The Dreaded Love Bird

by Darkonshadows


Let the Spectacle begin

Pinkie still couldn’t believe she was keeping this nifty armor… mostly because no pony could get it off, not even Princess Celestia in all her knowledge knew how to get it off. Twilight was having problems trying to figure out where the mysterious armor could have come from, it was in the museum of unnatural history because it wasn’t armor of make from any period in pony history. If there was one thing for sure, it was certainly magic proof and otherwise they didn’t want to harm Pinkie using other possible methods to get her out.

Pinkie really wished she hadn’t decided to be a sneaky pie and jump into the armor in a cartoonish manner. At least she could still use the bathroom and eat without much of a hassle, she just couldn’t take it off and in fact she even had to sleep in it last night.

“Are you okay in there darling?” Rarity looked at the drooping armored pony, the armor wasn’t very elegant and it was a strange blue color. It was thought to be completely inert artifact of unknown origin, until the curator of the museum found out Pinkie had inadvertently activated something on it and now couldn’t take it off.

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just really hard to bounce in this armor; even if it’s not exactly as heavy as it looks. Yesterday wasn’t really a great day for me, I’m sure things will get better today when I finally see Kazooie for the first time since she came to Equestria.” Pinkie was kind of subdued, but at least she was prepared to see Kazooie today and perked right back up. It didn’t matter how many guards were between Kazooie and the stadium, she knew something Celestia didn’t. It was the fact that Kazooie had a lot of tricks up her sleeves along with probably a lot of lives to spare. “I hope I can pin her down and drag her to a welcome to Equestria party! Of course before that she’s going to get a cupcake from my cannon, before the events can even start.”

“She’s fine.” Five ponies spouted off all at once as they walked along, they all broke into a fit of giggles as Pinkie growled cutely before bounding after them in shorter hops then she usually did.

Outside of Canterlot, Kazooie was on a solo mission to infiltrate the mountain city and had already considered several options. One was to drive a tank through the front gates Vehicle Blast style. She really didn’t want to hurt anypony; she was still a hero even if she was only half of one in a complete team. She could go in at high speeds riding one of her many well tuned wheelie riders, with a star shot mini cannon for forcing barricades down… that would still possibly hurt ponies she doesn’t mean too. Speaking of which, she still couldn’t believe it would take Zecora a while to get back to her with those potions even if she did enjoy the date. Zecora just didn’t like Kazooie doing what she did but could understand the reasoning behind it. It did make sure Big Mac and her have an explosively lovely evening even if they were already doing well enough on their own without the painful interference making them closer than ever. Still Zecora was going to hold up her end of the deal, because Unicorn and Alicorn magic was wildly different from what Kazooie needed and she needed her magic power potions.

No, get your mind back into the game Kazooie… heh back into the game... wait that was it! Why bother using the fun dreamland weaponry when she could get into stadium for sign up the classic way. “Wuld-Nah-Kest!”

An hour or two later ponies and competitors were filtering into the Canterlot Cloud Coliseum; it was one of Canterlot’s best tourist attractions when it was in use. Celestia was speaking with a guard and sighed in relief that the annoying and supposedly evil pest hasn’t been seen yet anywhere in the city or near the coliseum.

“Thank you, carry on.” Celestia turned away from one of the entrances and trotted through the archway into the vast open field where plenty of ponies were taking their seats and getting refreshments. It’s good to see Pinkie was in bright spirits even trapped in a metal suit as she was, considering all the snacks she had set for herself from nachos to popcorn… even a few bean dogs and a literal mountain of candy that her three present friends were staring at. It was making Celestia kind of hungry, perhaps she should personally partake of the provisions at the patty shack concession stand, a bean and tofu burger couldn’t hurt. As she passed the restroom a small insect dropped from the shoe of her back right hoof and crawled under the doorway, the princess looked out into the stands. “Hmm… where’s Fluttershy? Didn’t she come with Twilight and the others? No matter, hopefully my sister isn’t hogging the royal treats.”

