies from the length of rope. All except for Jon and Braeburn, who were still caught in the lasso.
Jon stood up with Braeburn tied to his back, and began trying to escape to the door again.
Their progress was impeded by wave after wave of bandits trying to stop them, but Jon's impeccably stumbling footwork, along with Braeburn's flailing hooves, saw them through the danger.
But Desert Rose wasn't about to give up so easily.
She and the intruding stallions were on opposite sides of the train engine from each other, but it was no problem for a mare of her skills. She threw her lasso through the engineer's window, and caught all four of Jon's hooves.
Jon stumbled and fell, so it was up to Braeburn to try and run away, but they were both reeled toward Desert Rose with a strong pull.
Once they were pulled into the engine, it was up to Braeburn to save them since Jon's hooves were all tied up.
As Braeburn scrambled to grab onto something, anything, he pulled levers, spun cranks, pushed a doohickey towards a thingamajig which activated a whatchamacallit.
Then the train started to lurch forward.
Desert Rose ordered the bandits onto the train to stop it, but the speed slowly picked up, and Rose was getting pulled along. She decided to board the train herself to stop the intruders from getting away with it.
Before she was pulled off her hooves, she let go of the rope and jumped through a window on the passenger car. Now on the train, Desert Rose proceeded to plow her way through her underlings until she reached the engine to take care of the intruders herself.
Jon and Braeburn screamed loudly, as they dodged a buck that was meant to smash their heads.
Instead, Rose hit the lever that pushed the train into full throttle, and sent the locomotive barreling full speed into the bowels of the bandit cave.
Deep in the lair, the caverns were loaded to the brim with loot. The floors were piled with just about everything you can name, and even the walls and rock formations were lined with stolen this and that.
Another buck, and the guys were thrown off the train.
In the split second that followed, Braeburn took the length of rope, tied another lasso and threw it around one of the rock formations. Their momentum swung them back toward the train, and with a pull of the rope, the rock was released, and they went through a window.
The battle that followed went between the cars, out the windows, and even above and below the train. And with every stumble, Jon and Braeburn ended up changing between whose hooves were on the ground.
Braeburn had no problems avoiding danger, but Jon, whose hooves were still bound, needed to hop around like a flea.
The hazards, including the waves of bandits and Desert Rose's seemingly living (and not to mention unlimited supply of) lasso, were only amplified by the wild, rampant speed of the train.
Every corner, the train tilted. Every dip, the passengers tumbled forward.
The train began speeding up a hill, and burst through a hidden back entrance, flying high into the air as it did.
It landed with a thud, that made everypony jump, and sent Jon and Braeburn in front of Desert Rose.
There was no escaping it now. They got boxed in by the other bandits, led by the one with anger issues.
They backed away from him, and into Desert Rose, who grabbed both of their shoulders. Whatever she had in mind, it was definitely the end for the two of them. Then one of the bandits started sniffing the air.
"Anypony smell sugar?"
None of them knew what happened next, but from what they could tell, some unknown, yet powerful force hit the train and sent car after car flying off the tracks. After the landing, all the ponies were barely clinging to consciousness. Fortunately, it was Jon who awoke first.
In a total daze, Jon was only aware enough to realize that he was no longer tied to Braeburn and pulled his hooves loose from the rope around his ankles.
"Braeburn," he called out, more asking than anything, "I think we won."
A wooden barrel staggered towards him, then dropped. All of the planks fell apart to reveal Braeburn on the inside.
"This sure don't feel like winnin', pal. I ain't happy enough," Braeburn said in a daze.
He then looked around and saw all of the bandits, either knocked out or too woozy to stand. He felt his spirits lift when he saw Desert Rose's top half sticking out from under a pile of her underlings, while Jon noticed the locket necklace she was wearing at his hooves.
Braeburn looked down on them all with a small sense of satisfaction, mixed with a small bit of regret. Even though they had caught the bandits, they found nothing to clear Fritter's name.
"Braeburn: look at this," Jon said as he showed Braeburn the open locket.
On one half of it was a picture of Desert Rose. But in the other half of it was a picture of Fritter.
"Well, I'll be dipped in applesauce," Braeburn mumbled.
In that moment, everything started to make sense to him. That was why Fritter got mixed up with bandits. That was why he wouldn't tell where to find them: their leader was his marefriend.
Braeburn's heart sank when he realized that it meant that Fritter willingly joined the bandits, but his reasons for doing so made a little bit of sense. He was always an outcast among the good folk of Appleloosa, so it seemed logical that he would find his place on the wrong side of the law.
He didn't want his friend to go to jail for the rest of his life, but then again, who was he to stand in the way of love. He kicked a little dust as he thought about his dilemma. He didn't have to say anything for Jon to understand what was going through his head.
Jon had faced the choice to give up the pets he cared about to do what was right before, and always did what he thought was a compromise. But he could see none here.
Then he noticed what had been thrown off the train: among the mishmash of everything, he saw ropes, pulleys and harnesses, all in working condition.
"You know," he began, "I think we need to teach these guys a lesson in honest labor and doing a good deed."



Back in Appleloosa, the townsponies looked into the distance and saw the peculiar sight of a train being pulled by a team of ponies.
As it drew closer, they began to recognize the train as the one the bandits had used. Closer still, and they recognized the bandits who came through the town. They stopped when the train arrived at the station, huffing and puffing from exhaustion, while Braeburn rode in the engineer's seat, and Jon stood triumphantly atop the engine.
A round of hurrahs sounded for the two stallions, who single hoofedly brought down the most terrible gang known in decades.
Jon tried to step into the crowd with Braeburn, only to find that he couldn't quite figure out how to get down. He ended up simply falling off. He then heard voices in the crowd that sounded like the were restraining someone, and failing to do so.
Through the crowd came Fritter, who charged right to the front of the team of bandits where Desert Rose was.
The loving reunion that followed sent a wave of sentiment through the crowd. Even though Fritter stopped mattering to them, he was everything to somepony else. Desert Rose, who loved him so, and Braeburn, who even though the two had drifted apart, he never left his friend's side, and never stopped believing in him.
A newfound bond was made that day, one that would keep them all together through the ups and downs that life would throw at them.
A light shone in the main street of the town, and without even looking, Jon knew what it was.
"Whoah. Ain't that somethin'," Braeburn said.
"It's my way back home. Or so I'm told," Jon answered.
"Yer leavin'? After this whole shenanigan, yer gone like that!?"
"I'm sorry. But I have a couple of trouble making friends who I still need to find."
"Well, happy trails to ya, buddy. In the meantime," Braeburn hitched Fritter up next to Rose, "Yer gonna payback society by helpin' give back all the stuff ya helped steal."
Fritter had no objections to that. As long as he was with his precious Rose, and Braeburn remained his friend, in an odd kind of way.
Jon turned away from the crowd and passed through the stellar archway once more as he was seen off by his new friends.



In the dark of the luggage compartment of the train, Odie began to feel light headed as a warmth spread through his body. He began scratching madly and shook his whole body like something just bit him.
"Hey, knock it off, dog," Garfield demanded. "Your breath's bad enough! I don't need your fleas in my face too!"
The rest of the trip was passed in much discomfort up until the train's arrival in Canterlot station.
> Chapter 5: Laughter is Magic
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 5

Laughter is Magic


The train stopped at the station, and among the crowd that disembarked were six mares, who immediately made their way toward the castle at the top of the mountain.
Pinkie stopped briefly to guzzle down the soda she ordered on the train, then tossed the empty bottle into a nearby trash bin.
Back in an empty car, Garfield and Odie scratched madly to get out of the overhead luggage bin they were inside of.
"Who's the genius that only put handles on the outside of these things," Garfield grumbled as he tried to pry the compartment door open.
Odie tried to offer his help, but only impeded any progress made.
"The thing opens to the left, Odie! To the left!"
After a moment more of struggle, they triumphed over adversity and opened the door.
"Freedom," Garfield shouted, relishing the rush of uncontaminated air that washed over him.
Being stuck in there was like being in an oven with a pile of garbage that drooled too much. Now the two of them could continue their mission. But where were the ponies they were following?
Garfield heard a familiar burp in the crowd, and looked in the direction it came from. He caught sight of them, just as more passengers arrived in the car they were in. Without further ado, Garfield grabbed Odie by the tongue, and led him off the train.
The two animals plowed through the crowd, knocking down innocent passers with their collective bulk. A few unfortunate ponies fell victim to tripping over Odie's extended tongue, and landing in the subsequent puddle of drool. Unknown to either animal, their actions set off a chain reaction of flying suitcases, crashing ponies, breaking windows and the entire car rocking like a ship at sea.
Once off the train, and onto the platform, the two began searching for their ticket home. Finding the ponies wasn't easy, since walking among the crowd was like diving into a giant bag of rainbow marshmallows.
Garfield climbed atop Odie's head to get a look over the crowd, and after a brief scan, he saw the mares he was looking fore. He climbed down, and the two pets walked past a foal and his mother who were at the station.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Garfield saw a twinkle of light. True to his feline nature, curiosity got the better of him, and he looked to find the source of it. All he saw were the two ponies he and Odie just passed by.
"Dad didn't come," the foal said, "He said he'd be home today on the 3:10."
"Oh, honey, I'm sorry," his mother consoled him, "But I'm sure he has a good reason for not coming. You know that he wouldn't stay at the conference unless he did."
That offered no comfort to the foal.
"Let's just go," the foal said before he turned away and left before his mom.
That simple exchange stopped Garfield in his tracks. He didn't know what it was about him, but he felt a strange kind of connection to the foal who wanted more than anything to see his dad again. Maybe it was the way the colt was so let down. Maybe it was the fact that Garfield himself never knew his own dad. In any case, his will to go after the mares began to fade, and he found himself unable to take his eyes off the young pony.
After only a brief indecision, he made up his mind to postpone his visit to the castle, when he noticed something to his side.
Odie was looking right at Garfield, panting and staring the way he always did, but something was different about it this time. Whatever passed as Odie's intelligence, it was there in his bug-eyes, and it said that he knew exactly what he was thinking.
In a flash, Garfield wrapped one paw around Odie's neck.
"Tell anyone about this, and you're roadkill," he threatened the dog before winding up to boot him over to the mares, "Now get to work on getting us home."
With another powerful kick, Odie sailed through the air and plopped right on top of Fluttershy. After a bit of rolling, Odie sprang to his feet, helped Fluttershy up, and trotted alongside his new friends.
Garfield began following the two ponies, only lose them in the crowd.
He followed their direction, but kept getting bumped around by the ponies who were passing by.
"Hey! I'm a cat, not a soccer ball," he shouted as he dodged the oncoming hoof of a blue pony.
He had enough of nearly being trampled. Before another pony's hoof could come down on him, he leapt onto the unfortunate equine's neck and climbed on top of his head, then jumped to the back of another one.
His crowd-surfing tactic worked well enough. Garfield caught the trail of the foal, and hopped from pony to pony, and even some of the structures at the station, such as benches and bollards.
He jumped onto the reception desk, and accidentally stepped on a stamp pad, creating a trail of paw prints across many passenger's tickets.
Next, Garfield tried to jump onto a suitcase, but its owner rolled it out of the way, sending him to the floor.
After shaking the wooziness from his head, Garfield considered raiding that suitcase, and shredding everything inside, but he had something more important to attend to. Why it was more important, he didn't know, but something told him that he needed to go after that young foal. He was told that 'the harmony needed him,' whatever that meant, and maybe the key was with that young pony.
"Hey, Kevin Costner listened to a mysterious voice. He built it, and they came," Garfield reasoned to himself as he got closer to the foal. He was nearly reached the colt, when the door to the station was closed in front of him.
"Hey! Hey! Let me out! Kitty wants out," Garfield yelled as he pawed at the door.
Doors were always a mystery to him. He mastered the refrigerator door, but for some strange reason, other doors were different from that, and couldn't simply be pulled open.
He waited for one of the ponies passing outside to come in, but they all kept passing by, as if nobody had any need for a train.
"Stupid airports, taking all the business from a good, honest train station," Garfield grumbled.
The foal was getting further and further away from him.
Garfield's mind raced for a solution, and he found it.
A trolley full of luggage was placed nearby, and looked hefty enough for his needs.
The cat quickly ran over to it, and started shoving it towards the door.
Slowly at first, it soon picked up speed and began speeding toward the door.
Ponies jumped out of the way as the juggernaut raged through the station.
Garfield jumped onto the luggage and rode it toward the door.
He held up a small case in front of him to soften the blow when the trolley crashed into the door, shattered the glass and sent him flying outside into the street.
As he soared through the air, Garfield placed the case he held underneath him as he landed in the street.
He slid for a few feet, until he came to a complete stop.
He breathed in to let out a sigh, but what came out instead was a yell as a pony-drawn carriage came rushing down the street toward him.
Only barely able to dodge, Garfield scrambled to the sidewalk, where he let out a long string of curse words that would raise the age rating on this story.
After his blue streak ended, he chucked the suitcase down the road.
It hit its mark on the carriage-toting pony's head, and with a wimpy yell, he landed on his face.
"It's all in the wrist," Garfield mused to himself.
But he couldn't get too full of himself this time. The foal was getting away from him. At the moment, he and his mother were a ways down the road, and the cat had to close the distance between them.
Garfield started by trying to cross the streets, only to be stopped by another passing carriage.
After it went by, the street was clear.
Garfield put one paw on the road, and another carriage sped past him.
He tried an experiment and put a single toe in the road, only for a red colt with a spiky yellow mane and his stuffed tiger go speeding past him in a red wagon.
The road was a bust, but there had to be another way to get across it.
Around Garfield, there was an athletic supply shop, a haberdashery, a donut shop, a florist.
Garfield went with the obvious option, and started a riot in the donut shop to loot it undetected.
After that business, he ran into the athletic supply shop and came running back out with a pole vault.
Sure he hadn't done this in a while, not since Jon stopped putting the cookies on top of the fridge, but he was sure he still had the technique mastered.
Garfield planted the end of the pole into the sidewalk and launched himself high into the air.
He could feel himself sailing forward, and was about to let go and go sailing toward his goal, only for the pole to snap under his elephantine weight.
"Aw! Stupid, cheap particle wood," he shouted as he fell on top of another passing carriage.
His ride took him down the street to an intersection, where he hopped across the tops of the passing carriages to catch up to the foal, who was now turning a corner at the end of the street.
To catch up with him, Garfield cut through the alleyways between the buildings.
Big mistake, since he was soon confronted by a giant, ragged dog with crooked teeth and bloodshot eyes, and smelled like dust and garbage. His appearance alone was enough to say he was bad news, but what he said next made him irredeemable, "Pardon me, sir, but do you have several hours to talk about life insurance?"
If there was anything worse than an insurance salesdog, it was an honest insurance salesdog. With a scream that would shatter glass, if any were nearby, Garfield ran like crazy out of the alley, past the assortment of back alley horrors of lawyers, politicians and fanfic writers.
Finally, the light at the end of the tunnel. He burst out of the alley and looked all around for the foal, only to find nothing. Then, at the very far end of the street, he saw him and his mother walking toward a building that he assumed to be their house.
With a renewed motivation, Garfield charged down the road, deftly dodging any obstacles on the way.
Except for the pony carrying the hot dog. That was promptly eaten, and spat out when he found out it was soy.
The foal opened the door, and sulked inside, followed by him mother, who began closing the door.
But Garfield wasn't about to be left out after what he had gone through. He charged full steam as the open space got smaller and smaller. He pushed his body faster than he did back in the forest when he ran from those wooden wolves, and swiftly approached the door. He was going to do it. He was going to make it.
The door closed, and he slammed into it face first, creating a Garfield-shaped impression on its surface.
"I skip my morning nap for this," Garfield said, noting that he hadn't slept once in almost a day.
He stepped back from the house to look for a new way in.
After a brief look around the house, Garfield found a few windows, but none of them were open. He then heard a noise above him, and saw a window on the second story open, conveniently enough by a tree branch.
"It's amazing how things work out in your favor in things like this," Garfield mused before he climbed the tree, walked across the branch, and jumped through the window.
Finally, he was inside, and was stunned by what he saw.
Before the door was closed in his face, the inside of the house looked so clean, but stepping into this room was so messy, it was like stepping into another world.
All around, there were papers with scribbles written on them, and books all strewn about, making Garfield wish he could read. Fortunately, some of the books were open, and showed pictures of a unicorn with its horn aglow and making objects appear in front of it.
"Hey. I think I saw Jon reading this once," he said as he looked at the picture. He moved to another book, and saw more pictures of unicorns doing things like levitating objects and opening doors.
In the room with him, the foal was busily studying one of the books at his desk, which was equally littered with books and papers. Along with all of that, Garfield saw a picture of the colt, along with two older ponies. One, he recognized as his mom, and the other was the one he assumed to be his dad.
Something about the picture made something click in Garfield's mind.
"Hm, one of these things is not like the others," he said to himself when he saw that both of the colt's parents were unicorns, but he wasn't. That, and all of the pictures in the books showed unicorns using magic.
From what Garfield had seen, only the unicorns could use magic, and this hornless, wingless kid was studying how to use it. He shook his head with a sigh, "Quit fooling yourself, kid. Stay on this track, and you'll be a dateless cartoonist with an extensive sock collection. Trust me, I've seen it happen."
The colt paid no mind to the cat. He was too busy studying the page in his book to be aware of anything else in the room.
The page he was on now was giving instructions on how to cast magic to make flowers grow. He hoped that he would have mastered it in time for his dad's arrival, and show him how far he had come in his magic studies. But since he hadn't mastered anything, and his dad didn't come home, it only gave him more time to perfect his technique.
"Okay. Let's try this again," he said as he opened a packet of seeds and pushed them down into a small pot full of soil. He looked at the book, read the instructions to cast the spell once more, and executed his technique. He concentrated hard to make the spell work, straining his mind to manipulate the magic forces in the world.
Garfield watched in dismay, "I can almost see the socks unfolding before my eyes."
It was painful for the cat to watch this foal try so earnestly at something he was clearly not meant to do, but it would be easier for him to fail and figure that out for himself.
Then the pot shook.
After months of trying, the foal was finally getting a different result from the usual embarrassing explosion in his face. Now he was finally doing it. He was doing it for everypony who doubted him, he was doing it for himself, he was doing it for his dad, who was the only pony who actually believed in him.
"Holy moly! He's doing it," Garfield said as he watched the foal's magic unfold before him.
For a second, he was sorry he doubted him. But only for a second, since the soil in the pot blew up in his face and sent them both flying across the room.
"There's probably a word for when something like this happens," Garfield thought to himself. Once the ringing in his ears stopped, he heard a knock on the door.
"Pratfall?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
The foal named Pratfall wiped the soil off his face and sulked to the door, finding his mom on the other side when he opened it.
She paused for a second when she saw her son's filthy face. All his life, it was a common thing for him to end up in some humiliating situation, so she barely paid any mind to it when thing's like this happened. She had to admit though, an explosion resulting in a dirty face was a new one. "Pratfall, Spring Flower's here to see you."
She opened the door more to let in another foal. A unicorn filly, the same age as her son. She then left the foals to their business.
"Hey," Spring Flower greeted him. She saw the mess in his room, but she had known Pratfall since they were both babies, and like his mother she knew it was just a part of his everyday life. "I heard about your dad. I'm sorry he didn't come home yet."
"It's okay," Pratfall sighed, "I really wanted to show how much I learned since he's been gone."
"You mean all of this," the young unicorn asked as she looked at the soil-covered room.
"Yeah. Look what I did just now. I still haven't grown anything, but I'm getting somewhere. Before, I couldn't even move the seeds, but look what I just did! I know I'm on the right track. I only need to work on my spells a little more, and I'll have it."
"That's kind of why I'm here."
"What do you mean?"
Spring Flower knew that nothing brought her friend more joy than practicing magic, but like everypony else, she knew that he was bound to fail. She spent  a good amount of time (weeks, in fact) trying to come up with the words to confront him about his self-destructive pursuit, and chose today, hoping that his dad's presence would help to soften the blow. But even though his dad wasn't there, she decided to tell him anyway since she knew that if she didn't now, she wouldn't ever. "Pratfall, you need to stop learning magic."
"I'll say. He's not exactly David Copperfield," Garfield agreed as he shook the dirt out of his fur.
Pratfall couldn't believe what he heard, and was about to rebut, but Spring Flower stopped him.
"Everypony's concerned about you. You hardly talk to anypony anymore, you only leave your room to go to school, and you're obsessed over something that only unicorns and alicorns can do. You'll never get your cutie mark if you keep this up."
Something new was brought to Garfield's attention then: every other pony he saw had a mark on their flanks, but Pratfall didn't have one. It let him know that it was more than just some trend among the young crowd. But at least they weren't gauging their ears.
Ever since he was born, Pratfall was surrounded by magic users, and saw all the amazing feats they could do with their natural gift. It often made the colt wonder what made him special among his peers. But there was always one pony who encouraged him to at least try. "My dad thinks I can do it."
"But nopony else does. All the foals at school talk about you behind your back, and your mom never says anything so she won't hurt your feelings. Nopony believes in you. Not even me. And I think on some level: not even your dad."
"I hope the kid wore a cup for that one," Garfield said to himself. He was stunned by Spring Flower's candor. He himself had no faith in Pratfall's learning, but to hear it spelled out so plainly was hard for even someone as callous as him to hear.
It was even harder for Pratfall. In the deepest part of his subconscious, he thought that maybe his dad didn't actually believe in him, but hearing it out loud was too much for him to bear.
"Go away..." Pratfall said as he turned back to his desk.
"No. I need to know if I'm getting through to you." She only wanted to help him come to terms with his limitations, but at the same time, it felt like she had said the wrong thing.
"Go away," Pratfall snapped, "I don't want to see you again! Get out of my room!"
Spring Flower had never seen this side of her friend, and it disturbed her greatly. She didn't know how to handle such a thing. Even though she wanted to stay and console him, something in the back of her mind told her that she had better leave. An instinct that she obeyed, and quietly left, hoping that he would come to his senses.
"What's with all this heavy stuff? Aren't things usually funny when I'm involved," Garfield asked. Then he saw the colt tremble, and heard him start sniffling. "Aw, come on. Don't do that. It's only funny when Jon does it."
If he didn't do something fast, that crying was going to seriously bum him out. "When did I become such a softy," he asked himself as he prepared for what he was going to do next.
Pratfall lifted his head up when he heard something jump onto his desk, and saw it to be an orange tabby cat juggling three of his books. And for a second, he forgot what he was sad about, and watched the spectacle in front of him.
Now that he had the foal's attention, Garfield started adding some more flair to his act. He juggled all of the books in one paw, then reached to the side to grab a banana. Where from? Even he didn't know, but as long as it was funny, it didn't have to make sense to him.
He squeezed the banana, making the fruit jump out of its skin and into his open mouth. Then he dropped the peel, stepped on it, and fell to his rump, making all the books he was juggling fall on his head.
Finally, as the coup de gras, he opened one of the books, and a pie flew out and hit him in the face with an audible 'SPLUT!!'
Pratfall had to giggle at what he saw. Sure, it didn't solve his problem, but it helped him to forget about it for the time being. "You're a funny cat, you know."
"I should be. Funny's been my job for almost forty years."
"If mom wasn't allergic, I'd keep you."
Pratfall never had a pet before, due to his mom's serious reactions, but something about the cat made him feel a connection to it, like they were meant to cross paths at some point. Even so, it was kind of a downer for him to see that even this cat was better at magic than he was, even if it was meant strictly for comedic purposes.
"Wait a second!"
Something occurred to the foal then. Nothing he did turned out right, and only became an embarrassing mishap that made everypony laugh at him. The cat just did the same thing, and it turned out enjoyable for him. He knew that getting a cutie mark for magic was the path he was meant to take, but only now did he realize that he was taking the wrong approach to it.
Now with a renewed spirit, he started packing up some supplies to take with him. "Come on, kitty. We need to go to the park."



