//------------------------------// // Chapter twenty-seven // Story: Twilight the hybrid // by WolfGoddess1990 //------------------------------// Twi turned to smile at her friends, "I have to wait until you're done, as a hybrid this bath won't turn me back to normal, Zecora has to add in another ingredient to turn me back to normal." Zecora brought Twi over to another bath, "Here you are my hybrid friend, with this bath your pony self well come at its end." Twi got into the bath and twitched a bit at the slight pain when she changed back, her body went back to her normal height and length, her fur changed back into scales, and her claws and sharp teeth grew back in. Twi looked happily at her hybrid form then at her friends, "I do want to ask you one thing, how do you guys use hooves? I seriously couldn't even open my books with them." "It's from practice and common knowledge." Twi got out, "Well I prefer my claws thank you very much, Zecora can I talk to you for a moment alone." The two walked away and Zecora looked at her, "I want to ask you something." "What do you wish to ask me? Just say it and I might agree." "Well as you noticed I'm a dragon hybrid, and I need to eat meat for a balanced diet, the only problem is Shy, she is an animal lover." "Ah, I see you need to eat meat, much like ponies need to eat wheat. But your friend Shy is friends with what you see as food, that would cause quite the feud." "Exactly so I was wondering if you wouldn't mind me using your hut as a safe place to eat any wild animals I catch in peace because ever since the whole deer eating thing I been seeing a lot of birds following me." "You can use my hut to escape any birds sight, and you can come to my hut day or night." "Thanks for understanding Zecora, there is one last thing... why do you speak in rhyme?" "That's how I was raised and taught, speaking like this comes to me without a second thought." "Why were you taught to speak in rhyme?" "That's just my family's way of being unique, and that's just the way we speak." "Interesting, so you can't talk in any other way?" "I don't want to speak in any other way, and that's how it's going to stay." They walked back to see everyone drying off, she was glad to see everyone was back to normal, Twi walked with Zecora back to the forest and waved goodbye once she reached the poison joke, Twi looked at the plant with interest, "I wonder how this plant even works..." She brought out some jars and using her magic she carefully placed some in the jars, and she brought them home with her. When Spike saw the jars filled with poison joke he climbed up to get a better look at them, "What are these?" "Poison joke, I wouldn't open the jar and touch it if I were you." "Is this what turned you into a pony?" "Yes but it has different effects on anyone who touches it, I brought some with me to figure out how it works." They both looked at it as Twi carefully brought out one using her magic, she pulled off the petals and did a different test on each petal as she wrote down her findings. "So what did you figure out?" "That these plants turn what you love the most into something you won't love, like how Pinkie loves to talk and the plant made it so she couldn't talk normally." "Or how Rarity loves her beauty and the plant made her hairy." "Exactly, or at least that's what I gathered so far, and it seems to add up." "But why did it turn you into a pony?" "I love being unique, and it took that away, I'm guessing if I was born a pony it would have messed with my horn since doing magic is the second thing I love about myself." "I thought you didn't like being a hybrid..." "This is the way I was born, I've come to accept and love that I am unique and different." "Even if you outlive your friends?" Twi's ears folded down, "I can't live my life as a pony, I'm sure my friends won't like that I gave up my hybrid form just to grow old with them." She hugged Spike and put away the rest of the poison joke, you never know when it might come in handy, a week has passed and Twi has been happily visiting Zecora's hut to eat what she liked. One day Ponyville got a message that Princess Celestia will be making an unofficial casual visit tomorrow, which made all everyone start preparing for her visit today, Twi was quickly cleaning her library as Spike helped, "Hurry up, Spike! This place isn't gonna clean itself." "It also didn't mess itself up." "The princess will be here tomorrow." "I thought this was just an unofficial casual visit." "There's nothing casual about a visit from royalty." She said as she used her magic to quickly stack most of her books. One book she stacked was one Spike was standing on, "You know, this would be an awful lot easier if there weren't two of us here getting under each other's feet." He said getting out of a book pile. "Great idea. You clean, I'll go see how everyone else's preparations are coming." Twi gave him a duster and left before Spike could argue, she happily walked through the park looking at all the decorations. "Good job everypony." She stopped to watch a banner being put up, "What happened to the rest of her name?" "We couldn't fit it all in." "You can't hang a banner that says 'Welcome Princess Celest'. Take it down and try again." She walked