“I can do this…. I know I can do this… who am I kidding, I can’t do it… and Rainbow will never…” Fluttershy said to the mirror in front of her showing that her features were slowly sinking into depression, so far the mares room was empty until she heard the tall tell word ‘akanamoo’ spoken in a highly squeaky voice. Fluttershy jumped and cowered under the sinks next to the bag she had with her. The cause of her sudden fright was a thunder sound and a brief flash appeared behind her to reveal Kazooie leaning against a stall with wings crossed staring at her with those intrinsically bright familiar emerald eyes. “Ka… Kazooie… oh you scared me… I’m sorry, but how did you get by all the guards?”

“Do you know anything about termites? So anyway, what can’t you do? Call me curious as to what you’re thinking of Peebs as I’ve got plans to royally screw this competition up in such a fantastic and flashy manner.” Fluttershy bit her bottom lip as Kazooie stared at her raising a brow in interest.

“Oh… um… I’m not sure I should bother you… I was thinking of… no there are so many ponies out there… sorry I don’t want to bother you with my...” She stopped when she felt Kazooie’s wing feathers pressed against her lips.

“I’m taking a wild guess at where your thoughts are... need some help?” Kazooie said with a smirk as the scene fades out to the stadium.

Rainbow was stretching there on the field wondering and waiting for when Kazooie would show up, would it be a flashy affair or would it be a slow cool kind of entrance. Looking at the competitors she saw many a strange pegasus. There was one in a full body black suit with white goggles hiding their identity completely, the pony most likely didn’t have a mane or tail hair under the costume as it was that tight a fit on them. Another was in a super mare outfit, blonde mane and red domino mask hiding her eyes. Quite a few others were wearing costumes she wouldn’t recommend for this competition, unless they were showing they could fly just as well while wearing them and there was nothing against it as long as nothing was concealed by the costume and they had unicorns to check for that kind of stuff before the competition started. Just when the competition was about to start, the mare she’s been waiting to challenge entered the arena with that insufferable smirk pointed in her direction.

“Kazooie…” Rainbow said not sure what she was going to say after that as Kazooie came to stand face to face with her.

“Super multicolored crash happy idiot says what?” Kazooie said quickly and without hesitation.

“What… oh you…” Rainbow started in on Kazooie only for the pegasus to hold up her hoof and stop her.

“Really you want disqualification at a stage this early color blind? Didn’t know you wanted to chicken out of this competition so fast, you probably should considering what I have planned.” Kazooie said jovially as Rainbow growled at her angrily. Rainbow stopped when Celestia came to a landing behind Kazooie who didn’t acknowledge that the princess was there. “By the way did you know your princess has a flank so wide you don’t even have to turn around to see it? Hey Sunny Disposition, can you taste the power of the sun yet?”

“I would like to immediately announce that you are disqualified. I would so love to say that.” Celestia announced and everypony in the stadium quieted down.

“I know the rules; you can’t exactly do that can you. So you’ll have to do better than that to try and boot me.” Kazooie finally turned around and smirked at her.

“If you are to enter the competition I am to dispel all magic that is currently in effect on you at this moment, if it is found out you or anypony else here for that matter are not within regulations afterwards you are out of the competition.” Celestia quickly lit her horn and a lot of the surrounding ponies felt the wave of dispelling magic hit them. Many a pony in the stadium gasped in unison and so did Celestia as she had revealed Kazooie to be an alicorn and that one of the other competitors was a changeling. Seriously the super hero costume was kind of a dead giveaway but the changeling didn’t care, it wanted to be a Wonderbolt as they did heroic stuff and received love and accolades in large masses. Plus this particular changeling also really wanted to do lots of good deeds and nice things.

“WELL NOW YOU’VE GONE AND DONE IT, I’M KAZOOIE PRINCESS OF ADVENTURE!” Kazooie proclaimed loudly couldn’t keep the smirk off her face as Celestia’s pupils shrunk in horror at the use of the royal voice. Turning to the crowd the average pony sized alicorn spoke to the audience surrounding them drawing attention away from the changeling being grabbed by the guards. “Since I’m still technically within regulations and have wings, I can still enter this competition… I’m not hoping to be a Wonderbolt but I still want to have some fun. Oh and could you guys please release that poor creepy skeletal fellow there. If I Pinkie Pie promise not to use alicorn or unicorn magic as fair play during the competition and if Bugsy over there promises not to hide his identity and or use whatever magic he has will you allow us to compete in the spirit of sportsmanship? I ask you to make the decision as I value everyone’s input.”

