//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8: Escape 
// Story: Humphrey Dinklehuegen and the Talking Horses 
// by Unwhole Hole 
//------------------------------//

	Humph was extremely out of breath by the time he reached Sunflower’s house. He was not used to extended physical activity, and ponies were surprisingly heavy, especially once their initial stiffness faded into stupefied limpness. He had managed to carry Fluttershy and Trixie under each arm, but had been forced to put Sweetie Belle around his neck. She had fallen off several times on the way.  
With no hands available to him, Humph decided to ram the door with his head so as to knock. Before his decidedly thick skull could impact the hard oak of the door, though, it swung open and Hump felt himself trip and tumble into warmth of the cottage.
The door slammed behind him. “Dinklehuegen!” shouted Sunflower in a stern, angry voice. “What the name of Merlin’s saggy left earlobe did you DO? It’s a bloody hornet’s nest out there!” 
“Problem,” said Humph. “Chased…ponies…stupefied…” 
“Stupified?” Sunflower swore. As Humph was pulling himself up, She crossed into a cabinet and pulled it open. After a moment of searching, she pulled down a small bottle. Checking the label, she returned to the ponies and knelt down, pouring a few drops of it into each of their mouthes. At first, nothing happened- -but then they awoke with a start.
“What- -what the hay was that?” cried Trixie, coughing. “It tastes like- -”
“Like ground pearl and moon sugar mixed with vinegar? Yeah, it’s a potion of dispel,” said Sunflower, standing up. As she did, she splashed some of it into Humph’s face.
“HEY!” he said, rubbing his eyes. “What was that for? I’m not stupefied!”
“Well, you could have fooled me! Now do you care to explain why there is a veritable swarm of wizards outside, and why I’m not in my cozy socks in bed right now?”
“They- -they tried to take me,” whispered Fluttershy as she quivered on the floor. “I’ve- -oh sweet Celestia, I’ve never been so scared…”
“Oh, Fluttershy…” Sunflower reached down to comfort her, but Fluttershy recoiled out of her grasp. Sunflower sighed, but looking visibly disappointed at Fluttershy’s obvious centaur fear, she pulled away. “Right,” she said as she started walking quickly toward her kitchen. “Firstly, are you all okay?”
“Fluttershy’s really shaken up,” said Sweetie Belle. “And I feel really bruised…but we’re okay.” 
“Speak for yourself,” said Trixie, holding up her wand. “The Great and Powerful Trixie has a great and powerful wand now! I can totally take them!”
“Not likely,” said Sunflower. “And you?”
Humph pointed his wand at himself and cast a new set of clothes. “We got into a fight with a pretty nasty witch. I was about to flare her with a lumos spell but she hit me with some kind of spell. I think it was one of those stupefy ones, but somehow it misfired.” 
“Or it just couldn’t do any more than what’s already been done.” Sunflower entered her kitchen and turned to the group. “You all need to get out of here. Whoever those guys are? They’re not going to play nice.” She reached to a high cabinet and pulled down three small glass bottles. “Dinklehuegen, get them to muggle territory. They won’t dare take the fight into a populated area like that.”
“Um, in case you haven’t noticed, ponies?”
“Polyjuice potion,” said Sunflower, pressing the vials into Humph’s grasp. “Optimized for equines. I don’t have any that’s safe for you, though.”
“Not a problem. I’ll just change into an animal.”
Sunflower’s jaw dropped slightly. “You- -you’re an unregistered animagus?”
“Registered? You have to be registered for that?” 
“Of course you have to- -you know what? Never mind. Can you apirate?”
“What, you mean like Bon Scott?” 
The whole room went silent. Then Sunflower regained at least part of her composure. “Apirate. Not aspirate you git. And that’s not even funny.”
“Oh. Then no. I can’t do that.”
Sunflower put her head into one of her hands and then turned toward a drawer beneath her immaculately clean granite countertop. She pulled the drawer out, slamming it hard enough to extend it even farther than it normally would. “Fine, then,” she said. “You go, I’ll hold them off. Rendezvous point is your summer home. Got that?”
“Wait!” said Sweetie Belle, jumping forward. “You can’t do that! They’re really tough, and you don’t even have a wand or- -”
Sunflower pulled a pair of large semiautomatic pistols out of the drawer, as well as a large rifle that she slung over her back. 
“WHOA WHOA WHOA!” said Humph, jumping back. “You- -you can’t have guns! This is Britain! That’s against the law!”
“I’m a centaur. I don’t exactly need to follow muggle laws.” She attached a holster to herself and chambered a round in one of the pistols. “And don’t be a hypocrite. You have a magic stick in your pocket that can instakill anyone whenever you want. It only makes sense for a stunningly attractive single mare trained heavily in long-range marksmanship to have a way to defend herself. From a small army. Of Wizards.” 
“But- -you shouldn’t hurt them!” said Fluttershy.
