Twilight Gets a Puppy,
Season 3
By TDR
Surveyor 1 at your service
[Canterlot, Start of fall.]
Princess Celestia looked down from her throne at the pony before her. Those who were familiar with the court recognized that the Princess usually looked impassive when she dealt with her court, rarely letting anything bother her.
They also knew to duck and cover any time green magic floated around her horn, but that was a new lesson.
As such most of them were rather concerned when the Princesses' mask slipped and she looked confused.
“I'm sorry Red Tape, could you repeat that?” Princess Celestia asked.
The yellow earth pony before her clearly had some zebra ancestry due to the red lines running through his coat and around his limbs. If she recalled correctly he was of a minor noble house that focused mostly on law and politics. He was not one to frequent the court due to his heritage, but his skills were well known and often used by the 'less than cranialy blessed' nobles to write up some of their proposals. That he was here meant his current employer was paying well.
“Yes your highness. I represent a group of concerned ponies...”
“No no... just the important bit.”
“It is all important, Princess.”
“The relevant bit about Twilight Sparkle.”
“It is all about Twilight Sparkle.”
“A summery then.” Celestia snapped.” A BRIEF summery.”
Red Tape blinked at her tone and suppressed a small shudder as he made a mental note to to raise his fee to those who had hired him, he was quite certain that one word had rattled his teeth. Clearly the princess had understood the legal babble he had first uttered and wanted him to get to the meat of it. Asking him to repeat himself had been a courtesy.
“Of course Princess. The nobles I represent view Twilight Sparkle as a danger as well as a valued resource.....”
“Twilight is not a danger.” Celestia interrupted.” She's harmless....”
[Ponyville]
“NO.” Spike stated swatting Twilight in the head with a rolled up newspaper.
“What? OW stop it!” Twilight winced glaring at Spike.
“You are not doing this!”Spike growled.
“Spike relax it's only a 4th tier spell. I take a snow casting ritual template and use an ice cube in the casting and the spell has the cold descriptor, then I use Flash Frost from my runic training and it makes the area slick and does about as much damage as being pelted by a slush ball. Of course then we put the energy substitution therom on it to make the spell electric. Then adding the Reeves Matrix 'Born of three thunders', which makes the spell half sonic as well as electric, but then it would require some skills to avoid it, but that allows us to apply the explosive spell matrix which shunts anything that doesn't have the training to avoid it, outside of the area of effect. Of course the base spell which I added all this to is the Seek Settlement spell which has a base range of ten miles...OW.” Twilight explained before getting smacked with the newspaper again.
“I didn't let you do that as a GM and you are not allowed to cast the Locate City Combo in real life either!” Spike snapped walloping Twilight again with the newspaper.
[Canterlot]
“.... mostly harmless.” Celestia finished after a brief pause to consider.
“ Never-the-less my clients wish her to be brought back to Canterlot where she can be properly secured to prevent her level two PDR rating from escalating further. Here it is believed that she can be properly harnessed for the good of the nation rather than some unknown back water town. My clients believe that with the proper training of her magic we may not have to worry about the danger she represents.”
Celestia sighed softly.
“Red Tape. What this proposal is suggesting is we imprison a civilian who has done nothing wrong because some rich ponies want to. That alone sets a horrible precedent that I will not accept. Then we add to that, that this is Twilight Sparkle, the mare who freed my sister, stopped Discord, and helped restore the Crystal Empire by defeating the evil ruler of it in one on one combat. This mare is also the sister to the Dragon Gods son, the sister to Luna's Grandson, and even if you ignore those things, she is also practically a member of the Apple family, the family that owns 95% of Equestria's fruit and technology industries. A mare who was chosen to be the Element of Magic, who's brother and sister in law are the current rulers of the Crystal Empire. “Celestia rose and strode towards Red Tape strolling around him like a hunting cat looking at it's next meal.
Red Tape mentally added a few more zeros to the end of his bill.
