"I swear, I leave for a few weeks and you adopt a foal," Jynx sighed.
I just hugged her and said, "Ah missed you, too."
I was just finishing up Midnight's room when she walked in, intending to surprise me. She succeeded, but my surprise was a bit bigger than hers.
"And Ah'm just fosterin' him, not adoptin' him... yet."
Jynx gave me a suspicious glare. "What do you mean 'yet'?"
I shrugged. "Ah'm just sayin', if this works out well enough, who knows, Ah might make it permanent. Ah haven't decided on anythin' yet."
Jynx sighed,"Fine, we'll talk about it later. Change of subject! How about you and Fluttershy? How have things gone on that front?"
I smiled. "Pretty good. We, uh..."
"You banged?!" Jynx asked with a huge grin on her face. "I'm so proud of you! So, how long until you're okay banging friends? We both know Rarity's curious, and I bet Twilight wouldn't mind trying you out. We both know Rainbow won't stop asking. "
I felt my face warm at the unusual praise and subsequent insinuations. "That'll be a while, Ah think."
Jynx pouted. "Aww. Well, more for me, I guess. Speaking of which... You know, there's a reason I came home early. Care to guess what it is?"
I scratched my chin in thought. "You just finished early?"
"Nope."
"You found somethin' related to ancient tigerians?"
"Try again."
"The site was attacked?"
"What? No!"
"There was a great maple syrup flood?"
"Okay, now I know you're just playing around," she said with a deadpanned stare.
"What? Me? No way. Ah'm at a total loss as to what it could be. Ah don't smell your heat at all," I said with honest sincerity and absolutely no sarcasm.
Jynx just grinned, maliciously. "Fine. I'll just get Pinkie to help me."
"Now, let's not be hasty," I said, urging her to slow down.
She laughed as she backed out of the room. "Well then, you better cool me off before someone else does."
She cackled as she ran out of the room, me in hot pursuit.
"Ah, there you are," Mayor Mare said as she came out of her office to meet us.
"Sorry we're late," I apologized. "Ah somethin' to take care of that came out of nowhere."
She gave me a knowing smirk, glancing at Jynx behind me. "I can tell."
I felt my cheeks warm. "Y-yes, well, shall we?"
Jynx and the mayor shared a laugh at my expense.
"Very well, right this way," Mare said, heading towards a room to the side.
She opened the door to a meeting room where three of the foals still waited. They had coloring books, puzzles, and a few toys to keep them occupied, but when we came in, they all perked up, obviously hoping to get out of there.
"Midnight, your temporary guardian is here," the mayor announced.
"Oh, man, you get the cool superhero tiger? No fair," one of the foals said.
"Your guardian will be here, soon, Becca," Mayor Mare said.
Midnight turned to the other foals and said, "We'll play later."
"Okay, bye," the other foal said.
"Hey, let me know who the other guardians are, would you?" I requested of the mayor. "Ah want to make sure we can set up a time for them to play."
The mayor smiled. "Let me get the okay from the last two, and I'll get that to you first thing in the morning."
"Thanks, mayor," I said before turning to my ward. "You ready to go?"
Midnight just nodded, shyly.
"Alright, let's go," I said, leading him outside. "Oh, and before Ah forget, this is Jynx Charm. She'll be around alot."
"Is she your special someone?" Midnight whispered loud enough that Jynx heard, anyway.
"That's right," I replied.
"Is she a superhero, too?" he asked, getting a laugh from the two of us.
"Neither of us are superheroes," I said. "I'm a Ranger, so it's my job to fight monsters, even if those monsters look like ponies."
"Uh... yeah, and you do that with cool gadgets and powers. That's a superhero."
Jynx laughed. "He's got you there, mister superhero."
"Nah, superheroes wear costumes," I countered.
"I don't know, you do have a utility belt," Jynx pointed out.
Midnight gasped. "You have a utility belt?!"
Wait... why the hell am I fighting this? Who doesn't want to be a superhero?
"You know what? You're right. Ah guess Ah am a superhero," I admitted.
Midnight smiled, triumphantly. "I knew you'd see it my way."
"I like him, already," Jynx said with a snicker.
"Anyway, Ah figured we'd stop by Sugar Cube Corner, first," I said, giving Jynx a knowing look.
"Oh, yeah. That's a good idea," she replied, catching on quick.
Now, I didn't plan anything. I never worked anything out with Pinkie, and she never said anything to me.
However... well... Pinkie.
Thus, it was no surprise when we were showered with confetti and shouts of "Surprise!"
Midnight was still wrapping his head around everything that had happened in the past couple days.
Thus, when his new guardian mentioned what sounded like a sweets shop or something, he was excited. He could really use some sugar.
What he wasn't expecting was a 'Welcome to Ponyville' party just for him and the other orphans.
He especially wasn't expecting to be the center of attention from a trio of fillies.
"So... I'm guessing you're going to be my next recruit," said an orange pegasus.
"Huh?" Midnight replied.