“Trixie disagrees,” said Trixie.
“Relax. They’re loaded with magic bullets.”
“Magic bullets?”
“Yes. The kind filled with lead azide.”
“But you’re a centaur, shouldn’t you be using a bow and arrow or something?” asked Humph.
Sunflower pistol-whipped him. “That’s racist! What’s next, you want to put a bit in my mouth and make me pull you on a carriage?”
“Um, I wouldn’t mind doing that, actually,” said Fluttershy. 
“Besides. An arrow is way more brutal than a good .45.”
“But I don’t feel comfortable with this,” said Humph. “I don’t want you to put yourself in harm’s way for- -”
“Well, you should have thought about that before dragging your problems here.” Seeing the look of genuine concern on Humph’s face. “I’ll be fine. In fact, I get it. You need me. Because I’m the only competent person you know.”
Humph suddenly burst into tears and hugged Sunflower. “Oh sunflower!” he cried. “Thank you, thank you so much!”
“Get- -off,” she said, pushing him away. From across the house, the sound of someone knocking hard on the filled the air. 
“Oi! Open up!” called a gruff voice from the other side. 
Fluttershy squealed, and Sunflower stepped over her toward the door, drawing her pistols. “And it’s not just for you. I would be kicking myself if I let those adorable little ponies get hurt. Now get them to safety.”
“But- -”
“Just go, Humph.” 
After a moment of hesitation, the knocking at the door got harder, and Humph obeyed. He and his pony friends escaped out the back door, retreating into the woods behind Sunflower’s house. They had not gotten more than one hundred feet when the sound of gunshots rang out, followed quickly by wizards screaming and the explosions of spells as they returned fire. 
“She’s- -she’s going to be okay, right?” asked Sweetie Belle. “Right?”
“Of course,” said Humph. “Of course she is.” 
They made their way deeper into the forest, and the gunshots continued but began to fade as they got more distant from Sunflower’s cottage. The rain how now mostly subsided into a drizzle, and though cloudy it was still a few hours away from complete sunset. 
The wizards pursuing them seemed to have been distracted by Sunflower, and they had lost track of their original targets. Noticing this, Humph paused for a moment, crouching in some shrubbery. He looked around, trying to see if he saw signs of a wizard.
“What do you think they want with us?” squeaked Fluttershy.
“It’s best not to think about that,” said Humph.
“But- -but what if they want- -”
“He said not to think about it!” said Trixie, sounding extremely nervous as well. “I don’t want to think about it!”
“They’re probably going to try to eat us,” said Sweetie Belle.
“But I’m not tasty!” protested Fluttershy. “Not at all!”
“Oh, come on. Everyone knows you’re the most tender mare in all of Ponyville. I bet you’d taste amazing.” 
“Eating ponies?” sneered Trixie. “Don’t be morbid. That’s just ridiculous.” She paused. “Why does Trixie’s rump suddenly feel so…strange?”
The group turned around and looked at Trixie’s rear. Behind her, a gray-skinned man with an absurdly long and pointy nose was gnawing on her flank.
“EEEEEEP!” squealed Trixie. She jumped around, trying to shake the man off, but he was apparently suctioned on to her cutie mark quite well. “Get it off get it off get it off! Trixie is not food! Humph, HELP he’s biting MEEEEE!”
“Eh, don’t worry,” said Humph. “He’ll never be able to break the skin. He’s the epitome of British dentistry.” He looked down at the man, and the man looked up at him- -or nearly did. Neither of his eyes faced the same direction. “Why are you doing that, Ivan?” 
Ivan released Trixie and stood up suddenly. He was much taller than Humph, and looked even stranger standing up than sucking on a pony’s flank. His nose was at least as long as his head was tall, and his dopily smiling mouth was framed by a poorly shaved squares chin. He also seemed to be wearing some kind of trench coat. He smiled more broadly, and revealed that he had at most two teeth. 
“Ivan is being attempting to taste the delicious richness of the unicorn blood!” he said with an almost indecipherably thick accent. He smacked his lips and frowned. It became immediately apparent that he had no eyebrows. “But right now, tastes like…fur. With hint of the blue berry.” 
“The Great and Powerful Trixie is NOT blueberry flavored!” Trixie looked at the gum-marks on her butt. “And this had better not get infected.” 
Ivan continued to smile for a moment, then suddenly furrowed his eybrowless brow. His nose began to sniff the air, and his mismatched eyes turned, peering into different directions into the woods.
“What is it?” asked Sweetie Belle, just as the sound of footsteps trampling through the bush became apparent.
“Ivan smells…CAPITALIST WRECKERS!” 
