Multiple carriages are pulling into the circle driveway of the front courtyard of the Canterlot palace. As an immaculate white, apple shaped carriage pulled up, drawn by two stallions, a mare in a red coat walked over and opened the door. First out of the carriage came the renowned Element of Loyalty, her rainbow dress seeming to flow in the nonexistent breeze. After her comes the Element of Generosity, her dress, by far, the most beautiful at the Gala. Kindness is next, her dress was green, yellow, and, most importantly, simple. The pink mare embodying Laughter followed the butter yellow mare, smiling as she grabs a piece of candy from the neck of her dress and popping it into her mouth. The farmpony of Honesty is next, her dress reflecting her rustic lifestyle, though not enough to make her look crass. Next comes the mare that everypony had wanted to see, the most eligible mare in all of Equestria, student of Princess Celestia, and Element of Magic, Twilight Sparkle, her dragon assistant resting on her back.
Twilight turns as she places her final hoof on the ground, looking back into the carriage with a smile on her face. Stepping out of the carriage is a royal blue earth stallion with a greenish yellow mane, looking all kinds of uncomfortable in his suit. On his back is an orange rodent in a similar suit. The rodent looks around and smiles at the attention the nine of them are getting. As the stallion touches down, Twilight swoops in and places a quick kiss on his lips, eliciting a collective “awww” from all the mares (except the prudes who think that kissing in public is the devil), and a sigh of disappointment from all the single stallions.
Jak holds out his right foreleg to his date. Twilight takes it and both ponies make their way to the front doors with their friends (don’t ask me how they did it on three hooves each. I don’t know.). The guard looks them up and down before saying, in a gravelly tone, “Tickets, please.” The stallion obviously knows who they are and is just following standard procedure. Jak pulls the nine tickets from his coat pocket and hoofs them over to the guard. The stallion nods once. “Welcome to the Grand Galloping Gala.”
The seven ponies enter the hall, the dragon and Ottsel riding on their respective companions’ back. Jak looks up to see Celestia standing on a raised dais on the other side of the unexpectedly plain entrance chamber. Celestia spots the group and motions for them to come over. Jak pulls on his collar uncomfortably before heading over to the Princess with the girls.
Celestia smiles warmly as the nine of them approach. “Welcome, my little ponies!” she exclaims happily. “Please follow me. I wish to show you something spectacular.” She turns and begins waking to a door right behind the dais. She unlocks it with her magic and allows them to enter before she follows suit. The room is dimly lit by four candles, one on each wall, resting in sconces. The room is about ten feet by ten feet with beige walls and a low ceiling. They are the only ones inside. Celestia closes the door behind her and turns to face the assembled ponies, rodent, and dragon, the wide smile she had been wearing in the entrance hall completely gone from her face. She looks, somberly, into each of the gathered’s eyes. “You all know the threat that has been made. Nopony here knows, besides my sister, my niece, and Shining Armor. I believe Shining has told a few of his higher ranking officers. I have sworn every single one of them to silence. I hope to keep the Gala civil that way. However, I want each of you to be on the lookout for Jaq. Try to have as much fun as you can, but be ready to pounce at any sign of trouble.” She turns to Jak. “Don’t think I have forgotten, Jak. If we reach the end of this without any altercation, I will present you with the reward, as promised.”
Jak blushes. “You don’t need to do that, Princess.”
“Nonsense,” Celestia replies with a wave of her hoof. “I will have you properly rewarded for acting in a time while I was frozen.” She flashes him a grateful grin before turning around and briskly walking out of the room, her fake smile returning to her face. If anypony had cared to read her eyes, they would have seen just how worried their ruler truly was.
“Come on,” Twilight says as she tugs at Jak’s foreleg. “Let’s dance. We can worry about Jaq when she gets here.”
Jak shakes his head. “I don’t dance.”
“Oh, please, darling,” Rarity chimes in. “Everypony dances.”
“I don’t.”
Rarity’s face falls, mouth hanging slightly ajar. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. Well I haven’t danced here but back home I had two left feet. I doubt four left hooves would be any better.”
“B-but when you fight, you are so graceful,” Twilight says.
“Because it’s not dancing.”
“I’ve seen you jump up and down at parties,” Pinkie Pie puts in.
Jak shrinks down a little. “That was different.”
“How so?”
“Because it wasn’t formal, follow-these-certain-steps dancing.”
“Sugarcube,” Applejack asks, “are ya scared?”
Jak shrinks down. “I-I’m not scared.”
Twilight wraps a hoof around him. “Come on. You’ll be dancing with me. I’m not much of a dancer either.”
Jak smiles. “I would have thought you would be a great dancer. Seeing as how you gyrate your-“ he is interrupted by a purple hoof being shoved into his mouth.
“Hehe, they don’t need to hear about that, dear. Now we are going to dance.” She turns to the rest of the group. “Girls, Spike, Daxter, see you guys later.” She pushes Daxter off of Jak’s back and pulls him out of the room.
The two make their way to the actual ballroom, which is much more lavishly decorated than the entrance hall. White, blue and pink streamers are dangling from the rafters. The six walls of the room were lined with tables full to the breaking point with food and drink. A quartet was playing on the wooden stage set in the very middle of the dance floor. The pony playing the cello looks oddly familiar to Jak.