It was a beautiful afternoon in Canterlot park.  The ponies who had gotten off work were enjoying the last few hours of sunlight to frolic and play with their friends and families before nightfall. In one corner of the park, that met at a busy intersection of the street, Pratfall had finished setting up his props for the show he was about to put on. Some of the ponies who had seen his shows before trotted by a little faster to avoid getting caught in any of the colt's mishaps.
But Pratfall was confident of his success this time. He knew that he was going to achieve his goal, where he had failed to do so every other time. He set up his prop, a giant cardboard square set up on a stand so that it was upright. the center of it was cut out so that a view of the park could be seen through it. Next to it was a small sign that said 'Magic Mirror.' Now that everything was set up, the show could begin.
Pratfall started by casually walking past the front of the cardboard, and as soon as he did, Garfield came into view on the other side of it. Normally, such a thing wouldn't be strange, except that Garfield couldn't be seen from the other side before, and the edges of the square were much too narrow for him to have hidden behind.
Once the cat came into view, Pratfall turned to it, an exaggerated look of surprise plastered on his face. He knew what his reflection looked like, and that wasn't it. It would have to be investigated. He carefully examined the cat, and Garfield mirrored his movements exactly. The spectacle caught the eye of a few passers who decided to watch the show and see what it was all about.
Garfield continued to mirror Pratfall's movements exactly as he did, creating an illusion of a magic mirror for the audience.
Now that a crowd was here, it was time to move on with the act. Pratfall looked around the edge of the trick mirror, and where his head should have been seen on the other side, there was nothing.
In the meantime, Garfield peered around from his side of the mirror and hit Praftall with a slapstick that he pulled out of nowhere, which got a giggle out of the audience.
Pratfall jumped when he was hit, and quickly resumed looking at the mirror, only to find Garfield once more copying his movements. He grew suspicious, and stepped away to the side, which Garfield did at the same time, but disappeared from his side of the mirror.
The audience was awed that a young earth pony could be so talented with close up magic, and with so few props.
One of the audience members was wearing a hat, which Pratfall took and stepped back in front of the mirror.
Garfield followed suit, and was wearing a completely different hat of his own.
The foal rubbed his chin suspiciously, and quickly switched the hat he was wearing with somepony else's.
At the same time, Garfield took the hat off of Pratfall's head and put it on his own.
When the foal looked back, he acted surprised to see that the hat he was just wearing was now on his 'reflection.'
As the final touch of the act, the Pratfall and Garfield both grabbed the edges of the prop mirror and started shifting it back and forth, which made Garfield disappear and reappear every time the edged passed him.
At one point, Pratfall let go, and Garfield continued to shift the square on his own.
"Ah ha," Pratfall shouted, now that he was certain that it wan't his reflection.
He leapt through the mirror to catch the culprit, only for Garfield to jump under him to the other side.
Pratfall landed on his face, and his rear hoof bumped the base of the mirror, which made it wobble back and forth until it fell over on top of him. Once it did, he stood up, now wearing a headband with cat ears on it, and whiskers painted on his face. The act ended when he let out a single, "Meow?"
The audience, which had grown large through the duration of the act, roared with laughter.
Pratfall took off the headband and wiped off his whiskers before taking a bow to the audience.
"Boy, if Jon could see me now," Garfield thought to himself, now that he was being kind hearted and helpful, "Then again, I glad he didn't. If he knew I gave a hanging hairball, he'd expect it all the time."
All of a sudden, without any warning at all, a bright light shone around Pratfall. At first, the foal was startled, then became excited when he recognized the light as something he had seen before. Once it faded, he looked to his flank, and saw that it was now decorated with a mark of a wooden slapstick crossed over a magic wand.
"I did it," Pratfall said quietly. His excitement burst forth when he loudly repeated, "I did it!!"
After trying for so long, he succeeded in getting his cutie mark in magic. Not the traditional kind, in the sense that unicorns use, but the kind that brought laughter to those around him.
He showed his mark to Garfield, who was still rubbing his eyes from the bright light he just saw. "Look! I got my cutie mark!"
"You got a tattoo on your butt. Now get a few piercings, and watch your parents really hit the roof," Garfield said with a grin. The next thing he knew, he was lifted up off the ground by the foal's tight hug.
"Thanks for your help kitty. If it wasn't for you, I never would have found my special talent," Pratfall said to the cat.
He would have stayed in the park to give an encore performance, but he still had to show his mom and Spring Flower his new cutie mark. That, and he had to practice some new acts so he'd have something to show his dad when he came home.
He put Garfield down, and ran home as fast as he could, all the while thinking of new ways to make ponies laugh through magic.
Garfield watched the colt run home, remembering how he once felt when he found his special affinity for cuisine. It was the single greatest feeling in the world when he found what he was meant to do, even if it was to gorge himself until he felt too sleepy to continue. Now he passed that feeling on to a foal that everyone else deemed a failure.
"I hope I don't make a hobby out of this. I have a reputation to keep up," he said with a smile. Then he noticed something else.
It was the same twinkle of light that he saw at the station that led him to Pratfall, and now it was shining in the middle of the park. Even though it was in plain view of everyone else, they acted like they weren't able to see it there.
"Did Peter Pan lose a fairy," Garfield asked as he batted at the light.
To the ponies watching, it only looked like he was a cat acting like a cat, but for Garfield, it was a mystery that needed to be solved.
"When the world is against you, all can seem foreboding and hopeless," came a voice that Garfield recognized from when he first came to this world, "It is only in humor that we find a way to make the darkness fade and bring joy back to ourselves. And it is the responsibility of those who carry it to spread it to others. Go forth to the castle, Garfield. Your friends are waiting for you there."
And with those last words, the light faded from existence.
It was something that never occurred to Garfield before. He knew he was funny, but he never thought of himself as someone who dispensed it to others to make their lives all that better, even if he was doing it for decades.
Even the ones he abused, he realized were much better off with him around. Without the laughter he provided, Odie would lament his stupidity, and Jon would probably be an emotionally crippled shut-in who never left his house.
"Being funny's a serious business," he thought to himself.
It really was a burden being the funny guy, but hey, if he didn't do it, who would?
He decided to follow the strange voice's directions and head toward the castle, where he would hopefully find the way back home. And even if he didn't, there were surely a few sad faces that could use a good gag from Banana Man.
> Chapter 6: So Long Old Friend
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 6

So Long Old Friend


After the walk through the town, Odie and his friends made it to the gilded archway of Canterlot castle. The guards had been told about the business with the Bearers, and allowed them to enter.
Odie tried to follow suit, only to be blocked by one guard's hoof.
"Sorry, but no dogs allowed," the guard said to Odie.
Odie whimpered quietly as he looked past the guards.
Fluttershy heard him, and left her friend's side to talk to the dog.
"Don't worry, doggy. I'm sure it won't take very long," she assured him, before Odie's tongue extended past the guards to lick her face. "Could you please wait here for me until I get back," she politely requested after she shook all of the drool out of her fur and feathers.
Odie responded with an energetic nod of his head.
"Alright. Thank you for understanding, doggy," and she left to rejoin her friends.
Odie had done what he was told, and sat in front of the archway before the guards.
For several minutes, he remained motionless, making the guards gradually grow uneasy under the unblinking gaze of the yellow canine. After so many minutes of being watched by the dog, they began to feel their bodies work in rhythm with its heavy panting.
They could feel their eyes dry out and freeze so that they stuck wide open. Then their breath grew short, their mouths began to fill, and their tongues slowly stuck out of their mouths. It was only the rapidly increasing heartbeat of the older guard that let him become aware of the horrible transformation he was undergoing.
"For Celestia's sake! Why don't you do something," he snapped at the dog, which in turn brought his colleague back to his senses.
"Whoah...I think I could feel my IQ dropping," the younger guard shuddered as he tried to regain his poise.
As the guards recovered, Odie heard a noise come from past the archway. A familiar 'dingle-dingle' noise that came from his favorite toy, only this time, it was coming from a strange twinkle of light that was hovering in the courtyard.
Odie watched it intently, completely taken in with the noise it was making. Strangely, the guards acted like they couldn't hear it. What was wrong with them? Anything the made a 'dingle-dingle' noise had to be fun! He was tempted to run over and play with it, but he promised Fluttershy that he would stay put, and that was exactly what he was going to do. Then the dingle-ing light started to move.
It drifted past the guards in front of Odie, who started jumping and playing with the light. As he played with it, the guards watched him as if he were only doing normal dog-like behavior, although cautiously.
"Coat of Arms," the older guard said to the other, "If I start jumping around like that, would you give me a good, sound smack?"
"Will do, buddy. Will do."
Odie jumped up and caught the light in his mouth, but the light wouldn't go down so easily.
As he savored his victory, Odie became aware of a dingle-ing din inside his mouth. The next thing he knew, the light moved behind his eyes so that it was visible behind his pupils. At least, it would be if anyone else could see it.
He shook his head back and forth to get the thing out, and the guards watching slowly began to sway with his rhythm as they stared dead-eyed at him. It ended when the light flew out of Odie's ear and around the castle wall, with Odie chasing gleefully after it.
He followed it around the perimeter of the castle wall, hopping and skipping as he tried to catch the light again.
One of his jumps ended with him splashing in the moat, and the light stopping to see if he'd come back up.
He did indeed.
Odie came flying out of the water like a dolphin performing for a crowd, and tried to catch the light again.
The light continued along the length of the wall, until it dove under the water with Odie paddling after it.
He swam deeper into the moat, and followed the light to an aqueduct.
Then he felt the water flowing rapidly into the open space, and start to pull him in.
Odie didn't like the idea of being pulled into a small hole, even if a fun light was in there, and started rapidly paddling his legs to escape its pull. His efforts were in vain, as he was sucked into it, and dragged through the plumbing of the castle.



In the laundry room, a maid was washing a load of curtains until the water stopped flowing from the spout she was using. She tried to fix it by pumping its handle a few times, but when that didn't work, she looked directly into the spout.
Unwise on her part, since all of a sudden, an entire dog came flying out of it, and shook off its fur all over her before running away.
Odie ran and jumped all around the laundry room, spreading his wet dog stink all over the clean linens. Some sheets that were hung up to dry were soaked once more by his excessive drooling.
Chaos followed in the dog's wake as he rushed through the room, but he as long as he was having fun, he didn't notice. In fact, he was having too much fun to notice that he was headed right for a laundry mangle.
He followed the light through it, and came out the other end thin as a sheet of paper. In less than a second, he re-inflated himself and resumed his playful chase.
The light darted to the next hallway, and darted to the side so that Odie missed catching it again.
The dog liked that the light was a challenge to catch. It meant that he could have fun with it forever.
He jumped again, and this time ended up falling down a flight of stairs. He tumbled all the way to the bottom, where he quickly sprang to his feet and gave chase, only to fall down another flight of steps.
Finally, at the bottom, Odie was on solid, level ground. The light dingled in front of his face, and he continued to follow it.
The new room was dark, and piled with junk, which made keeping up with the light difficult, but he gave it his all and kept pace behind it.
One more leap, and the light began to dim, then it faded out of existence.
Odie was sad that the light was gone, but when he saw what he stopped in front of, it stirred a new emotion in the canine.
Where he stopped was in front of picture of a yellow, two storied house with a brown roof in a suburban neighborhood. He couldn't quite put his paw on it, but that picture reminded him of something. A fond memory that he almost forgot about, but knew that he needed to hold onto, for the small sense of belonging it created within him. And then his attention was drawn by a new noise.
Somewhere in the room, Odie could hear someone coughing quietly, and went to investigate. He navigated through the various sundry items that had been placed down there in that room, and after rounding a stack of old books, Odie saw a mare sitting at a candlelit desk, with an unopened book.
What someone was doing down there all alone was beyond him, but he knew that anyone who was alone like that was in need of company. He trotted up to the desk and whimpered quietly.
The mare jumped slightly before turning to face him.
"Oh. Hello there," the mare said to Odie, "What brings you down here?"
Now that he had her attention, Odie trotted up to introduce himself. He relished how readily she reached down and scratched his ears. It was that which let him know that he was right about her wanting company.
"Don't tell me that a nice dog like you has been forgotten too," she said, eliciting a confused look from Odie, "Don't look so surprised. That's just what happens to all the old junk down here."
She looked up from Odie, and scanned the room slowly, lingering on seemingly every item in the room.
"So many memories have been left here. Heirlooms that are no longer cherished. Toys from sompony's foalhood," slowly, she stopped scratching Odie's ears as her face turned forlorn, "Sometimes...even ponies get forgotten here."
Odie didn't know much about anything, but he knew when somebody was feeling sad, human or not. He decided that he was going to put all of the other things out of his mind until this mare felt better.
The mare at the desk sat quietly for several seconds. Finally, she sighed and turned back to Odie. She hadn't seen or spoken to another pony in years. In fact, she often suspected that nopony knew there was a mare in the castle basement who organized the storage space, and now there was a companion for her down there for her to finally spout off to.
"I wasn't always alone, you know. I had a friend named Lucky Star. He and I spent our entire foalhoods together. We even made a promise that we'd create as many memories together as we could. And when we did, we wrote them down in our journal."
Briefly, her gaze shifted to the book she had on the desk.
"The only time that we were separated was when I took this job. But even then, he got a job here as a librarian, and he visited me every day. We didn't have the time to fill our journal since then, but still, we had each other. But then one day...he just stopped coming."
The mare let out a sorrowful sigh, which somehow passed along her lonely feelings to Odie, making his ears droop.
"I never knew the time would come when I'd lose him. But he forgot about me, just like everypony else. The only thing I have to remember him is our journal, but ever since he left, I haven't had the heart to open it again." She paused once more, and wiped her eyes with her hoof. "But, I suppose that it's just the way it was meant to be. All I can think is that I was meant to be down here...alone."
She finally broke down and buried her face in her hooves.
It was too much for Odie to bear. He knew that she was wrong: nobody was meant to be alone. Especially if they were as close to each other as the mare said they were.
He wanted to help her, but he didn't know how to do it. The only thing that he could conceive was to make the two of them friends again, but he didn't know where Lucky Star was, or how to contact him. But he had to do something, and he had an idea of where to start.
He poked his nose over the desk, and started sniffing the journal. It smelled strongly of dust and old paper, but carried very faint traces of the mare he was with, along with another scent that he didn't recognize.
Even in his drool-soaked brain, he knew that it had to be Lucky Star's scent, and he set off out of the basement in search of where he disappeared to.
The light stung his eyes after coming out of the dark basement, blinding him briefly. But he only needed a scent to follow.
Odie sniffed the air, trying to pinpoint the direction to turn, but the scent was so old that there was almost no trace of it in any direction. But there had to be someplace that he spent most of his time. Odie then remembered that the mare said her friend worked as a librarian.
And where were librarians found?
Odie didn't know, but it sounded suspiciously like the word 'library' to him, so that's where he decided to begin his search.