“Baring the fact that dragging her back to Canterlot away from the other Element bearers would render the nations greatest defense completely useless, imprisoning her here would have all of the aforementioned individuals and nations they represent coming down on Equestria rather harshly. And as a side note I assure you, you do not want her brothers all focused on and mad at you at the same time, to say nothing of her parents and their connections. Granted you also need to deal with all the ponies of Equestria themselves, who would possibly revolt in learning that a national hero was being treated as a criminal for doing nothing wrong, I expect the term 'lynch mob' would come up rather often. While I find it rather flattering that you are so certain of my power that you think I can stand against my sister, nearly every other god of the world, and I would like to point out she has become close friends with Bleu, Kaz, Rhino, Odin, and was granted a boon by Iinii himself for freeing his wife. And after dealing with them also stand against every pony in my own nation. Flattery such as that would not stop me however, from being the one who would supply the rope to the lynch mob. Particularly given it is a back hooved compliment simply due to the line from your statement saying 'proper training in magic', particularly as I was her magic teacher for twelve years.” Celestia continued pausing to lean down to look at Red Tape eye to eye.
“The main reason, Red Tape, that I seem so calm about this proposal of yours is that I know you are only a representative of some nobles who wish to remain nameless because they know it's a dumb idea. Had one of them come in themselves I would have been trying to beat my high score for distance and see if I could hit Santa Whooves' front door from here.” Celestia stepped back and returned to the throne taking a seat. Red Tape couldn't help but notice the little droplets of molten gold that had splattered on the tile around him.
“Red Tape please go back to your clients and inform them if I ever see this proposal or any like it before me again, or hear about it coming before my sister, I shall do something, NOT, NICE.” Celestia concluded as Red Tape swore one of his fillings had popped out from the volume.
“Of course Princess. Thank you for your time . Have a good day.” Red Tape stated turning and walking with all the dignity he could while also trying to haul ass at the same time.
“Flowery Text, would you please call the next petitioner.” Celestia asked calmly to her assistant.”Lulu was right, that was rather cathartic.”
[ Sweetapple Acres, the next day]
“Yah sure Rahs ain't gonna be a problem this time?” Applejack asked as she slammed her hooves into a tree, the apples it contained shaking loose and falling. Before any of them touched the ground the mass of fruit was caught in a magic field and floated towards a near by cart before being placed gently inside a collection of buckets.
Applejack was alright with Twilight using magic to help, but at the same time the farmer was still a little leery about using magic on the trees themselves. Thus a compromise was made that seemed to work favorably and kept the apples from risking getting bruised at the end of their fall from the tree.
The harvest season was in full swing, though like last year the extra help of the girls made the job that much easier.
Twilight was paired with Applejack as the last time she paired with Big Mac they worked a little too slowly and spent a little too much time trying to sneak off behind the barn.
This year Rarity and Pinkie were working with Big Mac doing much the same as Twilight and AJ were doing with the added help of Pinkie pie doing..... something to speed them along. Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Rahs were harvesting by claw and hoof, and Applebloom and a freshly healed Spike were running supplies. The pair teaming up to pull the filled wagons of apples to the barn.
“Yep, I'm not saying he might not eat a few here and there, but he's not going to gorge himself. “ Twilight smirked.” I'm holding his ticket to that ' Hamlet with lions' thing he wanted to see, hostage.”
“Hamlet with lions?” Applejack asked.
“Beats me, that's what he called it, point is I snagged his ticket and it's a sold out show. Since it's not showing in the Canterlot Theater he can't use his connections to get in either.” Twilight smirked.
“If he didn't wanna help he didn't have to. Not sure ah like that yah have tah blackmail him.” Applejack frowned.
“He's not being forced to help. He did want to help, it's just you know how he gets around the apples and he has the self control of a two year old.” Twilight sighed.
“You're one to talk little miss, 'I have to be at the book store three hours before they open on new book day'.” Spike snarked as he waddled up pushing a wheel barrow full of more baskets.
