-Equus, Ponyville, Rainbow Dash-
“So as you can imagine, it was awesome when I made all of those giant mutant insects explode!” Of course Scootaloo was enraptured by my totally true tale, it’s just everyone else that was skeptical.
“How can wasps possibly get that large, they wouldn’t be able to fly!” Rumble the little colt who was the younger brother of my coworker in the Wonder Bolts asked.
“Excuse me, but did I hear someone just say that an insect this large can’t possibly fly?” We all turned to see a familiar parrot to sitting cross legged on a giant hovering bee.
“Whoa, since when did you have a giant bee Celaeno?” My pirate parrot friend was looking good on it.
“Since they started taking a liking to pirates who know how to dance.” Celaeno states with a smile on her beak as she leaned forward. “Now tell me this young colt, how is this giant bee flying and carrying my weight if it’s impossible?”
Rumble opened his mouth and then looked cross eyed for a moment as the various other growing teenage fillies and colts just stared at the large bee.
“Magic, duh!” Pinkie stated and everyone turned to her and the alpaca sitting next to her.
“Meep.” All the kids looked to the alpaca and nodded sagely and made noises of agreement.
“They just like you better because you’re fluffier.” Was Pinkie having an adversarial thing with the friendly alpaca? The kids at least went up to the alpaca and started asking for hugs. “I’m still the premiere party pony here!”
“So what are you doing here Celaeno?” It was pretty weird to see her here in Ponyville.
“About that Rainbow…” Celaeno looked like she needed dire help with something.
-Earth, Africa, Savanna Central district, Dolly-
It didn’t take long for that Shere Kahn guy to wrap up his question and answer session.
“Ms. Lambchop, I’m sure you have questions.” That Kahn guy still made my fur stand on end when he spoke with that deep timber, if he were an animal I’d be running for my life.
“Yes, first one… what do you want from me exactly?” Pom wasn’t looking at the screen of the device, she was keeping her gaze firmly on Kahn without a hint of emotion on her face aside from the half lidded eyes.
“Just for you to enjoy your wonderful gift, you seem like the pragmatic sort to figure out how useful it can be.” This Kahn guy put his paws behind his back while gazing at us calmly. He didn’t have much of an expression on his face. “Can’t an old tiger just do something nice for a sheep?”
“Yeah, if didn’t know there were already strings attached to this.” What strings Pom? What did she know? “How long have you been watching us?”
Again… what?
“Since you personally helped the local police catch a brazen revolver wielding ocelot from accosting Gazelle.” Kahn was talking as if he was discussing the weather. “As you may have surmised, I did in fact seek you out specifically to give the PET to you. I saw you looking at an electronics store before asking you to take part in our little… demonstration of a future product. You should be quite appreciative to receive such a grand gift Ms. Lambchop, concerning it is being given freely into your care.”
“I would be more appreciative if I wasn’t being used in such a manner.” Huh? What did Pom mean by that? Her eyes were narrowing at the business suited tiger. “So how long do we have?”
The device worked didn’t it? Nothing seemed wrong with it, so why was she asking how long we would have to use it? The dog on the screen was quietly playing minesweeper, but was obviously listening to the conversation… there were also a lot of explosions happening on the screen.
“It seems you have it mostly figured out. Reminds me of the days when a masterful cargo pilot was still flying circles around my men. He was a ‘hero’ in every sense of the word as it were.” Shere Kahn chuckled dryly and clapped several times. “I would also like to say bravo Ms. Lambchop, you are quite an intriguing individual, one of which I will hope to see again while I’m still in good health. I think you will have a day at the most, more if you are as paranoid as I assume you to be. A little advice, ‘Be Prepared’, everything you might need to know will be in the device if you ask the right questions and if you are to ever show up in Cape Suzette, then I will personally pay for your stay. Hurry along now, times ticking, you and your companion obviously have a busy evening ahead.”
“Thank you for the gift sir, I will take my leave now.” Pom was acting funny, she turned away from Shere Kahn and his group of biped panthers acting as bodyguards. “Dolly, I’m going to stick you to me, don’t be alarmed.”
I nodded and preemptively clamped down on Pom’s back, she started to inhale and then walked into a nearby alleyway while putting away the PET thing in her satchel. She exhaled and before I knew it, we were quite a distance away from the alley and the little park in Savanna Central district, I think we were now closer to Downtown district.
“Uh Pom… what the dog was all that about?” Looking around the rooftop in a paranoid fashion, Pom answered my question with a series of yips. She was actively speaking dog now.