The library was easy enough for Odie to find. They always had a distinctive smell of paper and old people, and it was easy enough to follow, even though it was on the other side of the castle.
When he arrived, he immediately set to work on finding something that belonged to Lucky Star.
From where he stood, it all looked the same. There were shelves and shelves of books that were indistinguishable from one another, and a desk with two stallions behind it. One was filing through the catalog, while the other was simply eating a salad, but neither smelled like the pony he was looking for.
Still, Odie decided to investigate the desk area to search for any clues to the missing pony's whereabouts.
"That was it," one of the librarians suddenly exclaimed, making the other one jump with a start and turn to face him.
"What the hay are you yelling for!? You know I can't take much after I had to stamp every book in the library by hoof last night! You know what happens in this library so late? Nothing! There's nopony to talk to, the books never end, and all you can hear is the incessant thump, thump, thumping of that evil rubber menace that I swore started fusing with my hoof after the three hundredth book," the other stallion ranted.
"Sorry. I was just trying to remember what that book I was reading a few weeks ago was called. It was Myths and Legends of the Elder Beings. It's pretty much a collection of things ponies believed before we learned how the world works. Like how at one point, the world was almost devoured by an orange beast with an insatiable appetite. Of course, these days we know that it was actually a demon who absorbed all the magic in the world," the second librarian explained, unaware of the dog who was sniffing around his hooves.
"Ponies were pretty nuts back then," the first librarian answered, as his salad was eaten by Odie behind his back.
When the dog was finished, he resumed his search, leaving the pony dumbfounded when he found his food had disappeared.
Though the scent was strongest around the desk, it was still very, very faint.
Odie poked his nose into a drawer, and rooted around the papers, still coming up short, and moved away when one of the librarians looked to investigate the noise and found nothing but the mess the dog had made.
Odie was beginning to grow frustrated by the lack of results, until he found a lead.
Under the desk, there was something that smelled strongly like dust, but had faint hints of Lucky Star on it.
The dog reached a paw under the desk, but couldn't quite reach what was there. He doubled his effort to reach it, scratching loudly on the desk as he did, and prompting the pony whose salad he'd eaten to investigate the noise under his station.
With one furious swipe of his paw, Odie flung the thing under the desk out the other side, right into the peering pony's mouth.
The pony stood up, sputtering in surprise.
The other librarian looked to his colleague to see what was wrong, but instead of the expected worried frown, a smile spread across his face.
"I don't believe it," he said when he saw what was in the other pony's mouth, "I haven't seen this book in ages." He yanked the book out of the other pony's mouth and examined the cover. "This has been overdue for almost a year! Who'd have thought it was right under our noses?"
"What the hay was it doing checked out so long," the other pony asked after he wiped out the dust from his mouth.
"It was checked out by the guy who worked here before you replaced him. I guess he forgot to check it in before he got transferred. Funny he forgot, since he checked it out so much."
The other librarian looked at the cover, and found it to be an anthology of foal's fairy tales. "What was a stallion his age doing with a book like this," he asked.
"He said it was his and his friend's favorite book when they were foals. Apparently they'd go to his place in the east wing and read it together. My guess: he was trying to woo this mare."
"Yeah, nothing says 'be my marefriend' like a story about kissing frogs."
"Come on, I think it's nice. You know, taking a mare to your place late at night and reading sweet, simple story about two ponies falling in love by lamp light, while you're both huddled under a blanket and sipping cider."
"Were you ever a stallion?"

"ARF!!"

The stallion who had stayed up all night clutched his chest and fell over backwards in his seat.
After hearing what he did, Odie knew where to look next, and exclaimed his discovery in no uncertain terms. With his new lead, he ran off to his next destination.
"Hm. I didn't know dogs were allowed in here. Are they," he asked as he looked to his colleague on the ground.
"Thump...thump...thump..."
He wasn't going to get an answer out of him. "Guess I better ask one of the security guys, huh?"



Odie hit a problem. He didn't know which way east was. He ran into the same problem as before, where there was no scent to follow, and the halls all looked the same. He would have to take this issue up with the architect, should he ever meet him.
He ran in circles, trying to find east, but only ended up dizzy and nauseous, and with a heavy thump, he fell to the ground.
As he lay on the floor, his answer came to him. He saw a mural painted on the wall that showed a white horse with wings and a horn juxtaposed to a gorgeous sunrise.
Odie once heard that the sun rose in the east, so that had to be the direction he needed to take. He shook all of the dizziness from his head, and trotted down the hallway past the mural. He was merrily on his way, when he suddenly bumped into someone's knees.
"So, you're our canine intruder," a gruff voice said. Odie looked up to see the scowling face of a large unicorn in gold armor. "Let's get somethin' straight, pups: I been workin' this job for thirty-two years, and nopony's gotten past me. Not even a dust bunny. It's that kinda thing that has me documented in the kingdom's historical records. So we can do this two ways: I can take you outta here, kickin' and screamin', or we can respect history, and you can walk outta here nice and quiet," the stallion lowered his head to Odie's eye level, boring his intense glare into the dog's mind, "So what's it gonna be, punk?"
For as long as he lived, the only things that scared Odie were the dog catcher, and Garfield's temper. And this pony before him was like a terrifying mix of the two. He wanted nothing more than to oblige the pony, and leave out the castle gates, but he had a mission to fulfill, and he wasn't about to duck out on it. But first, he had to get past the pony, and he defended himself the only way he knew how.
His tongue shot out and he licked the pony off his hooves. After he retracted his tongue, he shot down the hall and left his adversary behind him.
"So, that's how it is," the unicorn grumbled, "Well, pooch, two can play hardball."
His horn glowed as he readied a spell that would send Odie flying out of the castle, and shot it down the hall toward the dog.
Sensing danger behind him, Odie jumped, and the bolt of magic went sailing underneath him, collided with a statue down the hall, and sent it flying through the ceiling.
The guards on the roof were all given a thorough shock when they saw the marble sculpture burst through the ground beneath them and drop into the moat.
Odie rounded a corner, and charged through the castle's innumerable halls, while the stallion followed close behind. He dodged, jumped and rolled to avoid the eviction spell, sending all manner of things flying out of the castle.
One misfire hit a vase that a maid had just finished placing, and after all the time she spent with the floral arrangement, she wasn't about to let it go. She grabbed in her front hooves, and clasped the table it was on with her rear hooves, as Odie ran past her. Next came the guard, who she asked for help, only to be told that he was a 'pony on a mission,' and couldn't stop.
Something had to be done about the stallion, and soon. Otherwise, Odie was never going to help his friend in the basement. He had no idea where to even begin investigating, but he knew he was being led far off any possible trail. Or maybe not.
Up a flight of stairs, he caught the faintest scent of what may have been Lucky Star. Having nothing else to go on, he stopped abruptly to follow it.
When he did, his pursuer tripped over him and landed face first in the rug, and Odie ran up the stairs toward his objective.
At the top, he bumped into a pony who was pushing a piano across the hall, who lost his balance and fell down, pushing the piano toward the stairs.
The unicorn pursuer stopped dead and quickly tried to use his magic to send the piano away, only for the metronome to bounce off the instrument and hit his horn, and negate his spell.
Now that it was so close, his only recourse was to run back downstairs. The piano clanged and crashed close behind him, and with a dramatic dive at the bottom of the stairs, he narrowly avoided danger.
"Sweet Celestia, that dog's a maniac," he grumbled to himself, now more determined than ever to get rid of the canine.
Odie followed the scent to a nearby room. One had clearly been uninhabited for years, but carried faint traces of the missing pony. He frantically searched the room, knowing who was behind him.
After only a brief scan, he began to search more thoroughly, and taking what little he found, in case it would be any help. A picture of the mare, and a stallion that Odie thought may have been Lucky Star, which was wedged in a corner of a very dusty drawer; a necklace that was buried in dust bunnies under the desk; a tiny figurine that looked like a ballet dancer inside a trunk. And then he heard hooves approaching the door behind him.
Worried as to who they may belong to, Odie jumped into the trunk, and cracked it open to peek out.
Sure enough, the unicorn who was following him barged in and started scanning the room.
The guard knew he was on the right track. The dog's paw prints were everywhere in the room. Slowly, he walked around the room, stepping just loud enough for Odie to know he was in there, wherever he was.
Odie shrank down when he passed by the trunk, but he encountered a new problem when he only lowered himself into the dust. The particles all trailed into his nose, making him quietly snort.
The guard turned his head in the direction of the trunk, and began slowly approaching that area of the room.
Odie knew he was coming for him, and needed to escape. He was about to leap out of the chest and out the door, but the mass of dust in his nose kept him from doing anything buy snort and twitch.
The lid of the trunk burst open, when he sneezed violently and sent all of the dust flying out of the trunk and into his pursuers face.
The cloud of dust did help to fog his vision, but it made things more difficult for Odie, when he couldn't see which direction the door was. Even worse, the unicorn was blindly firing his eviction spell in any direction.
Odie picked a direction and ran, and thought he could see the door through his still slightly clouded vision, but that didn't matter when he was finally hit by the eviction spell, dropped what he collected, and was sent hurtling out the window. But he wasn't about to let his hard work go to waste.
Odie dug his claws into the carpet, and with his free paw, he reached for the picture. Once he had hold of it, he reached for the figurine. That was collected, and all he needed now was to grab the necklace.
Before he could, he felt the unicorn grab his waist, and start pulling him from the carpet.
"Oh, no you don't," he growled as he tried to yank Odie free, "There's never been an intrusion on my watch, and I'll be darned if the first one's a mangy dog!"
Odie could feed his claws being pulled free of the carpet, and the necklace was beyond his reach. For any other canine, this would be a problem. But for a dog who was half tongue, it was a cinch. He licked up the necklace, and held it tightly in his teeth. Now that he had everything, he let go of the carpet, and went out the window.
Unfortunately for the unicorn, he was still holding onto Odie when he did, and was sent flying as well. He ended up landing beyond the castle wall, and Odie went sailing back to the front gate.
Both ponies at the front gate yelped loudly when they saw the dog land in front of them, but eased when they saw who it was. Then the older guard noticed what the dog was holding.
"Well, there's something I never thought I'd see again," he said with a chuckle.
"You almost sound like you're glad to see him," the younger guard answered, still unnerved by the power the dog had over him.
"Not the dog. That necklace he's got."
"Huh?"
"See, before you got this shift, I worked here alone. The only visitor I had was a librarian named Lucky Star. Nice guy. The kind that took the time to be there if you needed somepony to talk to. Anyway, one day, he goes to town and comes back with that necklace. Says it's for a mare he knows," he finished with a grin.
"But if it was for his friend, what's it doing in that drool-beast's mouth?"
"Don't know. Thing's got pretty crazy when he got transferred. Apparently, he spent all of his spare time in storage, and missed the news he was moving. What he was doing down there, I don't know. But he sure had to leave in a hurry. You'd think he'd have told his ladyfriend he was going, but nope, he got rushed out too quickly for even that."
That was it! Odie now knew that he had what he needed. Sure, he didn't have it with him, but he knew exactly what Lucky Star had done to say goodbye to his friend.
With all haste, he dove back into the moat. In another moment of suspended consciousness, the younger guard tried to follow him, only to have his tail caught by the older guard, and pulled back to safety.
Under the water, Odie shook his head, after colliding with a marble statue that was in the moat of all places. Once his senses cleared, he went paddling back toward the aqueduct.



The water spout in the laundry room stopped flowing once more, and the maid operating it dove for cover.
Odie came flying out of it once more, only this time, he ran straight for the door, and traversed the halls back the way he came when he first arrived.
Also like when he first arrived, he fell down both flights of stairs to the basement, but that didn't stop him. He ran back through the clutter, and back to the desk where the mare was sitting before, only now, she was gone. But her journal was still on the desk.
He collected the book, along with all the other things he had, and went searching through the storage to find his friend. Sure enough, she was nearby, arranging some items. She was snapped out of her work when she heard Odie quietly bark behind her.
"Well, hello again, dog," she greeted him. She reached out to scratch his ears again, but stopped when she saw what he had in his mouth. "What's this?" she asked as she took the necklace out of his mouth.
She examined it, but didn't recognize it from anywhere. Then she gasped when she saw what else Odie had.
"Where did you find this," she said when Odie gave her the ballerina figurine. "I gave this to Lucky star for his birthday. It was the only dancer in the set he didn't have. I remember, I loved this one so much that I almost kept it for myself..."
She paused to collect herself, until she saw the picture Odie gave her.
Once again, she was left breathless by the dog's find. She hadn't seen her friend's face in years, and now there he was again, with his hooves around her, smiling widely. She forgot when that picture was taken, but looking at it now, she remembered how she felt that day, and she smiled almost as widely as her friend.
Finally, she saw Odie place the journal on the ground, and start flipping through the pages. She glimpsed at each page, seeing a flash of one paper, then another, each one returning a long-forgotten memory to her.
"Please, stop. I don't think I can stand to see any more," she quietly pleaded with Odie. But her curiosity rose when she found something new in her journal. A written page that hadn't been there before, in hoofwriting that she knew from the pony who made her happier than any other.

"Hey, Violet

The mare smiled sweetly at the greeting. It was so like him to give a casual greeting in a letter.

I'm sorry that I had to tell you like this, but I'm being transferred to the Crystal Kingdom in the north. I mean it when I say it hurts more than anything that I couldn't tell you goodbye in pony. But what hurts even more than that is knowing that I can't be there for you anymore.
I know how little you've had in your life, so I can't blame you if you're mad at me for leaving so suddenly. I don't want the last memory you have of me to be how I left you alone. But, even though you won't be with me, I'll hold onto your memory forever.
My time with you was the most precious I ever spent in my life. I know that since I met you, my life has been infinitely richer and fuller in ways I can't describe. In a way, you're my lucky star.
It's going to be difficult being here in the north, but as long as I remember you, I'll never be alone. And until the day comes when we see each other again, I can only wait for you. And it doesn't matter how long it takes. I'll wait forever if I have to.
I love you, Violet. And when we see each other again, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Until then, remember what I used to always tell you: Don't stop dancing.

--Lucky

The mare looked at the necklace she was given, and tears flooded her eyes when she realized what it was meant for. "He was going to..." She was so overcome with emotion that she couldn't finish her sentence.
She remained quiet for what seemed like an eternity. Odie offered his comfort by nuzzling her shoulder, which earned him a warm embrace from the mare.
"Thank you," she whispered to the dog. Were it not for him, she would have likely forgotten him the same way she thought he did her.
Violet took her journal, and looked once more at the cover. Here was a compendium of the most precious times of her life. And now, it was time to make more.
She placed the book on her back, and walked toward the stairs, followed by Odie.
When she reached the bottom step, she hesitated and looked up towards the light at the top. It had been so long since she had seen that world up there, and she didn't know if she could face it. Violet placed one hoof on the step, and a vision of her future with Lucky Star flashed into her mind. All doubts left her, and she strode up the steps, out of the darkness and into the world that had forgotten her.
Back in the basement, Odie sat proudly, happy that he had reforged the bond that two friends shared. He almost ran up after Violet to see her off, but he knew that what Lucky Star wrote was true. He would be there, waiting for her.
And then the dingle-ing noise happened again.
He turned to see the light from before hovering behind him, as if beckoning him toward it. A compulsion that he obeyed. He stopped short of the light, strangely void of the desire to play with it. He never knew much of anything, but this light was different, special even. It was what led him to his adventure, and made him curious as to where it would take him next.
"Of all the things we carry, memories are by far the most precious. And it is the memories we share with those closest to us that shine brighter than the greatest star. Without memories, without friendship, we ourselves begin to fade. And to those who have faded, they need only to realize that they are never truly alone. They only need someone to remind them. Stay true to your friends, Odie, they still have need of you."
And when the voice stopped, the light faded. Odie thought about what the light told him. He always understood the value of staying by your friends, but only now did he realize how important it was that he did. Jon was terribly dull and geeky, and Garfield was the most grumpy and self-centered cat he ever met. Neither one of them could keep any friends. If he wasn't friends with them, who would be? Without him, they'd both fade.
A new noise sounded in the basement, only it wasn't fun at all. It was more of a thumping noise, like something had fallen. When Odie investigated it, he saw a sight that excited him.
Garfield had somehow found his way to the castle, and was trying to squeeze his way into the basement through the window, likely to avoid the guards. Only, he had gotten stuck in the process of doing so.
"This is what I get for not hiring a stunt cat," Garfield grumbled as he struggled to shimmy through the narrow space.
"Arf! Arf!"
"Odie! Man, am I glad to see you buddy. Here, let me borrow this real quick," he said as he grabbed Odie's tongue and used it to lubricate his waist. Now soaked in drool, he squeezed right through the window, and landed with a thud on the floor. And then a bucket landed on his head. "You know, I'm starting to think there's a greater force out there that does these things to me."
Odie was going to offer his tongue again, and lick his friend's head out, but was stopped by Garfield.
"I've got this one."
After a moment of straining, Garfield pulled the bucket off his head, and was greeted by the sight of the painting Odie saw when he first came to the basement. After a moment of watching he felt something new growing inside of him.
"Odie, does that house look familiar to you?"
The two friends looked at the painting before them and took in the scenery of it. As they watched, they swore the painted door opened to reveal Jon in all his dorkiness.
After him, Garfield and Odie watched themselves run out and frolic on the lawn while he walked out to the mailbox.
They watched themselves run and play in the yard, until they both jumped the fence into the neighbor's flower patch, followed by a panicking Jon. When Jon tried to get them back into their yard, he fell over and landed in the flowers himself.
The elderly man who lived next door came out of his house and charged Jon with his cane. The animals had left, and Jon was chased back into his house. The pets realized why they were drawn to the painting. It was the place where they belonged, and hoped to return to.
Odie let out a quiet whimper, and Garfield understood exactly what he meant. They were both filled with the same feeling of longing and homesickness that they never knew they had before.
"I know. I want to go home too, buddy," he said as he patted the dog's head, "Come on. Let's go find those princesses."
And the animals walked out of the darkened room to their destination.
"You know something? Of all the things we left behind, I think I miss Jon the most," Garfield sighed.
Once he heard Jon's name, Odie's ears drooped, and he hung his head. Neither one of them knew what he was doing without them, but they could only assume that he was better off than they were now.



