//------------------------------// // Macintosh Three o' clock // Story: The Dreaded Love Bird // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// “So… it was all a plot to get me to notice you?” Rainbow said slowly starting a glare, before she bit into a Tomato, Lettuce and Cucumber sandwich with Thousand Island dressing. At least not all the café’s in Canterlot were high brow affairs. “Um would you be mad at me if I said yes. Though I don’t think she really makes idle threats easily…” Fluttershy whimpered in her seat and gnawed at a hay fry cutely. “Then that means she threw our fight on purpose! I’m so going to challenge her to a real competition next time! So, since you hang out with Rarity talking about relationships so often… do you know if Applejack is even in a relationship with anypony?” The sudden change of mood and completely dropping the subject of Kazooie leading her to Fluttershy didn’t miss said shy pony’s notice. It didn’t bother Rainbow and she was continuing the date without pause, Fluttershy was happy at least to get this far. “Well Rarity still trying to figure it out and I think it’s making her slightly crazy… Applejack goes both ways and Rarity is strictly into stallions.” Fluttershy eased into the topic, all of the following ones as well and then the Wonderbolts discussion came up. Two days later, in Manehatten city, a series of unfortunate circumstances were beginning to take place for two apple clan ponies. It all started early a two thirty in the morning and Big Macintosh, AKA Big Mac or just Mac was out and about looking for information on who was destroying their cousin’s orange tree plantation near the city. He wasn’t having much luck, but family was family even if they were snooty like his older sisters fancy friend Rarity. Big Macintosh walks out of a bar… and promptly trips over a mostly red pegasus wearing a blue backpack that was also covered in blood and lying on the ground face down. “Ow, who the buck just tripped over… oh, great I’ve gone native and started talking like them.” One look from those green eyes and Big Mac knew he was in trouble at the way they glossed over for a second before wandering his body with a sharp precision. “…” Big Mac didn’t say anything but he gave her quite disturbed look causing her to take notice of her state. “Let’s see I’m covered in blood, waking up outside of a bar and sleeping on the streets… I must have had a good time.” The pegasus started checking her backpack for items acquired in the last three hours specifically. The backpack having the specified settings magically poured out a bag of bits and a golden hoof boxing trophy on the ground. “Drunken boxing again… well that’s just boring, I thought I found a secret organization of ninja’s again and beat the ever loving stuffing out of them in a drunken stupor. Though the trophy does remind me about the good times with Little Mac, those were the good old days of punching out odd characters. So who’re you and why are you tripping over my unconscious body after some bloody good times as Gregg would call them. Names Kazooie Kalzoonteight… darn it, I used my full name. Please forget I ever said that, I’m still kind of drunk off of that sweet apple schnapps stuff… Kazooie and you are?” It was quite a surprise to Big Mac seeing a mare not panicking about being covered in another pony’s blood, much less dropping a hefty bag of bits and a trophy out of her backpack before scooping them back up without pause. There was also the very strange cutie mark on her flank that nobody could possibly decipher unless that’s what the puzzle piece represented. The egg with the question mark was even stranger and the mark of her backpack couldn’t have possibly been naturally occurring by any stretch of the imagination. Cutie Marks tended to not lie even if this one was otherworldly in nature and since it was rude to stare at another pony’s flank, Mac was brought back to attention by a snarky comment about his staring. “Take a picture it’ll last longer… also I’m not explaining the egg unless you know where a giant key made out of a crystal is.” “Mac…” He was a patient pony, but this pony seemed like Rainbow Dash in the calm attitude department, she wasn’t acting very drunk though she did seem a bit tipsy in the way she stood up. “I’m just going out on a limb here Mac… but you’re not having any problems are you, because I would like to do you a good favor if you could do one for me. I’m willing to do almost anything for it; key word is ‘almost’. So don’t put your mind in the gutter there pal. I’m not easy for anybody, especially in difficulty settings.” There was a keen sharpness about the way her eyes searched his in a pleading manner, she wasn’t a down on her luck pony and she knew how to fight even while drunk and win a championship apparently. Big Mac couldn’t even begin to describe the feeling of having a blood covered pony asking to do him a favor for a favor in return, he was about to move on but he decided to humor a pony as every Apple was a friendly sort and always willing to help. He felt this odd chill travel up his back with what he said next but he didn’t care because he felt it would benefit him in the end. “Maybe…” As soon as he said it a yellow tipped hoof was held up to him and the staggering stance immediately stopped as she seemed to sober almost immediately without any of the side effects of hours of impossibly bad drinking. “Good, tell me your problem and I as an adventurer swear to uphold my end of the deal, then you’ll hold up yours… you live in Ponyville right Mac?” It wasn’t too hard to say that she was having a hard time keeping her mind straight; good thing she took that hangover tincture and she still had ninety eight more of the darn things. Her hoof was tightly grabbed and shook making her smile a bit. “Eeyup.” Big Mac just stared at her as if he were talking to a child, he at least owed the pegasus a benefit of a doubt as he wasn’t having too much luck finding anything himself and he did trip over her. “Good, because I’m calling