“Ever heard of the concept of a poisoned gift? We just got one and Shere Kahn wasn’t about to give it to anyone else… it was either me or normal person who probably wouldn’t survive the ‘poison’ part of the gift. That we were in Zootopia when he gave this device to us proved to be a boon to him advertising his product. If you remember what Gazelle told us, ‘predator’ and ‘prey’ has some very interesting connotations around here. A sheep and tiger getting along is good for the local sentiments, especially after that ocelot recently accosted Gazelle in broad daylight.” Pom clutched at her bag and looked about worriedly. “Shere Kahn is not out and out evil, but I think he’s toed that that line a lot in life and might have stepped over it a few times. He portrayed a front of decency at least, all while giving us something that he knows will absolutely be trouble for us soon.”
“Why can’t we just ditch the PET thing then?” She gave me a sad look.
“That’s the point of a poisoned gift, we can’t reject it. There’s already a few good reasons not to, I think something really bad will happen if we lose Dormarch.” Pom eyed me warily. “Can you feel our bond?”
“Yeah, it’s still good and I can feel you!” What you were feeling is worrying me.
“Okay, that’s all I needed to know for now.” Pom, was there something I was missing here? Aside from the fact that we were possibly just put in danger by the tiger in the suit? “Tell me if you feel any sudden changes.”
-America, New York City, Smolder-
While I still had to prop up Ocellus, she was almost capable of walking normally thanks to spending some time with Delilah. That therapy dog was a miracle worker, especially because Ocellus was a dog at the time. Now Ocellus was taking on the form that is referred to as ‘horned lizard’ that looked exactly like her dragon form, I bet she could still breathe fire like that too as the form was only missing its wings
“Why are we here and not going after Pom or Shanty?” I was glad to have Ocellus awake and active again, what I wasn’t glad about is that we wouldn’t be going after Shanty or Pom.
“By the time you do get to where they are, they might not be there anymore.” Louie was being a realist and not trying to scam us, at the moment. “Lena and Hunter got along like a fire and those Dalmatians with the magic chicken were really cool too. If Pom or Shanty show up there again, then they can call us to come get them easily, besides we’ve already taken up to much of their hospitality already and they aren’t exactly made of money. Though the Cooper Gang paid them back in a week’s worth of kibble for letting them stay a few days, it was already running out when we showed up.”
“Yeah, it was like another average Tuesday for us, except no dart traps or deadly spiked ceiling crushers.” Dewey at least wasn’t punning around or trying to insert himself into everything in an obnoxious manner. I gave it a minute before he tried to become the center of attention. “Also Snakes, I really don’t like them!”
“Better than most Tuesdays for us at least, I still remember the sharks with laser beams strapped to their heads.” Huey shuddered and hugged himself. “We’re glad they couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn… even after we got them all into one, which come to think of it should have been impossible that they didn’t hit anything with them firing wildly all over the place inside the barn. Anyway, while Uncle Scrooge has business here in New York, we are free to find things to do like go visit the statue of liberty, go to the library or look up strange unsolved mysteries. Like how Webby is chasing down that ancient mystery that might be related to the Lincoln Memorial having some huge secret.”
“I’m still get flashbacks to that game night where we found out that Uncle Scrooge has an entire shrunken civilization in his home.” Louie shivered and looked about. “So where do we go to first? No matter where we go, we’re going to end up doing something interesting.”
“The emotions around here are all over the place, it’s kind of like Manehatten.” We should go to one of those culture festivals Ocellus when the moods are all more cheerful than around here, provided we ever made it back to Equus with our sanities intact.
“Is it too much for you Ocellus?” She shook her head no, but I still figured that we should head to somewhere nice. “So any place where she can get some peace and quiet.”
“You don’t have to worry about me so much Smolder, I’m not 'that' frail.” You just got back on your… whatever you have at the time since you could literally become an octopus at will. You were currently a wingless dragon, which would be seen as a normal lizard biped, which reminds me…
I shifted my orange hoody a bit and wiggled my wings underneath it.
“You seem to be the one that’s more uncomfortable here.” Ocellus gave me a frown as she carefully stopped propping on me and turned to glare down at me.
“Hey, I just need to stretch my wings and that might cause problems around here.” It seemed no one was paying attention to us, but better safe than sorry. We were in a world that was at war not too long ago. “We can get away with the horned lizard thing, what we can’t get away with is the whole ‘flying horned lizard that breathes fire’ thing. People are going to ask questions and we’re technically illegal immigrants here. I don’t know about you, but we do not want to draw attention to ourselves.”
“Huh… what did I miss?” Dewey stated as he somehow tangled up in a yoyo’s string, his yoyo was surprisingly still spinning as it dangled from his beak.