Once again, the sounds and scents of the place he left faded behind Jon as he walked through the starry tunnel to his next destination. But this time, there was nothing ahead of him. Not even a feeling of motion, which was a great relief after the train fiasco. Then he stepped in something.
Whatever it was, it was wet, and with it came the salty smell of the sea.
Finally, a lucky break. Hoping that he was headed to something pleasant, like a beach side resort, Jon sucked in his gut and strutted his macho stuff for the beach babes, only to yelp loudly when the ground below him disappeared, and he saw himself falling towards the open ocean.
> The Adventures of Arbuckle: The Island of Lost Souls
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Adventures of Arbuckle

The Island of Lost Souls


There was nothing but an expanse of blue beneath Jon as he dropped toward the ocean. All he could do was scream loudly, and flail his limbs as he fell.
The closer he came, he started to see something else, but couldn't focus on what it was, since he was too busy plummeting, but whatever it was, he was headed right for it.
When Jon finally landed, and found what he hit was surprisingly solid and dry.
He got up, and found himself in a small rowboat with a couple of oars and a length of rope. When he looked around, and saw nothing but blue in every direction.
"Somebody," Jon shouted, hoping for the off chance that he would be heard. "Anyone!? Boys!? Garfield!? Odie!?"
He was alone. Completely isolated in an endless expanse of water.
Jon slumped in one of the boat's seats, unsure if he would be able to get out of this situation. Even still, his pets were somewhere out there, and he wouldn't find them by sulking. After a moment of searching, Jon picked a direction, and started rowing.
"Garfield! Odie!" Jon shouted his pet's names every few strokes or so, knowing they wouldn't answer, but in the back of his mind, he desperately hoped to hear one of them respond.
Jon rowed for what felt like forever to him. As he traveled, a fog rolled in, keeping him from seeing anything around him, and deepening his sense of isolation.
His strength waned with every stroke of the oars, but his resolve grew. He had come so far, and he wasn't about to give up on finding his pets. Come fog, storm or rough waters, he was going to find them, even if he had to do it alone.
But nobody is ever truly alone at sea.
Below the surface a large figure swam, circling the curious silhouette above it. It was different from anything the creature had seen before, but from past experiences, anything on the surface was edible. Food was hard to come by in the open ocean, and it was going to take this opportunity to sate its appetite.
Back on the surface of the water, Jon trudged on, unaware that his ordeal was about to become much more difficult. His first sign was when the water started to swell, followed by a large mass of bubbles.
"There's a Garfield-sized burp, if I ever saw one," Jon said whimsically as he rowed, unaware of what exactly flipped the train during his last adventure. "Wait a second!"
A Garfield-sized burp? Maybe there was a chance!
"Nah. He hates water. He won't even go near it after he watched 'The Dimwitted Teens of Shark Attack Bay.'"
Little did Jon know that he was about to end up living one of those cheesy B-horror movies that Garfield loved so much.
With a loud splash, something broke through the water very near Jon and sailed high into the air. He couldn't see what it was exactly. Only that it was big. Very big.
He looked up to see what it was, only to lose sight of it in the fog. The only thing he could see was its mouth open wide as it fell back towards the water.
Jon screamed and rowed faster when he realized that it was about dinnertime, and he was on the menu.
He rowed with all his might, in an effort to escape his gigantic predator.
For the most part, it was not in vain, but with only his limited wimpy strength, all he could do was paddle just out of the way of the monster.
The resulting splash created a swell that heaved the boat, sending Jon flying out of his seat and into the water.
Jon held his breath as he was suddenly plunged into his foe's territory, but almost lost it when he finally got a good look at his aggressor.
It was blue in color. Almost completely blue, except for its pitch black head. Scratch that. Its head was pitch black, except for its open, pink mouth full of gleaming white teeth.
It paddled quickly towards him with four webbed feet, and a rudder-like tail.
Jon spun out of its way, but got struck by one of the creature's feet.
Jon was sent spinning by the blow, flipping end over end in the water. When he stopped upside-down, he saw the creature swimming back towards him.
He pulled his head out of the way just as it passed under him.
He righted himself as the creature came back and paddled just above it, bumping its snout, and sent tumbling across its back as it passed again.
From the energy he was expending, and the time he spent under the water, his breath was growing short. He needed to get back to the surface, and fast. And nothing motivated a man like the giant monster swimming below them.
The creature opened its mouth to swallow Jon, only for his hooves to be jammed in its mouth.
It paddled upward more and more, shaking its head so that its prey would be washed into its maw, until it finally reached the surface. Once there, it snapped its jaws shut, anticipating the satisfying crunch of a meal.
Instead, Jon jumped ever so slightly, so that his four hooves balanced on the creature's snout.
Wasting no time to escape, Jon jumped into the water as the creature splashed back into the ocean.
Ahead of him, he could see the shadow of his boat through the fog.
He swam forward as quickly as he could, knowing what was surely close behind him. He swam harder and harder, the boat seemingly floating further away from him.
There was no more time. The longer he stayed in the water, the more danger he was in.
Finally, he reached the boat, and climbed aboard just as he heard the snap of jaws behind him.
Jon was out of danger now, but only slightly. He was still well within the reach of the beast, and now he couldn't tell where it was, now that it dove under the water again.
Then he saw the rope on the boat unraveling. Somehow, the rope had gone overboard, and was now snagged on the creature.
That was it! Now that the rope was attached to it, he could pinpoint its position.
"Wait a second," Jon thought, "The only reason for a rope to be on a rowboat is to tie it to something so it won't drift away. That would mean..."
The length of rope was almost done unraveling, when Jon saw the other end of it tied to the boat. He should have known. Things like this were becoming so routine for him.
"Why me," Jon sighed, before he yelled for dear life as the boat was suddenly jerked forward at high speed.
He held fast to the boat as it skipped over the waves, threatening to send him back into the ocean.
Up ahead, Jon saw another large shadow through the fog. Then another, and another after that. And he was headed right for them. As he got closer, he saw he was headed straight toward a group of rocks.
Jon swerved the boat to the side, missing one rock, and scraping the bottom of the boat up the face of another.
The boat sailed through the air, until it landed on the top of a shorter rock and bounced off onto another and another, and another after that.
The creature weaved through a closely packed cluster of rocks, draining the color from Jon's face when he saw where he was headed.
He steered the boat as best he could, as the rope hooked onto the curvature of the rocky formations and sent him swerving wildly through the water.
Ahead, there was a barricade of rocks that were too close together to pass.
The creature jumped to avoid them, but Jon could do no such thing.
His mind raced for a solution as the rocks got closer to him, but he came up short.
The barricade was upon him now, and all he could see was the spaces between them, which were only big enough for a pony to squeeze through.
It was his only chance.
Jon arranged his four legs so that they were placed one in front of the other, sucked in his gut, and prayed for mercy.
The two sides of the boat shattered, allowing him to stand only in the middle of it like a makeshift surfboard.
This new mount was much more difficult to balance on. Jon wobbled back and forth as he dodged each rock, nearly falling over each time he did.
Beneath him, one of the rocks was slanted, so that only its top part could be seen above the water. Except that Jon couldn't see it through the fog.
As he was pulled through the water, he felt the board beneath his hooves scrape the bottom of the rock, and then he felt himself pulled through the air.
The creature in the water below looked up, and saw its snack flying above it. Now was the perfect opportunity to rise up, and snap down on its hard earned prey.
But if only it were looking where it was going, and didn't crash head first into the oncoming rocks.
Jon flew free of the board, sailed out of the fog, and into the sunlight once more. Grateful that he now had clear vision, he was even more grateful when that clear vision yielded land, and he was headed right towards it.
He lost momentum, and went down, only to skip across the surface of the water like a stone. After a few skips, and he was closer to shore, he started tumbling end over end across the water, until he felt mud beneath him. Once on land, he skidded to a halt on his face, and got a mouthful of sand.
"I don't believe it! After almost thirty years, look who washes up on my shore!" Jon heard a voice say.
He looked up from the sand to see a pony with a black mane and a bushy mustache, who was clothed in a green turtleneck sweater and black khakis.
Jon stood up and spat out the sand in his mouth. "Sorry, but do I know you from somewhere," he asked.
The other pony shook his head lightly. "Can't say I blame you if you don't remember me. Last time I saw you, you were in a body cast after Garfield blew you both up with a killer bubble bath."
"Wait! You know Garfield!?"
"Yeah, I know him. He used to terrorized the heck out of my poor dog. Speaking of: how's Odie doing?"
It all came rushing back to Jon. He recalled a time when there was more than just himself, Garfield and Odie. A time when he had a human confidant, who gave him a sense of connection with a real human being. Something he hadn't felt in a very, very long time.
"No! Way!" Jon said as it hit him like a train.
"You'd better believe it, buddy. I'm back, and better than ever," the mustachioed pony said. He then paused, waiting for Jon to continue their reminiscence.
However, Jon remained silent. It didn't come as a surprise, given how nobody else knew his name. The pony decided to help Jon along.
"Lyman."
Then it really hit Jon. His jaw dropped to the ground, a feat that only Garfield had done when he destroyed the living room on a scale incomprehensible to the civilized mind. Jon tried to speak, but it only came out in incoherent sputters.
"You-- But-- Disappeared-- You went--"
"Yup," Lyman finished for Jon. Apparently Jon's message was getting through well enough.
"But you were--"
"I know."
"But I was--"
"Uh-huh."
"Then you--"
"Yeah, sorry about that."
"And now you're--"
"That's right. Welcome to my new home." Lyman motioned for Jon to take a look at where he was now.
Jon looked before himself, and saw only the beach around him and a ridge before him. Past the ridge, he could see something else poking over the top of it in the distance, but from where he was, he couldn't tell what it was. And all around, the color was different shades of the same drab brown. Not a dot of variety was found in the color of the landscape. The sand, the rocks, the ridge, they all looked the same to him.
"It's a...nice place you got here. A little bland, but it looks homey."
"About as good a home as any, I guess," Lyman answered, "But my place is over here. Why don't I show you around?"
At first, Jon hesitated. He hadn't seen his friend in so long, he wanted to take things slow and catch up on all the lost time with him. He knew that normally, Lyman would have done the same. Now, it felt like Lyman was cutting pleasantries short for some reason.
"Come on, Jon. We have a schedule we like to keep around here," Lyman called from up ahead. Jon scurried forward, and caught up with his friend to explore his new surroundings.
The walk up the hill was short, and as soon as they crossed over the ridge, Jon saw before him a small, quiet town with rocky buildings that looked like they were built right out of the formations, with a pitiful little farmland nearby. He could see ponies walking around, doing their sundry activities, living their lives peacefully. All and all, it was very austere, and familiarly mundane.
Past the town, he could see a mesa with what looked like a cave at the top of it. Other than its size, jagged formations, and steep slopes, Jon could find nothing of particular note about it.
"And that's the grand tour," was all Lyman said as he walked down the slope into the town.
"Huh," Jon said as he followed behind his friend, "But there has to be more than this. Aren't there any nearby towns we can go to?"
"There's only one town on this island, and this is it."
"Island!?" Jon knew he was far from civilization, but he was hit hard when he learned just how far he was. "Is there a way back to the mainland from here?"
"Nope," Lyman answered briefly as they entered one of the buildings, likely his house. Once they were inside, Lyman began packing various foods into a bag. "People only come to this island. Nobody knows how we do, but this is where we come to stay."
"But that can't be right. I know if I lived here, I'd want to move," Jon said.
From what little he saw, Jon knew this wasn't the most desirable place to live. In fact, the only person he knew who lived in such a minimalist, dreary condition was a guru who tried to convert Jon to his way of living.
"Well, that ain't in the books, Jon. For all anyone else cares, we can all stay here forever," Lyman answered as he left his home with Jon in tow.
Jon couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was there really no way off the island? And stranger still, the pony he was talking to sounded nothing like the Lyman he knew back home. From when they met in high school, to the day he disappeared, Lyman was always amiable and funny. Now, he sounded cynical and brazen.
"What's that supposed to mean? For all who cares," Jon asked.
"Take a look around you, Jon. Get a good look at the ponies here," Lyman said as he indicated the various ponies around them.
Jon did so, and saw that each of the ponies had the same grim look on their faces, as if they were simply drudging through their lives, with nobody to help them through it. He also noticed how each one of them acted like they didn't acknowledge one another as they walked about. One stallion walked right by a mare who was obviously struggling to pull a heavy sack of something down the road toward the direction of the mesa.
"We don't know all that much about each other, but everyone here has one thing in common: the world doesn't need us in it," Lyman continued as he and Jon walked down the road past the mare, "It doesn't matter how much we helped others, or that we made people happy with our selfless acts. We were always left behind and forgotten about. Taken for granted. And if that wasn't it, we just got pushed into the background, until we left on our own accord. We learned the hard way that nice guys finish last. So, on behalf of everyone here: welcome to your new home, Jon Arbuckle."
Jon stopped walking, stunned by his friend's words. He knew that his friends (however few they may be) would never take him for granted. But it wasn't that what stung Jon the most.
What Lyman said was true. In the months before Lyman disappeared, Jon saw him around less and less in favor of talking to his two pets. Once Lyman left, he acted like he didn't notice that he was gone. In fact, he actually didn't notice he was gone. The less he saw Lyman, the more he was pushed away. And now he was here, with the rest of the friends that ponies (and possibly more people) forgot, and it was all his fault.
"I'm sorry, Lyman," Jon said before he started walking again. "I know I wasn't the best friend to you in those last few months. I probably should've been nicer to you, and took the time to acknowledge you were going away."
"That's nice of you to say, Jon. But, what's done is done," was all Lyman said. "To be honest though: living here isn't all that bad. Even though we don't help each other out a lot, it's still nice to help someone. And Blowhard is about the most grateful there is for selfless acts."
"Oh, that's nice," Jon said. He knew he was going to regret asking, but he had a gnawing curiosity to know, "Who's Blowhard?"
"Our neighbor up on the mesa. We all visit him a couple of times a week to share our meager little harvest with him."
"All of you," Jon asked.
He didn't see anyone else there, but himself, Lyman, and a few ponies in front of them. When he looked behind himself, he saw the rest of the town's population, carrying bags stuffed to capacity. They sure were bringing a lot of food. It was likely that this neighbor of theirs had a Garfield-sized appetite.
But, Jon didn't get his hopes up. There was no way his pets could have ended up here. After all, they weren't anywhere else he was before.
The rest of the trip was passed in relative silence. There wasn't much to talk about for either of them. Nothing much changed in either of their lives since they parted ways. Only that Lyman's dog was now living with Jon.
It made Lyman slightly happy to learn that his dog was being taken care of, but it wasn't much solace that Garfield was still punting him off the table once every other day.
The ponies' trek took them to the base of the mesa, where a makeshift elevator, crafted from a large woven platform and many thick ropes, hoisted them all high into the air.
Jon looked over the edge, and saw how high they had all been taken. It was dizzying to see the ground from such a height, and looking up showed that they still had several hundred feet to go.
He was glad when the elevator reached the top. He was the first one off of it, and he practically hugged the solid ground.
"Sweet terra firma," Jon said as he reveled in the dirt.
As he was rolling around, the other ponies departed the elevator, and walked all over Jon like a doormat.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" Jon yelled as he had his face driven into the ground over and over.
Finally, the last pony passed by, and Jon rolled to his hooves.
All the ponies were gathered in front of the entrance to the cave. The top of the mesa was quite large, big enough to allow each of the ponies to move about easily, which made it easier for Jon to push his way to the front of the crowd where Lyman was.
They all waited at the mouth of the cave. As the seconds passed, Jon became tense, anticipating something very bad to come out of the darkness. But still, after almost a minute, nothing happened, making Jon think that maybe it was a bust. Then a rumbling came from within the cave.
After the rumbling, a hot wind blew from inside the cave, and blasted the faces of every pony present. As the new arrival, Jon didn't know to expect, and was knocked off his hooves while everyone else braced themselves, and remained upright.
Then the ground shook, and Jon looked up to see the nightmarish sight of a huge dragon coming out of the cave.
It towered over the ponies at almost ten times their height. Lending further to its intimidating appearance were the spines down its back, its oversized claws, and its bladed tail.
"Hello, Blowhard," one of the ponies in the crowd greeted him.
"You're early today," the dragon rumbled.
"We remembered how upset you were when we came late the last time."
"I was. I was very upset."
"Well, we all thought that this would make up for it, and hopefully you wouldn't...burn our town like you said you would."
Blowhard stared intensely at the pony before him. He watched as the pony began to tremble in anticipation of the dragon's answer.
"Water under the bridge," Blowhard answered with a smirk. "You'll have to forgive me for losing my temper, because I know how we help one another here."
Jon couldn't understand how he was helping them. Blowhard was giving off the vibe of a real nasty customer whose good side you wanted to stay on. He reminded him of his first boss when he started working as a cartoonist, or his aunt Gussie, who was kicked out of the marines for unnecessary roughness.
In total awe, Jon watched as each of the ponies stepped forward and placed their bags of food in front of the dragon, some of them cowering under his gaze.
"What's everybody doing," he asked Lyman, who had just gotten back from dropping off his bag of food.
"We're giving our neighbor a hand," Lyman answered. "It's really hard to find food around here, so we like to help each other. We try to grow food, and what we do grow, about half of it goes to Blowhard. And to help us out, he doesn't eat anyone in town."
"That's crazy," Jon shouted, loudly enough for everyone to hear him.
"What!?" Blowhard said as he shot his gaze in Jon's direction.
As soon as they saw the Blowhard's ire rising, the ponies around Jon all too several steps away, isolating him for the dragon to see.
"What did you say, pony?"
Any other time, Jon would have felt faint if he was facing an angry dragon, but Blowhard had just offended every one of his sensibilities.
"I only just got here, and I already hate you as a neighbor! You stay up here threatening and extorting the ponies, and you act like you're being their friend for it!? You don't care about any of them! You--You're just a bully is all!" Jon fumed at the dragon.
Nopony had ever spoken to Blowhard in such a way. Even though they all thought of him as their friend, they were all terrified of what would happen if they spoke out of turn. And Blowhard liked it that way.
As long as the ponies were under his claw, life was good for him. And now one of the ponies was threatening that.
Blowhard bored his intense gaze into Jon, knowing he would cower under it like every other pony on the island. "I've seen ponies like you before," he said in a low voice, "You think you can get ahead by spreading your goodwill, and being a friend to everycreature you cross. It always feels good at first, but you never get what you want, or where you want to be. And do you know why? Because they assume that you will always be that way, and will allow you to continue your charity without giving anything in return. Wouldn't you rather share your deeds with a creature who would truly appreciate it. A creature like me?"
Once again, Jon was at a loss for words. Ever since he started looking for his pets, he had been helping others with their problems, and never found who he was looking for. And even before that, he tried to be as nice and civil as he could, only to end up publicly humiliated. Even when he tried to be nice to Garfield, that cat always rebuked him and repaid him in some nasty way.
"So what...I know that they'd prefer the way I'd treat them over what you do."
"And what makes you so special? What have you done for any of them?"
"Nothing...B-But I know that they're all as sick of you as I am! And I know they want you out of here! In fact, if I could do it, I'd get you out of here myself!"
Blowhard's mouth smoked malevolently, and he lowered his head to Jon's, leveling his glare for the cartoonist to see in full.
"Is that a challenge, pony!?"
Jon didn't know if he should answer that. When he was younger (in fact, even at his current age) he was beaten unmerciful by anyone who saw him as a lesser human being, which was pretty much everybody. He spent his whole life living in fear of people like that, and now he was facing a dragon with that same disposition.
But after all he had gone through, things may have been different for him. He saved a town from a tyrannical politician and his burly goon. He defeated, and turned in the most notorious gang in the west. Slaying a dragon would be no problem for him.
"Yeah...it's a challenge," Jon squeaked out.
"What was that? SPEAK UP, PONY," the dragon demanded.
"I said..." Jon took several deep breaths, and fought against passing out, "It's...It's a challenge!!" He said with a heavy exhale.
Blowhard reared up to his full height, displaying his imposing figure as he spread his wings. "You don't know what you're getting into, pony," he said as embers drifted out of his mouth.
"I'm not worried. I know that I'll have help." Jon looked around the crowd of ponies, hoping one of them would join his side.
Not one of them did. They all stepped backwards, shaking their heads slowly, conveying that not one of them was willing to help him, even though the look on their faces told him they desperately wanted to.
"But..." Jon said as he turned to look at a different group, only to see them back away as well. "Lyman?"
Surely, his oldest friend would be at his side for this.
"Sorry, Jon," Lyman said flatly, "You're on your own for this one."
Even when he was alone at sea, Jon never felt so isolated. Among an entire crowd, he was alone. Nobody was going to help him, even if out of the goodness of their hearts. If anything was going to change, Jon was going to have to do it himself.
Slowly at first, Blowhard trudged forward, but his pace soon quickened to a trot, and the ponies around Jon parted out of the way.
Jon backed away, trying to come up with a plan. He didn't know what people did when they faced down a charging dragon.
This wasn't a fairy tale, and he wasn't a knight in shining armor. Unless something happened soon, it was curtains for him.
And then he went sprawling backwards over the mesa.
> The Adventures of Arbuckle: Jon Arbuckle, Dragon Slayer
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Adventures of Arbuckle