“So how's yer arm Spike.” AJ cut in before Twilight could retort, any argument between this lot could take hours to simmer down and would draw all three of them away from any work they were doing. Not to mention it often involved some property damage, and she didn't need that here.
“Not bad. It still feels weak, and I thought I'd never get the smell of that cast off my arm, but it doesn't hurt, not like my back. That missing spine itches like crazy.” Spike offered squirming with a grumble.
Applebloom smirked and brought her hoof up to drag it along his back at a spot getting a sigh of relief from Spike and a giggle from the filly.
The pair dumped the baskets and went off to deliver more baskets to the others.
“Fer such a little guy he sure is helpful.” Applejack smirked.” A bit snarky, but alright.”
“He's grown up having to look out for my problems, Shining's issues, and Rahs' overly dramatic existence. It was either he becomes the responsible one or becomes as crazy as the rest of us.”
“Well glad he went this route, got enough crazies in mai family that ah don't need one tah be a dragon.” Applejack chuckles.
“It causes problems though. You know he's worried about Apple Bloom right?”
“Hmm? How so?”
“He worries he's going to get too big to be with her , or that something might happen like when he had that chaos Spike and he might hurt her. He's even worried about inevitably outliving her.” Twilight sighed.
“Worrying a lot ain't he?” Applejack frowned.” He's way to young tah be thinking bout all that.”
“That's just how he is, he doesn't worry about every little detail like I do , or blow everything out of proportion like Rahs does, but he has some rather deep thoughts. Ones with no real answers. I told him to just enjoy it while he can, if it doesn't work out it shouldn't be because he didn't try.”
“Given how Bloom's still crushing hard on him near a year ah don't doubt it'll last.”Applejack smirks.”Once any of my kin git their sights set on some one, ain't nothing gonna shake um. Heh, reminds me of tha story Granny told us about ma and pa....”
“INCOMING!”
The sudden cry made Applejack dive to the ground, and Twilight fling up a shield around them a moment before the cart Twilight and Applejack had been loading exploded.
Applesauce and shattered bits of wood rained down around the cart as a form surged up from the mess almost instantly.
Rahs growled, three large gashes were ripped into his chest letting blood flow freely down his front. The wounds didn't seem to be closing that quickly either and Twilight felt her shield weaken a little as her brother drew more magic from her trying to heal.
“Rahs! What happened!?!” Twilight demanded.
“BORK!” Rahs snapped as a collection of howls sounded in the area. The whole orchard sounding alive with the echoing reverb.
“Timber wolves?” Applejack gasped at the howling.
[Canterlot]
“.. and finally.” Red Tape stated, glaring at the unicorn stallions before him. “You may take your contract, and shove it sideways right up your plots!”
The half breed turned with a growl yanking open the door.
“I will send you my updated bill, failure to pay in a timely manner will have me returning to the Day Court with a grievance against you and a full list of what services I have provided, that included today's fiasco.” Red Tape snapped.” GOOD DAY!”
The door slammed shut leaving the office quiet for a moment before the stallion seated at the desk looked to the other unicorn standing near by.
“Well it seemed that didn't work.” The sitting one offered.
“To be fair plan A was a long shot.” the standing unicorn responded.
“Does that mean we have to go to plan B?” the sitting unicorn grumbled.
“Unfortunately, I hate plan B. It should be plan CM for complicated mess.” the standing unicorn sighed.
“Well we are the ones who decide such things.” The one at the desk shrugged.
“Very well. Plan CM it is. Hehehe Ha HA BWAHAHAHAHA...... “The standing stallion started laughing tapping a button on his cuff link. “ Hmmm...”
“Something wrong?”
“It didn't work?” The standing stallion tapped the button again and a flash of lightning appeared in the window followed by an ominous peal of thunder.
“What?” The sitting stallion questioned.
“It has a sleep mode? It seems I have to press it twice? Seriously what do I pay those mages for? It's supposed to simply activate whenever I push the button.” the standing stallion complained.
“Sending it back to the shop?” the seated stallion asked.