He drew his wand, which was not so much a wand as it was an exorbitantly long cruciform bayonet in a wooden knife handle. “Подкаменная Тунгуска!” he cried, pointing the wand in their general direction. The atmosphere collapsed with a crack and then exploded in a detonation brighter than the sun. All the trees immediately near the blast radius were stripped of their leaves or knocked down. Humph grasped the ground next to Fluttershy, but Sweetie Belle was not fast enough. The force of the blast picked her up and threw her backward, knocking her into Trixie and taking the pair of them away. Ivan, meanwhile, remained standing and staring directly into the explosion and grinning contently. 
When the explosion cleared, all that was left was flattened trees and the smoldering bodies of moaning wizards. There was no crater, oddly enough, but the destruction was substantial.
“Ivan loves the smell of radiation in the morning,” said Ivan. “It smells like reactor number four.” 
“Aw, man,” said Humph. “I was going to put a hammock in those trees. And it’s evening.” 
“Is always morning for Ivan,” said Ivan, pulling a labels glass bottle from his coat and taking a sip. He turned on his heel and started walking. “You come with Ivan now. You will be the safe from the wreckers at Ivan home.”
“Are you crazy?” said Trixie from where she landed.
“No. Am Ivan.” 

Ivan’s home was, quite literally, a dump. It sat in a relatively steep-walled ravine where people had apparently been dumping trash for many years. Various muggle artifacts were strewn from the area above: old furniture, appliances of every shape and size, several rotted or charred mattresses, tires, steel frames of old cars, and a surprising number of toilets. 
“You actually live here?” said Trixie, sticking her tongue out at a pile of leaking, rusted barrels. 
“Indeed,” said Ivan. “Is good home. Nice view of river.”
“You mean this?” said Sweetie Belle, pointing at the oily, swampy creek that ran through the center of the ravine. 
“Da,” said Ivan. “And there are being the great many things for Ivan to use!” he reached into a toilet that was filled with dirt and yanked out an anemic looking beet. He promptly took a bite of it. “Mmm…tastes like Lysenkoism…” 
“So, what, you just live in a pile of scrap?” said Trixie, sarcastically.
“Niet,” said Ivan. “Ivan lives there.” He pointed at a building that could only be described as a pile of scrap. It was tiny, with tilting walls made of various porous pieces of old wood held together with tape and barely supporting its corroded tin roof. 
“That’s where you live?” said Fluttershy, sounding like she pitied him a great deal.
“That’s disgusting!” gagged Trixie.
“Oh, yeah, says the pony that lives in a hobo cart.”
“It’s not a hobo cart! And at least it has a roof.”
“Roof is bourgeois,” said Ivan, shaking his head. “Plate of Soviet steel much better. When Soviet steel not available, bonnet of car work great much adequate.”
“That’s not the hood of a car,” said Humph.
“Ivan did not have the bonnet of the car,” shrugged Ivan. 
A nearby toilet suddenly exploded, and Humph turned around to see wizards cresting the hill behind him.
“There they are!” he screamed, sending up a flare even though he was less than a mile from muggle neighborhoods. “Get them!”
“Collect the tiny  horses and get into glorious house now!” said Ivan, sprinting into his shed. He slammed open the door, at which point it fell off. Sweetie Belle had been the closest to him and entered first, finding a room that had a dirt floor and a mattress in one corner that looked in worse condition than those that were outside the shack.
“This isn’t going to hold them off!” she cried, panicking.
“Is not being the problem,” said Ivan. He reached down and pulled a mouldened tarp off the floor, revealing a heavy steel hatch. He pulled it open, then picked Sweetie Belle up and tossed her in. Humph, meanwhile, grabbed Fluttershy- -who was now once again immobile with fear- -and leapt into the void. 
“Trixie does not like this plan!” shouted Trixie as spells rebounded off Ivan’s shack.
“Tiny horse is free to be remaining with the wreckers,” suggested Ivan. 
Trixie looked back at them, and then jumped down the hatch after her comrades. Ivan followed as well, closing the hatch behind him. Once inside, he pointed his bayoneted-wand at the metal. A complex runic symbol erupted on the rusted steel and shifted shape, locking it in place. 
“There,” said Ivan, smiling. “Door is triple deadlock sealed. Even sonic-screwdriver man would be having the impossible to the getting of in, now. Ivan would know. Keeps foiling Ivan’s plans.” 
“But what if they just cut through the door?” said Sweetie Belle. “You know, with magic?”
Ivan laughed. “Silly tiny horse! Outer surface of door is covered in genuine kosmolin! Is indestructible against any and all of the magics! And the rust!”    
“Um, I don’t mean to be rude,” said Fluttershy, “and I do hate to interrupt, but…where are we?”
“I was about to ask the same thing,” said Humph. They appeared to be standing in a dark, moist cave dug into the rocky and trash-impregnated soil beneath Ivan’s shack. It was not by any means small, and the darkened tunnels seemed to go on forever. 
“Is Ivan’s project,” said Ivan, beaming with pride. “Dig hole, make place to wait out impending nuclear annihilation, and emerge for Soviet victory and the glorious rise of global communism!”