towards sugarcube corner and went inside, "Hello, Mr. Cake and Mrs. Cake, how's the banquet coming?" "Uh...it would be coming a little better if..." Mrs. Cake pointed towards the food on the table which seemed to be half eaten and Pinkie popped up and ate a whole cake, "Pinkie! What are you doing? Those sweets are supposed to be for the princess." "I know. That's why I'm tasting them. Somepony needs to make sure that everything is tasty enough to touch the royal tongue, and I, Pinkie Pie, declare that these treats are fit for a king, or a queen, or a princess." Pinkie was just about to eat another cake when Shy spoke up, "Twi, Pinkie, you won't believe..." She stopped and slid on the floor, "Oh, I'm sorry, uh, am I interrupting?" "No, not at all. Come on in and make yourself at home." Pinkie said eating the whole cake, "What's going on, Shy?" "You won't believe what I found at the edge of the Everfree Forest. Come on out, little guy, it's okay." Three cute bugs came out of her mane, "Three?" Both Twi and Pinkie reacted, "Shy why on Equestria would you bring those here?" "Why what's wrong with them?" "There a parasprite, my father wrote a book on them, but he couldn't figure out how to get rid of them from a town." "I do come on Twi help me find a trombone." Twi and Pinkie started to leave. "Wait why did your father..." And they both left. "Want to get rid of them... I guess they don't want one, but I bet the others would." Shy walked into carousel boutique, "Hey Rarity, those outfits are gorgeous." "Thank you, Shy. Nice to know someone appreciates my talents." "Ugh, so boring." They both heard a chirp, "What's that sound, Shy?" The parasprites came out. "Wow, what are they?" "Twi said they are called a parasprite but both she and Pinkie didn't want one." "Uh, I'll take one." "Me too, oh, they're perfect." Pinkie came in, "Does anypony know where I can find an accordion?" "They seem to be distracted, come on Pinkie we have lots more instruments on this list to find." They both left to find any instrument on the list Twi made, the next day they were still looking, when they spotted Rarity, "Look Rarity, Applejack loaned me a harmonica. Isn't that great?" She then noticed the bag Rarity was carrying was full of parasprites. Twi came over, "And not a moment too soon, there is more of them." "Twi, Pinkie, I'm a little busy right now." "And we're not? You know how many more instruments we gotta find? A lot, that's how many, now if we split the list between us, we might just make it in time." "Please, Pinkie, I don't have time for this, I've got a real problem." "We have a real problem alright." "And a banjo is the only answer!" Pinkie said running off. "Honestly Twi why are you helping Pinkie with her silly scavenger hunt?" "It's not a silly scavenger hunt, it's too..." "Twi hurry up!" "I'll explain later." Twi ran off and Rarity rolled her eyes, Rarity met up with Dash who was dealing with her own swarm, "I see we're having the same problem." "Yeah, no kidding." "Shy knows everything about animals, I'm sure she can tell us how to stop them from multiplying." They both went to her cottage and as soon as the door opened a huge swarm came out. "Or not... do something Shy, can't you control them?" "I've tried everything I know: I've tried begging, and pleading, and beseeching, and asking politely and..." They all went outside, "We have to do something or it'll be a total disaster." One parasprite hacked up another. "Ew! If you ask me, it's already a total disaster." Twi came towards them, "Oh good you're all here, whatever you do don't..." "Here's all those apples you wanted, Shy, but I still can't figure why ya need so many." The parasprites quickly ate them all. "Feed them..." "What do we do?" "Well that's what I came here to tell you since I didn't in the first place, you see..." "Twi come on we got to find maracas." "Just a second Pinkie I'm trying to explain..." "There is no time to explain!" "It will take just a second..." "Every second you waste is a second that can't be wasted, come on already!" Pinkie pushed Twi away. "So... what do we do exactly?" "We call in the weather patrol." Dash said putting on goggles and started to fly in circles until she made a whirlwind which sucked all the parasprites up. "Way to go, Dash!" "Looks like our problems are solved." "They will be with these cymbals." The whirlwind sucked them up, "Hey, give me those back!" Dash tried to dodge them will still trying to hold the whirlwind but it wasn't working, "I can't hold it! She's breaking up." Dash got slammed into a tree and the parasprites flew towards town. "Pinkie, what have you done?" "I've lost a brand new pair of cymbals, that's what I've done." "Will you forget about your silly instruments for one second? You're ruining our efforts to save Ponyville." "Me? Ruin? I'm not the ruiner, I'm the ruin-ee! Or is it ruiness? Ruinette?" Twi ran in, "Pinkie this isn't the time to be a thesaurus!" "Come on girls, we are wasting time." They all left. "Hey! I'm trying to tell you all that the ruining is on the other hoof. If you'd just slow down and listen to us!" "Well if you actually explained to them what was going on instead of prattling on like an airhead... never mind that come on!" They arrived in Ponyville