//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13: The Unicorn Hunt 
// Story: Humphrey Dinklehuegen and the Talking Horses 
// by Unwhole Hole 
//------------------------------//

	It was a sunny day, and Fluttershy sat at a folding table beneath a brightly lit and open window. Several birds were sitting on the sill, and they were watching her work as rodents scampered around the base of her chair. 
“Hey, Fluttershy?” said Trixie from behind. “Have you seen Humph? Trixie is starving, and needs peanut butter crackers!”
“He went to the store in the village,” said Fluttershy, adjusting one facet of the puzzle box. “He’ll be back in two hours. Assuming he doesn’t fall down a hole or something. That happens to me sometimes.” 
“But can’t you just, you know, fly out?”
Fluttershy paused. “Um…yes. That’s what I do. Definitely.” 
Trixie, having nothing else to do, walked up to Fluttershy’s side and looked at the project she was working on. “Is that thing almost done?”
“Oh, it’s done,” said Fluttershy. “Except for one piece.”
“Piece? What kind of piece?”
Fluttershy set the box down and sighed, spitting out the screwdriver in her mouth. “It needs a transmitter. It’s not powerful enough now. In Equestria, you would just use a crimson resonator from the Crystal Empire. But here, they don’t have anything close.”
“So…it doesn’t work?”
“Not until I can figure out a way to make it louder. We’re so far. She can’t hear it from here.” 
Trixie was about to ask what exactly that meant and then pretend to have at least some idea about the magic that Fluttershy, a Pegasus, knew for some reason how to use, but she got distracted by a smell. 
“Do you smell that?” she asked.
“I told you. I have a lot of animals. The smell doesn’t wash off easily.”
“No, not that. That smell…it smells like oats. Really fancy ones.”
She sniffed around the room, and then eventually made her way onto the desk and out the window. Fluttershy just watched in mild amusement that quickly became nervousness. Something felt wrong, and she flapped her wings, taking flight and following Trixie out the window.
“Trixie! Come back!” she called. “We’re not supposed to be outside! And there’s enchantments here that can make your skeleton try to climb out your mouth!” 
“But I’m so hungry!” called Trixie, trotting quickly toward the grove of windbreak trees that surrounded Humph’s summer home. “I just want to see if- -yes! SCORE!” 
Trixie ran forward to where a sack of oats had been hung from a tree. Strung next to it was a round, white object.
“And look! A salt lick too!” She leaned forward and started licking the donut-shaped lick. “Mmm…so salty…” 
“Trixie, this isn’t right,” said Fluttershy, her eyes darting around as she wondered why the lick and the treats had been hung at exactly pony-head height. “We have to get back inside.”
“Oh please, Fluttershy, you’re just so paranoid! I mean, who would put a salt-lick out unless they wanted you to lick it? It’s not like- -”
There was an almost inadiable “thwick” sound, and Trixie jumped suddenly. “OW!” she cried, “something just bit me!” She looked down at her rump and saw that she had most certainly not been bitten. A small projectile syringe was sticking out of her rump. “Gosh darn it,” she said as her eyelids began to droop unevenly. “Trixie just had her…shots…”
Trixie collapsed. As she did, there was another “thwick” and Fluttershy felt a sharp pain in her own rump. She looked down to see a dart sticking out of it. She waited several seconds, but nothing happened. There was another sound, and then another, and then a whole group. Within seconds she had at least ten darts sticking out of various parts of her body. 
“Well, that’s just rude,” she said. 
An enormous griffon with a dart rifle suddenly stood up from a nearby shrub. “Why the ell aren’t you going down?”
“GRIFFON!” cried Fluttershy, and promptly fainted from fright. 
“Oh,” said Gisla. “Well, eez one way to do it, I suppose.” 

On the other side of the house, Sunflower- -now back to her normal centaur form, wearing a plaid shirt and bomber jacket- -stood over Liu, who was still bound but ungagged. 
“You know you’re not wearing any pants, right?” said Liu.