Jon Arbuckle, Dragon Slayer


It was all too easy.
Blowhard watched as his would-be opponent tumbled over the edge of his lofty home, satisfied with the quick conclusion.
"And don't show your face around here again," the dragon yelled before he started to turn back to his haul of food.
"Come on! Is that all you got," Jon's voice called from over the edge.
By all means, Jon should have been splattered on the ground below.
Blowhard went back to the edge of the mesa, peered over, and found Jon tangled in the ropes for the elevator.
"I can see why your parents named you Blowhard! All talk and no walk," Jon yelled as he tried to free his legs.
The prospect of narrowly defying death filled Jon with a kind of bravado he only saw in action movies where the male lead was tall, muscular, and was invincible in battle. It was the greatest feeling in the world for him to be living like one of those testosterone-fueled power fantasies, as opposed to his usual pitiful existence. But it quickly left him when he watched Blowhard raise his bladed tail to chop his lifeline, and send him plummeting.
Jon struggled to pull himself free, and was successful. The real trouble came when the rope was actually cut.
The cartoonist fell some twenty feet before the rope he was clinging to went taut, leaving him suspended nearly four-hundred feet in the air.
The more Jon tried to free himself, the more tangled he became. He spun, twisted and flailed about, until only one of his legs remained mobile. He looked up to see Blowhard raise his tail again, to send Jon to the ground.
With his one free leg, Jon scurried across the side of the mesa, and swung himself out of danger. He then went swinging back towards it like a pendulum when his rope ran out of slack.
He watched Blowhard raise his bladed tail once more, and scurried faster past it when it came dangerously close to hitting him.
Blowhard had had about enough of waiting to swat the annoying fly as he passed, and started chopping at Jon as he swung, only just behind him.
As he ran across the vertical surface, Jon heard his opponents tail crashing behind him, getting closer with each impact. One was so close that the shock of the impact sent Jon flying further forward.
Flying through the air, Jon knew that he had to do something, but nothing came to mind. His backlog of useless hobbies he picked up would do no good here, and he wasn't exactly known for his fighting skills. All he could do was swing back toward danger, and hope Blowhard would miss.
His opponent's tail came swinging back toward him, aimed to cut the rope that held him aloft.
In order to avoid his lifeline getting severed, he pulled himself toward the wall, and pushed himself forward faster.
Blowhard's tail crashed behind him, and once more sent him spinning forward.
Jon bumped over and over across the rocky surface, until he finally managed to grab hold of a small rock that jutted out of the wall.
From all the spinning he experienced, the cartoonist was terribly dizzy, and his vision was a messy blur, with only clear images of lots of stars and chirping birds. After a moment, his vision began to clear, and he saw before him what may have been the solution to his problem. If only his vision would clear faster.
"Excuse me, Mr. Bluebird," Jon said, as he gently pushed aside one of the imaginary birds that was circling his head. Then he saw his solution clearly.
Embedded in the rocks were veins of some kind of metal. Thick ones at that. He had seen Blowhard break the rocky walls of the mesa with his tail, but maybe, just maybe, if this metal was harder than the rock, he'd have a chance to at least take care of Blowhard's tail.
Jon looked up, and saw Blowhard aiming his tail to strike once more. He knew his plan was stupid. More than likely, it was bound to end in failure.
Blowhard swung again, and with a mighty scream of terror, Jon spun away just before he was hit, and he heard the dragon bellow in pain.
Back at the top of the mesa, the ponies watched as Blowhard pulled his tail back up to examine his injury. When they saw his tail, its bony, bladed tip had cracked and broken.
Lyman's eyes went wide as he wondered what in the world Jon could have done to inflict that kind of damage to the dragon. He stepped forward to investigate, but stopped short when Blowhard's mouth started smoking, and he took a deep breath in.
After he was done spinning around, Jon found himself free from his entanglement, and clung tightly to the rope. When he stopped hearing the crash of his opponent's tail, he breathed a sigh of relief. Until he looked up, and his relief became confusion when he saw Blowhard look like he was slightly inflating.
The dragon was through messing around with Jon. He did what he knew he should have done from the beginning, and let loose a stream of flames that burned right through the ropes of the elevator.
After the flames subsided, Lyman, and all of the other ponies ran to the edge to see what happened.
Jon screamed manically as his lifeline was torched, until it was completely burned through and he started plummeting to the ground below.
All he had with him now was the length of rope in his hooves. Most of it was untouched by the flames, so it retained its strength. The many jagged outcroppings on the walls would serve nicely as anchor points. Even though he had only seen other people do it, it was his only chance.
Jon quickly fashioned a lasso out of the rope, and tried to recall Desert Rose's throwing technique. As the ground came closer, he cut his remembrance short, and just threw.
"Fly true, little rope," Jon yelled.
The rope looped around one of the outcroppings.
"Yes! Jon Arbuckle will live!"
Jon held fast as his momentum swung him around and around the formation.
"WHOAHWHOAHWHOAHWHOAHWHOAHWHOAHWHOAHWHOAH!!!"
--THUD!!!
Finally, he crashed into the outcropping, and clung tightly to it, shaking like a leaf in the wind.
Back at the top of the mesa, Blowhard saw that Jon was still alive, and beyond his reach. Something had to be done about that, and he was going to see to it that Jon was ended.
The dragon crawled over the edge of his perch, and climbed down the side like an oversized gecko.
"The new guy's in for it now," one of the ponies said to nopony in particular.
As he clung to the jagged outcropping, Jon heard a crunching sound that was growing closer and closer. He looked up to see Blowhard crawling towards him at a rapid pace, spurring Jon to loose his rope, and jump from the rock just before it was scorched.
"OH, NO!!--OH, JEEZ!!--OH, MOMMA!!" Jon shouted as he hopped from rock to rock as they were torched behind him. He readied his lasso again, and swung himself further away from his opponent. As he swung upward, he yelled as he felt the heat of the flames singe his hindquarters.
He swung around the bend of the mesa to the area behind it, and landed on another rock where he fanned his toasty flank.
Behind the mesa, it was much different than the front, or the sides. Here, he had a clear view of the ocean, and all of the rocks below him jutting out of the water. Also below, he could see a familiar silhouette weaving between the rocks.
The creature from before poked its head out of the water, looked up the cliff for any vittles, and Jon swore it smacked its lips when it saw him.
It started crawling up the sides of the mesa, lending itself to greater visibility than when Jon saw it underwater. To him, it looked like a different kind of dragon. One that was better suited for living in the water, not to mention lousy at climbing with its webbed feet. Seeing that it couldn't climb was a great relief to Jon, but not so much when Blowhard appeared around the bend.
Taking his one chance at escape, Jon jumped from the mesa to the rocks in the ocean below. Of course, being inexperienced in acrobatics, he missed completely and went straight towards the ocean dragon's open mouth.
Not about to become anyone's snack, he threw his rope again, and looped it around the top of one of the rocks, stopping his fall just short of the ocean dragon's snapping jaws.
The dragon grew frustrated by this. Normally, food like this was more trouble than it was worth, but it had to eat something, so it decided to try again.
Jon rolled himself up in the rope, pulling himself higher out of danger. Unfortunately, he left no hooves free this time, and had to go spinning back as he dropped back to the reach of his predator.
"Y-You shouldn't eat me," Jon shouted before he had to roll up and down like a yo-yo. "I'm stringy!"
Roll up.
*SNAP*
Roll down.
"I'm high in cholesterol!"
Roll up.
*SNAP*
Roll down.
"I put too much butter on my potatoes!"
Then it really hit the fan when Jon saw Blowhard jump from the face of the cliff to the top of the rock next to him. He swung himself out of the way of another stream of flames, which also sent the ocean dragon diving underwater to avoid getting burned.
On the other side of the rock, Jon looked down and saw that the ocean dragon had circled around with him, and tried once more to snap him out of the air. To avoid him again, Jon went scrambling over the top of the rock, where he quickly jumped down the other side as another stream of flames, and sent him right toward the other dragon's open mouth.
Mid-fall, Jon started scrambling up his rope, but couldn't avoid having the cuff of his pants snagged on one of the ocean dragon's fangs. Jon tried to shake his leg loose, only for it to let go of him when Blowhard's flames came streaming in.
"Back off, bubble head," Blowhard shouted, "That pony's mine."
The ocean dragon retaliated by spitting a stream of water at Blowhard's face, soaking him. He would have retaliated, if not for how Jon was escaping. The cartoonist had left his rope from earlier, and was now hopping across the tops of the rocks toward the shore.
Not about to let Jon escape, Blowhard started walking across the rocks after Jon, clawing, biting and shooting fire all the way.
Jon hopped as fast as he could ahead of his opponent, praying for mercy as his hooves just barely landed on each platform.
Ahead of him, Jon could see that the next rock was too far away for him to land on. He wasn't about to take his chances with stopping, know how close Blowhard was behind him. He had to at least try.
When he came to the last rock, Jon jumped with all his might to the distant landing, hoping desperately that he would make it. But that's not how things ever worked for Jon Arbuckle.
He came up several feet short, and went falling toward the water, just as the ocean dragon's silhouette started surfacing below him. It came bursting out of the water, once again hoping for a tasty morsel.
Jon twisted mid-air, hoping to dodge its teeth once more, only instead to bump its snout as it jumped upward. The force of the ocean dragon's jump sent Jon flying back towards the wall of the mesa. Once again, the ocean dragon lost its meal, and splashed its front fin in frustration.
Back in the air, Jon impacted the mesa wall face first with a solid thud.
"I think my face is inside out..." Jon moaned after hitting his face for what must have been the hundredth time. But he realized that he couldn't dawdle as he put his face back together when he heard Blowhard jump back on the wall and come crawling toward him.
Try as he might, Jon couldn't scramble away as fast as he could before now that he was without a rope, so he ended up doing the only thing he could to avoid getting toasted. He let go of the rocky surface and fell further back towards Blowhard, who raised a claw to smash Jon as he fell.
Seeing the claw raise, and with little other recourse, Jon rolled out of the way just as the claws smashed the wall, and clung tightly to Blowhard's leg.
Throughout the battle, Jon had become increasingly annoying to Blowhard. Now he was holding onto him like a persistent little flea. He violently shook his front leg, until Jon's grip loosened, and sent him flying into the air. Satisfied, Blowhard started climbing upward to tell the ponies about the example Jon had set: anypony who challenges him gets destroyed. But then he felt something on his back.
Looking over his shoulder. Blowhard saw that Jon was now holding fast to the spines on his back.
"Not so fast," Jon said, "I'm not done with you yet!"
He spoke as if he had any position of power over Blowhard, and the dragon knew that he was only blowing smoke. Still, the pony had to be gotten rid of. Blowhard started bucking wildly, trying to shake his opponent off his back.
For Jon, it was like riding on the back of a horse, like he did when he was a kid. Only this time, it was like the angry horse was a fire-breathing, two ton monster. His dad taught him ways to stop a bucking horse, but the problem was that he fell off too many times to retain any of that knowledge. So, instead he held on until his hooves slipped loose, and he went falling down the dragon's back, bumping his head on every one of his spines as he went. His fall stopped when he grabbed onto the base of Blowhard's tail.
"Ya had enough yet," Jon asked in a daze.
His dizziness was cleared for him when he was suddenly shaken around by Blowhard once more.
Blowhard was beyond tired of having to deal with this pony. As far as he could tell, there was no way to kill this pony. But he knew a spineless type when he saw them, and he could tell that this pony was often treated like a doormat. Ponies like him could easily be talked into quitting, and that was going to have to be his recourse.
"You could just give up, you know," Blowhard said as he swung Jon around. "You can stop this, and put it behind us. Then you can live your miserable little existence like it never happened."
"No way," Jon yelled as he was flung around. "Someone has to help these ponies!--And darn it, if I don't who will!"
"What do you owe them anyway? What makes you feel like you have to help them!"
"Because--WHOAH!!--Because even though I just met them--I know they need--a helping hand--I can't pass that up--It's like that saying about--treating others like you would yourself!!"
Back at the top of the mesa, Jon's words touched something within Lyman.
Back in the day, Lyman was weak, helpless and homeless. His parents wouldn't allow him to move in with them, because he wouldn't give up Odie, who ruined every inch of the carpet in a single night. And he had very few friends.
It was only Jon who took him in, offering his home without a second thought.
In the years to come, he lived under Jon's roof rent free, as if he was a member of Jon's own family. There, Lyman felt like he belonged, and could be there forever.
But then, one day, Jon started talking to him less and less, until he stopped talking to him altogether. So, one day, he left the house to make his own way. He invited Odie to go with him, but the dog acted like he wanted to stay behind with Jon and Garfield, like he had some kind of obligation to do so. With that, he left on his journey alone.
Lyman remembered how he tried to find somewhere else he could stay, and find new friends who he could be with. But, no such luck. The only person he ever related to was Jon, and now he was acting like he didn't exist. So he kept travelling further and further.
Eventually, he decided to start his life anew and move across the sea. He stowed away in the back of a cargo plane that was bound for Africa, and waited patiently for his new life to begin.
But there was a development that he didn't anticipate. He didn't know what happened, but the noise outside made him think it was some kind of rough weather that was responsible for the plane suddenly plummeting into the ocean.
Lyman escaped, and he never found the pilot. He salvaged a life raft, which he inflated and climbed aboard, only to be tossed and churned by the stormy waters. By the end of the storm, a fog rolled in, and he was left alone at sea, wondering if he'd ever make it off the ocean.
After the fog cleared, Lyman discovered two new developments. The first was that he found land, but the second was far more puzzling than that. He discovered that his body had changed to equine proportions, hooves, tail, long face and all.
He paddled to shore with his bare hooves, and eventually, his raft washed up on the shore. There, he found a town of other ponies like him, who had all ended up there under circumstances just as unusual. But none of them had any interest in sharing how so. All they did was tell him how even though they were all good-hearted individuals, not one of them was appreciated as such and was phased out of the lives of their friends. Ever since, that was where Lyman had been, living his lonely life with his neighbors.
Now, Jon was back in his life, and fighting for the sake of not only him, but for a group of ponies he never even met before. It was stupid! It was crazy! Heck, it was what he would have done for Jon in the same situation! He ran away from the other spectators to try and help his friend.
For almost a minute, Jon tightly held onto Blowhard's tail, knowing he was finished if he let go without a plan. The safest thing to do would be to launch himself upwards to the top of the mesa where he'd be back on solid land. Unfortunately, he couldn't count on Blowhard aiming him in that direction.
He held on for as long as he could, until he felt his hooves slipping again. Jon tried to tighten his grip once more, but it did no good for him. He went flying away, parallel to the wall, and straight to the rocks below where he would surely be splattered. If not for what happened next, that is.
As he flew, Jon saw several ropes slowly shifting toward him. Not about to waste time wondering how they were doing that, he grabbed onto one of them, saving his hide.
Now that he was safe, Jon looked at the ropes, and found them to be the elevator system from earlier. Looking up, he saw Lyman with his hooves pressed firmly against the supports.
"Lyman," he yelled, surprised that his friend was able to push that big, heavy thing on his own.
"Hang on, Jon! I'll get you out of there," Lyman strained, as his whole body shook under the pressure of of the support trying to snap back into place. 
In order to ease his friend, Jon started climbing the ropes, clumsily though it may be. But an idea occurred to him when he heard Blowhard crawling toward him.
He first tried to execute his plan by swinging back and forth, but it did no good. He needed all of the ropes to pull it off.
"You need to wobble the supports," he yelled to Lyman."
"What!!?"
"The supports need to wobble! I have a plan!"
Lyman didn't know what was going through Jon's mind, but he complied anyway. He eased the supports back to their original position, and started wobbling the supports. Pushing them slightly to the side was difficult enough, since the things were so rigid. He tried pushing and bucking as hard as he could, but only managed to get a light sway.
"Come on, Lyman! It's the only way we can help these people," Jon yelled as he swung himself away from Blowhard's claws.
Lyman began to tire from his work, but he wasn't going to give up. Not when Jon sounded so sure he was going to succeed. Then the structure began to sway more.
Seeing two ponies work together awoke something within the other ponies that made them remember what life was like when they tried to spread their goodwill, instead of giving up on it.
It started with one pony helping Lyman, then another, and another, and another joined in. Soon, the whole population of the island was helping to rock the supports of the elevator. They didn't know what Jon was planning, or even if he would succeed, but the least they could do was try.
Jon and Blowhard almost stopped when the ropes around them all came alive, and swung around them. But neither could stop. They had to finish each other off.
Blowhard swatted the ropes out of his way as Jon started swinging all around him. No matter how he tried, he couldn't get rid of Jon. Everywhere he looked, Jon was suddenly somewhere else, swinging on a different rope than before. His mouth smoked as he was about to let loose another stream of flame, but it stopped before it even started.
Just as the flames came, Jon swung a rope around Blowhard's snout, tying it tightly shut. All Blowhard could do was blow smoke out his nose as the fire cooked inside his mouth.
The next thing the dragon knew, his legs were tightly tied together as Jon swung around and around him at blinding speeds.
It felt completely natural to Jon to do this. Even though he had never done any sort of trapeze or rope contortions, he felt like his mind had focused completely on which rope he needed at the moment, and where it needed to be used. One more whirl around the dragon should finish him off...aaaaaaannnd done. With plenty of rope to spare, even.
With one last swing, Jon flew high into the air and landed gracelessly on his face. When he stood up, he looked over the edge, and saw Blowhard dangling helplessly in the air, struggling to free himself. But it was no good for the dragon, who only made his situation worse.
All the rocking had weakened the base of the supports, and his struggling was doing it no favors. After only a few seconds, the supports broke, and fell over.
The momentum of his swing sent him falling to the side of the mesa, where down below, the ocean dragon spied the entangle Blowhard falling. It quickly swam to shore, and awaited its long overdue meal.
As Blowhard fell, Jon dove for the ropes, caught them, and was dragged toward the edge by the dragon's weight. It was only the supports catching on the jagged edges of the towering formation that stopped Blowhard just short of the ocean dragon's reach, who was hopping as high as it could to catch its meal.
Nobody had to ask Jon why he did what he did. If they didn't save Blowhard, how would they be better than he was? As soon as Jon stopped sliding, they all joined him and pulled the ropes as hard as they could.
Slowly but surely, Blowhard was pulled higher up to safety.
The ocean dragon was too hungry to give up. With one last effort, it jumped high, only to get tangled in the ropes that were still left dangling, and only made it worse the more it struggled.
Back at the top, the ponies all doubled their efforts when the weight suddenly increased. Jon himself felt something new growing inside of him.
Something that made him feel warm all over, and incredibly lightheaded. It may have been that which made him feel like he was able to lift Blowhard up all by himself.
Lyman noticed how dazed Jon was looking, and stopped pulling to escort Jon away while Blowhard was safely pulled up to the ledge. "You feeling okay, Jon," he asked.
"Yeah. I feel...strangely great," Jon answered. After his ordeal Jon felt like there was nothing that he couldn't handle.
"AH!!!!!"
However, he yelped like a sissy when he saw the ocean dragon get pulled up over the edge, even though it too was tightly bound.
"So, what do we do now, Sir Lancelot?"
"Well, I guess from here, we try to make things right."



