How To Train Your Batpony

by peter

Chapter 11 How not to marry a Prince part three

As far as Jake was concerned, vets were the personification of evil. Sure, they might act nice, tickling that sweet spot behind your ears and complimenting how quickly you were growing and how strong you were going to be when you grew up, all the while feeding your fruit and sugar cubes. But just get into one bin of apples and their true nature came out.

Sure, maybe he’d had a bit of a tummy ache, and lots and lots of gas, but that was no excuse to do that to a poor innocent horse. Just remembering it was enough to make Jake’s hindquarters clench while he tucked his tail as tightly as possible between his legs. He had thought Equestria was free of the scourge of vets. His Pop had taken him to a nice pony who did most of the things a vet did. But the ‘doctor’ hadn’t committed the terrible indignity that the dreaded vet had done, and he gave his patients a lollipop afterwards. Jake had been so wrong. No way Di could have learned how to do that if there were not vets lurking in the dark, just waiting for some poor innocent pony to get a little tummy ache.

Having seen proof positive that there were evil vets in his new happy home, Jake had bolted. It was a conditioned reflex, but once he calmed down enough to think, and noticed Pipsqueak holding onto one of his ears with his teeth, he realized he’d embarrassed himself. Again. It hadn’t been a real pony, and Diamond Tiara wasn’t a vet. He just knew that back there Curry was laughing at him.

Jake loved Curry, but sometimes she could be mean. Like the time he’d stuck his head through the gate to get a nice bit of clover and gotten stuck. When Curry had come home and found him hiding in the corner of the barnyard, she’d laughed forever and ever before getting Old Ben to help her remove the gate from around his neck. For that reason, he was in no hurry to return the way he had come.

By the time his admittedly slow mind had worked all the way through those thoughts, Jake had arrived at Ponyville. Suddenly conscious of all the ponies who were looking at him, he experienced an atypical bout of shyness. The ponies in town tended to act weird. They were always bowing to him, and calling him Prince Jake no matter how often he told them his name wasn’t Prince. Did he look like a dog?

Jake spotted one of the few exceptions to the unwelcome attention just coming out of the town jail. Sheriff Sweets was accompanied by the town’s sole prisoner, Jailbird,⁽¹⁾  who was wearing his colorful orange ‘probation’ belt and was most probably headed out for a day of community service. Service for the prisoner, of course, not Sheriff Sweets, who was perfectly content to allow Jailbird his traditional semi-freedom provided he was back in his cell by bedtime. Now that he was an old married stallion, Sheriff Sweets liked to get home at regular hours.

⁽¹⁾No pony was sure why Jailbird was in jail. His records had vanished in one of the several fires that had destroyed city hall, and he wasn’t talking. He had reacted so badly to the idea of parole that it was quickly dropped. His community service more than paid for the expense of his keep. So after a certain amount of thought from Mayor Mare, he had been given access to his cell’s key, and the freedom to come and go from his various jobs.

One thing Jake knew for certain because he had been told by everypony he knew: If you’re ever in trouble, Sweets will protect you.

Admittedly, Jake was not currently in trouble, but the longer he could stay away from the location of the disturbing guard statue, the longer he could put off hearing Curry laugh at him. Even if he deserved it. Plus, sometimes the friendly stallion had candy. Bon Bon never let Sweets out of the house without a bag of treats to see him through his day, and he was always willing to share.

Sweets looked up with a smile when he saw Jake trotting toward him. As the younger brother in a large family, he enjoyed the opportunity of being able to fill the role of big-brother/uncle. Then he frowned as he noticed Jake was alone except for Pipsqueak, who was draped over Jack’s back like a lumpy pinto rug. That was unusual. Jake was not the sort of pony to wander without an older pony accompanying him, which was a great comfort to those responsible for guarding him. He wondered if either Shadow Dash or Goose Down were hiding somewhere nearby. He looked, but could see neither, which proved absolutely nothing in regards to that sneaky pair.

“Is everything okay, Jake, Pip?”