“No, I suppose not. I wouldn't want it going off at the wrong time from an accidental push. Still....” The standing stallion sighed.
“Care to try it again? It's only us here and I can pretend the first time didn't happen.” the seated stallion shrugged. “ Just be sure to say something more ominous this time.”
“Hmm alright, I have it.” the standing stallion nodded moving to the window.
“Plan A might have failed but plan CM shall not, and soon Twilight Sparkle shall be mine! HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA” the standing stallion cackled as a flash of lightning lit the room and a roll of thunder rattled the windows.
“Very nice.” The seated stallion offered with a small golf clap.
[Sweet Apple Acres]
Flames burst from the little dragons mouth setting a wooden wolf ablaze. The animate foliage screamed and yelped, rolling around on the ground trying to put itself out.
This might have continued, but a large brush ax came down, lopping off the head of the flailing timber wolf, silencing it.
Applebloom frowned biting down harder on the brush ax's handle, before she rushed back into the barn. Spike spat more flames keeping the others back as the filly closed the door with a slam as Spike slipped inside. Three more Timber wolves slammed into the barn door as the pair made their way up to the hay loft, throwing open the upper doors to look out at the bedlam that was the orchard.
Timber wolves were everywhere.
Scores of the creatures rushed all over the place rampaging and attacking anything that moved, their claws tearing up the ground, clawing at the trees and destroying the carts and baskets full of apples.
There was something larger too, as a deep rumbling roar echoed across the orchards.
Looking out from the top of the new crystal barn hay loft the pair could see most of what was going on.
In the far west field they could see Big Mac's team. The boom of a cannon sounded as Pinkie Pie blasted one of the wolves to pieces, back flipped in midair, still holding her party canon, and smashed it down atop of another wolf.
Rarity had gathered a number of farming implements and was going to town on the attacking wolves like she was a lumber jack. So far she was okay.
Big Mac had ripped up a fence pole and was batting them away from him like he was trying to learn to play golf.
Fluttershy was floating about nervously in the air near Pinkie Pie.
Rainbow Dash was all over the place. The mare was slaloming around the trees as a rainbow colored blur, smashing the creatures apart with kicks as she flew by or catching them and slamming them into one another or any other solid object she could.
Spike frowned seeing the problem with this immediately. Every time a wolf was knocked down, even if they were set on fire, before long the bundle of sticks reformed and joined back into the fight.
Spike frantically looked around, recalling his talk with Celestia and Luna after the fight in the Crystal Empire.
“Spike there's a whole bunch of them around tha barn trying tah git in. Ah don't think we shoulda hid here.”Applebloom whimpered.
“Of course my packs in the farm house......An entire apple farm and no apples....” Spike growled as he looked around the barn fanatically, the harvest was still parked outside. “ Applebloom.... dang it.. sorry about this.”
“What?” Applebloom asked as Spike grabbed her tail, cutting a fair chunk of her red hair from it with his claws.”Spike what are you doing!?”
The dragon breathed out, green flame consuming the patch of hair. “I'm calling for help.”
Spike swallowed, leaning over the edge of the barn door and letting out another belch of green flame that consumed a trio of timber wolves that had been trying to rip through the barn door.
[ Canterlot.]
The entire Day Court held it's collective breath as they spotted the spark of green flame forming around Celestia's horn.
The current petitioner chose the better part of valor, and dove behind one of the seating pews.
Celestia frowned as the spell completed, she took note of the red hair drifting down, the strands looked cut rather than burnt..
After Spike had sent her the fallen buffalo in the Crystal Empire, Celestia had praised Spike on his fast thinking in protecting the ponies and himself. She had asked if he needed to do that again, to try and send some sort of warning first, or at least a hint of where he might be so she could help faster. She trusted him not to abuse his power and the dragon fire spell was the fastest way to get a message to her.
The strands of red hair drifting before her might simply have been an accidental sneeze. That had happened before.
Though the feeling of something heavy in her magic made her realize it was not.
