If you think being tackled by three hundred pounds of enraged purple Dragon is bad, you have never been tackled by three hundred pounds of enraged purple Dragon and then been kicked in your titanium steel reinforced rips badly enough to be flung bodily out of the door. If you think being tackled by three hundred pounds of enraged purple Dragon and then being kicked in your titanium steel reinforced rips badly enough to be flung bodily out of the door is bad, you have never been tackled by three hundred pounds of enraged Dragon, been kicked in your titanium steel reinforced rips badly enough to be flung bodily out of the door and then, just as you got back your bearings been pinned down by a second Dragon, this one bigger than a house with the strange Battlecry of "SPIKE WANT!"
"Good Job Spike!" Pinkie Pie cheerfully exclaimed from beside me. For a second I forgot to be scared shitless by the Dragon to appreciate being scared shitless by Pinkie Pie focusing her Magic on me. I am really grateful for her forcing me to check into my hotel room before visiting Twilight Sparkle, because otherwise I would have braved this encounter - temporarily - with a full bladder or worse. "That was a textbook tackle, throw and pin combo! I knew all those Diamond Dog wrestling shows would pay off!" Just then a rainbow colored blur shot over her and deposited a necklace around her throat. In it's center was a shining blue gem shaped like a balloon. Galloping hoofsteps neared the scene.
"Spike, Pinkie? What are you doing! Let him go!" The Dragon growled and began to shrink. As he did so his growling softened and slowly got more intelligible:"Rarity, Rarity, Rarity..." I could turn my head to see Twilight Sparkle wearing a glowing Golden Crown topped with a shining Purple Star and inset with nine small sapphires... Beside her was Rainbow Dash, the reason why the Wonderbolts have gotten that new training Center between Canterlot and Ponyville. I turned around and saw that the galloping came from the three other Elements converging on my position, all wearing their Foci.
The Dragon had it's claws on my lower throat when he was done shrinking and I still couldn't move as he crossed my forelegs across my own chest while I lay on my back on the grass. My attacker knelt down on them with one knee, pinning my shoulders down. His tail grabbed my backhooves, crossed them and placed them under his armpit. Strangely this didn't hurt.
The others arrived and took position around Twilight. The air began to hum. It was then that I truly registered the favor Pinkie had done me by giving me a chance to visit a bathroom beforehand. Really I am grateful.
"Pinkie Pie." Twilight Sparkle said calmly. "Why did you bring the Elements together?"
"But Twilight, you told me to!" My self preservation instincts either kicked in or gave out, I'm still not sure which, but anyway I found my voice. "What? I can't believe you took that comment seriously. And didn't you say the Elements were in Canterlot?"
"Ahem!" said Rainbow Dash, "Wonderbolt? Fastest mare ever born? Only living performer of the Sonic Rainboom?"
"You went to Canterlot, removed the Elements from their vault and flew back here in four minutes?"
She puffed out her chest and spread her Wings. "The most of that time was spend persuading Celestia to open the vault for me after I grabbed her from her audience hall and deposited her in the Element's Hall."
I looked over to Pinkie Pie:"I can't BELIEVE you! This isn't something fun and harmless! You could have caused a panic! Correction, you HAVE caused a panic! You have gotten Princess Celestia kidnapped from her audience hall and had her give up the Elements. She is going to think there is a real emergency that warranted their use!"
"I'd better write her a note." Twilight Sparkle interjected.
"Twilight said so after you made her cry." Pinkie insisted.
THAT was the moment when the stranglehold turned into an inferno of blinding pain as every joint in my body was bent past it's comfortable range.
When I regained an ounce of lucidity I was out of the Dragon's embrace. The Dragon in question was curled around a white unicorn with a gem Cutie Mark. Rarity I thought. "Sorry." he said, "But a man's gotta do..."
I returned my gaze to the Pink force of nature. "So, why the hell did you do that? It wasn't remotely funny!"
Pinkie Pie tilted her head and concluded I would stay on topic even if it killed me.
"I won't tell you." She finally admitted.
"What? Why?"
"You could be evil." She said matter of factly. "He isn't evil Pinkie Pie." came Twilight to my aid, "it was all a misunderstanding."
"Are you suuuure." Pinkie said to Twilight with a piercing stare and a popping eye, which should have been gross but inexplicably wasn't. "Yes, Pinkie. I am sure."
"Okay! Twilight Sparkle said so and she is smart and knows more about you than I do. So I erred on the side of caution! You said you are a pegacorn, but I don't actually have seen any proof for that." Three quiet gasps and a nauseated "WHAT?" from Rainbow Dash followed that statement. The orange Earth Pony even took off her hat. "Quite the contrary actually, you are much too old to be a pegacorn. If you were a superpowerful evil alicorn villain however you would have to shut down the Elements of Harmony and trying to convince us of your harmlessness is a really good first step for any evil plan with that goal. Especially after you found out about my powers."
I thought about that. "You know, Pinkie," I said after a minute, "at first glance you seem kind of strange." The orange Earth Pony coughed into her hat. "But you are actually a highly logical, sensible and rational pony." Shocked gasps came from the other Element's.
"Okay!" Exclaimed Rainbow Dash. "That's it, to the Mooooon!"
I whirled on her and said: "Just because you don't understand the genius doesn't mean he is crazy! ... She I mean, that was a quote ... about Singular Rock."
"Really?" asked Twilight, "Who said that?"
"Uh, ... me actually. In my next book. It's a work in Progress." About Singular Rock, the brilliant mind who first discovered and formulated the bends in Spacetime I have to say: Just because you don't understand the genius doesn't mean he is crazy. There. It's true. Honestly.
"But I also have to apologize to you Twilight Sparkle. Just because I think you went about it stupidly doesn't mean you went about it stupidly, but you really should get some other scholars involved if you don't understand something. If something is mysterious that's a statement about you, not about the something."
"And now," Twilight replied "I remember why I didn't feel sorry when Spike pinned you. I'm really sorry about your condition, I will gladly help you try to find a way to better and or cure it. But could you please save the lectures and backhanded compliments."
"It wasn't a backhanded compliment! It wasn't even a compliment!" That line inexplicably failed to quench the disapproving looks of the Six Elements. And Dragon. Can't forget the Dragon. "Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I don't really know any of you that well. Except of course Rainbow Dash, the fastest mare ever born." I hastily amended at her darkening expression.
"Thank you." she said with a small shudder.
"I think I should introduce myself to the rest of you. While I am neither a mare nor royalty my parents, who were married and conceived me to inherit their combined fortune in an act that was not an abhorrent crime but simple utility to both participants," I looked towards Rainbow Dash, who relaxed only marginally. The other pegasus scooted closer to her. "named me Princess Stella. I haven't changed this because Names carry magical significance, which to someone such as me is more important than to any other Pony. I am a Doctor of Theoretical Magic at Canterlot University, but the only reason I am not in at Celestia's School is that it's a school for Gifted Unicorns, which I am not. I work with a lot of the Professors there and I only am not one myself because there isn't a chair for Theoretical Magic at CU." I'm not bitter about that. Well, not really, it doesn't really matter anyway, but if you study Magic at CU everyone always assumes you weren't "gifted" enough for CSfGU instead not Unicorn enough.