Pip looked up with a glazed expression and one last swallow to keep down his lunch. It took him a few minutes to make eye contact with Sweets. “Tell me crew I went down with the ship.”

“We came to visit. We’re not trying to hide at all,” was Jake’s contribution.

The ability to keep a straight face no matter what the circumstances was drummed into Royal Guards from their first day of basic training. Sweets might have failed in that regard when it came to dealing with Princess Luna and Celestia, but his pleasant smile didn’t shift a fraction at Jake’s words. “Well, I am certainly glad to hear that. Hiding from trouble only makes it worse in the end. I am glad you’re too smart for that.”

Jake’s ears lay flat and he looked like a kicked puppy, or as much like one as a gangly colt of his remarkable size could. Sweets tried his best not to show that he had noticed as he asked, “How would you colts like some ice-cream?”

Jake’s ears pricked up as he tossed his head in excitement. Pipsqueak’s lethargy vanished just as quickly. With a bound the smaller pony bounced off of Jake’s back and onto the ground where he trotted eagerly in place. “Ice-cream!” they both shouted in excitement.

Sweets smiled. Colts were so easy to please and distract at this age. He vowed to enjoy it while he could. He had a feeling the two would be holy terrors once they got older.

“I want apple ice-cream!”

“Cookie and cream is the best!”

“Nuh, huh. Apple!”

“Cookie and cream!”

“I’m fond of Licorice myself.”

“Blech!” both colts grimaced, their incipient quarrel nipped in the bud by the horror of adult taste buds.

Sweets just laughed at their disgusted expressions.

After carefully locking the door to the jail/sheriff's office/shelter, Sweets tried the knob to make sure it was locked. And then hung the key on the hook to one side.⁽²⁾

⁽²⁾To a bureaucrat, Sweets' actions made perfect sense. As an emergency shelter, his office/jail had to be available all day, every day. As a jail/sheriff’s office, it was by law required to be locked when not occupied by an official, though the law made no mention as to where the key should be kept. Most Ponyville residents would not have minded if the door were just left wide open. The exception was Jailbird, the only prisoner in the jail. The one time Sweets had forgotten to lock the door behind him, his ‘Best Sheriff in Equestria’ coffee mug mysteriously vanished, only returning when Sweets had reliably returned to the proper procedure for a week.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Diamond Tiara chanted frantically as she ran her hooves through the shattered remains of a former ceramic garden ornament. “It has to be here! It just has to be!”

Curry had stayed out of the way of the initial statue destruction and now danced in place as her inclination to rush in and comfort her friend warred with reality. Diamond Tiara outweighed her by better than three to one. No matter how well Rarity’s mysterious magical outfit protected her fragile human body, getting up close to the frantic earth pony right now would be pushing it. Thankfully, the need to act was taken out of her hands.

“Darling. Stop! You’re going to hurt yourself!” Rarity cried out as she wrapped her magic around Di and floated her away from the shattered statue and the shards of sharp ceramic she was stomping on.

“But it was here. I put it here!” Di cried out, tears running down her cheeks as she flailed in place, struggling to resume her frantic search. At last, giving up in the face of Rarity’s magic, she turned an imploring look toward the older mare. “You believe me, don’t you?” She turned to the other fillies and pled, “Tell her I wouldn’t do this!”

Strangely, it was her chief rival and reluctant roommate, Apple Bloom who spoke up.

“I believe you.”

“We all believe you”, Sweetie Belle chimed in, joined by the rest of the fillies. Even Babs Seed joined the chorus, though if it was more to go with the crowd than from any understanding of the situation.

“Yeah, no way are you that good an actress,” Scootaloo added, earning a sharp nudge to the ribs from Sweetie Belle for her efforts. “What? It’s the truth. She’s a lousy actress.” That earned her an even sharper nudge.  

Rarity set Di down gently on the ground, and from somewhere produced a length of cloth that she used to bandage the cuts on Di’s forelegs. With the pony under control, Curry dashed forward and lent her fingers to the task of cleaning the cuts and wrapping the cloth around Di’s legs. Thankfully, they were only slight nicks with no deeper gashes.