“Day court is canceled, clear the court immediately!! Flowery go wake my sister tell her to meet me in the armory. Captain I want a team of your fastest fliers dispatched to Ponyville now, check Sweet Apple Acres, a large apple orchard to the west of the city, first.” Celestia ordered. Flowery Text long used to Celestia's tones took off like a shot. The new Guard Captain hesitated.
“Princess why, what's going on?” the Captain asked.
The glut of green flame that formed over Celestia's head discharged a large pile of sticks and logs that crashed to the ground in a pile of shrubbery and sticks like a discarded mulch pile.
Celestia frowned at the pile, wondering if it was a false alarm after all, though that thought vanished the moment the yard waste started moving. Three wolven forms pulling themselves out of the entangled pile, the forms scrabbling around on the tile having no traction but clearly seeking to go after the nearest ponies.
Celestia's horn flashed.
Motes of burnt dust drifted down into the newly melted marble.
“Timber Wolves..... Now Captain.” Celestia ordered, vanishing with a flash of light.
[Sweet Apple Acres]
BOOM!!!
“What?”Applebloom gasped looking towards the farm house as an elderly green mare stepped out on the front porch clutching a large metal tube, with a crossbow stock, and a funneled end like a trumpet, an end that was still smoking.
Flailing about before her was a timber wolf that had been blown back through the front door. It was filled with nails, shards of metal, and was also on fire.
“Git cher paws off me, yah dang durty mutt!” Granny Smith snapped ,spitting out a strand of wheat she had between her teeth.
Two others that had rushed up towards her hesitated as they noted the flailing burning one. They started to circle and growl as they looked at the mare.
Granny calmly reloaded her pappy's gun and looked at them.
“Ah came out here tah kick flank and chew bubble gum. And mah dentures can't handle bubble gum!” Granny shouted, blasting another Timber wolf with her reloaded weapon. The third lept at her only to get a frying pan to the face hard enough to send it crashing to the ground in pieces.
“GRANNY LOOK OUT!!” Applebloom shouted as the first burning timber wolf surged back to it's paws lunging at her only to vanish in a blast of purple arcane energy. The other two quickly followed the first into arcane oblivion as Twilight Sparkle strode up towards the house, her horn crackling with magic.
The pack of Timber Wolves around the barn met much the same fate as the purple unicorn blasted them to nothing the moment she saw them.
“Applebloom did you and the girls try for a 'raising a Timber Wolf puppy cutie mark' and do you have one you named Fern hidden in the barn some where?” Twilight asked.
“No.... but if ah was gonna have a plant puppy, ah'd ah named it Sprout.”Applebloom admitted. “ Can yah get a cutie mark for that?”
“I doubt it. Timber wolves are an abomination of natural magic, there shouldn't be any puppies, they're just gatherings of dark and chaos magic that took a wolven form out of whatever happens to be available.” Twilight sighed. “I was just hoping there was an easy to explain reason for this attack, they're every where. I've never even heard of anything like this before.”
“HUZZAH!!”
WACK.
“YIPE!”
“Sound's like the cavalry arrived.” Spike smiled, waving at Princess Luna who had appeared near the farm's main gate with Dr. Choppy.
“Where's Applejack?” Applebloom asked.” We can't see her or Rahs from up here.”
“She went after Rahs and I came over here to make sure you two and Granny were safe.”Twilight frowned. “Granny, get everyone in the storm cellar, they seem to be trying to get into the barn more than any other place for some reason. Better we stay away from it for now.”
“Alright, come on youngins let's get in...” Granny Smith started to say before a scream of pain echoed over the farm followed by a loud roar that Twilight and Spike translated as a massive swear from Rahs.
Twilight vanished in a flash of light.
Things were not going too well for Rahs today.
First, his sister had taken his show ticket from him and was holding it ransom to keep him from eating twice his weight in apples, which he wouldn't do any way if they weren't so delicious.
Then he got stuck on the team with the laziest pegasus in the world, and the weakest.