Almost an hour passed, and things already changed for the better.
New farmlands had been plowed, and the ponies were all working with one another. Ponies were cooperating to plant and water, and even took time out of their own work to help others with their projects.	
"That's some mighty fine work," Lyman said as he and Jon took a break from their labor and overlooked the progress that was made. "You haven't been here a day, and you already got everyone working together. It's like you were sent here for just that."
"Well, I can't take all the credit for this. It was a group effort, after all."
"Ugh... This is so disgraceful," Blowhard moaned as he passed by Jon and Lyman, now tightly tied to the elevator's supports, which had been modified into a makeshift plow.
"You're disgraceful," Jon shouted, making the dragon cringe, "If you want to stay here, you're going to start pulling your weight, and act like a good neighbor! So get plowing, mister!"
With his tail between his legs, Blowhard resumed his labor without any further arguments.
Jon then turned his attention to the nearby ocean, where the ocean dragon had been lashed to the woven platform, which had been modified into a ferry.
"That goes for you too! These people need supplies from the other islands, and you're going to help them! You got that!?"
The ocean dragon timidly submerged its head so that only its fearful eyes poked out above the water.
"Good! Now, MUSH!"
The ocean dragon quickly swam away with the ponies ferrying behind it to whichever island was the nearest.
"Jeez, Jon. If you talked to Garfield like that once in a while, your life might be a bit easier," Lyman quipped.
"I know. But I guess I'm just too nice a guy to yell at my pets."
"Well, I bet those boys will be glad to see you again when you get home."
"Yeah..."
Jon hadn't thought about them for a while. It had been so long since he saw them, he started to doubt that he would ever see them again. He searched what must have literally been all over the world, and he found no trace of them. He was told that by helping others, he'd find them, but so far, nothing worked. He was so despondent, he barely even reacted when he and Lyman were both bathed in a familiar twinkling light.
"Whoah. Somebody call the Enterprise. Scotty beamed the wrong coordinates," Lyman said, wide eyed.
"That's where I need to be next," Jon answered.
"Wait! What!? You're leaving!? After almost three decades, you're gone! Just like that!"
"I'm sorry Lyman, but apparently people need me somewhere else. But you know: I don't think it would hurt if you came with me."
After so many years, Lyman was elated to learn that he'd be reunited with his friend. He stepped forward, ready to return to his old life, but something stopped him.
"Hey! We could use a hoof over here! Blowhard's plow caught on somepony's house."
All around Lyman, he saw how the ponies, who were once as downtrodden as he was, working happily together. He knew the ponies all felt the same way he did, like they had rediscovered their purpose in life. It was something that they needed to keep, and somebody had to make sure they did. It was what he did for Jon before, so why wouldn't he do it for others?
"Actually, I think I'm needed here," Lyman answered. "All my life, I've been making other folks feel better about themselves, and I think these guys need me more than you do. So, thanks but no thanks."
"Are you sure you want to stay?"
"Yeah. I feel like I'm with my own kind here. Besides, you've got Garfield and Odie to keep you company."
"They really do make things worthwhile," Jon sighed.
He stayed beside Lyman for a few more seconds, basking in his friend's presence, until he stepped forward through the doorway. And this time, he promised himself not to forget Lyman when he was gone. Once he stepped through, he turned back to say his final goodbyes. "Goodbye, Lyman. Be good to everyone here."
"So long, Jon. And give this to Odie when you find him," Lyman said as he tossed something to Jon, which he caught just before the doorway closed.
Jon stood alone in the starry corridor, and examined what Lyman gave him. What he found in his hoof was a familiar yellow and red ball. He gave it a light shake, and it made that familiar dingle-dingle noise. Normally, he would have been annoyed by the noise, but this time it was different.
After he heard the noise, he could practically hear Odie barking, and come charging toward him. He imagined how Odie would jump and frolic until he woke up Garfield, who would boot him across the room. As troublesome as that would actually be, he longed for it again, if only he could see Garfield and Odie.
With his pets in mind, he turned around and walked down the corridor, but stopped after the first few steps, and slumped onto the ground.
"Jon?"
Jon looked up to see the stellar horse from when he first arrived standing before him.
"Why have you stopped? Your friends still have need of you."
"I can't do it," Jon said quietly, "I've been looking for so long, and it's done no good."
"What are you talking about? You've done plenty of good on your journey."
"No, I haven't. I only started this thing to find my friends. But I only feel like I'm getting further away from them. I've been all over the place, and every time I feel like I'm getting close I find out they're somewhere else." Jon let out a heavy sigh, "I'm no use to them...I'm no use to anyone."
"I don't think you understand the importance of your actions," the stellar horse said to Jon. "Ever since you came to Equestria, you've done nothing but help those in need. You brought laughter back to an entire town. You secured the bonds of loyalty when two friends were as distant as can be. You helped an entire island remember the warmth of kindness. And that's only the beginning. Before that, you were the man who saved the lives of two homeless pets. Who else but you would have adopted a cat who was left in a pet shop for eating everything in the kitchen he was born in? Or took in the dog who was kicked out of every other home he had for repeated acts of stupidity? Tell me: why would you do that?"
"Because..." Jon never actually thought about why he did the things that he did. It all came to him by nature, and it was just a part of who he was. But if he had to think about it, "Because no one else would. I felt like if I didn't take them in, they wouldn't make it. And even though they drive me nuts, I've had too many good memories that would never have happened without them. Dating Liz, (disastrous as that's been). Going to Hollywood. Giving me endless inspiration for my comic strip. Life's so much better when I have them."
"Exactly," the stellar horse said, "For you see, the world is not always a pleasant place to live in. And the people we meet are not always the friendliest. When the rare glimmer of kindness shines, others are attracted to it, and hope that it never leaves them. As heavy as the responsibility may be, it's those who possess that light that need to share it with others, and remind them that the world is not always such a bad place. Now go, Jon. Your friends are just down this hall."
And the stellar horse ascended and disappeared into the stars around him.
Jon never knew how much others must have appreciated meeting him, even if they didn't realize it. And he knew that wherever they were, Garfield and Odie were missing him terribly now that they didn't have him. But he couldn't think about that forever. If what the horse said was true, he was about to be reunited with his friends, and he marched down the corridor with a renewed spring in his step.
His heart grew so light, he felt like he could fly as he imagined how his pets would react to seeing him again.
But as he walked, he could feel the air around him growing hotter. And then he could smell smoke. Wherever Garfield and Odie were, it couldn't be anywhere good.
> Chapter 7: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 7

Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire


In the Canterlot palace throne room, Princess Luna paced back and forth, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the Bearers of Harmony.
"They should have been here by now," Princess Luna said as she passed by her sister, who was calmly sitting in her throne, "Have they no sense of urgency?"
"You know, you worry too much," Celestia said from her seat. "I've never known Twilight to take more time than she needs to get anything done. I'm sure we'll be seeing her any minute."
"Yes," Luna said as she stopped moving. "I have seen her penchant for punctuality many times. But this cannot wait," Luna said as she abruptly continued walking back and forth.
"Lulu, please stop pacing. You're only going to wear yourself out before our guests arrive."
"How can you be so calm? This is nothing to take lightly!"
"I fully understand what is at stake here. I know what happened in those past millennium, and the lives that were lost. But I have complete faith in Twilight and her friends."
"What makes you think they can handle something like this," Luna said as she stopped pacing once more, "This undertaking is far beyond anything they have yet accomplished. And we don't even know if..."
Luna couldn't finish her sentence. Just the thought of what may come made both her and her sister frown. But they found themselves putting on a cheerful facade when they heard their doors opening to let in their six guests.
"Twilight. It's so good to see you again," Celestia warmly greeted.
Twilight had personally known Princess Celestia for years, allowing her to know when she was feigning her feelings. "It's nice to see you too, Princess Celestia. Is everything alright," she said, cutting right to the point.
Celestia should have known that Twilight would see right through her. Since she was found out, she decided it was best to come clean. "I'm afraid not. This is far more serious than anything we've seen before."
For the first time in her life, Pinkie Pie was at a loss for words. Any other time, she would have said something that would lighten the mood, but this time nothing came to her. It was as if all the funny had left her, and all the gravity of the situation settled into her mind.
Even Rainbow Dash was feeling uncharacteristically afraid of what Celestia said. Even though she didn't know what they were summoned for, she felt like abandoning her friends for the safety of some faraway hideout. But that was crazy! That wasn't at all like her! What was going on!?
"How dreadful," Rarity gasped, "What could be so serious?"
The princesses exchanged a look of worry, unsure of what to say. Neither sister could come up with the words to explain. Finally, Luna decided on a course of action, "T'would be easier to show thee than to tell."
"Show and tell! Ooh! I have some pop rocks from my foalhood. They were soooooo poppy, they made my mane bulge," Pinkie said. At least, that's what she would have liked to have said. Somehow, she was still at a loss for anything fun to say.
"Okay. What do we need to see," Twilight asked.
"Follow us. It's just through here," Celestia said as she stood up.
To the confusion of the Bearers, both sisters turned their backs to them and watched their horns glow. Suddenly, their thrones glowed with the respective color of their horns and began to slowly slide apart from each other. As they moved, the wall behind them began to split, and a doorway opened, leading to a room that nopony in the kingdom (not even Twilight) knew existed. Without another word, Celestia motioned for the others to follow her before she and her sister walked through the newly opened door.
Unsure what to make of the situation, the Element Bearers all stared at the doorway. Twilight glanced at her friends, and a shrug from Applejack convinced her to proceed forward. Seeing Twilight take the initiative convinced the others to follow suit.
Once they entered the room, the Bearers were awed by the sights before them. The room was decorated with hundreds of antiquities from ages past. Some looked completely simple and mundane, while others were ostentatiously ornate. Twilight's heart nearly stopped when she recognized many of the items, and realized that they were in a storeroom for what must have been every important item in Equestrian history.
"What's this thing? Some kind of royal bedpost," Rainbow Dash asked as she poked one of the items with her hoof.
"Rainbow Dash," Twilight said as she clamped her hooves around the antique before it fell over, "That's Princess Luna's scepter! She used to carry this thousands of years ago when she first became co-ruler of Equestria!"
"Oh. So, hooves off, right?"
Twilight rolled her eyes at her friend's aloof attitude toward such an important artifact. However, before she could let loose a history lesson, Celestia spoke up.
"Twilight. Over here, please," the solar princess said as she and her sister presented a simple wooden chest. It was unremarkable, to say the least, but when the chest was opened, and the contents within were revealed.



At that very moment, the doors to the throne room inched open, and Garfield and Odie squeezed their way in.
"Finally! We made it," Garfield said triumphantly, now that they were at the end of their journey. "Alright, your highness: I've been--" Garfield stopped speaking when he saw that nobody was in the room. "Darn it, Odie! You said you could smell ponies this way!"
Odie answered with a shrug and a grumble.
"What do you mean the whole castle smells like pony!? We're only looking for six specific ones!"
Without any warning, they saw a light glowing from a room beyond. If it was anything like the one that they saw before, it may have been a lead for them.