“I am more than a little aware of that, yes.” 
“Must be drafty. Having it all hanging out like that.” 
“You have no idea.”
“I’m a dragon half the time. I know what it feels like, trust me.”
“Yes, but you’re a wizard half the time as well.”
“True.” Liu leaned back. “At least I’m not a dirty horse-rumped halfbreed with an overinflated ego despite being nothing more than a magical beast.”
“No,” said Sunflower, retaining her cool. She was used to hearing that type of insult. “You are clearly more of a horse face than a horse rear.”
There was a sound of heavy boots from across the room, and Ivan entered. “Sunflower,” he said. He stopped and looked at Liu. “Oh. Who is being that?”
“Just a horseface animagus Scot,” said Sunflower. “Ignore her. What is it, Ivanovich?” 
“What is- -oh. Yes.” Ivan reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a well-carved stick. “Ivan find this on ground outside.”
Sunflower’s eyes widened. “Is that…?”
“Tiny inferior capitalist wooden magic stick? Ivan is thinking so. Does not know how it got where it was being, or why was on the ground.”
“It was there because someone lost it,” said Sunflower, realizling what the wand implied. She rushed toward one of the windows, being careful not to put her face too close to it, and drew a pistol. “That means there’s wizards out there. They’ve found us!”
“Told you,” said Liu, smiling. 
“What?” said Ivan, approaching the window carefully. “But Ivan was outside for so long, saw nothing of consequence petrificus totalus.”
Sunflower’s body suddenly stiffened and she fell hard onto her side. She looked up, still conscious but fully paralyzed, to see Ivan pointing the wooden wand straight at her. He smiled, and his body began to warp. Within a few moments, instead of a long-nosed, derp-eyed gray man, a woman was standing in Ivan’s clothing where he had been. 
“Mag!” cried Liu. “Holy nuts, that’s actually you?!”
“Of course it’s me,” she said. “The Soviet’s already been neutralized, and two unicorns have been acquired.”
“Well then what are you waiting for? Cut me free!”
The woman raised her wand and pointed it at Liu. There was a flash of light as the bindings holding the girl broke, and Liu stood up, rubbing her wrists. 
Sunflower struggled to reach for her gun, but she was completely bound and unable to move. She could still think, though, and still feel pain- -even though she was light for a centaur, eight hundred pounds never fell easily- -and it also appeared that she could talk still.
“Mag…Magmarian De’Aquienz?”
The woman’s eyes widened. “How do you know my name?”
“You were a sixth year when I was a first!”
“But…you’re a centaur. Centaurs aren’t allowed to go to Hogwarts.”
“Yeah, they kicked me out. Sunflora Smith?” 
Maggie’s eyes widened with recognition. “You kneecapped me during a quiddich scrimmage!”
“Yeah, well, I WAS trying out for beater- -”
“I was in the hospital for a week, and had to graduate on crutches!”
“Well, it’s not my fault you have brittle bones!” 
“You two know each other?” said Liu. 
“She’s the girl who used to violently defend a corner of the library,” said Maggie. “We- -we went to Hogwarts togather.”
“Whoa, you actually got into Hogwarts? I thought that was just a rumor!” She looked at Sunflower and then at Maggie. “How did Maggie De’Aquienze and a centaur get in and I didn’t? Well, nevermind.” She crossed the floor and kicked Sunflower hard in her horse chest. It hurt, substantially, but Sunflower suppressed her desire to scream. Showing pain was showing weakness.
“No! Don’t do that!” said Maggie, pulling Liu away.
“She bound me and gagged me and stuffed me in a sack! And broke my wand! I’m going to both sets of her ribs if- -”
“NO.”
“And just who are you to tell me what to do? You run observation and intelligence. You’re not the boss of me!”
“No, but Gisla is. And we’re on a schedule. But if you want to explain to her that the evaq failed because you wanted to torture a helpless centaur- -”
“Fine, fine!” said Liu, giving up. “Just don’t tell Gisla. I need a good performance review for the next quarter. Real bad.” 