to see the parasprites eating all the food, Twi run to her friends, "Girls we need the instruments to take care of the parasprites." "How can a bunch of instruments help us with these parasprites?" "Well, you see they can..." "Twi help me find a tuba stat." "But I am trying to explain..." "There is no time!" "Alright, I had enough of this!" Twi's horn glowed brightly, and with a bright flash every parasprite froze, "Now there is time to explain... so start explaining Pinkie and quickly I'm not sure how long I can hold this spell for." "Theinstrumentscanbeusedtomakemusicandmaketheparaspritesfollowusoutoftown." "What?!" "Not that quickly..." "Oh... the instruments can be used to make music and make the parasprites follow us out of town." They all looked at each other, "Seriously?" "It's true, just trust us on this..." Twi said trying to hold her freezing spell, which wasn't easy since this was a new spell and trying not to freeze everything else was also hard since the spell was sposed to freeze everything, she had to do double duty with this spell. "Alright what do you need?" Twi weakly smiled, "We need to find any instruments, and quickly!" She let the spell go and all her friends took off to find any instruments, they all came back with as many as they could carry. "Great, follow my lead." Pinkie said putting on a bunch of instruments, then she started to play a marching song, Twi followed behind playing as many instruments she knew with her magic, the others followed suit and they noticed the parasprites stopped and started to happily bounce behind them. Twi spotted the princess, she stepped out of line but still played, "Hello princess." "Twilight, what is this?" "Well, we..." "Have organized a parade in honor of my visit? I'm really honored." "Parade? Oh yes, a parade." "Unfortunately, this visit is going to have to wait for another time. I'm afraid an emergency has come up in Fillydelphia. Apparently, there's been some sort of infestation." Twi almost stopped playing, "An infestation?" "Yes, a swarm of incredibly bothersome creatures has invaded the poor town. I'm sorry Twilight, to have to put you all through so much trouble." "It's no trouble at all." "Before I have to go, would you care to give me your latest report on the magic of friendship in person?" "My report?" "Haven't you learned anything about friendship?" "Actually, we have. We have learned that sometimes the solution to your problems can come from where you least expect it. It's a good idea to stop and listen to your friends' opinions and perspectives even when they don't always seem to make sense." "I'm so proud of you, Twilight Amethyst Sparkle, and I'm very impressed with your friends as well. It sounds like you're all learning so much from each other." "Thank you, princess." Princess Celestia nodded and her carriage flew off, then they all stopped playing when all the parasprites left. "Hey, what happened to Princess Celestia?" "Emergency in Fillydelphia, some sort of infestation." "Oh no! Have they got parasprites too? Well, tuba will travel." "I think the princess can handle it." "So you two knew what those critters were all along huh?" "Yes, I knew from my father's book." "And I knew how to get rid of them. Why do you think we were so frantic to get our hooves on all these instruments?" "And each time I tried to tell you Pinkie kept pulling me away until I had enough and cast that spell, which wasn't easy to do trust me." "It looked easy." "Well it wasn't, not only was it a new spell I only read once, but the freezing spell is sposed to freeze everything and I had to keep it from spreading to everypony else which was even harder since that is an advanced version of the spell, so it wasn't easy at all." Her friends went to help regrow all the food the parasprites ate but Twi was too tired to help, once she was home she simply plopped on her bed and went to sleep. The days rolled by and one day Spike was helping Twi drag in her latest kill towards Zecora's hut, she dropped it right before entering, she knocked and Zecora opened her door, "Ah Twi and Spike welcome to my hut, would you like help with that?" She asked looking at the animal Twi caught. "Thanks and no that's alright, Spike is helping me. So will you be okay with me eating this in your home? I don't want to get blood all over your hut." Zecora chuckled and moved aside to show Twi that everything looked a bit odd. "Don't worry about me I prepared for the worst, I made a space and rubbed a potion on everything first. The potion will protect my place from blood, it will even protect my floor from dirt and mud." "You really thought of everything, but what about you?" "Eating meat comes naturally to you, so don't worry about me just go ahead and chew." Twi dragged the animal inside, she and Spike happily ate their fill as Zecora was drinking some tea, she didn't seem to mind watching them do this. Twi and Spike washed up as Zecora put what was left of the animal away in her special storage room, "Thanks again Zecora, me and Spike will visit you again in a few days to finish my catch, for now, we need to get home and start packing." "Are you moving away? I thought you were here to stay." "We are, we are just going to visit our mother for a few days."