"Those're the Elements o' Harmony," Applejack exclaimed, "But what's wrong with 'em!?"
As soon as the box was opened, the six mares were greeted by the familiar sight of the artifacts that saw them through their hours of greatest need, when the world itself was at the brink of ruin.
With a radiant glow, the elements always gave hope to those who saw them. But now, only three of them glowed. Magic, honesty and generosity were as brilliant as ever; but kindness, laughter and loyalty had all reverted to the dull, useless stone form as when they were first found.
"Princess, what does this mean," Twilight asked as she examined the inert elements.
"You've got to reorganize your rock collection," Garfield said as he and Odie arrived.
Odie took his spot next to Fluttershy, who was standing at the back as always. But the yellow pegasus's attention was elsewhere.
Hidden behind a grand display of treasures, among items on a shelf, Fluttershy saw what looked like an orange and yellow bust with many faces on all sides of it. On the side facing her, there was a symbol of what looked like a jagged sun on the forehead of the creature. From what she could see, it looked to be the image of some kind of ferocious feline that was carved into the faces on the bust that sent chills through her. There was something special about this bust, but what, she didn't know.
"I fear this means the worst shall happen," Luna said solemnly, "When an element looks this way, it means that it no longer has a bearer."
"What," Rainbow Dash shouted as she darted directly to the princesses, "But I didn't give up being a bearer! And I'm not gonna! Ever!"
Despite her brave words, she only felt more like she wanted to abandon everypony. What was making her feel this way!? How could she call herself the Bearer of Loyalty if she couldn't even stay by them!?
"We do not doubt your spirit, Rainbow Dash," Celestia assured her, "It's just that...you and the others..." she didn't know how to finish the sentence. But with the gravity of the situation came the responsibility to divulge it. With a heavy sigh, she did her best to decide what to say next, "You may not be around much longer..."
"What are you talking about? We're all still here," Pinkie said, before her mane slowly deflated when she suddenly realized what the princess meant.
Even though he just met her, Garfield was heartbroken to hear what may very well be her fate. Since he arrived, she was the only pony who was nice to him. Better than that, she treated him like an honored guest. He truly did enjoy the short amount of time he spent gorging with her, and looked forward to doing it again. At first, he had nothing but the desire to go home. But now, when his new friend was in danger, he decided to put off leaving to help save her. "A change of heart, and complex emotions? What's happening to me," he wondered to himself.
In the back, Odie noticed how Fluttershy was staring at the bust. He was saddened by the news, but Fluttershy acted like she hadn't heard a word that was spoken. She just continued staring at that strange, cat-thing on the shelf.
As Fluttershy stared deep into its design, she swore the colors came alive, dancing like flames that made the air around her grow hot. Then she felt something on one of her wings, like a tiny ember.
At first, she thought she only imagined it. When she felt it again, only hotter this time, she reached into her feathers, and retrieved the tiny stone she found earlier that day.
Once again, the colors danced and swirled before her, the same as they did on the colorful bust. Fluttershy knew they were connected. Like they were meant to be together.
A tiny shadow on the bust caught her eye, and she could see that there was a small indentation there, the exact same size as the stone she held in her hoof. What she needed to do next was clear.
Slowly, her hoof drifted toward the antique, ready to make it whole once more.
She heard a quiet whimper behind her, and saw Odie staring worriedly at her, silently warning her not to proceed. Fluttershy knew that animals had an innate sense of danger. If there was anything to listen to, it was the caution of animals. But this time, she didn't listen.
She placed the stone in its place, and watched all of the color drain from the bust, dribble off the shelf and pool onto the floor like water before they started taking a new shape.
"How can this be," Rarity wailed, "Whatever shall we do once you...stop being Bearers?"
"Now, now. Please do not lose hope," Luna said softly, "There may still be a chance yet to avert calamity."
Fluttershy watched as the pool of color took the shape of a tiny feline. She couldn't believe it. That fierce decoration produced a harmless, helpless little kitten, who was scuttling its paws on the floor, trying to stand up on the slippery, polished surface.
"Oh no," Fluttershy whispered as her motherly instincts took over, and took the small creature in her hooves. "Don't worry, kitty. Everything's going to be okay," she cooed quietly.
But it was not to be. Through nothing more than her innocent nature, Fluttershy released what was going to be the end of the Bearers of Harmony. And it all started when the creature's eyes glinted like embers.
Odie began to bark loudly at the creature, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. From where they stood, they couldn't see what he was barking at, as it was hidden by many of the other displays. But when the royal sisters investigated, they saw a sight that chilled them both.
Fluttershy was gone, and in her place, a great burning flame. And when the fire died down, there was no trace of her, not even a pile of ash. She had been consumed, as had several items around her, feeding the blaze before them. When it died down, it took another form like the one before, only different.
What was once a helpless kitten had now matured into a very, large cat. Not a wild cat like a leopard or a tiger, but more like Garfield. Just bigger. At least, three times bigger, and nearly as big as a pony. Its colors had become more defined as well, now glowing brightly, and with points of red on its legs, face, ears and tail. The flames on its back flared wildly, reaching out to all sides of its body, entwining around nearby objects, and swallowing them whole.
Celestia and Luna stared in horror at the creature before them. It was one that they recognized all too well. They thought they had seen the last of him when Starswirl the Bearded sealed him away, allowing Celestia to take position as the sun. But now, Svarog, the elder god of the sun had returned, and was going to spread his flames once more across the land.
"Everypony! Leave now," Celestia yelled.
"But where's Flutter--"
"GO!"
Without another word, the entire group left, except for the princesses, who stayed to seal the beast once more.
Back in the throne room, the mares all panicked over what was to come.
"What the hay was that thing," Applejack shouted.
"It looked like me when I don't get my morning coffee," Garfield added.
"Urf," Odie said with a nod.
"You're not supposed to agree to stuff like that!"
"Did you ever read about anything like that," Dash asked Twilight. If Twilight knew anything about it, which, knowing her, was very likely, there was a chance to win.
"I did," Twilight answered, recalling the book she read last night, "But it was only stopped when the princesses used the Elements of Harmony."
"Then we can just do that."
"Didn't ya see those Elements? They don't have bearers, so they're just rocks now," Applejack reminded Dash.
"Okay! Now we just need to find a new bearer!"
"Are you really so simple as to think new bearers will just appear," Rarity snapped at Dash.
Their bickering continued, until they felt a hot wind blow from the treasure room. When they looked, they saw a bright orange light glowing from within.
"P-Princess Celestia," Twilight asked.
Bounding through the doorway came the beast from before, larger and fiercer now more than ever. Now, it was larger than the princesses, and bulkier with a rounder face, stubbier legs, and more pointed ears. It growled at the mares, deciding which one it would devour next.
"Everypony scramble," Pinkie shouted, prompting everypony to run from their aggressor.
They all burst out of the throne room, past the guards, who stared in bewilderment at the fleeing company. Then they felt the temperature rising rapidly behind them.
As they ran through the castle, the halls around the seven escapees burst into flames. And whatever was caught in the fire was consumed by it. Not burnt to cinders or reduced to a pile of ash. It simply disappeared. But the damage was still being done.
As the group descended a staircase, a part of the ceiling burned down, and dropped towards them. As Twilight, Rarity and Applejack charged past the danger, Odie blocked Garfield, Pinkie and Dash from progressing, just as the ceiling crashed between the two groups.
A new escape was needed. Jumping from where they were was liable to cause an injury, and slow everypony down, and with the monster so close behind them, Dash couldn't air lift them all out of there one at a time. There was no choice. They had to double back.
"Just keep going! I'll take care of things here," Dash shouted to her friends as she hustled the others back up the stairs. Somepony had to look after them while that monster was running around, but after seeing what the dog did, she felt more like she should leave it up to him.
But there was no time to think about that, since the beast came bounding into the room and lunged at them all. They all moved just before they were engulfed in fire.
Wherever they ran, there was no escape from the blaze. The flames of the beast slithered all around them, devouring everything in their path. In one hallway, they were separated again when a wall of flames arose between them all, with Odie and Dash on one side, and Garfield and Pinkie on the other. Dash tried to fly back for her friend, only for the flames to flare up and stop her.
Pinkie and Garfield looked behind them, and saw the flaming beast charging towards them. For Pinkie, there was nothing she could do. There was no laughing at this savage beast to soothe it. And there was nothing funny about being swallowed by fire.
Garfield knew something had to be done. With the monster so close, and no way to escape, he had to at least save his friend. And he knew just the way.
"Kitty! What are you doing," Pinkie asked as she felt her tail lifted up before she fell onto her face.
"Punt position #117. Done right, you can travel across a football field like this," Garfield said as he wound up his leg for the proper punting technique. When he let loose, Pinkie sailed through the flames unscathed and landed on top of Dash and Odie.
No sooner did Garfield start celebrating did he have to jump to avoid getting landed on by the monster. He landed on its back, and quickly jumped off as the flames singed his fur.
When he landed, the beast opened its mouth, and a vortex of flames appeared like a whirlwind. The next thing Garfield knew, the air around him started pulling him toward the beast's mouth, along with everything loose around him.
From the other side of the fire, Odie and Pinkie watched as Garfield as he rolled away from the vortex when the wall behind him broke, and was pulled into the monster's mouth.
When it was done, the vortex stopped, and they watched it undergo another change. Its ears grew more pointed, and curved like a pair of horns, and its legs and tail became longer and more bulky. Its body grew larger, and spots of black rippled on its body like sunspots.
"You know, a mint might help with that breath of yours," Garfield said nervously.
As it was with the wooden wolves, his remark didn't go over well, and the monster lunged at him again. Garfield escaped harm by running into the opened wall.
Not about to leave his friend to be slow-roasted, Odie began running frantically to find a door where he could rejoin Garfield, and keep him safe from the monster. And after being saved by him, Pinkie ran to do the same.
"We have to keep going," Dash said as she picked Pinkie up and flew down the hall with her, despite her pink friend's resistance.
In the new room, Garfield scrambled behind anything that he could use for cover: a chair, a table, a counter, an oven. It then occurred to him that he was in a kitchen.
Around him, there were finished foods and pastries, as if the staff was busy at work before they had to evacuate. Normally, he'd try to decide what to eat first, but now he had to think of a way to escape as quickly as possible.
But no matter where he ran, there was only more kitchen. He ran up and down the walls, trying to escape his pursuer. On top of some cabinets, he found some decorative plates, which he hurled like frisbees at his opponent. He should have known that it would only eat the projectiles.
With a swipe of its paw, the monster destroyed the cabinet, and sent Garfield flying across the room.
He landed on the table, and the monster came rushing back toward him, knocking over everything that it didn't just consume.
Garfield needed to find something to defend himself, but kept coming up short. This wasn't like fighting a black panther. A panther was a normal kind of threat. This thing ate everything that he threw at it. It reminded him of himself in that way, just with a ton of malice. That meant that he had to find something to feed it that would damage it. But nothing came to mind.
He rolled across the table as the monster demolished it, and consumed it in its flames.
Garfield ran across its surface as it was consumed, but it was like running the wrong way on a conveyor belt.
He hopped over each utensil, and finished food dish as they came toward him. Soon, he saw what he was looking for.
As he jumped over the oncoming stack of assorted desserts, he grabbed one off the top, and flung it into the monster's mouth before he ran to the furthest end of the table, and paused to see if his plan worked.
At first, nothing happened, but then the beast stopped eating. Then it coughed and convulsed after it swallowed the rock hard, bland pastry. The flames on its body dimmed and flared as it looked like it was going to hack up a serious hairball.
"Fruitcake. The perfect gift for people you hate," Garfield mused. Seems that even here, fruitcake was universally hated.
But, even as the monster was incapacitated, by the evil pastry, its flames still crept toward Garfield, who started backing away, before he noticed something very large behind it.
Without any warning, the refrigerator fell down on top of the beast, flattening it underneath, and seemingly snuffing it out. Behind the fridge stood Odie, who was panting as happily as ever.
"Arf," he said triumphantly.
"Nice save," Garfield yelled as Odie ran to his side. "But what a tragic casualty," he said as he looked woefully at the fallen fridge. Odie bowed his head and crossed himself in mourning for the appliance.
Then they saw smoke seeping out from the under the refrigerator, until it burst into flame, and the face of the monster appeared in the blaze.
"Run like crazy! Don't let the fridge's sacrifice be in vain," Garfield shouted as he and Odie ran away.
The exit wasn't far from where they stood, and they took it as quickly as possible. The ran as fast as they could, looking for a way out of the castle. But the flames around them kept them from taking certain paths.
"Do you think it's still after us," Garfield said as they ran.
Odie wasn't sure about that. If it wasn't, they'd have that much less to worry about, and they could relax a little bit. He stopped, and looked behind himself, only to see the monster come barreling around a corner towards them.
"Don't stop! Just run," Garfield said as he grabbed Odie by the ears and dragged him behind himself.
Finally, after innumerable turns, they found a way out. There was a window at the far end of the hall where they could escape. It didn't matter to them how high up it was. As long as it was an escape.
They ran as fast as they could down the hall, as the flames around them grew bigger. Even though they couldn't see behind them, they knew the monster was catching up. But as the monster grew nearer, so did the window, and their ticket to freedom.



"We need to go back for Mr. Kitty," Pinkie protested as Dash carried her through the halls.
Dash didn't know why Pinkie was so insistent on going back for a cat. She was no Fluttershy, but she knew that animals had a way of escaping on their own. After losing her oldest friend, she wasn't about to lose anymore.
The world was falling apart around them, and it took all of Dash's flight skills to swerve around danger. The fixtures dropped from above, and the flames constantly tried to engulf them both.
In a large room, the ceiling broke, and the flaming chandeliers started swinging wildly around.
Dash dodged it by diving to the floor, but was forced to ascend when the entire ground turned to fire.
She swung Pinkie out of the way as the chandelier swung toward them.
"There's another one," Pinkie shouted as another chandelier swung toward them. "And another! And another!"
Dash was having enough trouble dodging danger without Pinkie yelling at her. She had to get them out of there, and as luck would have it, part of the wall had burned away.
From where Dash was, it looked weak enough for her to break through. She thought she could even see daylight on the other side of it through the charring. It was her only chance. She tightly gripped Pinkie and flew forward as fast as she could.
"What the hay are you doing," Pinkie shouted as the wall grew closer.
"Just hang on, and take a crash position," Dash answered.
"Oh, horseapples," both mares yelled as they crashed through the wall, into the open air outside.
Though they couldn't hear it over the noise, the window above them broke, and out flew Garfield and Odie, who yelled loudly as they saw they were falling toward a lower rooftop, though it would be a miracle if they could reach it. After them, came the monster.
Dash looked up, and saw the monster plummeting toward them. With Pinkie's extra weight, she couldn't fly fast enough to avoid the danger, so she did the only thing she could do. She threw Pinkie forward with all her might toward the nearest rooftop.
As he flew through the air, Garfield grabbed Odie, and squeezed him so that his tongue shot out and gripped onto the edge of the roof. With his free paw, he reached out and grabbed Pinkie's hoof before she fell.
Now uninhibited, Dash had half a mind to fly away to safety. Those two animals would look after Pinkie until the danger had passed.
"What am I thinking," Dash said to herself as she veered toward Pinkie.
But it was too late. She hesitated too much before taking action, and the flaming monster was upon her. In a burst of orange, Dash was consumed in mid-air.
Odie pulled everyone to safety on the rooftop. As soon Pinkie got her hooves on the roof, they all looked down to see what the monster would do next.
Once it landed, it underwent another change. Its body grew even larger, and its fangs grew longer and sharper, as did its claws. The spots on its back began to morph and merge together into dark stripes across its body. Once it finished, it started putting its new claws to use, and climbed the wall towards Garfield and friends.
There was no time to even mourn Dash. Pinkie tossed the animals on her back, and started running across the steepled rooftop. When they ran out of roof to run on, she jumped to the next lowest roof.
The monster wasn't about to give up though. Wherever they went, it deftly jumped from wherever it was, getting closer with each leap.
Soon, they ran out of rooftops, and there was nothing high enough for them to jump to. They were so close to the castle gates now, it was almost worth the risk of jumping.
Down below, Pinkie could see Twilight, Rarity and Applejack all running to the gates, and wished she could somehow reach them. She yelled at them all, but they couldn't hear her from where she was.
Garfield saw how desperate she was for help. What she was doing would do no good, so he decided to take matters into this own paws. He and Odie jumped off her back, and took position behind her. "It's gonna be a big one, Odie. I'll need help with this one," he said as he assumed punt position #54.
Odie agreed, and judging from the technique Garfield was about to use, he decided to supplement it with punt position #251.
The dog went first, and sent Pinkie straight up into the air. As she came down, Garfield unleashed his mighty boot, and sent her flying. With no hooves on the ground to offer resistance, the pink mare went sailing far, screaming all the while.
Down on the ground, her friends heard her, and looked up to see her falling. Without even a thought, Twilight caught Pinkie with her magic.
Back on the roof, Garfield and Odie were relieved to see that Pinkie made it. But now, they had to worry about the flames that were creeping toward them. With nowhere to run to, they both climbed up to the stop the spire on the roof, and prayed that it would start raining.



