//------------------------------// // "Princess" Twilight Sparkle: Put A Bookmark In It // Story: Underdrake // by SuperBird64 //------------------------------// The city of Manehattan was really if not always busy known as the city that never sleeps, Equestria's only 24/7 tourist stop, sweet dreams almost everypony, etc the factors the caused the city's constant busyness was the amount of activity, not only daily and overnight jobs but also the amount of security patrolling the city due to amount of goods stored in Manehattan which manages to beat other major places like Las Pegasus and even Canterlot. Despite being a very rich, modern and sophisticated place Manehattan still had it fair share of street performances one notable one being a a yellow pegasus stallion with a red mane, named Spike Strip with his namesake for a cutie mark, he dressed in a magician top hat, suit complete with a mustache and a pair of glasses unusual for a magician like him. He was known in the community for being simple, humble, ordinary, down to earth and described by many as somepony with nothing to hide. "You see this bit and notice how it's whole?" He asked getting a nod from the intrigued mare earth pony viewer the showpony then bites into the coin and takes it out to reveal it now in the shape of a half moon. He even shows the mare both sides of the bit to show he wasn't using a folding coin. "That was an impressive trick Spike!" the mare flips 2 bits into his magic top hat and once she had left the peagsus spits the metal out of his mouth. You see Spike wasn't any ordinary peagsus, he did have something to hide and the clear glasses were for a reason. The thing he was hiding wasn't in any way bad in fact it benefited the city. Large amounts of goods comes large amounts of crimes and the glasses created the illusion of the whole pony appearance. His supersonic hearing picked up the typical to him cries for help so running into a random ally, Spike takes off his glasses which broke the illusion and jumped into his hat and out came a completely different creature. In reality he was actually a purple dragon with green back spikes, although he didn't have fire breath what made up for that was heat wave vision, pair of wings which allowed him to fly, something no dragon, except he had, supersonic flight and hearing, complete invulnerability to things like bullets, fire, explosion etc unless he allowed himself to be hurt by them. He along with the city called his superhero persona Underdrake. When fully suited up, he wore a black eye mask, blue cape, a somewhat oversized red shirt and belt with a U on it. He took off the ground and into the sky where he eventually traced the cries of help to the local park. "What seems to be the problem Rarity?" The drake asked in a more confident, heroic way "Thank goodness you're here Underdrake Opal stuck in a tree and won't get down." "Seriously this is the 3rd time this month." Underdrake thought as he flew up to the cat only for it to hiss at him, which reminded him of the first time this happened where she attacked and tried to scratch him only to injure herself due to the dragon's invulnerability. He considered ripping the tree out of the ground and shaking Opal free but he quickly shot that idea down remembering the second time which resulted in the feline receiving a worst injury. With his past methods out of the question he quickly gets a new idea. Underdrake decides to rip the branch Opal was stuck on and handed it to her owner. "There you are Rarity she should come off eventually." "Thank you Underdrake!" "You're welcome just doing what I do best to keep this city and Equestria safe." He takes off again and is spotted by 3 mail ponies. "Look up in the sky it’s a bird!" Special Delivery started "No it’s a plane!" Parcel Post countered "It’s a snake!" Derpy randomly added "A snake?" the other 2 asks "No bird nor plane or snake just friendly old me Underdrake!" He responds and waves to the trio of mail ponies who wave back. He then spots a highspeed chase between police and a stolen armored car. The dragon flies down, infront of the moving vehicle and stops it with little to no effort. "I'm feeling generous today so i'm giving you 3 seconds to step out!" He demands rolling up one of his sleeves "1...2...21/2..." right as he was about to say 3 the same amount of flightless dragon step out with their claws up "We surrender...the boss isn't with us we swear." one of the goons say He lets the police take them away as he flies the armored vehicle, all the bits, diamonds and gemstones still intact and returns it to the bank, it's original destination really reflection the good side of the spectrum. Meanwhile in the outskirts of Manehattan was an old looking tree which seemingly doubled as a house with boarded up windows and doors. Said tree was secretly the lair of one of Equestria's most notorious villains Princess Twilight Sparkle. Except although she was pretty skilled with magic she wasn't actually a princess she just believed she was. The unicorn wore a black ripped suit to look cool, a very messy mane as a result of failed experiments mostly mixing explosive chemicals, wore a eyepatch not to look cool or evil but because she as a filly she had actually poked her eye out and a bandage over her head thanks to head trauma from other failed experiments. Minor head trauma aside her physical state is nothing compared to her mental state which not only made her think she's a princess but also that everypony else are her unruly subjects so as a result Twilight's trying to basically take over Manehattan and possibly all of Equestria which really reflects the other bad side of the spectrum. "Ah ha Shining I think I just found the solution to all our problems!" Twilight announced showing the