“Then we need to go. Now.”  
Liu started walking, but Maggie hung behind for a second. “I’m sorry,” she said. 
“Don’t tell that to me,” spat Sunflower. “Tell that to the innocent ponies you’re going to bleed for profit.” 

Out on the far edge of the windbreak, Sweetie Belle was coming back from a stroll on the moors. She sung as she walked, taking inspiration from the land around her. She was, of course, still terrified of what was going to happen to her and beginning to feel more and more homesick, but she had decided to make the best of what this world had to offer. The seemingly endless plains had a certain poetry about them, and a certain sadness. 
She entered the grove of trees, and immediately felt that something was off. There were enchantments surrounding the house, which she knew. They were optimized for humans, not her, so they were not normally a problem. Now, though, almost all of them seemed to have been turned off. 
Then she heard something rustling in the bushes. She froze, suddenly terrified, and hid behind a small shrub. 
“My lungs feel funny,” said a voice. “It’s an embolism, I’m dying.”
“It’s allergies,” said another voice. 
“To what? I’m not allergic to anything!”
“To the moor grass! Look at it, it’s everywhere!”
“How would you know? You only attended half a semester of medical school before they threw you out!”
“And how much medical school did you attend? I know that the head bone is connected to the knee bone, and that’s all I need to know.”
“That doesn’t help my embolism! Or the brain tumor!” The lower of the two voices sighed. “I bet its testicular cancer. It’s metastatic testicular cancer, isn’t it?”
“Well, I’m not about to check.” The higher but still male second voice inhaled sharply. “Oh wow, look at that!” 
There was a rushing of footsteps toward where Sweetie Belle was hiding, and she held her breath. 
“Leave the plants, Lester. We’re here to catch a tiny horse. Not a tree.”
“But this is a genuine battlegorse! And it’s so little! Did you know that they can grow fifty meters high? Hold on, I’m totally going to take it.”
The shrub near Sweetie Belle rustled and was pulled from the ground. Sweetie Belle looked up to see a pair of wizards dressed in camouflage standing over her. The two parties stared out for a moment, and then the larger of the two yelled.
“TINY HORSE! GET IT!” 
Sweetie Belle fired a stun spell, but the larger wizard blocked it. He then swung his wand. “Serpentsortia!”
A snake flew out of the tip of his wand and struck Sweetie Bell in the side. It immediately flopped to the ground and stared up at her with mismatched eyes.
“The derp-herp!” cried the smaller wizard. “What the heck is that supposed to do?!”
“I panicked, okay? I’m better with guns than wands!”
“Then use the gun!”
By the time they came to that conclusion, Sweetie Belle was already at least five meters away. A small explosion went from behind her, and she felt projectiles whizzing past her head. 
“After her!” cried Lester. He and John immediately started sprinting through the spiny underbrush, with John brandishing a shotgun as he followed. 
Chasing the tiny horse was not easy. There was a significant amount of underbrush and she was very small. For a moment, they pair of wizards through that they had lost her. Then, suddenly, something silvery white crossed their path.
“There!” cried Lester, bounding over a stump after the shape. “Come on! If Gisla finds out we let her get away, your tumor is going to be the least of our problems!”
The horse was fast, and Lester was forced to jump and dive for her when he got close enough. He landed on several rocks and an aggressive thorn bush- -and dropped his battlegorse- -but he felt his hands wrap around something pony-sized.
“HA!” he said, standing up. “I got her!”
John came from behind, wheezing. “How are you- -able to run- -like that? Don’t you eat- -a diet of- -just beans or something?”
“Magic beans,” corrected Lester. “Look! Tiny horse!”
He held out the silver-colored horse to John, and the horse just smiled back and fluttered her tiny useless wings. 
“Wait a minute,” said John. “Lester, I don’t think that’s a unicorn. That’s a patronus!” 
“Patronus?” Lester moved the pony back toward him and examined it closely. “Who the heck has a chicken for a patronus?!” 