“Um…you know the Soviet Union collapsed, like thirty years ago, right?”
Ivan laughed. “Silly not-Ivan! Always with the jokings! The Soviet Union can never be the falling! Is Soviet Union!” 
“You know, my best friend used to be a communist,” said Trixie. 
Ivan slapped her on the back hard enough to knock the wind out of her. “This is good thing, then!”
Sweetie Belle looked up at the hatch. She could hear distant thumping as the wizards tried to get in, and cries of pain as their spells rebounded off the cosmoline coating and back toward them. “But if the door’s closed, how are we supposed to get out now? I don’t want to live down here forever! It’s so…dirty.” 
“Not to worry,” said Ivan. “Ivan is having a portkey in basement. It is being leading to the Ivan’s automobile. You can borrow.”
“Really? I can borrow the Ivanmobile?”
“Would Ivan lie to you?”
“Yes. You tend to do that. A lot.” 
Ivan just laughed and raised his wand. The tip ignited with a bright red glow, and he started to walk into the darkness. The others followed, having no other option.  
The hole, though, got at least slightly more advanced as it got deeper. Lower levels were reinforced with poorly hardened concrete and sometimes cinderblocks combined inelegantly with stones to form primitive masonry. Hand-drawn propaganda hung in a number of places, and it was quite apparent that Ivan lived down here like some manner of humanoid potato. 
Then, from the darkness, something suddenly bounded forward. Trixie screamed and jumped into Humph’s arms. “WHAT IS THAT THING?”
The creature came into Ivan’s light. “Ibin home! Ibin home!” it said, overjoyed. Ivan smiled and reached down, picking it up. It was roughly the size of a soccer ball, but less spherical and covered in thick brown fuzz. It was roughly animal like, but really more of resembled an enormous talking kiwi fruit.
“Aww,” said Sweetie Belle. “Look, Fluttershy, Ivan has a pet. Isn’t that- -”
“That thing is an abomination,” said Fluttershy, darkly and without hesitation. “It is a crime against all animal life. Why would you even let that touch you?”
“No am abomination! Am Kiwi!” 
“This is being Ivan’s familiar,” said Ivan. “Is being some manner of vegetable. Or so Ivan thinks.” 
“Yu hab pwetty wingies,” said Kiwi, his eyes growing as he looked at Fluttershy. “Be nyu fwend?”
Ivan laughed, and removed yet another glass bottle from his coat. He pulled the cork out with his teeth and took a sip.
“What is that?” asked Sweetie Belle. 
“Is Ibin’s potion,” said Kiwi. 
“Indeed,” said Ivan. “Potion makes Ivan strong.”
“Are you a hundred percent sure you’re actually a wizard?” asked Trixie, still holding on to Humph.
Ivan became highly serious. He took several large steps forward toward a rolled-up curtain poster on the wall. He pulled the metal ring at the bottom, and the ponies- -and Humph- -gathered around to look.
“Have the looking at Ivan’s family tree,” said Ivan, proudly, pointing at the chart.
The ponies took a long look at it. “Ah,” said Sweetie Belle. “So…it’s a palm tree.” 
“Yes! Ivan is son of Ivan Ivanovich, who his himself son of Ivan Ivanovich before him, and Ivan Ivanovich before even him, going all the way back to Ivan Ivanovich! Ivan is purest pure blood wizard in the existence!” He beamed, with both of his eyes still facing opposite directions.
“Clearly,” said Trixie. “Trust me, that’s MORE than apparent from looking at you.” 
“Da! Thank you, tiny horse! Ivan even attended the Institute of the Durmstrang when was only little Ivan! Well, until they kick Ivan out. Mostly, had been living in snowbank outside and wandered inside one day.” Ivan laughed. “But if got more education than that, Ivan would not be being the proletariat anymore!” 
“Ibin am bestes wizud EBUH!” proclaimed Kiwi. 
“Ivan is being wizard!” said Ivan, raising his bottle of potion high and taking yet another sip. He then blinked. “Now what was Ivan doing?”
“Taking us to the portkey. In your basement.” 
“Ivan has basement? Since when?”
“Um…since you dug it?” 
“Oh. Oh! Yes, it is being this way, in the lower levels.” 

The complex was immensely deep and immensely poor in structure. In some places, the ceiling was held up by sticks. In others, it was held up by two sticks held together with duct tape. The entire place seemed constantly on the verge of collapse, and Ivan seemed completely oblivious to this fact.
That was until they got to the final level. As soon as they approached the large, rusted blast door to that section, Ivan’s demeanor changed. His expression got more steely, and he stopped talking. 
“What’s wrong?” said Humph.
“Nothing,” said Ivan, pointing his wand at the door. The handle spun, and it creaked as it opened. “Nothing at all.” 	
