-Outskirts of Ponyville, Gallus-
“So… what are you doing out here, aside from playing shuffleboard I mean?” I rubbed my head watching the several big muscled creatures seem to argue over who scored a recent point.
“What do you mean what are they doing out here?!” Stream really needed to chill out, it wasn’t like they were hurting anyone. “It’s obvious that they plan to…”
“Eat the baked goods we ordered from Pinkie Pie.” The hedgehog said out loud immediately with a smug smile.
“Eat the bake goods that they ordered from… wait… don’t put words in my mouth, only I’m supposed to do that!” Yep, Stream was definitely a little out to pasture, I wonder if a cow would smack me across the face for thinking that. “See those Storm Creatures, they are evil!”
One Storm Creature just shrugged at the accusation and they went back to playing shuffleboard on the deck of the airship.
“I think you’re overreacting a bit here Stream.” The six of us were having a nice day so far, Silver Stream’s over the top panicking aside. “I mean, if Pinkie thinks they’re okay, then they are probably okay.”
“It’s only a likely story that Pinkie…” A loud explosion and several firework sized blasts of confetti sounded off interrupting Stream’s growing tirade.
“Did somebody order a few hundred tons of tasty delights?!” The device was huge and looked like it should be used for war or something like that, if it wasn’t painted bright neon pink with a yellow five pointed star on the side. It was dragging several large loads of baked goods behind it on pallets. “Don’t eat it all in one place or you’ll get a tummy ache guys, general Pinkie’s orders!”
“Pinkie, what… is that?” Also where has it been all my life and did it come in slate grey? “Also you’re not a general.”
“I am of parties! Also it’s a party tank silly, I had to rent one to get this order out here. Oh and you’re all welcome and invited to join the party I’m throwing for Grubber and his friends!” Pinkie started hoofing out invitations with rapid speed, I didn’t even know how my invitation appeared in my talons as she never even came within twenty feet of me. She was the strangest of all our teachers, but also the friendliest, the odd thing is she came to an abrupt stop before she gave the invitation to Silver Stream. “If you take this invitation, then you better have no hard feelings and are willing to enjoy the party as it is. Grubber and those guys aren’t bad people, they just had a really big stinker of a leader.”
“I don’t like this… but… I’m not going to miss a party over it.” Silver Stream liked Pinkie’s parties way too much to give up on them.
“If their previous leader was so bad, then who’s leading them now?” That’s what I wanted to know Smolder, the answer was swift and a bit surprising.
Every single Storm Creature, whether they were coming off the ship to pick up some of the loaded pallets of baked goods or not, stopped in unison and pointed in a single direction.
“The unicorn with the broken horn, really?” I hovered there watching as she was just sat there lazily watching this with her head propped up on the railing as if Silver Stream’s panicking was the same as watching grass grow.
She did seem to have an edge about her, but she didn’t seem to be willing to say much and she looked kind of cool really. That scar was so awesome, I wonder how she got it?
“Hey Pinkie, thanks for the delivery. I’m sorry we’re a bit far away, but I didn’t think parking in town would have been a good idea, what with the tensions still going on between us and all. The names Grubber, what’s yours?” He turned and introduced himself to me amiably as he held a cupcake loaded with cherries that he swiftly started to devour. “We’re having a hard time making friends as it is and you seem like a cool guy.”
“Thanks, I’m Gallus.” I shook his paw and we were on our way to being friends already, Silver Stream’s beak just dropped as if I had kicked a puppy.
“Pinkie why are you friends with them, they destroyed Mount Aris?!” Wow, I knew Stream didn’t like Storm Creatures, but she’s acting like she actually took part in fighting them.
I guess Silver Stream was in the waters with the other sea ponies while the hippogriff navy got sunk by the assault. Didn’t hear much about how things turned out so poorly for the hippogriffs, the lack of casualties from the fighting there was rather dubious.
“Yeah, but they never hurt anybody too badly and frankly you should ask Fizzle there for more details on that. I certainly did given she was the leader of that attack.” She pointed at the lazy looking unicorn with the stub and then turned the tank around, it was empty of all the pallets that were loaded with sugary goods. Silver Stream looked both willing and unwilling to talk with the mare that apparently destroyed Mount Aris. “Thank you for doing business with Sugar Cube Corner Grubber, I hope to see you at your party!”