The patronus began to dissolve, and Lester and John were left without a pony. 

Humph whistled as he walked up the dirt path to his summer home. Or at least tried to, because he did not actually know how to whistle. He was only minutes away when something jumped out of the grass on the side of the path. He screamed like a little girl and nearly dropped the bag he was carrying, only to realize that it was Sweetie Belle. 
“Sweetie Belle, you almost gave me a heart attack!”
“Humph, quick, wizards- -”
“Do you want any biscuits?” he asked, opening his bag. “I have biscuits. And cookies. And this.” He pulled out a bottle of fluorescent orange pop. “I got Liu some Irn-Bru. They drink that, right? I just feel really bad having her tied up, and considering she’s a teenager it’s probably totally inappropriate. We basically kidnapped her and all- -”  
“HUMPH!” shouted Sweetie Belle. “Wizards- -we’ve been invaded!”
Humph’s eyes widened as he realized what had she meant. He dropped the bag, snapped open the Irn-Bru and chugged it. He then picked up Sweetie Belle and sprinted back to his house.
Irn-Bru was certainly no Ivan potion, but the combination of caffeine and Ponceau 4R made him able to move much quicker than normal and he reached his summer home in twenty seconds flat. The first thing he noticed was that just outside his door, Ivan had been frozen solid, entombed in a block of ice. He was still reaching out toward a bottle of his potion- -also frozen, and sitting on the ground just inches away from his fingertips- -but had been unable to reach it when he had been solidified. 
Next to him, Kiwi was weeping and desperately and futilely trying to claw through the ice with his tiny paws. When he saw Humph and Sweetie Belle, he looked up with his eyes wide and fully of tears. 
“Pwease nice mistuh, hewp Ibin! Hab wowsest cowdie-huwties!” He sobbed. “No wan Ibin to take fowevew sweepies! He am Kiwi onwy fwend! Huuhuu!” 
“Is he…dead?” asked Sweetie Belle in shock. 
“Oh no,” said Humph. “Ivan’s Soviet. Sort of. He’s actually from Cleveland, but that’s not the point. The point is, he can’t be harmed by any form of snow or ice. He’s just stuck.” He pointed his wand at the ice, and a beam of light shot out. The ice was immediately transfigured into a flurry of white dog hair, and Ivan lurched forward as though he had hardly noticed. He grabbed the ice containing his potion and lifted it.
“Why potion is so cold?” he asked. He shrugged and drank some of it. “Eh. Is not frozen, so is not really the cold.” 
“Ibin!” cried Kiwi, hugging Ivan’s leg. 
A look of realization suddenly came over Ivan’s face. “Wizards!” he said. “Ivan was attacked! They got to the inside!” He pointed at the door to the house, which had been blasted open. Both Humph and Sweetie Belle’s hearts sunk. 
Humph rushed into the house. There was no sign of a struggle, apart from the door having been opened. He could tell that something was wrong, though.
“Sunflower!” he cried. “Sunflower, where are you!”
“In…here,” called a voice weakly from farther back in the house.
Sweetie Belle and Humph rushed to the room where they had been holding Liu, and as soon as they arrived, they saw Sunflower paralysed and tipped onto her side next to the cut ropes that had been holding their captive.
“Sunflower, what happened?” cried Humph, his voice cracking.
“Petrification spell. Can’t move. I need a counterspell.”
“Right,” said Humph, raising his wand.”
“NOT from you. Let her do it.”
Sweetie Belle stepped forward and charged her horn with the counterspell. As soon as she engaged it, Sunflower was released and gasped for breath. “They took…they took Trixie and Fluttershy. I couldn’t stop them. They had a metamorphamagus, they came up from behind, I didn’t- -”
“It’s going to be okay,” said Humph. 
“How is it possibly going to be okay? Are you even listening?” Sunflower stood, slipping on the tile floor and nearly falling. Humph rushed to her side to help her, but she pushed him away. “I thought you said Rosenblatt put protection enchantments on this place!”