“Not much.” Louie stated as he motioned for us to follow him. “Central Park would be quiet enough, but who knows what will happen when we get there. Again, our family is basically cursed with living in interesting times and that was before we went to China and Uncle Donald ruined that luck sapping spirit. Mark my words, when we get there, something big will happen.”
-Thirty minutes later, Central Park, Ocellus-
I sat on the bench breathing roughly, my body was still trying to get back into some form of shape. I couldn’t just magically shape shift muscles from out of nowhere, that took a bit of magical energy and I was trying to save up so my horn would recover faster.
As you can imagine, Louie was wrong, even as him and his brothers exploring the underside of a nearby bridge in curiosity.
I was using my current form to keep myself from being tempted to use my horn, or horns, as Dragons were one of the few beings with horns on Equus that couldn’t do magic through them. A warranted safety precaution, because I certainly felt comfortable with this form.
Smolder was being at my side as much as she can, I appreciated that, but she was getting a bit clingy. Right now she was off in private stretching her poor wings out.
I heard squeaking going on nearby, my gaze turned away from the burbling fountain to a tree where I could feel six tiny spots of emotion. Two of which were aggravated with one another.
I got up and made my way over to where this feeling was coming from, what I saw was either intelligent animals or animalistic. Animalistic didn’t speak animal, but animals could be smarter than this world would ever give them credit for. Animals back on Equus were definitely intelligent as Professor Fluttershy interacts with them constantly.
They weren’t speaking in an understandable language so they had to be smart animals, because they were wearing clothing and they seemed to be arguing over a piece of paper that looked like a case file.
“Um, excuse me.” The two chipmunks kept arguing, probably not believing that I was talking to them.
I laid down on my stomach and propped my chin up on my claws and watched the two argue about something while making motions to the case file.
Looking over the case file, I took it up in my right claw, humming jauntily as I looked it over. Apparently it was a file about someone named… Professor Nimnul… having recently escaped prison and is possibly being involved in the kidnapping a dog named Georgette Foxworth?
Nimnul was a squat biped chicken that was a mad scientist and apparently has a history of criminal actions where he’s been called a quack numerous times. He’s been arrested quite a lot and somehow always finds a way to escape prison. Georgette belonged to a rich family and was a dog show champion of Fifth Avenue.
I silently put the paper back next to the arguing… brothers from the looks of it… and just continued to watch the two interact.
A mouse came up to me and tilted her head curiously, she looked over at the two boys arguing and one bonked the other on the head with his fist and then they got into a scuffle with one another.
“Um, Miss Mouse, are they brothers?” I asked the mouse with blonde hair. She looked a little surprised that I was addressing her, but she nodded. “Could you please get their attention for me, I want to address what’s currently going on here.”
The mouse squeaked something and immediately had both of their attentions.
“Excuse me, but should you two really be fighting like that? I can understand that you might be having some problems with either missing a friend or even if the kidnapped dog isn’t your friend, then you should get yourselves in order if this is something you’re trying to solve.” They both looked a little shocked that I was talking to them directly. “My name is Ocellus and where I’m from, I have a teacher named Professor Fluttershy who could actually talk to any animal in existence. So I’m used to animals being smarter than anyone would ever give them credit for. You wouldn’t happen to need help with this would you?”
“Hey Ocellus what’s going on?” I looked up to Smolder.
“Oh these two chipmunks and this mouse might be trying to figure out what happened to a kidnapped dog, apparently this is a cold case about three days old. No clues as to the whereabouts of the suspect or the dog.” The mouse jumped and down while nodding and pointing at me. “Okay, so they are little detectives. I wanted to interject because the two brothers are roughhousing way too much and I was worried that they were going too far. Also I wanted to help them.”
“Huh… you do realize we can’t understand what they are saying right? We’re not Professor Fluttershy, so how would we be able to help them if we don’t understand what they are trying to tell us.” They seemed surprised that Smolder was not writing them off either. “Say do you guys know how to write?”
The chipmunk with a red nose nodded.
“Good, then maybe we can start helping you if you need someone at the biped level to do things for you. Oh and I’m a dragon, Ocellus here is a shape shifter.” They looked at me when Smolder said that.
I quickly shapeshift into a Dalmatian and barked pretending to be a dog. The red nosed chipmunk tried to say something excitedly.
“I can’t really speak animal, even like this… I'm sorry. Well at least you can write to us." They seemed upset that I couldn’t understand them, they looked to Smolder. "
“Need proof that I’m a dragon?” Smolder let off a short burst of flames and carefully showed her wings underneath her hoody to them. “Well there’s your proof. Ocellus does take on at least some of the properties of what she transforms into, so there’s that. So do you think we can be of help to you with finding that dog?”
The red nose chipmunk and the blonde mouse nodded, but the chipmunk with the hat and coat looked at us suspiciously.