The room on the other side was slightly cavernous, with oddly square walls something like a narrow concrete beam running through the center. On either side was a pool of black-looking water. Ivan’s light did not illuminate the dirty water terribly well, and his red-colored lumous charm did not reach the edges of the room. 
The first thing Sweetie Belle noticed as she entered was a profound feeling of cold. Not normal cold, like on a snowy winter day. It was a different kind of cold, one that went much deeper, into her bones. She shivered, but it only grew worse. 
Something moved in the darkness beyond Ivan’s wandlight. Sweetie Belle screamed, jumping behind Fluttershy, who was for some reason extremely calm. A dark, cloaked figure drifted silently past- -and then another- -and then more. 
Sweetie Belle wanted to ask what those horrible, dead-looking things were, but instead a different question came out. “Why…why do I feel so bad?”
“Trixie…Trixie feels it too,” said Trixie, her voice catching. “Like…all the humiliation, the bullying, the constant lonliness and anger, like it’s all coming back to me all at once.”
“It’s like how afraid I was before I got my cutie mark, that I’d never find my destiny, that I’d never be able to be a real pony…and how I felt when they made fun of me…”
The dark emotions only became precipitously worse. 
“They are dementors,” said Ivan, his voice calm and measured. “A great many live down here. Propagate, as rot. They feed on happiness.”
“Huuhuuu,” muttered Kiwi. “Wowsest heawt-huwties…”
“How- -how do you deal with this?” said Sweetie Belle, collapsing from the emotional pain as the dark figures suddenly seemed to grow closer, as if they could see her sudden torment.
Ivan stopped. “Ivan is Soviet. Am used to it.” He took a long swig from his bottle of potion. “Have learned to cope.” 
“And what about you?” said Trixie, also collapsing but looking up at Humph and Fluttershy. “How…”
“I don’t know,” said Humph, shrugging. “I don’t feel anything. They’re just sort of…there.”
“Neither do I,” said Fluttershy. “Not a thing. At least not pain…” Her mouth turned up into a tiny but entirely genuine smile. “Defiantly not pain…”
The dementors started to come closer. Sweetie Belle knew something was wrong. They were sensing her and Trixie, and they were becoming increasingly agitated. Within Ivan’s light, she could count at least thirty of them- -and then fifty. The entire room was infested.
She realized that she was starting to black out. Every good emotion she had ever felt was leaving her, and she found herself wanting to sleep. To leave the world behind. There was no point in persisting in something so painful.
Then she focused on one single memory. The one that they would never take from her, from the day she had first gotten her cutie mark with her two best friends. 
“E…Expecto PATRONUM!” she cried. 
Her horn ignited with silver light, and something luminescent leapt forth from her. It’s silvery form bounded out onto the concrete bridge, and its light forced the dementors away. The oppressive sensation of their presence lessened, and Sweetie Belle stood up.
Humph was gawking. “Sweetie Belle, you just- -you just cast a patronus!”
“Yeah,” said Sweetie Belle, rubbing her head. “It was in one of the books…I didn’t think it actually had a practical purpose. She shook her head, clearing the lingering depression, and looked at the magical construct before her. It turned around and its tiny useless wings fluttered as it smiled.
“Um…Sweetie Belle?” said Fluttershy. “Why does it look like Scootaloo?” 
Sweetie Belle realized that it did. It was almost an exact copy of her friend in silver instead of orange. Her face scrunched. “No reason.” 
“Is it weird that a pony’s patronus is a different kind of pony?” asked Humph. 
No one answered. Then, all at once: “No, that’s totally normal.”    
Ivan continued on his way, with patronus-Scootaloo walking beside him to ward off the now peeved creatures still following them silently. Beyond the pool of water, the room started to slope slightly and split off into a number of smaller rooms lit with electric lights. Some of them seemed to be used for storage, and one apparently contained the distillation equipment for Ivan’s potionmaking. 
At last, they were led to the final room containing the portkey. They stopped and looked up at it.
“Oh my,” said Fluttershy.
“Is that what I think it is?” said Sweetie Belle.
“No! No, definitely not!” said Fluttershy, covering the younger pony’s eyes. 
“You are liking?” said Ivan. “Ivan had surplus wood, and carved it himself. Was protest, Ivan thinks, but cannot remember for what.” He shrugged. “Or Ivan had too much potion.”
“Eh,” said Trixie. “Trixie is not impressed.” 
“How does it work?” asked Fluttershy.
Ivan smiled. “You just touch it.”
“Eew, no!” said Trixie. “Trixie is not touching an enormous wooden- -”
The ceiling suddenly shook, and several pebbles started falling down. Ivan looked up. “Hmm,” he said, calmly. “It seems they are being have had breached the perimeter.” 
“What- -but you said the door was indestructible!” cried Trixie. 
“Dey must hab mewted de kosmowine!” cried Kiwi. 
“It MELTS?”