Leaving the medical treatment to Curry, Rarity gently questioned the distraught filly. “Do you know who might have taken it? Anypony else who knew about your hiding place?”

Diamond Tiara stilled. She gave a huge sniff to clear her nose of snot and wiped her a newly bandaged leg across her muzzle. Averting her gaze from Rarity, she said, “I don’t know.”

“Now, see! That’s you lying.” Scootaloo said cheerfully as she skipped to the side to avoid Sweetie Belle’s hoof.

“We know it had to be Silver Spoon, Di,” Apple Bloom said, for the first time using the short version of Diamond Tiara’s name that Curry preferred.

“It can’t be. She wouldn’t do that to me.” Diamond Tiara clutched a thin red book titled ‘My Diary’ to her chest while sniffling. We made a Pinkie promise that we’d never tell anypony about our secret hiding place.”

“Nopony is saying she told somepony. But would she take it?”

“I... don't know. She was mad at me. Maybe…?”

“Then you have to find her and ask,” Rarity told the distressed pony.

“We’ll help you find her,” Curry told her.

“No! I have to talk to her first,” Di said frantically.

Curry shrugged. “So, we find where she’s at, and then let you know. Then you can talk to her all private like.”

“Cutie Mark Crusaders, Pony trackers!” Scootaloo yelled out as she raised a hoof. “What?” she looked around at her friends who were rolling their eyes at her.

Rarity floated Spike onto her back. There was a determined look on her face as she announced,  “As for me, I am going to do what I should have done in the first place.”

“Find us a nice deep cave to hide in?” Spike suggested.

Rarity gave a brittle laugh at Spike’s effort to lighten the mood.  “Thank you for that, darling. No, I simply must screw my nerves to the sticking point and have you send a letter to Princess Celestia for me. With any luck, there was nothing unique about the book she sent and she can send another copy. If not, well, it was my responsibility and I will shoulder the results.” Rarity assumed an appropriately brave and noble appearance that said she was ready to suffer anything for the sake of doing the right thing. She really wished there was a photo-pony nearby

“I can’t let you do that. I was the one who lost it,” Di said, with more than a slight tremble in her voice.

Curry protested that suggestion, “The heck you will. I was the one who messed this up right from the get go. If I hadn’t done what I done when I found it, we wouldn’t be in this here situation right now.”  

With a suitably brave voice Rarity corrected them. “No!” She shook her head slowly from side to side. “As I am the adult. This situation arose because I did not take my responsibilities as a friend seriously. I am so very proud of all of you, but I will handle it. You all should focus on finding Silver Spoon. This is the most important thing you can do. Hopefully, she will have the book and we can put this all behind us.”

The Tower Twins strolled down the main avenue of Ponyville casting condescending looks at the ponies and shops they passed while talking quietly to each other.

“Are you sure you’ve got the spell down?”

“Chillax, Tourmaline. I’ve got it down better than you.”

“Maybe you should take another look?” Tourmaline floated the old notebook out of her designer saddlebag and opened it in front of her sister’s face.

Pearl batted away the musty pages with a forehoof. “I told you I had it! Like, why are you tripping?”

“Like. Why aren’t you? This could be our big break. We’ll be set for life if we pull this off. No more having to sit through mother’s lectures, or listen to daddy boast about his latest scheme. No pony will be able to look down their noses at us ever again.”

“Except for the princesses.”

Tourmaline shuddered. “I’m not planning on living anywhere near those two. Talk about fun killers. Mother is bad enough. Can you imagine how dried up and boring a pair of thousand-year-old spinsters must be?”

“You have got to be kidding me!”

“What? You can’t seriously think they’re secretly party ponies!”

“No, you idiot! Look over there. It’s the prince.”

“What? Where? Oh my! By Fleur’s perfect tail, you’re right!”

The two twins stared in amazement at the sight of the most eligible bachelor in Equestria shoving his muzzle into a large bowl of ice-cream, while the hick sheriff they had run into on their first day looked on with an amused expression. They barely took note of the miniature pinto earth pony who was sitting in a booster chair nearly up to his eyebrows in his own bowl of frozen goodness.

