> Claws, Paws, and Evil In-laws > by K.J. Cragon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've got something to say!" Twilight Sparkle declared. "She's evil!" There was a murmur around the room, with ponies - No, her friends - sadly shaking their heads. Some were rolling their eyes. "She's been horrible to my friends, she's obviously done something to her bridesmaids, and if that wasn't enough, I saw her put a spell on my brother that made his eyes go all weird!" Princess Cadence was crying. "Why are you doing this to me?!" She asked. Twilight simply rolled her eyes in response. "Because your evil!" "Stop!" Shining Armor shouted at his little sister. "Do you want to know why my eyes went all weird? It's because ever since I started having to perform my protection spell, I've been getting terrible migraines. Cadance hasn't been casting spells on me, she's been using her magic to heal me!" His outbreak made Twilight shrink back and cringe. He almost never had an outbreak, but when he did, it was mildly scary and out of character. "I was just trying to-" She started but was cut off by her brother "She's been completely stressed out because it's really important to her that her big day - Which I might add is in TWO DAYS - be perfect! Something that obviously wasn't important to you." Twilight gasped, but he kept talking. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and comfort my bride. And you can forget about being my best mare. In fact, if I were you, I wouldn't show up to the wedding at all." Twilight teared up, looking at her friends for at least some help. They didn't give her any. " C'mon, y'all. Let's go check on the princess," Applejack said as she and the rest of her friends walked out of the room. "I was just-" Twilight started again, but Princess Celestia cut her off. "You have a lot to think about," she said as the doors closed behind her. Twilight began weeping in the now dim lit room. There was a creaking noise in front of her, and she lifted her hooves from her face to see Cadence. "I'm... I'm sorry," She half wept. The princess smiled an evil smile. "You will be." With a scream and a burst of green flames, Twilight Sparkle had disappeared. 'Cadence' walked out of the room with a smirk. "Princess? Princess, y'all in here?" Applejack called. Her friends - Minus Twilight - had gone in search of the crying princess ever since Twilight had upset her. As she turned a corner she heard a sound from a couple rooms down. Starting to turn around, she ran head first into princess Cadence. "Oh, there ya are! C'mon now, we need to get the others and bring y'all to Shinin' Armor. Why's your horn glowing like that? What're you - Ah!" Cadence smirked as Applejack was engulfed in flames just as Twilight had been. "Honesty. Oh so fickle, eh?" She started towards the main hall where she knew her next prey would be. "Oh my," Fluttershy asked Pinkie Pie. "What If something horrible happened to her? What if Twilight did something?" "Now why would Twilight do that, silly billy?" Pinkie responded. "I don't know why I just think that she - Oof!" She had run right into a smirking Cadence. "Oh thank goodness we found you! Pinkie, could you come here please? Pinkie?" She turned her head to find smoldering marks on the floor where her friend had once stood. Here eyes widened and she looked at the princess, expecting her to reassure her that there was absolutely nothing to worry about. But all she say was a glare. "Oh you want it next?" She half growled at the timid pegasus, who fell onto the floor with her hooves covering her head, whimpering. "Well, if you insist, dear." And with a scream, she too got swallowed by bright green flames. "Augh!" She cry echoed around the statue garden, making Rainbow Dash's ears perk up. Mouth still full of just found daisy, she said, "Fruffer fry?" She swallowed the flower and looked around for a moment, confused. Suddenly, a shot of emerald-colored magic shot passed her and hit a random statue. Rainbow whirled around to confront the magician, expecting it to be Twilight. Instead, she found herself looking at the princess of love. "Oh dang," Cadence said with amusement, "I missed." Rainbow Dash looked at her in surprise. She then flew up into the sky. "So," she said. "Twilight was right? Well then, prepare to have your FLANK KICKED!" She flew at top speed towards 'Cadence' hoping to knock her off balance - Or at least faze her. It didn't work. She just side stepped the 'attack' and let her crash into the ground. After that, at the worst possible moment, Rarity walked into the garden from one of the many doors that led into and out of the castle. "What's all of this fuss about? Rainbow what are you doing rolling around the dirt?" Rainbow, still partially stunned, rose her head up. The know known enemy smirked at the unicorn and lit her horn. Rarity's eye's moved back and forth. "What? What's wrong?" Rainbow's body was now full of energy. Right before the blast was about to be performed, she dashed over to rarity and blocked her with her hooves. "No..." She murmured. "Seriously, Rainbow, what's going on?" Rarity asked nervously as the powerful blast of magic engulfed them both. "Killed to Birds with one stone, eh?" 