“How are you thinking Ivan got it on the door? Of course it melts.” An expression of realization came over his face. “Ohhh…that is probably not being best of security measure, is it?” 
“What do we do?” said Sweetie Belle. 
“What? Is simple, no? You take portkey. Ivan and Kiwi defend the Motherland.” Ivan nodded, and Kiwi leapt of his shoulder and scampered down the hall. 
“Ivan, are you sure?”
Ivan slapped Humph on the back, and then grabbed the collar of his shirt with a deadly serious expression on his face. “The capitalists have come to undermine Ivan’s Glorious Revolution. Ivan has never been being more sure of anything since someone asked ‘more potion, Ivan?’” Having mentioned his potion, Ivan took another sip, and then started walking off.
“Meet me at my summer home!” called Humph.
Ivan looked up at the ceiling, stroking his squarish chin. “The wind conditions are being potentially favorable. If trajectory is high…da. Ivan sees what Ivan can do.” He then disappeared into the hallways, drawing his wand and lighting his path as he left. 
“We can’t leave him,” said Sweetie Belle. “He just can’t! Not after Sunflower, we can’t- -hey, what are you doing?!”
Humph picked her up and held her over his head. “Saving your life!”
He brought her down and tapped her against the tip of the portkey while the other two touched the base. Space distorted ,and they flew off to the portkey’s destination. 
They materialized somewhere else, in a place that Humph quickly realized was a stand of trees attached to a dirt road that he knew connected to the muggle part of town. To his left was Ivan’s car- -a beat up, rusted out knockoff Yugo.  
“Get in,” said Humph, pointing at the car.
“Trixie is NOT getting in that thing,” said Trixie. “The ones in his front yard looked safer than- -”
Humph threw open the door and shoved her and the other ponies inside. He then took the passenger seat. 
“What’s that smell?” said Sweetie Belle, holding her nose as she sunk into the moist, torn seat and a number of small insects fled from her weight.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” said Fluttershy.
“Seatbelts!” said Humph, attaching his own. “You’re going to need them!”
“Do you know how to drive this thing?” said Trixie.
“What? No, of course not. I’m a wizard, I don’t know how to drive a car.” He pointed at the empty driver seat. “That’s why I’m not over there.”
Trixie gaped. “Then how the HAY are we supposed to get out of here?!”
Humph smiled. “You forget, this is Ivan’s car.” The vehicle shuddered as its engine hummed to life. “It’s Soviet. And in Soviet Russia, car drive YOU!” 

“SECTUMSEMPRA!” 
Ivan was thrown back into a bookcase filled with musty, ancient tomes. He was already battered from having absorbed direct, unblocked hits from numerous spells of every type imaginable. He was bruised and battered, but this was the first time he had actually fallen down.
The wizard commander approached, standing over Ivan. Beside him were several other wizards, with one seeming to be a troll of some kind who was grinning viciously. 
“What is that smell?” said the ranking wizard. “And what- -why aren’t you bleeding?!”
Ivan reached up and touched his face. He pulled away his hand to see a waxy fluid seeping from his wounds. “Ah. Ivan has followed the example of Comrade Lenin and replaced all blood with the kosmolin. Ivan does not bleed. Is very best antioxidant.” 
“You don’t bleed, eh?” the wizard smirked. “Well, that doesn’t mean I can’t crush every bone in your body.” He raised his wand. “Deletrius!” A surge of energy struck Ivan in the chest. He was knocked back once again into the bookcase, with the wind knocked out of him. “That was a weak one. The next one takes your torso off. Got that? Now tell me, you reject, WHERE ARE THE PONIES?”
Ivan smiled, and then turned his head and spat. “Ivan will never betray friends to the capitalist horde.”
“Then you’re not any use to me. Delet- -“
“Ibin!” squeaked Kiwi from the top of the shelf. “Quick! Take yu potion!” The tiny animal kicked two enormous gallon-size bottles completely filled with the clear fluid down off the top of the bookcase. The wizards watched in confusion, and Ivan shot up, grabbing one bottle in each hand. He lifted them both to his mouth and with three long gulps drained them completely. He then threw them to the floor on either side, shattering them. 
“What the heck did you just- -DELETRIUS!”
Ivan backhanded the incoming spell, deflecting it and causing it to fly into the chest of one of the several attacking wizards, sending him flying backward with a cry. 
“What the- -Blorg! Smash!”
The troll laughed stupidly and stepped forward, his head scraping againt the dirt above. He had a wand, but instead chose to use his fists. As his enormous fist came in, Ivan caught it, stopping the troll in his tracks. He then slung him through a cinderblock wall.
“Potion make Ivan STRONG!” he screamed as he tore off his shirt. 
“Holy nuggets!” cried one of the wizards. “Shirtless Soviet! SHIRTLESS SOVIET! I’m too young to die!!” He and several others promptly sprinted off. 