other unciron a page in a book "That's great Twily will it make me captain of the Royal Guard?" the unicorn cringed at that a little "You could say that. You see Big Brother Best Number #1 Assistant this book says something about a magical artifact known as The Page Turner capable of encasing and trapping its target in a story. It can also do the opposite and bring things from the story into reality" "What kind of stories?" "All kinds of stories can be thought of action, adventure, comedy, war, superhero, sc-fi...romance" she stuttered a little "Pirate etc and once I get my hands on it and make a example out of Underdrake, the police and a few people of Manehattan and eventually all of Equestria once I will have no choice but to do what I Princess Twilight Sparkle commands!" this is followed by a bit of laughter Once nighttime had fallen the unicorn duo made their way to town hall where there were multiple night guards with flashlights patrolling the area. They originally took cover in a bush before sneaking behind a box, then a barrel and then a pile of both. "Alright here the plan-" Twilight' whispering gets cut off by a nightguard shining his flashlight at the duo's hiding spot who just barely mange to avoid being spotted by ducking at the last second "As I was saying here's the plan you take out one and pose as them to drive the other one away to allow us access into the building." "I don't get it" "Steal that nightguard’s armor, you'll get to know what's it like to be a Royal Guard.” Conveniently the nightguard Twilight pointed a hoof at had a white coat of fur “You got it Capta-I mean little sis!” Despite changing who he was referring to Shining still saluted to the command. Sneaking behind you guessed it more bushes he made it over to said nightguard tapped him on the shoulder and pulled him back into his hiding place. Shining came out dressed in the guard's armor looking identical to him the only difference being the somewhat messy coat but thanks to the darkness went unnoticed by the other brown coated guard. "Hey bud I think I saw some movement over in the bushes." The other guard started making his way over to the alleged area of movement only for Shining to trip him at the last second in hopes of giving him and his sister more time. "Alright now let me in" Twilight whispered coming up to her brother who checked every compartment of his armor "I don't seem to have anything." "What! Nothing like a key, keycard, lockpick, combination anything to allow us entry." "Wait I think I found something!" The stallion pulled out what he thought was a kind of key but was actually just chapstick "Huh? Well at least I know that Royal Guards either are allowed or hide things in their armor." Annoyed Twilight grabs the tube of chapstick from him and throws it onto the ground. "You're lucky I always have a plan B." The unicorn starts focusing really hard and eventually gathers enough energy to cast a teleportation spell which teleports her and her brother into town hall somehow leaving the armor behind. "Awww my armor's gone...welp it was fun while it lasted." "Yes I successfully performed a teleportation spell!" Twilight celebrated by walking around while remembering all the times she had failed this type of spell which ended with her inside a wall, floor or even piece of furniture or piece lab equipment. The duo found themselves in the town hall library which held every type of book, a copy of lawbooks throughout history, important documents and what the evil princess was after artifacts, more specifically the Page Turner. "Hey Twily the Page Turner must be the book under that spotlight with no security." Shining is rudely kicked by his sister. "Are you even hearing yourself?! That book is obviously a decoy and security trigger! The real Page Turner must be hidden in an unexpected place somewhere nopony would ever look. Don't touch anything! Don't wanna risk setting off any alarms." She walks around scanning each shelf before finding a book wrapped in chains which prompts her to charge a blast up "Wait a second why would an artifact just have plain old chains as security? If this was real it should have enchanted chains." She thought to herself which was enough to convince her that this is another trap. Twilight finally takes notice of how high the shelves are which give her another hint, clue of where the magic book could be. Right as the unicorn places her hands on the shelf to start climbing she feels and faintly hears how unstable the shelf is. "This will clearly set off an alarm or at least alert the guards outside." she thought walking around the shelf to find a metal plate which read a genre of books, this one being adventure books. She scans multiple bookshelves of different genres avoiding the ones that could obviously hold a decoy and alarm like magic, law, adventure, fantasy and eventually find the genre that no one could think to find a artifact "Ah-ha science these kinds of books are so boring to the average reader that the shelves grow cobwebs." Her figure of speech ends up being right as the unicorn ends up having to clean a few cobwebs while in the process of scanning the bookshelves. She eventually found a book that stood out from the rest, which didn't have a title or pattern it was simply blank. One half expected it to be a secret lever that opened the room where the real Page Turner but the other half turned out to be right as she easily slid the book from the shelf Twilight closed her eyes expecting an alarm or security device to go off, she opens the book a little closing her eyes, again expecting some kind of security system to be activated but that moment never came. "Looks like my theory, at least one of them was right!" Twilight concluded then fully opened the novel and out came a bunch