“Sure thing Pink, but I still need someone to watch the ship while I’m gone…” He turned to the unicorn that was still relaxing and waved his… when did Pinkie give him an invitation?! I had been staring at him the entire time! He was giving that pony a big eyed begging look. “Hey Boss, do you think you can…”
“Go ahead Grubber, I’m not going to stop you from having fun, but watching the ship is at least a two person job. I’m going to need someone with me.” The mare said as she turned to Pinkie Pie in the large vehicle. “Sorry, I won’t be able to make it Pinkie!”
“That’s okay, I still have the other half of Ponyville to ask and need to talk with the mayor to sign off on using the square for a block party that will last all night!” The large vehicle slowly turned around and slowly thundered its way back towards town.
“There’s a place that rents out those tank things?” That thing was so cool, I wanted to pilot one. I grumbled and crossed my limbs as I realized that I wasn’t likely old enough to do so. “Why have I never heard of it?”
“Eh, I guess you have to know the right ponies to get access to them or something.” Grubber mumbled through a mouthful of cupcake. He was an alright dude in my book.
“You, you’re the reason Mount Aris was destroyed!” Stream screamed in the lazy mares face with her claws balled up, the mare sat up and then swiftly pulled her into a hug.
“I’m sorry.” Was all the mare said, then she released Silver Stream who looked entirely conflicted or confused about continuing to yell at the mare. “I was Tempest Shadow at the time, my name is Fizzlepop Berrytwist. Just call me Fizzle, doubt Grubber is ever going to stop calling me boss or Tempest though.”
“You got that right, you’re the best boss I’ve ever had out of the two of them!” Cheerfully stated grubber as he was handed something by a Storm Creature.
“Fizzle, we have some things to talk about!” We all turned to an Abyssinian making her way onto the ship, she was unafraid of the surrounding Storm Creatures and her get up was rather out of this world. The pointy hat just made her look as silly as her smile.
“Uh, you’re not afraid of these guys?” The Abyssinian flicked her ears and then turned in my direction, because I had asked that question.
“Of course not, and I hope you are not bullying my daughter over her choices in life!” She put her fist on her hips and her tail was… wait her daughter?! Fizzle was the glaring cat’s daughter? How could we bully her, she’s surrounded by Storm Creatures that pointed her out exclusively as their current leader. “If you’re wondering, I hitched a ride here with Pinkie. Such a sweet pony that one.”
Also didn’t this cat hear about what happened to Abyssinia? Even the lazy people in Griffonstone heard about it, we get our catnip from them after all… that actually might explain why griffons are always so zoned out around there all the time. I’ve never thought that griffons had a problem that was nearly that bad, but I’ve always been on the outside of things looking inwards and never really considered things from a different perspective.
That’s what living here was giving me, perspective on life and I really loved it here.
“I’m the Witch of Good Taste, Kurilian La Perm. Pleasure to meet you, for my greetings are something from which you should not squirm!” Was the rhyme or the flamboyant bowing while sweeping the hat from her head really necessary? “I make tasty foods and wildly weird potions. My most recent successful potion leaves you floating helplessly in the air for a few minutes, even if you have wings with which to fly, if you have any angry or aggressive notions. So please don’t start anything or else I’m hitting everyone with one and I’m not quite sure I have perfected it yet, so the side effects might be terrible is relatively temporary.”
“Kuril… please tell me this isn’t from the series of ‘that’ kind of potion.” Kuril looked away from Fizzle, but there was a tiny mischievous smile on her face. Yeah, that wasn’t foreboding at all, I was considering getting away from here before the witch did something we’d all regret later.
I’ve read about what poison joke did to twilight and her friends, who knows what this witch could do if she had something with similar effects but is harder to cure. It certainly sounded like she was friends with Zecora even if she didn’t rhyme all the time.
“Do you know what she’s done?!” Silver was still on that? These guys were chill and Pinkie pretty much confirmed it.
