//------------------------------// // The Flygon in Our Cutie Marks // Story: Twilight Gets a Puppy, Season 6 // by TDR //------------------------------// Twilight gets a Puppy Season 6 By TDR The Flygon in Our Cutie Marks [Canterlot, Spring, Friday morning] Celestia was cold. An odd feeling, but not something she was unfamiliar with, after all she lived on top of a mountain that had snow most of the year. What was most odd about it was she was in bed, the sun not due to rise for at least another hour according to her internal clock. It was about the point in the morning though that her body started waking up and any little thing would wake her up fully, the noise of the guards shifting outside, Luna screaming at some noble on the other side of the castle, or in this case a chill. Winter was wrapped up a few days ago but there was still cool air blown in from the top of the mountain where the snow was left untouched save all the snow removed from Canterlot that was dumped on top of it outside the city. Up there it would take longer to melt, but it wouldn't swell the river going down the mountain and cause floods or mudslides. It did mean that if the wind was blowing the right way the city got rather chilly until the sun came out or the wind shifted. Luna enjoyed the colder weather, given her fur color she rather hated the direct sun and she had issues with heat in the middle of summer. Still that didn't explain to Celestia why her room was cold. Maybe she left a window open? Celestia grumbled her breath tickling her nose under her blanket before she gave in and sat up. The air felt heavy and now that she was focusing it felt wet, stars was her room covered in morning dew, or maybe a cloud had gotten into her room again. Not wanting to see the damage but needing too Celestia lit up her horn and opened her eyes expecting to need to dehumidify her books again. What she did not expect was to be nose to nose with a fairly large gold and white koi. Celestia blinked. The fish nibbled at her nose before deciding it was inedible and swimming off. Celestia followed the fish as it swam off seeing a number of other koi swimming through her room though long strands of seaweed fronds. A small crayfish scuttled across her blanket and dropped off the side of the bed. Leaning over the edge of the bed Celestia could see that the entire floor of her room was covered in lavender aquarium gravel. The hoof locker at the end of her bed suddenly opened releasing a glut of bubbles that floated up to the ceiling of her room. In the middle of the floor was a small bubbling statue shaped like Spike holding the trophy she won from the last Sister Hooves Social she and Luna were in. Next to it was a wind-up sperm whale that was swimming around in a circle on a string attached to the floor. There was a little griffon in a sailor suit bound by ropes to the white whale and a mass of harpoons and spears jutting out of whales body. The Princess of the sun slowly blinked and cast a detection spell, finding that aside form the magic she expected in her room, the only unknowns were preservation spells on the books and scrolls, a sealing shield spell on the windows and doors of the room, and a hair clip attached to her mane that gave her water breathing. The rest of the room was a literal fish tank. The Sparkles were getting better at this. Her inspection of the state of her quarters was interrupted as the door to it opened out with a slam as a pair of Guards looked in along with Princess Cadence, Princess Luna, and Queen Chrysalis, a faint purple hue colored them as she met their gaze through the shield spell holding the water in. "Ahh, so this is why the Sparkles sent you two to distract us this evening." Luna nodded sagely. " Wise tactic indeed, we hope they know that if they did this to our quarters and messed up or Neightendo saves we shall be most displeased in a way that we know they will survive, but not be glad of." "I had no idea they were going to do this." Cadence offered looking to Celestia sitting up in her bed still looking at them. "Sorry Auntie" "I KNEW!" Chrysalis cackled shoving the other two aside and flinging two large open bags full of angry piranha's through the door into the celestial fish tank. [Ponyville, Crusaders' Clubhouse. Friday] "You want us. To help you. Get a cutie-mark?"Applebloom questioned looking at the cheerful blue griffoness before them. "Of course. Everyone's heard of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Gilda said that you guys were the best at finding cutie-marks and I should go find you if I wanted one. " Gabby trilled. "She said Rainbow Dash told her that you guys had found cutie marks for a bunch of ponies, and even a moon dog, whatever that is, and that I should get out of her face cause she was busy and go bother you guys or something, so here I am." "Well. She's technically right. I mean, We've done at least a books worth of things to try and find our cutie marks, and most of the Crusaders got their marks." Scootaloo hummed. "There's me, Babs, Applebloom, I guess we can count Rahs in his pony form cause Applebloom was there, Sombra, though we're still trying to get Spike and Firefly a cutie-mark" "Not happening." Spike offered. "Hey!" Sweetiebelle huffed. "I mean we still have a bunch of ideas to get Sweetiebelle to try out too." Firefly offered. " Most of them are even legal and marginally safe." "That's great I could use the help to try and find my purpose in the world, I mean I deliver mail and try and help out though a lot of other griffons try and take advantage of that but I'm nice, not stupid, despite that and then I saw the ponies come up there and they helped out with stopping the Sirens and found the idol and just gave it away for nothing after a big fight and they were all so nice and all of them had cutie-marks and I read that ponies use that to find their place in the world and I kinda want to do that because aside from Gilda and Thunderbolt most griffons don't really care for anything I do and don't want to listen to me though some don't want to pay me and I guess there's Grandpa Gruff, but he's got Gallus to take care of and everyone else is just a butt, so I figured I would come out here to Equestria and talk to some ponies about seeing if I fit in better here. And I asked a bunch of ponies and all of them had heard stories of you and I figured you guys might be the best to help me get a cutie mark so I know what I'm supposed to do and fit in so here I am talking to you." The collected Crusaders blinked. "Under no circumstances are we to leave her and Pinkie Pie in a room alone together." Spike ordered. "Agreed." the others