TANK N' PALS
Chapter 1: Dog Days Are Over
An eerie silence had washed over Sweet Apple Acres.
Applejack had gone off to accompany her friends at the Grand Galloping Gala. She hated to admit it, but ever since Celestia had handed the task of managing the Gala to Discord, everything about it had transformed from ordinary to extraordinary. Now, she and her friends looked forward to a wonderfully unpredictable evening of tightly controlled chaos (as paradoxical as that statement may sound). Maybe he would turn the floor of the palace into an ice skating rink, or even a swimming pool!
Meanwhile, Apple Boom was camping out in the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ tree house, as she often liked to do. She, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Babs had spent the entire morning trying to move a pool table into the tree house and the entire afternoon trying to get their cutie marks in billiards. In the midst of the whole affair, Scootaloo had somehow managed to embed the cue ball in one of the tree house walls, which she promised to deal with tomorrow morning.
Big Macintosh was at Trotmouth University giving a guest lecture on linguistics. When asked why he volunteered to give the lecture, he responded, "To comedically subvert everypony's expectations. Eeyup."
Finally, dear old Granny Smith was upstairs, sleeping like a log.
All that could be heard throughout the entire barn was the gentle, lonely whimpering of Winona.
With the whole Apple Family either far away or otherwise indisposed, all Winona could do was curl herself up on the living room carpet and blankly stare at the clock. She had since grown tired of chasing her tail, and she had spent so much time chewing away at that strip of rawhide Applejack got for her that her mouth was as drier than a desert. As such, she decided that the best way to pass the time was to count the seconds until her favorite owner burst through the door, at which point she would tackle her to the ground and give her cheeks a thorough lathering with her tongue. At times, she wondered if Applejack would ever come back. What if she had abandoned her? What if she had decided to move far, far away, where Winona could never find her in a million trillion years?
For hours, she just lay there, feeling sorry for herself and wondering how Applejack could be so heartless. And then, suddenly…
*CRASH*
The sound of glass shattering cut through the tranquil atmosphere of the barn like a hot knife through butter. Immediately, Winona was on her feet, barking like mad and running circles around the living room. Her eyes darted every which way as she desperately tried to find the source of the commotion. Impressively, Granny Smith still managed to sleep through all of this.
After thirty long, agonizing seconds of looking, she finally found it: right below the now- broken window to the left of the front door, she found a large green tortoise shell lying idly on the floor, with a sputtering propeller on top. Overcome with panic, Winona began to loudly accost her home’s invader.
“RUFF! RUFF! RUFF! RUFF! RUFF… ruff… ruff?”
Her barking began to soften and decelerate when she caught a glimpse of a head timidly poking itself out of the shell. She let out a relieved sigh as soon as she figured out who it was.
“Oh, it’s jus’ you, Tank,” she gasped. “Y’ startled me.”
Tank slowly revealed his head, giving his neck a good, hardy stretch. “Mmf! Yeah, sorry about that, Winona.”
“What in tarnation are you doin’ down here, anyhow?” asked Winona.
“I fell,” Tank said casually, popping his legs out and propping himself up.
“You fell? What do you mean, you ‘fell’?”
“I fell off a cloud.”
Winona gasped. “Oh, my stars, all the way from Cloudsdale?! Are y’all okay?”
“I’m fine,” Tank assured her with a grunt. “They don’t call me Tank for nothing, after all.”
Winona smiled with relief. “Well, I sure as sugar can’t argue with that!” she said.
Tank looked back at the mess he had just caused. “Sorry about your window, by the way,” he said sheepishly. “I still need to get the hang of this… thing.” He glanced up at the propeller atop his shell.
“Aw, that’s all right,” said Winona. “Ah used to break windows all the time when I was a pup!”
“I’m sure you did,” Tank said with a chuckle. “So what’ve you been up to, anyway?” he inquired.
Winona’s smile faded as her head and tail drooped low to the ground. “Nothin’,” she admitted. “There just ain’t nothin’ to do here. All ah’ve been doin’ is waitin’ for Applejack to get back.”
Suddenly, with a massive gasp of delight, Winona’s head perked back up and her tail started wagging rapidly. “But now that you’re here, ah’m sure we can find lots of stuff to do!” The mere anticipation sent her into frenzy as she started jogging laps around Tank’s dormant body. “Ah got a ball, you know! You wanna see my ball?! Ah bet y’ do! Ooh, and Apple Bloom just taught me how to play dead! Lemme show you!”
Then Winona stopped cold and there was another massive GASP as another idea popped into Winona’s head. “OR… we can get the heck outta here, round up all the other critters and have a gen-u-ine PARTY! It’ll be just like one o’ them…one o’ them pet play dates we sometimes have! Wouldn’t that be fun?!”
“I guess,” Tank said with a shrug.
Winona shook her head. “Uh-uh, Tank,” she scolded. “Rule number one of hangin’ with Winona is that there ain’t no guessin’ allowed. If you wanna go, you gotta say, ‘Yes, WiNONa!'"
“…Yes, Winona,” Tank mumbled.
“No, no, say, ‘Yes, WiNONa!’” she cried.
“Yes, Winona!” belted Tank, trying to match Winona’s manic energy.
“Now that’s more like it!” exclaimed Winona. “Now, come on, let’s get a move on!”
With that, she leaped out the freshly shattered window by the front door and hit the ground with a forward roll. Tank slowly hovered out after her.
Before taking off, Winona glanced over her shoulder just to make sure that her comrade was behind her. He was, but she couldn’t help but notice the flat, unengaged expression on his face.
“Why the hay do you look so bored, sugar?” she asked. “Come on, this is gonna be FUN! Be happy!”
Tank said nothing. Instead, he nonchalantly tucked his head into his shell, and when he poked it back out, he was wearing a spiffy pair of red- framed designer sunglasses.
“...Okay, that’s pretty cool,” Winona admitted. “And you’re gonna have to teach me how to do that one day. But for now, let’s get goin’! Them critters ain’t gonna round up themselves!”
And so, the tranquil tortoise and the bubbly border collie set off to prepare for what they were sure would be a night to remember. The first stop on their list would be a peaceful library just outside the town square, where a certain neurotic owl dwelled…