Kiwi jumped down into Ivan’s grasp, and Ivan tapped his wand against the creature, transfiguring it into a fuzzy ushanka hat. His eyes were now narrowed into tiny black points, and both were facing the same direction. He began to walk toward the wizards. 
“Don’t- -don’t just stand there!” said their leader, his eyes focused on Ivan’s bayoneted-wand. “STOP HIM!”
All of their wands ignited, but Ivan was barely slowed. Stupification spells, paralysis spells, they just rebounded off his gray, cosmoline-enhanced flesh. 
“Fine,” said the leader. “Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.” He raised his wand. “Avada Ked- -”
Ivan reached out and crushed the wizard’s wand, causing it to fizzle and spark as it died. 
“This is why a proper wand is made of Soviet steel,” whispered Ivan, raising his own wand. The wizard paniced, and tried to run away- -only to find that Ivan was holding his hand too tightly to escape.
Ivan leaned forward and pointed his wand at the wizard. Then, gently, he spoke the name of Kuzma’s mother. 

The Yugo was already drive erratically when the shockwave hit. It picked up the rear end and nearly turned the car over, bathing it in intense white light. The car quickly compensated, though, with its wheel cutting to the side. Humph gripped the so-called “Jesus-handle” even tighter, even though his deathgrip had long-since severed if from the place where it was taped on. 
He looked behind them and saw an enormous mushroom cloud rising from where Ivan’s home must have been. 
“What was that?!” cried Fluttershy.
“Kuzma’s mother,” said Humph. He turned back to the road- -only to see a person standing directly in the center of the road and directly in their path.
He cried out- -as if the car would actually listen- -but being Soviet, it did not stop or slow. The girl did not seem to care much, either. She just stood there, her hands in her coat pockets, until the car had almost reached here- -at which point she raised one foot and slammed it down onto the hood. 
The car stopped instantly, and Humph was thrown forward. He was disoriented for a moment, but when he regained what little sense he had, he saw the girl still standing there. She was young, possibly fifteen, and Asian- -and her foot was imbedded in where the Yugo’s engine had just been. 
“Oh, my head,” said Trixie. “I think Trixie has the whiplash.”
“This is why we wear the seatbelts,” said Humph. 
“Oi,” said the girl, her voice muffled through the windshield. “You gonna get out of there or what?”
Humph could immediately tell from her accent that she was profoundly Scottish. That made him nervous, because his knowledge of the Scot language was limited at best.
“I think she wants us to get out of the car,” he said. “That, or haggis. I have no idea. Either way, I’m getting out.”
“Humph, don’t!” said Fluttershy. 
“Oh, come one. She’s just a kid.”
“A kid who just stopped a car going at top speed with her foot,” added Trixie.
“It’s a Yugo. In all fairness, it wasn’t going very fast. Just be glad it wasn’t a Pinto, we’d probably be toast by now.”   
Humph opened his door- -or rather, caused it to fall off- -and stepped out. The ponies hesitated, but followed him as well. 
“There you are,” said the girl, pulling her foot out of the wreck. She was quite obviously associated with the other wizards, even though she was just wearing a long black coat instead of armor and a mask. “Right. Last chance, dude. Hand over those unicorns, or…well…if you’re as stupid as you look, you’ll find out right quick.” 
Humph took a second to translate her Scottish into English, and then responded. “I assure you, there is no haggis here. Also, these ponies are sentient creatures. I can’t just ‘hand them over’. They have free will. I mean,” he turned around, “if you guys want to go with her, you can.”
“I’m not a unicorn,” noted Fluttershy. “And, if I might be so impolite as to be assertive, I say- -HAY NO.” 
“Go through all of that just to lose?” said Sweetie Belle. “No way!”
“I say fight her,” said Trixie, brandishing her wand. “I need more wands anyway!” 
The girl smiled and stepped back down the dirt road slightly. “I love it when they resist.” 
She pulled her hands out of her pockets and spread her arms. Then they suddenly shifted, pulling back at an impossible angle, and her body began to distort. Her size increased exponentially, and her formerly pale Scottish skin became dark and scaly, then fully armored. Her face drew out into an enormous snout, and her mouth became wide and full of teeth. In less than fifteen seconds, she had grown almost fifty times her previous size into a fully adult dragon.
“A dagron animagus,” said Humph, in awe as the dragon stepped forward toward him, screaming with a plume of fire as she spread her wings. Then Humph laughed. “Oh, this is going to be fun!” He raised his wand, but was promptly crushed by the creature’s foot. Sweetie Belle barely managed to shove Fluttershy out of the way, and Trixie jumped the other way, assisting her motion instinctively using her wand. 