of long scrolls which seem to act like tentacles. But unlike most tentacles released from imprisonment they didn't attack Twilight or go rouge instead they extended to other genre shelves where they grabbed a book from each and retracted back in the Page Turner genre in their grasp. "Guess The Pager Turner was drained of its power when it was stored away." Twilight thought as her brother caught up to her "Hey sis you won't believe what I just-Oh you found the Page Turner." "Right you are Shining and check it out contains every genre imaginable, adventure, pirate, war, romance" she shutters a bit "Not let's get out of here." Twilight cast a teleportation spell haphazardly fast and as a result although her brother and book successfully end up outside Town Hall Library the caster gets stuck inside the wall, her upper half outside and lower half inside. "Oh come on!" Twilight said in a voice loud enough for her bro to hear but quiet enough to not draw attention from the guards. "With step 1 a success we can now move onto step 1.5!" Twilight announces crossing out the first step with a red marker "Wait why step 1.5?" Shining asks "Well Big Brother Best Number #1 Assistant we've gotta see if the Page Turner actually works, it looks like it was drained of its power after all." She hears a faint ruckus outside her hideout "And I think I just found the perfect test subject." an orange cowpony was in the middle of throwing another apple when Shining opened the door. "Oh sorry I didn't think anypony actually lived here." she admitted putting her basket of apple behind herself "Don't sweat sweat m'am. You see my little sister is an author and wants someone to proofread her story." the stallion explains to her "Don't know a lot about writing but guess I can give it a shot." Twilight briefly shows the cowpony the blank cover and opens the book to find a illustration of the wild west, leaving her confused. "I don't seem to see any-" The apple mare is cut off by scroll tentacles wrapping around her bodyand pulling her into the illustration in the unicorns' perspective she just appeared in the now animated picture but in the earth pony's point of view the tentacles faceplanted her into the ground. "Where am I?" The earth pony muttered rubbing the back of her head only to feel and hear the ground rumbling which also made rocks move. Next thing she knew a herd were stampeding across the area and heading right towards her "BUFFALO STAMPEDE!" she ends up running off a random cliff, faceplants onto a ledge of rock, the ledge breaks off and falls into a river below. "IT WORKS!" Twilight cheers closing and holding the book close as if it were her favorite toy. "Before I can make all of Manehattan bow down to me Princess Twilight Sparkle first I gotta take care of the police. Step 2 of course." the evil unicorn told her brother who was walking alongside her to the police station. The younger pony wore a pair of sunglasses to cover her eyepatch, a hat to cover her bandaged up mane and a trench coat to cover her ripped black suit. The chief of police Double Tap was adjusting his hat when he was approached by the 2 villainous unicorns "Hey officer my little sister wants your opinion on her work of art." "Sure sounds simple enough." The Page Turner opens to a comedy story "As Princess I command you to put a bookmark in it!" Double Tap isn't able to fully process the circus illustration or the unicorn's statement when tentacles grab him by the neck and head and into the picture itself. He finds himself a part of the tight rope walking act, he yelps falling off the rope and into a tank of water below. "FREEZE!" Another officer says holding them at gunpoint Shining puts his hands up but Twilight just laughs "As Princess I command you to put a bookmark in it!" she opens the book to another random page that the officer is dragged into. "They've just trapped the chief and one of our troops! FIRE!" That officer along with a few others open fire on the duo but the tentacles from the still open random page deflect the bullets. "As Princess I command you to put a bookmark in it!" grab the group pulling them into the page which is revealed to be a pirate story. They all scream as the ship they were spawned into was not only going through a massive storm and rough water but also under attack by a kraken. The next place Twilight and Shining head to is the bank "Now for step 3 make an example out of someone in Manehattan." Right as they were about to enter the bank they were stopped by a security guard "Hold on there you 2 you're wearing an awful lot of clothing, are you sure you aren't hiding anything in that trench coat or hat?" "As Princess I command you to put a bookmark in it!" The guard is pulled into an illustration of a war story where he seeks cover in a trench from all the gunfire and warfare. Which sets an example for the ponies leaving and inside the bank. "As for the rest of you unruly subjects, who aren't trapped in a story I recommend handing over all your money and valuables." Twilight said which prompts her brother to open a sack Since most of the ponies inside the bank were rich and wealthy the duo unicorns got a surplus amount of bits and jewelry. "Now onto my final step, step 4 trap Underdrake and once he's out of the picture Manehattan and eventually all of Equestria will have no choice but to bow down to Princess Twilight Sparkle and I know exactly who to target to get his attention." "Come on Opal your food is right in front of you." Rarity said offering her cat a bowl of food in hopes of getting her off the severed branch which only made the feline grasp the branch tighter. Sighing she leaves her boutique and notices a car swiftly pull up to her getting suspicious she moves away from it a bit. "NOW I GOTCHA!" This proves to