'Cadence' said to herself. "Meh, good enough." "Ugh," Twilight groaned. "What happened?" She opened her eyes to find darkness. She soon realized that she was sprawled - face down - in the dirt. She lifted a hoof to her head, and then pulled it away almost instantly. That's not a hoof, she realized. She also realized that she was standing differently - Bipedal. Looking at the arm that was attached to her body, she noticed a couple of things. One, It was black, and had hands, like her assistant Spike - A dragon - had. Two, there was webbing coming off of it and attaching to her lower body. She was a bat. Well, only one plausible thing to do now, she thought. She screamed at the top of her tiny bat lungs. > Chapter 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pinkie Pie was having a very bad dream. At least, if you consider waking up as a pink wild boar in the everfree forest a bad dream. She was faintly sure most ponies would consider that a nightmare, if not a bad dream. To make matters worse, though, her mother-or more like the boar's mother-had woken her up for breakfast and had called her Jennifer in a preetty unnerving voice. It was manly, yet with a hint of feminism in it. Not what you really want to hear when you get out of hed in the morning. Just that was enough to set Pinkie's usually cheerful and peppy mood to caytious and worrisome. "Um, i'm sorry, but who are you exactly?" Pinkie asked worredly. "And who is Jennifer?" The boar's mother rolled her eyes in great annoyance. "Don't you play dumb with me missy. Just because today is the first day of school after fall break, that doesn't mean that i'm as gullible as you think I am. Now get up, your father caught your favorite for breakfast - Alligator!" She then strolled through the ring of brush surrounding them, leaving Pinkie to her own devices. "Great, I'm starving! I can't wait to dig into some of that tender, juicy-wait, did she just say Alligator?" Pinkie peeked out of the brush that was surrounding her sleeping area. She didn't like the idea of eating meat, she was unable to do so as a pony, plus the meal was an Alligator! For all she knew it could be Gummy's close relative! But, at the same time, her stomach was aching to be filled. She could just see the delicious red meat coming off of the dead animal's bones. So delicious, but at the same tin me, so wrong. What to do, what to do? "Jennifer! What are you doing? Your going to be late for school if you don't hurry up!" The sudden sound made Pinkue jump a foot in the air. She decided from the tone of the snarling voice not to get on it's bad side and scrambled out of her sleeping quarters and arrived at the half eaten carcus in record time. 'Woah!' Thought Pinkie, 'I can move fast!' Her attention soon turned to the bloody mass, and suddenly she felt domething new bubbling up inside of her. Her mouth started to water, and her eyes glazed over as the world faded into darkness once again. As she came out of the trance like state, she felt satified. Her stomach no longer grumbled and ached. There was a sort of smokey taste on her tounge, mixed with what tasted like metal. Her paw came up to wipe her muzzle after she licked her lips, and came up tinged red. Pinkie almost fainted at the sight if it, but calmed herself down quickly enough when she heard mother yelling at her to get to school. 'Well, thats one way to scar a pony for life,' she thought as she ran as fast as she could, all the while not sure what had happened at breakfast. It scared her to think of what might be happening to her. She was now sure that this was not a dream, just some distorted reality that she was thrown into. 'Wait a second. How do I know where the school is?' Shs asked herself. When she went to try to remember, directions suddenly popped into her head, and she followed them. Soon, she arrived at what had to be the school. More or less, the school was just a cave in the middle of the everfree. At least, that's what it looked like from the outside. The inside looked to be a branch of the long forgotten castle that used to be Canterlot. She would know, she had gonevthere with her friends, Twilight,Fluttershy, Snapple Rack, Crossbow Mash, and dispairity! Wait, were those their names? Meh, not important, Jen decided. She couldn't wait to see her boyfriend, Chad! Oh, he was the hottest Jaguar in the whole school, not to mention he was the star Quarterback. She shook her head a few times. What was wrong with her?! First she ate an Alligatpr for breakfast, and now her thoughts were not her own? She had to find somebody, anybody who could help her! She turned and looked around, hoping to find a way out. Maybe she could find Zecora. Zecora would probably be Pinkie's best chance if escaping this new and greatly confusing life. She walked through the crowd of high schoolers , hoping to find an exit top the "Excuse me! Pardon me, just trying to get past- gah!" She tumbled into an open doorway and staggered backwards. Looking up, she saw a room with students in it and a teacher. Tge students were talking to each other quite loudly, waiting for class to start, while the teacher, a jaguar whom looked strangely familiar, but Pinkie just couldn't put her paw on what ut was about her, wrote her name on he board, an obvious substitute. "Hey babe, over here!" She looked up to find a Jaguar waving in her direction from the other side of the room. But this was no ordinary Jaguar. He was her boyfriend, Chad. Without realizing it before it was too late, she found herself walking towards his desk. As she got there, they shared a peck on the lips. "So, how's it goin? I can't believe Mrs. Swanson isn't here today, she must have bat disease or waphatever bats get when they talk in a monotone voice for too long," he joked with her. At that moment, the teacher turned around and in an undemandingly small voice, asked, "Uhm, hello class, , I-i'm mrs. Swanson, Chads mother, if you don't already know.. . But, um, you can call me mrs, S. If that's allright with you, of course...