A lot of the crowd was angry at the changeling however Kazooie stood in front of the frightened bug like creature that the guards had released much to Celestia’s annoyance. Kazooie stood without fear in front of the changeling and many a pony refused to throw things at a princess even if it wasn’t one they knew all too well. “I care not for what it might have done, I don’t even know what it is and I don’t care. It’s not evil and I will retaliate should you hurt… hold on a second… him. Learn to make your gender more noticeable the next time we meet cross dresser.”

The changeling blushed furiously as his personal space was just violated by the alicorn lifting his hind leg with a quick magical flick of her horn. It wasn’t out of love that she did this, since he could feel what the alicorn was feeling. It was a sense of… doing what was right, something the changeling wanted to feel personally like a comic book hero. Sure he might be a slightly rogue changeling and he wasn’t exactly trying to feed off all the ambient happiness in the air, it just happened automatically.

“This creature is a changeling, they once invaded Canterlot and…” Celestia started only for the black suited pony with the white goggles to step forth next to Kazooie and the changeling.

“I believe he should compete…” The voice was of a low pitch and ominous. Rainbow looked at the changeling with distrust, but she felt something… it was coming off of Kazooie. She stood up and moved over to the two other ponies and said something she’d thought she never would say.

“I think he should compete too, so what if he’s a changeling… he’s the only one here and I don’t think he’s a threat to any pony and he didn’t even copy a real pony. I mean come on, super mare, a comic book character?” The crowd started to mull it over and they all turned to the Wonderbolts.

Up in the seats Pinkie smiled behind her horizontal slit hole in her face plate, Kazooie always trying to do the right thing… except for hitting moles with hammers and or mauling them without a reason. That was never right in any situation. Pinkie had gotten many and odd stares for walking into the arena in a suit armor that didn’t look like a normal Canterlot guards, but Celestia had already told them to let her pass on through. Standing up she lifted up her portable party cannon as Kazooie was finally facing the right direction. Her friends were looked at her oddly because she probably just pulled a six foot long bazooka from out of nowhere or her metal pants.

Spitfire stood up from her spot on the field to say something when an object was seen flying at high speeds straight at Kazooie who just simply opened her mouth and caught the plastic wrapped cupcake in her teeth. She smiled and waved a hoof at Pinkie who raised her armored hoof and waved back; taking the wrapping off the cupcake she quickly ate it.

“Hmm… looks like kitty learned a few new tricks, to bad about the overly friendly armor. I’ll have to help with that later no doubt.” At this point Kazooie could only begin to think that Celestia was wondering when this had started becoming a circus act.

“I TOO SEE NO PROBLEM IN LETTING THIS PONY LIKE BEING COMPETE IN THY FUN.” That’s it; it was all completely a circus as soon as Luna called to let the changeling be in the competition. Even the Wonderbolts agreed to let the changeling in just to see if he could perform to expectations. Celestia lamented the fact that Luna likely slept or somehow missed a full scale invasion of Canterlot as she flew up to the box to have a talk with her sister. She couldn’t do anything to pull Kazooie as long as she was actually an alicorn and still within the rules, how did she manage to become an alicorn and where was the energy of chaos that was supposed to be permeating her body?

“Thank you… is Bugsy a good name of meaning?” The changeling asked awkwardly as it rubbed up against Kazooie in friendly manner.

“Do you even have a name?” Kazooie said flatly dropping all emotions and the changeling whined pitiably when she did. “If not Bugsy is just fine. Just as long as you don’t spawn exploding children and send those flying at me or try to wrestle me with two enlarged pincers we’re fine.”

“No… I likes Bugsy… I would never hurt hivelings like that… wrestle?” The changeling received a few pats on the head from Kazooie as he stared confusedly at her.

“Well now that that is out of the way… good morning Canterlot and all visiting ponies, mystical beings and the like. Welcome to the Wonderbolts tryout and competition, let me just state that winning all the events does not guarantee instant Wonderbolt status. We’re looking for special flyers by our own merits and it’s up to us to choose them from those competing if at all, we might not even hire on any more Wonderbolts at all. This is the same message I’ve been giving for several years, maybe next year we’ll invite some griffons to spice things up, then again Celestia might institute a citizenship rule by then.” Spitfire stopped and the crowd chuckled and stomped their hooves. “So let me tell you, we’ve got some interesting flyers here today, a princess I’ve never heard of and she was hiding her horn as she probably didn’t want to be mobbed, a changeling that thinks he has what it takes and has a fair shot like any other pony, the best young flyer from the Cloudsdale competition and plenty of goofy costumed ponies. Like this one for instance… what’s your name.”