“He did,” said Sweetie Belle. “They’re all turned off. They must- -they must have cut them!”
Sunflower swore. “How did they even know we were here?”
“They must have tracked Liu,” reasoned Sweetie Belle. She looked at the pile of rope where the dragon animagus had been. 
“Or there was being a spy,” said Ivan, entering the room slowly while continuing to drink a half-frozen bottle of his potion. 
“Or,” said Sunflower, angrily stomping toward Ivan. “You let them in without even TRYING to warn me!”
“Ivan can not help it! Ivan was magiced!”
“It must have been a coordinated attack,” said Sweetie Belle. “They took down you two to get the three of us alone. I barely got away. I think they were counting on me being in the house…” Sweetie Belle shivered when she thought about what might have happened to her if she had been with Fluttershy and Trixie- -and then she felt terrible when she realized she was considering herself lucky for avoiding a horrible fate that her compatriots were no doubt currently experiencing. 
“Do you know where they went?” said Humph.
“No. I didn’t see. I couldn’t even reach my bloody gun.”
“Do you have any way to track them?”
Sunflower’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”
“Deadly serious. Deathly serious, even.”
“They just took down a centaur, a Soviet, a competent unicorn, and a Fluttershy in less than ten minutes. Are you seriously considering trying to try to get them back? Just walk in there and take them?”
“Sure, why not. Harry Potter once walked into Gringots and stole a bunch of gold, I should think I can do at least this.”	
“That event is a lot more complicated than that! And Potter was- -and is- -actually, you know, skilled.”
“And I’m not?”
“No!”
“Well,” said Humph, crossing his arms. “If you can’t track them, then I’ll do it myself.”
“One, you can’t. You have no idea how. Two, I didn’t say I can’t track them.”
“Wait,” said Sweetie Belle. “You can?”
“Of course I can. When I acquired the Scot I shoved an Origin Stone down her throat. I’m assuming she hasn’t passed it quite yet.” 
“Origin Stone?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Ivan is not liking the Origin,” grunted Ivan. “Prefers the hot water vapor a great much more.” 
Ignoring Ivan, Sunflower continued. “It’s a magical object.” She reached into her pocket and produced a rounded, palm-sized stone with several holes cut into it. “This is the Mother Stone. It will always seek out the Daughter Stones. Of course, unless they are complete morons they’ll probably check her.”
“So, it’s useless?”
“No. Despite their competence, I’m assuming they are, in fact, morons. Seeing as none of us are dead.”
“Ivan might be,” said Ivan. “Heart has still not started beating. Has trouble pumping the kosmolin, Ivan thinks.”
“Just drink more potion,” suggested Sweetie Belle.
Ivan derped. “Da. This, Ivan can be doing!” 
Sunflower directed her attention to Humph. “But I can’t guarantee we’ll make it out if we do what you’re proposing.”
“You don’t have to come. I can do it myself. After all, I have a wand.” Humph raised his wand, and it accidentally shot a projectile into the ceiling that caused several pieces of plaster to fall. “Oop. Sensitive wand.” 
“I figured as much,” muttered Sunflower. “But I’m definitely not letting you go alone. You’re just not competent. I am. You would be dead in ten seconds flat without me.” 
“You mean…you would be sad if I died?”
“Not sad,” said Sunflower, blushing. “Just…I would miss you. Sort of. And I’d feel terrible for not having pulled your non-horse butt out of the fire when it would barely even be hard.” 
“I’m coming too,” said Sweetie Belle. “They’re my friends, and I need to help them. That, and I’m the only one here who knows how to use magic properly aside from Ivan.”
“Ivan does not know how to use magic,” said Ivan. “Mostly, points Mosin-Nagant bayonet at the things, and magic is happening.” He shrugged. “Ivan not understand. Not need to. Am pureblood.” 
“Eh. Pretty much what I do, too,” said Humph. 
Sunflower sighed. “We’re going to die, aren’t we.”
“Probably,” said Sweetie Belle.