The dragon ground Humph into the ground, and then pulled its foot back. Humph stood up from the footprint, apparently undamaged. “Oh yeah?” he said, sounding disorientated. “Well just wait until I…” He raised his wand, and the front end dangled by a thread from the back. “Oh,” he said. “Wand broken…well then…”
He threw the wand down, and then spontaneously tore off all his clothing in a single motion. “Well, if you want it that way, I’m going to go full Angus McFife on your scaly dagron REAR!” At that point, with no wand and no clothing apart from his leopard- print underwear, he charged the dragon. 
Sweetie Belle watched as he latched onto its foot, and as the creature took flight. This was terrifying, but somehow more amazing than anything she had ever seen. The only dragon she had ever seen personally was Spike, and he was smaller than her and completely non-threating. This dragon looked way more awesome. 
Still, this was not good, and Sweetie Belle started to shake Fluttershy, who was now cowering on the open ground, her face covered with her hooves as she shook in fright.
“A dragon,” she moaned. “Why did it have to be a dragon?”
“Fluttershy! Come on! Pull yourself together!”
“Can’t! Dragon! Giant, enormous, fire-breathing, pony-eating dragon.”
“But you already defeated a dragon once!” chided Sweetie Belle. “Rarity told me so!”
“But that was different- -that was a tired, sleepy dragon. This one- -this one actually hates us! We’re done for I- -I’m too afraid!”
“Well then tell me how to stop it!”
“I- -I don’t know! I DON’T KNOW! All I did was yell at it!” She then broke down into tears and sobbing that made whatever else she was saying- -if anything at all- -completely uninterpretable. 
“Yell at it,” said Sweetie Belle to herself. An idea occurred to her, a spell from an extremely ancient and dusty book in a nearly unreadable language that Humph had been using as a doorstop. 
Sweetie Belle turned to the dragon, which was now high in the air and turning to come down toward them. She wanted to run, but instead took a deep breath, filling her disproportionately large lungs with air. Then, just as it got in range, she yelled at it. 
“JOOR’ZAH-FRUL!” she screamed at her highest possible volume. As soon as the spell left her, her already incredible singer’s voice spread out from her in a surge of blue magic, gathering momentum as it raced toward the dragon. The dragon seemed confused, but it was too close to dodge. The spell hit it, causing it to twist in the air as its wings contorted and tore. It flapped futilely, but then spiraled into the ground. 
“YEAH!” cried Humph, who suddenly appeared on the thrashing creature’s neck, straddling it and trying to ride it. He looked like a speck against spikes and scales, but somehow he was holding on even as the dragon got more aggressive in its incapacitated state.
Sweetie Belle collapsed to her knees. Whatever kind of spell she had just used, it had drained almost all of her magical energy. 
“Trixie!” she called. “I can’t- -I can’t do another spell!”
“Then- -then what am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, just do SOMETHING!”
Trixie looked up at the creature nervously. She only knew two, three spells tops, and none of them would be even remotely effective against a dragon or really anything at all that she was either not trying to levitate or draw toward her. So she said the first random thing that came to her mind.
“Herpicus Derpicus!” she shouted.
Something shot out of her wand. Whatever it was spiraled toward the dragon and struck it in the head. At first there was no response. There was no explosion or surge of light, and Trixie momentarally paniced- -but then she saw the dragon slow, and its eyes start to look in different directions. As that happened, it started to shrink, turning back into a human.
Once it was reasonably close to being a girl again, it started screaming.
“What- -what did you do to me?!” she screamed. “My brain- -I can’t- -why can’t I THINK? I’ve been ADDLED!” 
The then collapsed, derping hardcore on the dirt road as Humph sat on her shoulders.
“Woo!” he said, raising his fists into the air. “Trixie, you just defeated the dagron!”
“I- -I did? I mean, of course I did!”
“Trixie, that was epic!” said Sweetie Belle, limping her way toward the other pony. “How did you know how to do a spell like that?”
“Well, the Great and Powerful Trixie is both great and powerful, so it simply came to her!” 
“Excuse me,” said Fluttershy, inching toward the others. “I hate to be a buzzkill. I really do. I’m so, so sorry, but- -”
“Just spit it out already!” said Trixie. “Or Trixie might have a mind to derp you too!”
“Um…oh…please don’t threaten me, it’s just that…I think the dragon girl was a distraction.”
Humph looked up to see that they were now surrounded by wizards. Most of them were hardly in any condition to fight. Some were charred or slightly singed, and others were limping or holding onto each other. One was scratching himself with great vigor. Worst of all, they had completely surrounded the group.
“Oh crap,” said Humph. He got off the semi-comatose dragon girl and held the ponies close. “Well, I didn’t want to do this, but I’m going to aspirate us.”
“Aspirate, what does that even- -”
“You’re going to want to hold your breath. The last time I tried this, I ended up in an industrial vat of pudding. I’m pretty sure I still smell like tapioca.”
“Wait, what- -”
Humph took an enormous breath, and then space warped as he pulled the three ponies and himself out of danger and off toward somewhere else.