With a twinkling light, a starry doorway opened in Canterlot castle, and Jon stepped through it. Though when he arrived, he wished he hadn't.
All around him, the world burned. What looked like it was once a posh, grandiose palace now looked like he stepped into the inside of some well-decorated oven.
"Ohhhhh! Jon, what've you gotten yourself into this time," he shuddered as he stood in the middle of the blaze.
His first order was to find an escape, and he ran to an open door, hoping he'd be able to escape that way.
No good, when he found it to be a balcony on what must have been the tenth story.
"Can't a guy get a break," Jon asked himself. And finally, his break came to him.
High above, on a nearby rooftop, he could see Garfield and Odie clinging to the top of a castle spire.
"Boys," he called to them. But then his eye was drawn to what they were escaping from.
Further down the same rooftop, he saw a flaming beast crawling towards them, and spreading fire slowly up towards them.
"Hang on! I'm coming," he shouted as he climbed to the outside of the balcony, and slowly walked across the tiny edge along the roof.
His hooves slipped as he went, slowing his progress, and it didn't help that there were statues blocking his path.
"Just hang in there," he yelled as he tried to climb around a statue. "Don't worry! I've got his under control--WHOOP!!!"
Jon slipped, and fell so that he hung to the ledge with only one hoof.
"Odie, look! Someone's coming to save us," Garfield said as he pointed at the dangling pony. Sure, he didn't look very good at saving pets, but it was something.
Then his hopes sank even more when he saw how the pony was pulling himself up to the ledge, with his hooves firmly gripping the statue's flank. It was so ridiculous, only Jon would do something like that.
"Wait a second!" Maybe it was Jon! Maybe he found finally found them!
Odie began barking loudly to encourage the pony to move faster.
Hearing his dog barking worked. Jon quickly scrambled to the ledge, and started to quickly scuttle to his pets, just as the fiery monster passed by him.
But giant flaming tiger be darned, Jon didn't come so far to not find his friends.
He jumped from the ledge, and grabbed onto the tail of the beast.
"Ow! Hot! Hot! Hot! Hot!" Jon yelled as he climbed up the back of the monster.
His pets were growing so close. He stood on the face of the monster, and sprang off, now closer than before.
Then he felt the air grow even hotter, and pull him backwards.
The wall started pulling itself apart as he climbed, and he had to scramble to keep a hold of anything.
Finally, just as the last chunk of roof fell, he reached the spire, and began climbing toward his pets.
As soon as he was close enough to grab them, they felt the spire lurch.
With the roof so damaged, and Jon's extra weight, the top of the roof came loose, and sent it falling down the side of the castle.
The three passengers screamed loudly as they fell, but it was the sudden jolt when the spire landed point down that shook them off, and safely on the ground.
Without another word, Jon bucked both of his pets onto his back and ran to the castle gates.
Just as it was before, the flames followed wherever they went, and spread into the town.
Ponies ran for their lives as the buildings were consumed by the fire. There was utter pandemonium, and Jon had to practically dance out of the way.
One of the flames grew dangerously close to Jon, who leapt forward onto the top of a pony-less carriage.
The carriage rolled down the winding road, and Jon remained steady atop it, as if he knew what he was doing for once.
As they sped down the road, the carriage slammed into a mailbox, and went flying through the air.
Before he knew what he was doing, Jon grabbed a flag from a toppling flagpole in his teeth, and swung over a wall of flames that blazed beneath him.
After the flames, Jon saw a white mare with a purple mane surrounded by fire that was slowly creeping closer to her. Garfield and Odie recognized her as the one of the mares they followed to the castle, but Jon only saw a pony in danger.
Letting go of the rope, Jon landed on the ground and charged into the blaze. He needed something to get past the fire, and the nearby trash can would do just fine.
Without missing a beat, he pushed the can over, jumped on top of it, and rolled through the fire at top speed as his hooves scrambled to remain on top.
Past the blaze, he reached down, and took the mare in his hooves, carrying her like a knight would carry a maiden as he sped out of the danger.
Jon could feel his balance being thrown off by the extra weight.
Before he fell, he jumped free, and twisted through the air, landing safely on his hooves before he gently placed the maiden on the ground.
"Is this really...Jon," Garfield wondered to Odie. Jon Arbuckle was a man who screamed while he clipped his toenails, and called that a wild night. Here was a pony who fearlessly braved a living inferno to rescue him, Odie, and some mare he never met before.
"Who...Who are you," Rarity practically swooned, awed by what the stallion before her had just accomplished.
Jon heard how she asked him, and his ego had swollen after rescuing his pets and a beautiful maiden. He lifted his chin, flexed his muscles, and sucked in his gut to put on his most impressive display before he introduced himself. "Jon Arbuckle. Liberator of towns. Buster of gangs. Dragon slayer."
Even though he looked perfectly plain, there was nothing ordinary about this Jon Arbuckle to Rarity. A lot of boorish, geeky stallions like him would lie about their accomplishments so they could date her. But this one was different. He had a strange kind of aura about him that told her his claims were true. Something about him seemed dangerous, yet appealing.
For as long as she could remember, her dream was to find a noblestallion she could spend her life with. Now she realized how ill-conceived her dream was. This average scrub before filled her with more emotion than any noble she met.
Rarity's face flushed red, partially from the heat around her, but more from the passion growing within her.
"I-I'm Rarity..." she stammered as she offered her hoof to him.
"Charmed, milady," Jon said as he took her hoof in his.
"That is so not Jon," Garfield said to Odie, who shook his head in agreement.
Little did Jon know that all of those other times when he sucked in his gut, his pants loosened just a little bit every time. Now it all came back to bite him when his pants dropped around his ankles, revealing his flank, which was decorated with a cartoonist's art board.
"That is so Jon," Garfield corrected himself, while Odie nodded in agreement.
The reunion was spoiled by the sudden arrival of the monster that was chasing them. It roared viciously as it charged down the street.
No time was wasted to escape.
The mare, the cat and the dog all bolted as quick as they could, while Jon hopped behind them, trying his best to pull up his pants.
"This way," Rarity directed them. She tried to recall the direction her friends were headed before she got separated from them, but the city had become nearly unrecognizable to her. That, and the noise of the monster behind them further disoriented her, making her take any turn she could to lose her pursuer.
Soon, they came to a dead end alley. The same one that Garfield passed through while he was chasing after Pratfall. He recalled how he escaped from one of the back alley horrors by squeezing through hole at the bottom of the fence, and directed his friends to it.
But the monster was too close for all of them to make it through in time, especially since Jon got stuck halfway through after Rarity went first.
"Ohhhhhh, this is stupid," Garfield said as he prepared to take on beast, paw-to-paw.
The monster glowered at the cat, anticipating devouring it. It opened its mouth, and another hot wind blew, until it stopped suddenly when it felt something hit the back of its head.
Turning around, it saw Pinkie standing there with a whole stack of pastries, ready to be thrown.
"Just go, Mr. Kitty," she said to Garfield, "My friends are around the corner from here." After being saved twice, it was her turn to repay him for what he had done.
Garfield almost hesitated to let her do it. A whimper from Odie convinced him that he should let her carry out her decision. He kicked Jon through the hole, and hustled through it, hoping he could taste more of Pinkie's lasagna once this was all over.
Rarity had heard what Pinkie said from the other side of the fence, and ran in the direction she said. Once out of the alley, she looked up and down the road, and saw her friends looking for a way to escape.
"Everypony," Rarity called to her friends as she and the others ran to them.
"Rarity," Twilight greeted her. It was such a great relief that she was okay after they were separated, but there was still the other issue, "Where's Pinkie?"
"She...She stayed behind to save us," Rarity said.
Rarity didn't have to say anything more for them to know what likely happened to her. Despite how much they dreaded the thought, it was only a mere hope that they would see her again.
With a deafening roar, the monster came climbing over a building.
Once again, it changed is appearance. After consuming so much, it had grown even larger, and had a mane of fire around its neck and chest.
Jon, who had just pulled his pants up, let them drop again as he froze with fear at the sight of the monster's new form.
"Run. Run now," Twilight shuddered as they all turned to run in a new direction.
No good, since they were stopped by a wall of fire.
They tried a new direction, and were once again blocked by flames. And no matter where they ran, they were stopped, until they were completely boxed in by the flames. The beast reared up before them, and opened its mouth to consume them all.
Twilight tried to think of a way to escape, but a solemn look from Applejack told her that there was no escape. She looked to Rarity, who had the same frightened look of realization on her face. With a whimpering sigh, she took her friends' hooves, and awaited the inevitable.
Seeing the togetherness of the mares, even in the face of death stirred every emotion within the three strangers in Equestria. It was only by chance that they found one another, and now it was fate that they ended together.
Jon hugged his two pets as they huddled against him, holding a small comfort in just being with one another, and the closest of friends, no matter how different they were.
Then a sudden light blinded the monster, and stopped it from consuming as it covered its eyes.
Garfield had seen this light before, but why was it shining now? And why was it shining around himself, Odie and Jon? As he watched, he saw butterflies radiating from around Jon, until they flew into the mark on his flank, making it glow brightly.
Odie was struck by lightning on his side, changing one of his spots into a glowing dingleball.
Then Garfield watched as balloons surrounded him, and converged onto his backside, where one of his stripes turned into the most radiant pan of lasagna he ever saw.
"Holy Celestia and Luna! They're bearers," Twilight shouted.
"What did ya say," Applejack asked, unsure of what she heard.
"Th-They're bearers!! The dog, the cat and their owner!! They're Bearers of Harmony!!!"
Rarity gasped sharply when she heard those words. She, nor anypony anywhere had ever heard of such a thing as more than the six Bearers of Harmony.
Applejack was equally at a loss for words. If she wasn't the Bearer of Honesty, she would have said Twilight was blowing smoke.
The three visitors watched as a familiar twinkling light appeared before them, and spoke in a familiar voice.
"In the hours of greatest need, when our very existence has been turned upside-down and all hope is lost, all we need to do is remember all we have learned from others around us. The value of honesty. The warmth of kindness. The joy of generosity. The fun of laughter. The bonds of loyalty. And the magic of friendship. Through these, the world can be changed, and harmony can restore."
In another twinkle of light, six jewels appeared. The tiara with a jewel of a six pointed star alighted atop Twilight's head, while the diamond and apple necklaces fastened around the respective necks of Rarity and Applejack.
Jon was taken slightly aback as a necklace with a butterfly on it fastened around his own neck, while Garfield and Odie readily took to the balloon and lightning bolt necklaces. Strangely, it felt as if they were meant to wear such things, even if they had no idea why.
"Now that you have awakened, you can do what you were meant to do, Bearers from another world," the voice said. "Believe in your friends, and strike true with the magic of harmony!"
No further instruction was needed. Garfield, Jon and Odie all stood firm, placing complete trust in one another as the light around them grew brighter, and came alive, swirling around them.
Seeing the strangers power strengthened the mares' resolve to save their kingdom. Even though they were not the Bearers that they knew, it was clear that they were no less friends than they were.
The light around them grew as well, and merged with the one radiating from the strangers.
As much as the beast tried to approach them, it was kept back by the barrier of light that surrounded them, which snuffed out any of its flames as it grew. Soon, it was overwhelmed by the light, and began to diminish in size as its flames across the kingdom disappeared. Once the entire kingdom was enveloped in the light, Svarog let out one final roar, which steadily grew quieter and quieter, until it completely disappeared in the blinding light.
Their energy was spent. The light disappeared, and the six bearers all panted heavily from their work.
Twilight gasped when she looked up, and saw lying on the ground the two princesses, and all of her friends who were consumed by the beast. With the biggest smile, and the greatest relief, the mares all tightly embraced, never again to separate.
Jon watched the scene before him, before he realized that his pants were still down. He quickly hiked them up, and buckled his belt, before looking down at his pets.
"Boys," he finally said, just as he was tackled to the ground by his two pets.
"Never go camping again, Jon! Never, ever go camping," Garfield said as he rubbed his head against Jon's face in a show of feline affection.
Odie licked Jon unmerciful, soaking him nearly to the bone with his slobbery tongue, and for once, Garfield didn't mind getting caught in the splash.
"Odie, I have something for you," Jon said as he reached into his pocket, and produced the dingleball Lyman gave him.
The dog leapt with joy as he took the ball in his teeth and started tossing it around and catching it.
Not about to be left out of the fun, Garfield took the ball when it rolled to his feet, and tossed it for Odie to fetch for him.
As the three played together, the mares were all busy trying to figure out what exactly happened.
"What? How did..." Princess Luna asked as she looked around the city.
"But, the Elements were inert," Princess Celestia said, for once without any idea about what happened.
"I'm not to sure what happened either, princess," Twilight said, "But I think it had something to do with them."
She pointed to the strange stallion with his dog and cat, who were still busy at play. Sure, they looked plain enough, but it was what they were wearing that caught they eyes of everypony.
Any other time, Fluttershy would have avoided approaching a new pony. But seeing the stranger wearing the element that she was supposed to bear warranted an investigation.
As she got closer, Jon stopped the game to see what she was doing. As Fluttershy looked at Jon, and saw much of herself in him. Even though they just met, she felt like they were the same being, born for the same purpose, and it brought a smile to her face knowing that kindness wasn't limited to her.
"Uh, I think this belongs to you," Jon said as he gave her his necklace, after seeing the mark on her flank was the same as the jewel on the artifact.
"Thank you," she said quietly, "And thank you very much for saving my friends."
"ARF!!!!" Odie was overjoyed that the nice yellow pony was back. He jumped all around her, dingling the dingleball in his teeth as he cavorted about.
"Hey, that's my necklace," Rainbow Dash said as she joined Fluttershy's side and took her necklace back, "This is only supposed to be worn by somepony who values loyalty over everything else."
"I think that's why Odie's wearing it then," Jon explained. "The thing about dogs is that their greatest instinct is staying by their friends no matter what. So, who would know more about loyalty than the dog who's been with us through all the ups and downs of our lives."
That actually made a lot of sense. And if that was true, then this strange stallion was probably one of the nicest ponies who ever lived. "But what about the cat," Dash asked, "How can a cat be that funny?"
"You must not have the internet here," Garfield said as he sat on Pinkie's back and put his necklace around her neck.
"You're already the best burper in Equestria, Mr. Kitty," Pinkie said to the feline on her back, "But now you have an even bigger title to defend: Biggest, Bestest, Bearer of Laughter. And I don't think even you can beat me at that."
"I don't see you in over a thousand newspapers around the world," Garfield retorted.
Then, once again, a twinkling light appeared before Jon, catching the eye of all the bystanders. Never before was Jon so glad to see that portal again, for he knew exactly where it was going to take him.
"That's it, boys," Jon said to his pets, "We're going home now."
Home never sounded so good. But it was so sad, knowing that they may never see their new friends again.
"Must you really go so soon," Rarity asked Jon, "I think I'd like to get to know you better."
"I think they're needed back at their home," Applejack said to her.
"'Tis true," Luna affirmed, "For wherever there is harmony, there are those who need to maintain it."
"Farewell, Bearers from another land," Princess Celestia added, "We will never forget what you have done for us."
A single drop of sentiment appeared in each of the visitor's eyes. No longer were they ordinary folks from back home. They had a responsibility to uphold, and they were going to do the best they could to do it.
"Write me, won't you," Rarity whispered in Jon's ear before she rejoined her friends.
Jon had grown bolder in his travels, but no less dorkier, so he could only answer by letting his tongue go slack as he said, "Uh...huh-huh...'kay..."
Odie ran around and around Fluttershy, urging her to throw his dingleball for her before he left. "Okay, doggy. Just this once," she said as she took the ball and threw it for him.
The dog leapt, and caught the ball mid air before he ran back to her to throw it again. She said she would only throw it once, but how could she not do it again when it made him so happy?
"I'll never forget you, Mr. Kitty," Pinkie said as she hugged Garfield.
"Folks like you and me are unforgettable," Garfield said as he returned the hug.
"Hold it. I have something for you before you go," she said as she reached into her mane. After about a second, she produced an entire basked full of pastries, wrapped in cellophane, and tied up with a big, pink bow. "It's a goodbye dessert basket, so leaving can be just a little sweeter."
"But, nothing will get rid of its sour aftertaste," Garfield wondered.
"Oops! How'd this get in here," Pinkie asked as she took a fruitcake out of the basket and threw it against a wall, where it shattered like glass. Apparently not even the Princess of Pastries could fix that.
"Come on, boys," Jon said, "We really should go now."
"Yeah. There's so much to do now," Garfield said as he and Odie went to the portal with their belongings in hand. With one last goodbye, Jon, Odie and Garfield all walked through the portal, and back home.
The mares all watched as the portal closed with heavy hearts, and smiling faces.
"Is that sugar I smell," Celestia asked as she sniffed the air.
"HIT THE DIRT," Pinkie yelled as she jumped into a nearby trashcan.
The wind in Canterlot picked up slightly, until it lost its momentum, and left only the scent of sugary treats with no further troubles.



Back at the campsite in Indiana, a doorway opened in the middle of nothingness, and out stepped a dog, a cat, and their human owner. Jon was only too glad to be back on two legs.
It looked like no time had passed since they left, since it the sun was still just under the horizon, and the empty coffee pot was still sitting on the nearby tree stump. They all looked around the campsite, until Jon said, "You know, I think we can leave all this stuff here."
"Boy, you said it," Garfield agreed, as Odie nodded energetically.
"In fact: let's never go camping again."
"The man does have a brain!"
"Come on. Let's get back to the car."
They all walked down the forest path, for once looking forward to the coming day. A day where they would fulfill their new roles and responsibilities, and keep people smiling for years and years to come.
> Epilogue: Home Again
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Epilogue

Home Again


The sun rose in a suburb of Muncie, Indiana, somehow more radiant that usual.
Gently, its rays peered into the bedroom of Jon Arbuckle, waking him from his sleep.
Jon stretched and yawned, but kept his eyes shut, relishing the feeling of his soft bed and his warm sheets. He felt like maybe he would keep lulling around in bed all day. Call in sick to work and enjoy some extra time off. After the adventure he just had, he felt like he and his pets deserved the rest. 
"GOOD MOOOOOOOOORNING, JON!!!"
Jon's peace was interrupted by a sudden blast of party horns. He jumped upright, and was greeted by Garfield, who was wearing a pink party hat, and throwing handfuls of confetti left and right.
"Welcome to your new and improved, super-special, fantabulous fun-filled day! Where you rise above the crowd and give dorks worldwide hope to be as special as you," Garfield cheered.
It looked like sleeping in would have to wait. "Good morning, Garfield. You know this is the only reason I keep you," Jon deadpanned.
"And what a lucky little geek you are, Jon! Now, let's go! The birds are a-chirpin', the morning dew's a-glimmerin', and the mailman's in for a serious a-pummelin' in an hour. So come on, I got a schedule to keep," Garfield said as he grabbed his owner's hand and pulled him out of bed.
With little other choice, Jon followed Garfield downstairs to the kitchen to begin his day with breakfast. But when he got to the kitchen door, he stopped at what he saw.
"Ta-dah," Odie said as he indicated the feast before him. Over night, his pets had prepared an entire breakfast feast.
Hot, buttery French toast was laid out next to a giant stack of pancakes. Bacon and eggs had been arranged on their plates into little smiley faces. Sausage was stacked up next to a plate of fresh, fluffy biscuits, next to a pan of steaming hot gravy.
Jon was impressed, to say the least. His pets never made breakfast for him before, and how they managed this in such a short time was beyond him. "What is all of this," he asked.
"Why, it's the biggest, baddest, breakfast-est breakfast buffet there ever was, you silly neener-head," Garfield answered as he and Odie pushed Jon into his seat.
Jon prepared a plate for himself, while his pets dove into the food. Normally, Jon would have been irritated by that, but he was too focused on enjoying his breakfast to care.
Their meal passed in relative peace, until once again, they saw a twinkling light appear, this time over the table.
"Oh boy, I hope this is just a friendly visit," Jon said as he put his fork down.
"Indeed it is, Jon," came the stellar horse's voice from the twinkle.
"Jeez, that a relief," Garfield said. "I have a lot of napping and gorging to catch up on."
"I've come here to let you know just what you have accomplished in your travels. For if you are to truly understand your new responsibilities, you need to see what you see the affects of your actions," the light explained, as it expanded to the size of the table.
Garfield and Odie saved as much food as they could before it was enveloped by the light.
With a glimmer, images slowly appeared on the surface of the light, indistinguishable at first, but slowly, they took the shape of a town that Jon didn't recognize. Garfield and Odie, however, knew it as the town where they met their new friends.
"Though we often don't realize it, we have an affect on everyone we meet in our lives, even if for a brief time. We can make them realize the value of their very existence."
They saw Fluttershy at her cottage, taking care of the animals who lived there. She was in the dog kennel, where she saw each of the dogs playing together in a mishmash of energetic mayhem.
She reached into her feathers, and produced a red and yellow ball, which made a familiar 'dingle-dingle' noise when she shook it. The noise alone made all of the dogs line up in a neat little row, each one eager to play with the new toy.
"We can push them to new limits."
The scene changed to show Pinkie in the kitchen of the bakery, where she was busy at work replicating the pastries she made for Garfield when he first arrived. But this time, she was trying to perfect them, to make them even better when she saw him again. However, she paused briefly, to take a guzzle of soda, before letting loose a loud burp. The bowl on the counter rattled slightly, but she still hadn't blown a hole in the wall.
"We can even open them to new possibilities."
In the Carousel Boutique, Rarity was stocking her display room with clothes that would appeal to any dork, geek or nerd who walked in. She was just finished with placing some polo shirts next to a stack of flood pants, when she turned her attention to the newest ponnequin in her shop.
It was set up by the display window, and dressed in a blue oxford shirt, and a pair of brown corduroys. She dusted it off for what must have been the tenth time that day, before she returned to her duties.
"Through only a short time, we can bring endless amounts of joy to others."
Back in the village of griffins, a banner showed that Schnitzel-Fest had been extended for another day.
In the streets, the griffins danced joyously as they shared their beloved dish with one another, laughing and reveling in the merriment.
Greta was standing with a group of griffin chicks from the school, and teaching them about the pony who saved their beloved holiday. On the table next to her, she showed them all a painting of a tall, muscular version of Jon, standing atop the fallen forms of both the mayor and Knuckle Duster.
Across the fountain square, the mayor grumbled as he saw the painting from his station, where he was busy frying new pans of schnitzel for the griffins to buy. He was about to throw a plate at the painting until he remembered that just behind him, Knuckle Duster stood at the ready, patting his baseball bat in his palm, in case the mayor got any ideas about causing any more trouble.
"And we can inspire others to spread that joy in return."
The scene changed to Canterlot park, where Pratfall was performing for a crowd. At the very front were Spring Flower, his mom, and his dad, who had finally come home.
At the moment, the colt was busy digging through his oversized top coat, pullout out various items that should not have fit in there in the first place.
A floor lamp, a bar stool, a film reel, a walking stick, and even a lit blowtorch, which he quickly tossed away with a frightened shout. Each item produced from the coat, produced another laugh from the audience. And Garfield knew that in time, the kid was going to go very far.
"He should. I taught him how to be funny," he said.
"Through our actions, we can reforge the bonds of friendship."
In a dusty town out west, they all saw a train full of various items being drawn by a whole herd of ponies.
Braeburn walked up the line from the back to the front, making sure that none of the bandits were getting out of line.
At the front of the rows, both Fritter and Desert Rose were kissing away.
Braeburn was about to remind them that they had a job to do, but decided that he could let them enjoy their time together.
But it was ended abruptly when Jon's turkey friend landed on top of Fritter's head and started pecking them both. It then hopped to the ground, and gobbled angrily as it pointed with one wing in the direction of the next nearest town.
They could wait a little longer. The town wasn't that far anyway. As they trudged down the tracks, the turkey pecked at each one of the bandits as they walked by to repay them for stuffing him in that tiny compartment with all those other birds.
"And sometimes help it blossom into something greater."
The scene changed to a snowy kingdom, which looked entirely made of crystals, as did the ponies living there. The view traveled through the snowy streets, until it came to a large castle. It traversed the halls, until it reached the library.
Odie barked excitedly when he saw his friend Violet walk through the doorway and look around the room. She was wearing saddlebags with her journal in it, as well as the dancer figurine, and the now-framed picture of her and Lucky Star. Around her neck was the necklace he bought for her.
After she scanned the room, she saw her friend behind a desk, rummaging through a drawer. She cautiously approached him, and unsurely cleared her throat.
Lucky Star looked up, and briefly froze when he saw her. After the initial shock, he rushed out from behind his desk and tightly embraced his friend. When he saw the necklace she was wearing, he knew her answer.
The next thing they all knew, Violet and Lucky were kissing, ready to share their lives together forever.
"But through it all, we must never forget those who are precious to us."
They all saw an island in the ocean, where Lyman was helping a group of ponies to lift the wooden framework of a storehouse for their vegetables. The job finished much quicker when Blowhard tilted it upright with his snout.
Nearby, the ocean dragon was arriving at the docks. The passengers it was ferrying all had supplies they gathered from the neighboring islands, ready to help with the various projects that would make life better for them all.
Then, they watched as all of the scenes arranged themselves together so that they could all be seen together. In all of the pictures, they saw what they had done to others, and how they had enriched the lives of the ones they met. It was all a reflection of how they affected one another during the many years they were together. And now, they had the joyous task of spreading it to others.
The light knew that its message had reached them. Slowly, the images faded, and the light began to dim.
"Remember the magic that you all possess. And stay true to one another, always."
With those last words, the light disappeared from their home.
They all sat, and wondered how they were going to carry out their new roles. It was a scary step, but also wonderful and exciting.
The entire thing had given Jon the greatest idea.
Before his camping trip, he dated a struggling cartoonist named Lauren, who was trying to come up with ideas for a TV show with themes of friendship and harmony. When Jon laughed at her (admittedly terrible) ideas, their dated ended with him in a headlock and iced coffee being poured down his pants.
Now, he felt like he had a chance to make up for his mistake, and pitch an idea to her about a magical land inhabited by ponies. And who knew, maybe he could patch things up with her and take her out again?
With that in mind, Jon quickly scarfed down his breakfast, and ran upstairs to get dressed before he started his new day.
"Looks like someone's motivated," Garfield said as he and Odie watched Jon practically fly upstairs. "I guess that we should start working too."
Odie thought that Garfield was right, but then his gaze started zipping back and forth between Garfield, and the food on the table.
"Good point," Garfield said, before he and Odie both stood up and dove into the food.


THE END