“Yes, she killed the Storm King and quite frankly there are still a lot of traumatizing things still going on for her, I’m quite sure my little Fizzle needs more hugs than anyone.” The cat said flatly, making Silver freeze up in midair to the point she fell to the ground on her butt with a shocked look on her face. Kuril hugged Fizzle tightly against her and she aimlessly nuzzled her face against the cats chin. “I think she’s the only one that’s upset that he’s gone, not many people really care that he broke against the ground into so many pieces that it’s impossible to put him back together… considering I took a few of them to make sure it was impossible.”
“She… she did what… and you…” Turning away from Silver Stream and that conversation, I turned to Grubber who was eating what looked like a chimichanga with red and white gooey stuff in it.
“What’s that?” I asked, I wasn’t willing to deal with all of Stream’s continuing drama today. I prefer having her around when she was in perky or bubblier mood.
“Chimi-cherry-cheesecake-changa, these things are really good. Pinkie has been trying to get the idea right for the last few weeks and she definitely hit the mark with this one, I’m the taste tester for some of her newer products made right in Sugar Cube Corner.” He chuckled audible as he threw the last bit in his mouth and continue talking as he chewed. “She sends baked good packages that you can reheat to me all the time and the Storm Guys are getting good at heating them up correctly that I don’t have to watch them anymore to make sure they are doing it right, I’m working on becoming a patisserie chef personally as we’re still slowly getting out of this whole evil army for a tyrant business. I heard of Pinkie’s chimi-cherry-changas, then decided to work out the mechanics for fitting cheesecake into…. ulp… help me…”
“Yona love chimi-cherry-cheescake-changas!” Yona was hugging the poor guy, being hugged by a yak that doesn’t know her own strength was quite painful.
“Yona, I know you’re enthusiastic about this, but you’re crushing him alive.” Thankfully I got Yona to release him just in time, it looked like he was about to pop like a grape given the purple color he had been turning.
“Thanks dude…” Grubber muttered as he gasped for air.
“Name’s Gallus, I’ve got your back guy.” He smiled at me held up a fist, I bumped my curled talons against his. “That’s Smolder, Sandbar, you’ve met Yona, that’s Ocellus and our currently high-strung friend over there is Silver Stream. She’s usually a lot friendlier than this.”
“It’s okay, I can totally understand the resentment even if I didn’t do much harm personally… I didn’t exactly do much to stop things either. I was actually there with Tempest when we attacked Mount Aris. I’ve been with the Storm King for far longer than the boss lady has and let me tell you, things definitely turned out for the best given the Storm King was planning to wipe us all out once he no longer needed an army to get him what he wanted.” So Grubber has worked for the Storm King longer than the mare now running things has, I wondered if he had any good stories from it. “During the Mount Aris thing we told the guys to not attack females and children, they were to only attack those that could actually defend themselves. It’s like how we took over Canterlot and made sure the local hospital kept running, we even brought the ponies that we injured in to get them help if we hurt them too much. Tempest has a one hundred percent approval rating among the Storm Creatures for that, they are actually not as mean as they look and are actually all big softies at heart.”
“Say guys, how about we leave Silver Stream here to work out things while we do something else?” I turned to see Silver Stream sitting at a table with tea and cakes that wasn’t there a seconds ago with Fizzle and Kuril.
“You have no idea how hard it was to get the instant tea set potion to work with fruit juice given that tea is quite bad for me, before this it had a tendency to create living blobs of tree sap that always set out to ruin someone’s day.” Someone should probably tell Kuril about the Cutie Mark Crusaders, it wasn’t going to be me though. No action was happening, so I’m out, nothing was happening here. “I still wonder where they all got off to… ah well, the ones we managed to catch were tasty if entirely harmless. Made for some really good pancakes at my restaurant, you wouldn’t happen to know some of the hippogriff refugees we took in would you?”
“They’re going to be a while, let’s go!” I flapped my wings and set off for Ponyville, Yona was carrying Grubber with her as we left Silver Stream by herself to talk things out.
-Ten minutes later, a Ponyville café-
“What the… what’s a chimera doing here?!” Said chimera's heads looked towards me and I froze up.