He thought both the mares were great, though Fluttershy had a hard time pulling her own weight, and Rainbow Dash was lazier than he was, and he was part cat!
Still he thought they were making fairly good time with Dash bouncing like a pinball between trees shaking the apples loose into the buckets that Fluttershy placed around, leaving him to do the heavy lifting when the baskets were filled and put them in the wagon.
The only warning he got that something was wrong was Fluttershy's shriek, he turned to see what the issue was and was hit by a tree.
He was sent flying across the orchard crashing through the branches of other trees tearing his coat and finally managing to call out a warning right before he slammed back first into a wagon.
He was back on his paws in moments though he nearly feel to his knees, he felt like several ribs had been cracked, he had three large rents across his chest, and a multitude of splinters embedded in his back.
And another ruined coat.
He should just ask Rarity if he could buy in bulk.
His score cards were bent too.
He was healed up by the time Twilight and Applejack started moving. Twilight went off to find Spike and Applejack stuck with him as he raced back to the field he had been in.
They met what hit him rather quickly.
A gargantuan timber wolf as tall as the trees around it was skulking through the grove headed towards the barn and the farm house where Spike and Applebloom were.
This thing had already sucker punched him, so Rahs was more than ready to throw down.
Of course he had to figure out how to fight such a massive thing.
Ehh, maybe he could just keep it busy until Twilight got back and blasted it.
The massive timber wolf it seemed, had other ideas. Namely trying to kill him directly.
As soon as the mobile grove saw him, it started attacking, snapping teeth, claws, it even spat gobs of poison joke at him.
Rahs was hard pressed to dodge most of the attacks, the massive plant monster evidently had a score to settle with him. Rahs wondered if it was one of the ones he had met on one of his hunts, he didn't have too much to fear from timber wolves as they tended to be little more than animate snacks wrapped in twigs.
This one was different.
This one was massive, very quick, and was able to hurt him, it was also doing it's best to keep him at a distance, clearly it knew that if he could get his teeth in it, he would eat the magic keeping it alive.
Applejack was doing her best to deal with it as well, though the creature was largely ignoring the earth pony in favor of trying to maul Rahs. This played against it when a double kick from Applejack caused one of it's rear legs to explode in a shower of splinters.
Rahs lept on it's head, biting at the wood trying to draw the magic out of it only for the timber wolf to slam it's head into a tree, crushing Rahs between the creature and the apple tree for a moment.
The moon dog cursed, pushing up to his paws only for a log sized tail to whip around and send him flying across the field tumbling across the ground to slam into another tree. The thick apple tree splintered and crashed down on top of him pinning him under the trunk.
Applejack raced over as he was trying to get free, smashing her back hooves into the wood and flinging it off of him, only for the massive maw of the giant timber wolf to snap closed on the distracted farm pony.
The earth pony mare let out a scream as the wooden jaws closed around her, spear sized fangs piercing her form.
Rahs was moving before her scream died out, grabbing the beasts jaws, trying to wrench them open and off of the bleeding and struggling mare.
The beast clawed at the moon dog trying to rip him off his muzzle.
“You should not have done that.”
The timber wolf froze, turning it's head to the left, glowing red eyes widening as a white form stepped out of the tree line.
“Burn.” Princess Celestia stated flatly.
The timber wolf giant burned.
Rahs watched as the core of the creature caught fire from the inside, bursting out in a flash of flame that left the head untouched. The creature glared at him a moment before the light faded from it's eyes and it's magic vanished. With it dead he finally managed to wrench the jaws open enough to free Applejack. He scooped up the farm mare and darted away from the head of the timber wolf as it was consumed by the sun and turned into less than ash.
A flash of light announced the appearance of Twilight who gasped loudly seeing the bloodied body of her friend.
“Luna!” Celestia called and her sister appeared next to her with a gasp at the sight of Applejack.“Take her to the hospital, we will finish up here and make sure there are no more.”
“Of course.” Luna nodded before both she, Rahs, and Applejack vanished in a flash of light.