stated. "Oh would that get me a cutie mark?" Gabby asked. "NO" was the collected response. "Well. Good news is. We have a collected book here of all the stuff we tried. And none of it worked on us or Sweetiebelle, but maybe we just need to go back through it to see if we can get it to work with a griffon." Applebloom suggested. "Well. We do have the spring break next week to help out with Winter Wrap up. Spike considered. "I guess we can go for it and see what we can pull off in a week." "Maybe I can get a cutie mark in helping someone get a cutie mark." Sweetiebelle offered. "What would that even look like? " Scootaloo boggled. ( Ponyville, Mayors office Thursday Mayor Mare looked at the massive stack of paper work on her desk, then the four other even taller stacks on the floor of insurance forms. Raven Quill sighed glancing at the stacks before setting down the next pile of insurance forms and repairs needing to be filed. "I'm going to scream. And I do not know when I shall stop." Mayor Mare stated simply. "Well, the Griffons wanting to set up a embassy here to match the sea ponies in the foothills of the Manterhorn will be a nice bonus." Raven offered. "But all this?" "The griffon hen that brought us the letter about finding a spot for their embassy wanted a cutie mark." Raven sighed. "Most of this damage was done when she painted her own mark on her flank starting a mad rush from every scientist and species purist that exists to come into town and raise Tartarus, even though it was OBIOUSLY paint to any one with two functioning eyes." "What even is my life?" Mayor Mare grumbled. "HEY, you, pony mayor." The pair of them blinked and then looked up as a star spider that looked like it had been chewed up, spit out, set on fire, and then painted plaid, glided down from the ceiling on a thread. "Murphy?" Mayor Mare asked. "Yeah yeah. So, if we pay all our back taxes can we ensure those brats stay out of the forest?" Murphy questioned. "You will get the same protections that the rest of Ponyville gets." Mayor Mare stated very quickly. "Good enough." Murphy shrugged and had three other massive star spiders drift down from the ceiling and drop several massive bags of bit coins on the floor, making the whole office creak with the added weight to the floor. "This is what was calculated by that big red stallion in the letter you sent, if he made a mistake that's your problem." Murphy snapped before drifting back up to vanish in the rafters shadows with the others. "Well. That was something. Perhaps things are looking up" The Mayor offered right before the weight of the bits and all the paperwork broke the floor sending her office down into the lobby. [ Crusaders clubhouse, Friday ] “Well that was a week.” Spike sighed leaning back against the inner wall of the club house scraping a claw along one of the scales on his arm that was still bright orange. ”Pretty sure we speed ran several years worth of crusades.” “And none of them worked a second time.” Sweetiebelle huffed from the table, her mane and tail currently cut very short after the gum tree sap incident. “We did add a few more in there to account for Gabby though, so the book got filled out more on what doesn't work.” Firefly offered from where he was propped up in one of the rooms corners, he didn't appear to have anything wrong with him, though he was limping. “Well we didn't do any of tha poison joke ones after what happened.” Applebloom offered from her spot next to Spike, her mane and tail were all triple braided as her mane and tail hair had grown to Rapunzel proportions. “Well to be fair, I had a weird reaction.” Gabby offered from where she sat at the table. She didn't seem harmed either though she had spent two days after getting affected by the poison Joke as a Nox-Cal Nocturne that looked like a foal of Applebloom and Spike with its coloration. “Meh, we've seen worse.” Scootaloo offered. The pegasus teen missing patches of her fur across her body. “Well. We've used all the ideas in the book plus some, and this is the last day.”Firefly offered. “We've got a few on the to do list, but some of those take a good bit of prep work. We lost a little bit of that due to the riots.” “Sorry.” Gabby muttered. “Don't be, you were trying to be nice and show us our efforts meant something.” Scootaloo huffed. “Not your fault everyone else was stupid.” “Scootaloo’s right in that regard. Even my sister saw it was paint at a glance.” Spike shrugged.” She’s usually the last to notice minor details when she’s in a tizzy.” “Yup, but forget all that, we're not liable for any of the damages any way since all we did was watch. I got you something.” Sweetiebelle offered digging through her saddle bag and pulling out a large cloak that almost seemed to shimmer. “A Crusader cloak?” Gabby gasped. “Did yah ask Rarity this time?” Applebloom questioned. The group paused as an unearthly scream could be heard in the distance. “Soooo. No.” Applebloom sighed. “Even if you don’t get a mark, you’re still a Cutie Mark Crusader.” Sweetiebelle stated trying to ignore her impending doom. Gabby blinked staring at the cloak before gingerly accepting it her beak wibbleing a little as she seemed to tear up as she pulled it on over her back, the size not far off being correct for Gabby’s size. “Hey how come I didn’t get a cloak?” Firefly muttered to Scootaloo. “Shhhh, she’s having a moment.” Scootaloo elbowed him in the side. ”And can’t you just make your wings look like a Crusader cloak?” “It’s the principle of the thing.” Firefly huffed before Gabby managed to grab all of them up into another bone crushing hug. “Gak!” “My spine.” “That better not be your hoof Firefly.” “I can’t tell if any my hooves are still attached.” “Air!” “Thank you guys so much. I… I need to get on these deliveries I have , but I’ll come back as often as I can.” Gabby finally released them all and hopped over to the door twirling a bit with a giggle to make sure the cloak flared out before she burst out the door and tossed herself over the railing, yelping before she untangled her wings from the cloak and took to the air waving and blowing kisses to the group as she flew up over the tree line and out of sight. “Well, that’s another fifteen things we can mark off the list, and I can go back and put ‘does not work on griffons’ to everything else.” Firefly considered. "That was a cuteness overload that I have not witnessed since you gave my siblings heart attacks." Spike offered with a shudder. "I know right?" Applebloom shook her head. "No helping a griffon get a cutie mark cutie mark" Sweetiebelle huffed. "Lame." "No seriously, what would that even look like?" Scootaloo demanded.