Pearl felt a familiar tingle and snapped a horrified look at her sister, whose horn had the telltale glowing of spell casting. Tourmaline’s expression was both determined, and terrified. “Are you insane?” Pearl hiss-yelled at her sister. She snapped her teeth around the closest ear and dragged her startled sister out of sight between two buildings.  

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Let me go, Pearl! What are you doing? I almost had him.”

“You are insane!” Pearl hissed into her sister’s face, the previous question now turned into a statement of fact. “I can’t believe you were about to cast a lust spell on the prince in the middle of town. And in front of the town sheriff!”

“We have to do it. The sheriff will be escorting him back to his mansion and we might never get another chance,” Tourmaline hissed back while rubbing her violated ear with a hoof and checked for tooth holes.

“In the middle of town? I can’t believe you’re being this stupid. Virility spells might not technically be illegal, but casting one on an unexpecting stallion sure as buck is. Not only won’t we get to marry him, they’ll toss our plots across the border so quick you won’t even have time to pack a bag.”

“But if one of us is carrying his foal they won’t be able to?” There was a big question mark in that statement, showing that Tourmaline was not nearly as confident as she’d been a few seconds ago.

Pearl rolled her eyes in disgust. “You seriously think the sheriff is just going to sit there and enjoy the show? Besides, what makes you think he’d pick one of us? In case you missed it, there are a whole town of mares who would give up their right hoof for a chance at the prince. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t already have the hots for some shoppony who’s been leading him on ever since he moved to this place.”

It was Tourmaline’s turn to roll her eyes, in an as if manner. “He’s a prince. He’s not going to be interested in one of these plebeian mares.”

“You idiot. He’s a teenager. Mother says teenaged colts are interested in anything between eighteen and eighty that flips a tail in their direction. Of course he’s going to be interested.”

“So what’s your brilliant plan?”

“There is no brilliant plan. We have to wait for the right opportunity.” Pearl pointed a hoof at the prince, who was currently in the middle of a cross-eyed attempt at licking a smear of ice-cream off of his nose. “We need him alone for a minute. Let’s follow him and hope the oversized sheriff has to visit the bushes or something, leaving him alone for a minute. That would be all it takes. That maid, Easy Virtue, is always complaining that teenagers are too quick to be fun.” Pearl considered the unknowns and added, “All it should take is a minute. I think.”

“You think! You don’t know?” There was a certain amount of hysteria in Tourmaline’s words, showing that the stress of being this close to carrying out their plans had her on the verge of a meltdown.

“Of course I don’t know…” Pearl broke off as she realized she was just about to reveal her lack of experience to her far more experienced sister. With barely a stutter she continued. “I’m only interested in mature stallions. Surely you know the difference?”

“What! Of course! Everypony knows that mature stallions are the only ones worth the effort. Teenagers are, are, well, teenagers. Anyway, what about the miniature twerp next to him?”

“What colt? Oh, that pinto Squeaker. He doesn’t matter. Even if he sees us cast the spell, he’s just an earth pony. If he says we cast a spell, we’ll just say we cast if after the prince lunged at us. We’ll say it was in shelf defiance.”

Tourmaline ignored her sister’s assault on the language. Pearl tended to turn into a verbal klutz when the pressure was really on. To her, slight, credit, Tourmaline was honestly concerned that they might do some harm to the young colt. It wasn’t that long ago that she and Pearl been dedicated foalsitters, after all. Before she’d gotten old enough to have other interests.

“What if he’s affected by the spell too?”

“There was something in the notes about that, let me think.” Pearl chewed on her bottom lip as she tried to remember and in the process regained her casual confidence. “I think it wouldn’t affect colts who haven’t gone through puberty, or was it have little effect? Anyway, no worries there in either case. Even if they are standing right next to one another, the only one who will really be affected will be the prince. In fact, maybe it would be a good thing if he is there. He’d never be able to stop the prince, and while he’s not qualified to judge a spell as an earth pony, but I’m sure he’ll be able to give a very good account about how we were ravaged brutally by the prince.”