my favor when we both go back there… tell me what you need and I’ll see what I can do about helping you out. First let me go into a nearby alleyway to clean this off.” Big Mac looked to a nearby clock as the pegasus wandered off. It was twenty till three and when he looked back he saw a suspiciously clean pegasus that was once covered in fresh blood seconds ago. “How…” Big Mac asked before receiving a hoof over his mouth. “Do you know Pinkie Pie?” Big Mac nodded his head yes at the narrowed eyes. “Is she anywhere near here?” This time Big Mac shook his head no and Kazooie sighed in relief while removing her hoof. “If you know her then why are you having problems believing that I could… no wait, we haven’t been around each other long enough have we?” Kazooie watched Mac nod his head again; she really didn’t go for the strong silent types as they were ridiculously annoying even if they were good listeners. “Okay, what’s the situation and how can I help you so you can help me… “ Big Mac went on to explain it in as little words as possible as was his usual modus operandi, after he was finished Kazooie motioned for him to follow her. “You’re in luck I happen to have an idea of what’s going on as that’s why I’m here in Manehatten in the first place. You see as an adventurer I usually end up pitted against ridiculously giant creatures and I’ve heard rumors that there is a sea king here, otherwise known as a giant water dragon. Haven’t seen one since Amaterasu invited me over for Jap… Japonese food.” Kazooie noticed the stare she was getting from Big Mac. “You’re wondering what this has to do with the orange tree plantations and your problems aren’t you?” “Eeyup.” It was a little strange, but what did a giant water dragon and the orange plantations have in common, the orange plantation was at least a mile inland, around a river that led to the bay. Big Mac figured that Kazooie knew more than he did at this point even if she seemed slightly unreliable on first appearance. “Well, surprisingly it’s all part of a conspiracy to destroy the orange trees and buying out a destitute orange plantation then turning a profit on it. It’s a little more complicated then you may think and if I’m right somebody is about to do something horribly stupid.” Leading Big Mac to a nearby coach, Kazooie got the ponies attention. “Excuse me, but can you get us to the warehouse district?” After paying the driver who felt it was weird that a pegasus was actually paying for transport it was eleven minutes before three in the morning by the time they arrived. Along the way Kazooie explained an intricate plot by a shadowy organization that was angering a water dragon and it was soon changed to raise some kind of giant powerful being to damage the orange plantation instead. The reasons for the change in plot was that the Sea King learned of it and stopped being used since a river serpent named Steven helped her explain the situation to something that was quite large and scary. “Okay…” Big Mac said to himself as he stepped off the coach that took off back into the city as they walked up to a pony in the warehouse district. “Excuse me, but can you tell me if you have a thirteenth warehouse and would it by any stretch of the imagination abandoned at this current time?” The green coated dock working earth pony just looked at her oddly, shrugged and nodded before pointing them lazily in the right direction. “Thanks… by the way you might want to get any other pony away from the warehouse district soon. Just a word of warning, get them as far away from here as possible.” Seeing that she was being ignored, Kazooie coughed an oval shaped fireball in front of the pony causing him to jump away from the intense heat as it marked the ground. “DID I STUTTER? Get everyone who works here out of the area, my crazy boss battle senses are tingling. Come on Macky, if my hunch is correct we’re already too late to stop it and then who knows what the hell I’ll have to fight this time.” “Stop what?” Thus the unfortunate events started with meeting a strange pegasus with strange ideas about how the world worked… naturally she was proven right in the next four minutes when they climbed onto some boxes next to warehouse thirteen. Through a window they saw a circle of unicorns doing something with their magic. The magical circle being invoked slowly disappeared and Kazooie had managed to discern what it exactly did with but a glimpse. Reasons Kazooie knew what the circle did was from the Final Fantasy realms… every single one that had ‘summoning command’ ability that is. Big Mac had other worries to focus on such as his unconscious elder sister tied up and two ponies playing with their pa’s hat, in a room on the upper catwalk. He received a tap on his shoulder from Kazooie before he could get righteously angry and storm in there. “You rescue the hostage and make it quick we have five minutes before all hell busts loose! And this time it isn’t even my fault… what a waste. I’m going to go get their attention; you get in and out of there fast. Don’t bother coming back to help me, just run towards the city and stay out of the path of whatever comes up.” Kazooie’s last words were a bit surprising but whatever the case he had better get Applejack out of there, considering the urgency in the winged ponies claim that something bad was about to go down. Speaking of which, Big Mac felt that he had Pinkie Pie’s sense of foreboding as a chill ran down his spine telling him to hurry up. He came to his sense and pulled the window open not knowing where Kazooie went when he wasn’t paying attention, Mac had four minutes to get in and incapacitate two ponies and get out with his sister under the assumed idea that the entire place was rigged to blow sky high because of magic or something like that. Using his assumption as a reason to put a lot of fear and adrenaline into his system, Big Mac didn’t care about being quiet leaping to the catwalk from the window. Fortunately he didn’t have to worry about anyone interfering in saving his sister, Kazooie’s