He nudges Twilight. “Hey isn’t that pony from Ponyville?”
The purple unicorn follows his gaze and spots the earth pony in question. “Oh, you mean Octavia. No, she lives here in Canterlot. Her sister, Fiddlesticks, lives in Ponyville.”
Jak looks back at the cellist. “Ah, I see.”
“Now,” Twilight turns to face her date. “May I have this dance?”
“I thought the guy was supposed to ask that.”
“Shut up and dance with me.”
Jak throws up his forehooves in a surrendering gesture. “Yes ma’am!”
The two lean into each other, heads draped over the other’s neck, and start swaying back and forth to the smooth tune emanating from the quartet. As the final chord is struck, Jak backs away away. “Well that was fun. I think I’ll just go sit over-“
Twilight wraps him in her magic. “Oh, no you don’t. You promised me five songs together.”
“What? When did I say that?”
~Two Days Earlier~
“Jak,” Twilight says sweetly, “if you don’t dance with me for at least five songs at the Gala, I will geld you.
~Present~
“Oh, right. Now I remember,” Jak says as he walks back leans back into Twilight for the next song.
An hour later finds Jak sitting at a table with Twilight and the other girls, minus Rarity who is letting Spike dance with her. Daxter is on the prowl for some tail. Suddenly, from the dais on one end of the room, Celestia stands up. The room quiets instantly.
“My little ponies,” she says in a carrying voice, “I wish to interrupt tonight’s gathering with a little something special. Two months ago, I was visiting my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle in Ponyville. We were near the Everfree Forest when we were attacked by Tiberwolves.” She pauses as a collective gasp ripples through the room, the loudest coming from Pinkie Pie. The Day Princess continues in a soft tone. “I regret to say that I froze then. I froze with worry at what might happen to the ponies I was with. There was, however, one pony who was there who did not freeze. No, instead he ordered my sister and me to carry the other ponies out of harm’s way. He stayed to fight them. I thought for sure he was dead, but I was wrong. He is here with us today, after taking on a pack of fully grown Timberwolves. If you would, please, come forward Jak. Also I would like to invite his companion, Daxter, and the bearers of the Elements of Harmony up here.”
Jak stands up nervously to the polite clopping of hooves on the ground. Halfway to the dais he feels Daxter jump onto his back. He approaches the platform to see Celestia smiling down at him. She offers a hoof for him to grab as he steps up.
“Jak I would like to present you with the-“
She is interrupted by the castle shaking. Jak looks around. “What the f-“
The castle shakes again, the floor of the ballroom crumbling beneath all the ponies. Jak lands with a thud and is surprisingly still conscious. He looks up into the hole that was just made and sees a familiar figure.
“Oh, did I do that?” Jaq asks sweetly. She turns to her left. “Dr. Circuit, I told you to only use enough explosives to destroy the dais, not the whole damned castle.”
A voice carries down to Jak. “I-I’m sorry, Mistress. We didn’t know how thick it was.”
“Unacceptable,” she replies, bored. She lights up her horn and shoot a beam at the unseen pony. He screams then falls silent. “Now, Distorted, please take care of Jak. I must activate the Rift Gate.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The black earth pony leaps down into the hole and lands with a roll. Jak spares a glance to his left to see Twilight starting to move. Beyond her lies a dormant Rift Gate. He turns his attention back to Distorted just in time to get a hoof to the face.
Jak rolls with the punch and springs to his feet, launching himself at his attacker.
“Twilight, I need you to hold off Jaq as long as possible!” Jak yells as he throws a barrage of punches at Distorted.
The two combatants exchange flurry of blows, neither seeming to be gaining any ground. The cave around them is being lit up with the magic of the two dueling unicorns. Jak lands a right forehoof just as Distorted connects with a left. Both are sent sprawling into the wall.
As Jak hits the wall, the wall behind him lights up in multiple colors: blue, green, red, and yellow. Jak’s right forehoof is on a red crystal, his left on a blue. He feels power coursing throughout his. He immediately knows what’s going on.
“Aw, Hell yeah,” he says to himself as he stands up. He looks over and sees that Distorted is standing up as well. Jak smiles as he charges the black stallion at lightning speed before punching him with a glowing, red hoof. Distorted flies back into the wall, creating a crater in the side of the cave. He turns to Twilight to see her grappling with Jaq, magic forgotten by the two unicorns. Jak finds a yellow crystal and puts his hoof on it, feeling the energy once again flow through him. He takes aim. “TWILIGHT, GET OUT OF THE WAY!” He yells.
Twilight looks over to him and, seeing the determined look in the stallions eyes, pushes off of her foe.
Jak unleashed to quick blast of yellow eco at the crazed unicorn. Both blasts connect directly with the mare’s chest, sending her flying into the back wall with an earth rumbling smack.
Jak looks up as pebbles start falling. “Damn, it’s an earthquake. He looks at all the ponies strewn around him, then at Twilight. “Twilight, can you get a shield around all these ponies!”
The purple unicorn nods once. “I think I can.”
“Then do it! The whole damned place is caving in!”
Twilight lights up her horn as the castle begins to fall around them. A huge boulder crashes down on the Rift Gate and sends a crack right down the middle. A shield erupts from Twilights horn just as the ceiling above the dance hall falls down upon them. A stray rock makes it through the shield and hits Jak. Soon, all he sees is black.