“I am Shadow Wing.” It was the pony in the full body black suit, it seemed like the pony was stiff and unemotional. Nopony knew who it was under the suit. Though the pony did have a hard to define voice it sounded slightly masculine.

“Over here we have a last minute entry in a Mare-Do-Well costume. Anything to say to the audience” Rainbows head shot away from glaring at Kazooie and her eyes narrowed at the pony. Whoever it was wasn’t wearing the hat of the costume, but she was wearing everything else including the cape. All the pony did was shaking its head no. “Well you’re a shy one.”

“Okay, anyway Princess Kazooie how well do you think you’ll do in the first event. Which is a five lap race around the stadium and the name of the game is a test of speed.” Holding the mike up to Kazooie the alicorn closed her eyes and smiled before making a rather interesting suggestion.

“Not sure, I’m planning to spice this event up if you will let me. I can add an agility portion to this event if everyone wants to be a bit more entertained than watching us fly circles today.” This caused the crowd to start a general rumble as they mumbled amongst themselves; Kazooie really hoped they would let her do this.

“Well if every pony and changeling here agrees to it, what do you have in mind Kazooie? Call me crazy because I’m up for suggestions on how you might spice this thing up.” Turning to the entries in this competition they all looked amongst themselves before a white pegasus mare with a blond mane wearing a dancers tutu stepped forward.

“We agree to this, we want to do something unique! Who knows what the princess can do to make this event more challenging.” Even the changeling wanted in on some excitement and every pegasus here wanted a challenge, even the Mare-Do-Well costume wearer was nodding. Rainbow Dash had her suspicions and it was an authentic Rarity replica as it had a small diamond shape in one of the inner legs of the costume.

“Well okay then, tell us what you have planned to make this interesting.” Spitfire stood next to Kazooie who reached into her backpack pulled out a blue turtle shaped shell.

“Well, I’m adding a challenge for those who are in first, second and third place as we circumnavigate the track. Should you be in first place you will be haunted by three of these projectiles, second place gets two and the third one gets only one. There will always be six of these projectiles in the air at once and they will always hit their first, second and third place targets. So if you are flying next to one that is targeting a first place target and then you become in first place even for a second, it will hit you. These things will fly at a constant or higher speed twenty percent faster than the ones flying in these positions; they are faster the farther away they are and will always fly at a minimum high speed so don’t think slowing down helps you any.” Looking that everyone was staring questionably at the shell Kazooie sighed. “Can I get a volunteer who won’t mind getting stunned slightly?”

A blonde grey coated pegasus flew quickly down from the stands waving her hoof excitedly and her eyes were crossed. She stood next to Kazooie with a bright smile.

“You gave my friend your muffin, so I’m doing you a favor for her! I’m Ditzy Doo.” Ditzy waited for Kazooie to point out what to do, she just pointed out a direction to start flying and Ditsy did. After a moment Kazooie placed the shell on the floor of the stadium and waited a few seconds before she tapped it with her leg.

The shell shot off like a rocket with jets coming out of it, it grew metallic electrical sparkling spikes, two large white wings and as it neared Ditzy it gave off its warning siren. It chased after here and didn’t stop following until it hit with a smoky explosion. All the ponies in the stadium looked on in horror as Ditzy flopped to the ground; they all sighed in relief when she stood up perfectly fine shaking the soot off of herself and flew back to Kazooie.

“Six of these will be in the air at all times, exactly ten seconds after the race begins. They don’t physically do damage but they do sting a lot making you temporarily unable to fly.” Kazooie turned to the other racers throwing a hoof around Ditzy who was looking a little dizzy. “Don’t worry; they’ll also target me and even I have problems dodging one after a while. Try dodging three at once, it’s an accomplishment if you can last more than five minutes at a stretch.”

All the flying ponies in the competition and even the audience gulped, except for Rainbow who smiled as this was going to be awesome. Looking over to the Mare-Do-Well pony she sighed, why was Fluttershy in the competition?