be useless as Twilight comes out of the car door on Rarity's side and traps her in a choke hold to restrain her rather than the move's intended purpose. "You release her at once!" Spike Strip says rushing over the ponynapping in progress "You think you're some kind of hero?" Twilight asks smacking the yellow peagsus in the face with a closed Page Turner knocking and nearly knocking his glasses and hat off, which allows the deranged unicorn's cart zip away with Rarity . Spike picks it up,runs into another alley and suits up into Underdrake. Tracking where Rarity was no problem with his supersonic hearing picking up her cries for help. He spreads his wings, takes off from the ground and into the sky. He crashes right through a wall and into the princess' hideout, where he found Shining Armor trying to aim a turret at the door "Give it up Armor you're not match for me!" "Oh thought you were gonna come through the door and by come I mean crash but guess crashing through the wall cooler." Shining shrugs his error off, turns the weapon towards the dragon and fires but the bullets as the dragon expected and the pony didn't just bounced, ricochet off him, not even damaging his somewhat oversize red shirt. He grabs the turret off its stand reverting it to an empty machine and twists it as if it was plastic. Shining was used to this noting this as typical Underdrake behavior but something he failed to notice was that the drake with wings had twisted the barrel around his his hands making makeshift handcuffs. "Never seen that trick huh?" Underdrake asks before knocking the stallion aside with a punch right to the muzzle. "Surrender now Underdrake or your beloved Rarity gets it." she says holding the white unicorn by the neck "Please Underdrake you don't want me to get hurt." Rarity begged on the verge of tears "What are you gonna do bore her to death with one of your books?" He quips "This is called the Page Turner you flying lizard! As Princess I command you to put a bookmark in it!" Twilight opens the book with a picture of black hole slightly obscured by long tentacle-like scrolls which instantly wrap around Underdrake. "Not even the strongest creature in Equestria and survive a black hole." She said laughing as the scrolls dragged the dragon towards the illustration only for him break free using his super strength "The black hole might be stronger than me but not these flimsy scrolls." "Harder than I anticipated." Twilight thought before closing and opening the book to the same page which released double the tentacles. Underdrake was ready from them this time flicking, swatting and slapping them away which was somehow enough to make them retreat, retract back into the book. "Hey guess what purple little freak? GENRE ATTACK!" Giving up on trapping the super dragon in a black hole she flips to a war story and out came a bunch of turrets which fired off but didn't even leave a scratch on the dragon. The crazy princess flips to a medieval story which shoots a cannonball and unlike the bullets actually damage Underdrake enough to knock him against a wall. She fires another cannonball which the dragon manages to dodge noting how it would've hit him in the head. He is then sprayed with water and pied in the face. "Why did it choose such an inconvenient comedy story." Twilight muttered as Underdrake punched her into Rarity which gave the evil unicorn another idea. "Alright Underdrake last chance surrender now or i'll trap Rarity in the black hole, just like all the others. Choose now!" Twilight demanded once again holding her by the neck, the Page Turner flipped to the black hole, tentacles slithering around her face like a binch of snakes. The flyable drake kept a focused face which to the evil pony looked like he was choosing really carefully but in reality he was using his heat wave vision on the Page Turner. The reason she didn't use it on Twilight's arm was because he knew the princess would be able to feel it. She took notice when the Page Turner was suddenly colored red but this just signaled it was too late as the scroll tentacles when crazy slapping Twilight making her release Rarity and allowed Underdrake to swoop in a save her. The tentacles eventually stopped failing around and came off the book resulting in them tightly wrapping around the unicorn restraining her. "You did it Underdrake! You stopped Twilight Sparkle." she notices Double Tap on the circus page "Wait but how are you gonna get all the people she already trapped in the book?" "Well I have a hunch..." He trails off ripping the page Rarity had seen which released what looked like the spirit of the comedy genre, Double Tap shortly followed. Using his super speed the dragon flips through the rest of the pages containing real ponies along with empty pages that released other genres. "There we go everypony's out and the Page Turner's once again drained of its power." He picks up a struggling Twilight and a knocked out Shining Armor. "Thank you Underdrake!" the coward of ponies said "You're welcome everypony especially you Rarity just doing what I do best keep Manehattan and Equestria safe." He says before taking off, holding the artifact and the criminals who used it. "Off to jail you two go! Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor too!" The dragon ends up literally dropping the siblings into the jail. He completes his daily mission by returning the now empty Page Turner back to The Town Hall Library, before finally taking flight again. "Look up in the sky it’s a bird!" Special Delivery started "No it’s a plane!" Parcel Post added "It’s a snake!" Derpy randomly added "A snake?" the 2 mail stallions asked "No bird nor plane or snake just friendly old me U-" the winged drake crashes ends up crashing into a library billboard "Underdrake!"