distraction was noisy and the sound of explosions could be heard causing the two guards to take off down the stairs leaving the hat they were toying with behind on the ground. Quickly running over to the hat he flicked it onto his own head as Applejack would kill him if he left it behind. He quickly got Applejack onto his back and jumped back out the window, climbed down the boxes and was off running as he wasn’t sure what was about to happen. With Applejack balanced on his back he wasn’t about to take chances. The only clue he had as to what was about to show up is the shout of joy from a familiar voice. “YAHOO, this world isn’t just a diabetic’s worst nightmare! Boss battle!” Hearing an impossibly large crash, Big turned his head slightly and began running in the same direction double speed as a large shadow started ripping itself out of the ground. If Kazooie survived that thing then he was going to buck her upside the head as hard as he could, he didn’t know why… he just knew it was the right thing to do. It was three A.M. and an early morning battle to save Manehatten was beginning. At Canterlot Castle at the very moment things were going quite well as Pinkie had managed to throw an all night party in the castle. That was until one of the guards pulled Celestia away from her cake and Luna away from her banana flavored Moon Pies. “What is wrong… guard?” The unicorn guard just frowned at Celestia. “You’re not going to use my name?” The guard said sadly. “She would but you’d turn it into an innuendo Golden Sheathe, though I must really commend you on your sword training and fencing ability.” Luna was the one that walked into that and Celestia just sighed. “Heck yeah I’m well trained with my sword… sorry, can’t help myself and you were right. In any case, a zodiac monster has been detected!” Both the princesses looked at each other. “Which one is it, did you manage to identify it? Did you even remember to check?” Celestia said, hoping that it was not Gemini or Pisces. Not that Sagittarius could open up a Pandora’s Box all on its own. “Um… I’m not sure I should tell… “After getting a glare from the princesses he suddenly blurted out the answer. “It was Cancer.” Luna’s pupils shrunk to the finest sized dots, she gasped and then before she could let out an inevitable coming scream she was hit with a mute spell from Celestia. Celestia knew why he was reluctant to tell them, Cancer was one of Luna’s biggest concerns not that Pisces wasn’t as bad. Luna turned a glare to Celestia who promptly released the spell. “Sister, just be glad that neither Pisces nor Sagittarius have appeared. I still have a few nightmares from when Gemini was fought and it took both of us working in concert to beat it, all of the five hundred copies of a single giant creature at that.” Celestia still had nightmares from the multiplier zodiac creature; it’s probably why parasprites existed in the first place. She was glad that parasprites didn’t eat living creatures or all kinds of inanimate matter; they’d be capable of eating the entire world then. “Pisces, Sagittarius, Gemini, Cancer? I’ve read about them in my astrology books… why are you so worried about them princess?” Twilight having been there the whole time wondered what they were worried about when she followed them. “Pisces is the creature that can muddle the mind and bind you to another against your will, had I not been so strong of will I would have been much cuddlier with Luna as if I were a lover… suffice it to say I stayed away from Luna long after that, it might even have been the cause of the Nightmare Moon episode. Sagittarius has the ability to steal, fuse and otherwise manipulate parts of other creatures. You need only seek a Manticore or Discord as he was to see what Sagittarius can do. All creatures of the zodiac are large volatile creatures of a powerful sort; each one has a very specific dangerous ability. After we had banished all these creatures, there was only a limited amount of ways to temporarily bring them back through summoning rituals.” Celestia shuddered; Sagittarius seems like a warm and inviting creature at first glance, but the things it could do made it a well known horror if you couldn’t fix what it could do to you. Celestia was thankful for the protection from the elements of harmony at the time. “And what does Cancer do and why does Luna look so pale?” Looking into Luna’s eyes, Twilight could see a faint mark of regret. “As with all the zodiac creatures, each one has a rather specific summoning ritual that can’t be accidentally done. For instance Cancer’s summoning ritual requires the night of a full moon and the summoning to be set up near the sea. It is not the only reason of my sister’s fears, Cancer’s ability is regeneration and it is a heavily armored creature. Its armor fixes itself as soon as it’s cracked and it’s nearly tireless. The only way to stop it is to remove it entirely in a single powerful attack or hit it continuously without end until its banished once more. Neither options are easy as the creature will be attacking the first aggressor it meets, do anything to draw its attention and it will chase you down until you are left with no strength left in your body to run, fight or do much of anything else for that matter.” Celestia silently recalled how they stopped Cancer the first time; she truly doubted wherever Cancer rose up would like a tactical solar flare strike. If it was in area populated with ponies she wouldn't think of it or consider it an option. “I will not risk you to this creature; go back to the party and have fun Twilight. I and Luna shall attend to this, we’ve done it once before and we can do it again.” Celestia didn’t leave much room for an argument and she and Luna flew off immediately leaving behind the purple unicorn to stare at the starry sky and the moon. She hoped that the two royal alicorn sisters would be okay. There was no being short of having incredible power that should possibly be capable of defeating Cancer, unless you’re a silly pony named Applejack.