“Ravaged?” Tourmaline could not keep a squeak out of her voice as she added, “Brutally?”

“It is a virility spell, sister. Did you think there would be tea and crumpets and him asking if he could sign our dance card?” Despite her attempt at sounding sophisticated, Pearl’s voice slowly edged upward until she was sounding as shrill as possible, given they were still whispering.

“Of course not. I knew that. I’m quite looking forward to it in fact. I’m sure it will be quite thrilling.”⁽¹⁾

⁽¹⁾Showing that mutuality of thought that twins were prone to, both sisters were remembering the old saying: You don’t have to be faster than the bear or in this case the prince. Just faster than your friends, or in this case, your sister.

Sweets was fully aware that there was no point in talking to the two young colts until they had finished their ice-cream and licked the bowls clean of every last trace of creamy goodness. In the meantime, he licked his own cone while he kept the outer edge of his peripheral vision on the space where he had seen one of the Tower Twins drag her sister by the ear. Every minute or so, one of them would peek around the corner, then just as quickly jerk their head back.

He was well aware they had been asking after Jake ever since they had arrived, and as far as he knew, this was the first time they had ever laid eyes on him. It might not mean anything. The best-case scenario was that they were starstruck and too shy to come up and talk to the famous local celebrity. He didn’t believe that for a second. He had heard too many tales in Canterlot. Not about them specifically, but about aggressive young mares in their social class. They were really too young to be hunting stallions, but that’s what they certainly seemed to be doing, and one very special young colt in particular. He didn’t doubt for one instant that they had come to Ponyville in order to pursue Jake. The fact that they still seemed intent on their foolish endeavor told him that they had yet to realize Jake’s true age. It was a foregone conclusion that they didn’t accept that they themselves were far too young to be going after game this big.

Sweets was very tempted to allow the two to make fools of themselves, but that would most likely involve putting Jake in an uncomfortable and maybe scary, to a young colt, situation. He needed to get the foolish fillies somewhere private, where he could inform them on the facts of the situation. Too bad. If any two fillies needed a hard life lesson, it was those two.

Only, how exactly was he going to do that? Explaining the facts of life to two teenage, high-society, ponies had never been covered during basic training. The very idea caused his guts to curdle. It would be worse than being interviewed by Princess Celestia, in a very different, but still horrific way. During basic training, the Royal Guard drill instructors had been more concerned about keeping impressionable young colts away from misguided teenaged fillies. Approaching it from the other side was a brand-new experience. Shadow Dash’s lessons during Sweets training had really been insufficient...

Sweets’ eyes brightened as a terrible, awful, wicked thought popped into his head. Shadow Dash had let him down! He had clearly failed to impart this most important bit of knowledge to his eager young cadets. What could be more reasonable than to dump this whole situation into the old Drill Instructor’s lap, and allow him to demonstrate the proper method of handling it? That settled, Sweets decided it was time to investigate what had gotten Jake in such a dither.

“So, what are Curry and the other fillies up to?” he asked the colts.

Jake looked disgusted. “They’re playing vet with Miss Rarity.”

For a moment this sounded innocent enough until he remembered that to Jake the difference between vet and doctor was poorly understood. It had taken both himself, Big Mac, and a lot of talk, to get Jake into the medical clinic for his first checkup. Thoughts he was ashamed of thinking flashed through his mind before common sense prevailed. With Fluttershy as a mother, it wasn’t too surprising that Curry would play vet. He just hoped they didn’t traumatize any poor helpless animal, like say a Manticore. Hopefully, Rarity would be able to rein them in a bit. But he was at a loss as to how that could have scared Jake so much. The colt was prone to misunderstanding things, though. Sweets had some good times with Big Mac laughing over some of the things Jake had innocently said. Out of the hearing of any mares, mind you.

“No, they’re not,” Pipsqueak objected. “They’re playing doctor. Diamond Tiara shoved her hoof right up that stallion’s butt.”

Sweets choked, and then gave a violent sneeze, spraying ice-cream out of his nose.