The pegasus stood up straighter, "I'm in charge of an elite, highly experimental unit of foals whose purpose is to support Ponyville's Rangers in the protection of the town in the case of an emergency."
Midnight's eyes widened in awe. "Woah! That sounds awesome! So, you get to fight monsters?!"
The pegasus deflated a little. "No... but we do help make sure ponies get to a safe location and help direct them away from danger."
"That's still pretty cool," Midnight said. "So, does that mean you work with Mister Tora?"
"Yeah," said a white unicorn. "He's the adult in charge, but we actually do most of the work."
"By the way," the pegasus sat down and started munching on a cookie. "I'm Scootaloo. That's Sweetie Belle and Applebloom. What's your name?"
"I'm Midnight Star," he replied.
"Cool name," Applebloom said. "Ah like the little star on your forehead."
Midnight tilted his head. "You kinda sound like Mister Tora. Are you related?"
Applebloom chuckled. "Nah, he's a country creature, just like me. They got similar accents on Earth as we got here."
"Oh, so are any of you terrans?" Midnight asked.
"I was almost terran," Sweetie said. "I was born a year after my family got displaced."
Applebloom rolled her eyes. "In other words, no, we ain't terran, but Sweetie knows plenty about them. Ah take it you are?"
Midnight shook his head. "No, I just never really knew any other native foals. The orphanage only ever took in terrans. They just made an exception for me."
"Well, that's nice of them," Applebloom said. "So, you wanna go Crusadin' with us?"
Midnight gave a puzzled tilt of his head. "What's Crusading?"
Both Pinkie and I shivered. "Did you feel that?" I asked.
"Like a thousand voices all cried out in fear," She replied, grimly.
"I'm not even going to ask," Jynx commented.
"So, I have to wonder, is this some kind of trial run for possible parenthood?" Rarity asked with a twinkle in her eye.
Jynx and I shared a look as I said, "Well, Ah suppose you could call it that. We have talked a little bit about foals, and we both want one. It's just a bit soon."
"Yeah, we've only been together a couple months," Jynx agreed.
I'll admit, a part of me didn't care about that. If Jynx was okay with it, I would have already had the compatibility spell cast and would have been hard at work knocking her up.
Rarity scoffed as ladylike as a scoff could possibly be. "Oh, please. You two are perfect for each other. Though, if you truly wish to wait, who am I to tell you otherwise."
"Well, if my heat actually arrived on time, it might have been a different story. That would have given us three months together," Jynx said.
"Well, at least you get to enjoy heat sex without concern," Rarity said to Jynx before turning to me. "Believe me, the best sex for a mare is durring heat."
I chuckled at that. "Oh, Ah think Ah realized that this mornin'."
I looked past Rarity to see a late arrival approach. "Hey, Fluttershy. Glad you could make it."
She came up to stand on my side, opposite Jynx, and gave me a quick kiss. "Sorry it took so long. Ori hasn't been feeling well."
"The cute little otter cub?" I asked in concern. "It's nothin' too bad, Ah hope."
Shy shook her head. "No, just a cold."
"Well, hey, how about Ah bring Midnight over after the party and help cheer him up?" I suggested.
"Oh, I'm certain he would love that," Fluttershy said with a smile. "So, where is this colt you've taken in?"
"Oh, he's right over..." I turned to see where he had gotten, but didn't see him anywhere.
Nore did I see a certain trio of troublemakers.
Pinkie peeked over my shoulder. "Well, now we know what that feeling was."
"Uh... are you sure this is safe?" Midnight asked, nervously.
When he was invited to go 'crusading for cutie marks', he didn't think that would lead to him sitting in an old crate with wheels haphazardly bolted to the bottom at the top of a rickety homemade roller coaster with a bunch of crazy fillies.
Scootaloo rolled her eyes from behind him. "Of course it's safe. You have a helmet."
"This isn't a hemet, it's a buckeaaahhhhhh!"
"I'm sure they're fine," Rarity said, though I could hear a bit of uncertainty in her tone.
"Well, we wanted to give him a proper Ponyville welcome. What better way than a near death experience?" Pinkie stated.
Rarity, Jynx and I all gave each other a worried look before bolting from the room.
We ran through Ponyville, asking whoever we passed if they had seen the four missing foals. As infamous as the Crusaders were, it didn't take long to get a location.
We ran toward the lake, only to see a quartet of foals flying through the air screaming, three in delight, one in terror, alongside a wodden crate.
"Oh... good..." Rarity gasped for breath. "They're using... the lake, this time."
I stormed over to the edge of the lake as the foals were crawing out.
"Ah am very disappointed in you three," I said and they had the good sense to look ashamed."Ah can't believe you would build somethin' like this... and not even tell me."
All four of them looked up at me as if I grew a second head.
"Now hurry up and get that cart back to the top so Ah have a turn."
As Midnight watched the three crazy fillies and his new guardian reset the deathtrap, only one thought pervade his thoughts.
I've either made a terrible mistake or this is the best thing to happen to me, and I'm not sure which scares me more.