“Look, we really don’t have much else going on at the moment, we’re kind of living with a family of adventurers that have really odd lives.” That was an understatement Smolder, if the things said about the time traveling bathtub were anything to go by. “If we’re going to be in New York for the next few days, then we may as well do something interesting.”
The red nosed chipmunk and the mouse seemed interested as they started talking amongst themselves, but the hat wearing chipmunk still looked skeptical.
“Hey, are you having another problem with magic guys? Oh hey there cutie, did your brother hit you on the head again?” A pink furred bat suddenly came in and went from being curious to being overly affectionate with one of the chipmunks.
The affection was not entirely one sided, but the red nosed chipmunk wasn’t acting on his feelings for the bat earning my curiosity about the situation.
“When you say magic, does that explain how we can understand you?” The bat froze up when Smolder stated that and she turned to us.
“Well, if you are the magical presences I’m feeling here, then yes, that is the explanation as to how you can feasibly understand me.” The bat sounded a lot like Fluttershy… wait a minute… six! There were six animals that I could feel here and that might mean... were they possibly the equivalent of the elements of harmony in this world? “I was the familiar of a witch… things didn’t quite work out and she wasn’t a very good person, so I broke off the bond and my magical severance package included communicating with magical creatures. My name is Foxglove, this cutie here is 'my' Dale, that’s his brother Chip and that’s Gadget.”
The bat put her wing around Dale and nuzzled him. While he looked uncomfortable with it, Dale was enjoying it immensely. What the bat had wasn’t a crush… it was full blown love and a metric ton of it. Enough that it could fill the Dalmatian home in Britain.
Chip said something to Foxglove.
“Oh and there’s also Monterey and Zipper in the rangers headquarters. Chip wants me to tell you that the Rescue Rangers wouldn’t mind you’re lending them assistance in this matter as the case has gotten a little… bizarre.” Foxglove poked her wings together in a shy manner. “When it comes to the Rescue Rangers, there’s no case too big or too small. When you need help you can call on them to solve the where, the why and who of any given situation, even when it’s really dangerous.”
“Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty…” I mumbled as I looked at each of them. Dale was Laughter from the way he smiled, Gadget was Generosity if purple was the color code for it, Foxglove was Kindness and Chip seemed to be honesty, if their two friends weren’t loyal or magical in some way… then I wasn't a good friendship student. “So how is this case bizarre and what are you having problems with?”
Dale started jabbering excitedly to Foxglove.
“Excuse me, but Dale asked if you’re related to a space alien that they once had problems with.” Foxglove seemed like she was a good friend of this group. “It wasn’t too long ago that they accidentally wiped their own intelligences with a strange magical jewel, but managed to escape a facility in Calisota that was being run by a fiendish worldwide organization of criminals… after the organization accidentally gave them back their intelligences.”
Chip made a dry sounded bit of chattering.
“Dale was fully returned back to normal Chip. Don’t make fun of him like that, he’s very smart in his own ways!” Foxglove snuggled Dale. Again, Dale wasn’t showing that he liked that about her, but what I could feel was nothing but sweetness coming from the red nose chipmunk as he blushed and rubbed the back of his head shyly. “Can you imagine what it would be like if your brother never got his intelligence back? Would you even be able to take care of him like that? I don’t think it was something that I would have even been capable of fixing, so you’re all very lucky to not have any permanent issues from that as magic that messes with the mind is very dangerous!”
While Foxglove didn’t have the stare, she could match Fluttershy’s righteous ferocity at least. Chip put his arm around Dale and said something that felt heartwarming. Dale soon throws his own arm around Chip and says something in a jolly mood.
“Uh, can we get back to the bizarre thing about the case my new little friends?” They were quickly getting off track, Smolder was just watching this whole thing with a warm smile. “Also no Dale, I don’t think I am related to whatever alien you’re thinking of… I’ve never been to space personally.”
Chip cleared his throat and began dictating something to Foxglove.
“Well the case is bizarre in the fact that while Nimnul and Georgette were last seen near each other, they know for a fact that Nimnul was not responsible for the Georgette’s disappearance.” Foxglove flicked her ears and continued to listen to Chip. “They lost Nimnul after finding him after Georgette’s disappearance, Georgette was not present when they destroyed his latest invention which had nothing to do with dogs... this time.”
“Where was she last seen, maybe we should start there?” Smolder offered and they looked a little upset and Chip spoke up.
“Did that already… no clues.” Foxglove shrugged.
“What about checking out Fifth Avenue?” Smolder suggested looking over the paper.
Chip smacked his forehead with a paw, he may have overlooked checking where the dog lived.