“See? It’s just a cat.”
Twilight scrunched her nose as she scowled at the pathetic looking creature mewling at her from Spike’s claws. It certainly looked like it had seen better days. It’s fur was matted and messy and dirty there was a fresh nick in one ear. It even looked a little green around the gills.
“Ok...so, it’s...just a cat?” Twilight groaned and rubbed the back of her head with one hoof. “How did it trip the sensors?”
“It probably was running from other cats or dogs or something and just came up and over the wall. That would certainly explain it.” Spike shrugged and petted the cat gently which caused the feline to shiver and curl in on itself more. “I say we let it stay the night and I can put it out in the morning, ok Twi?”
Twilight sighed. “I guess that’s ok. But you’ve got to keep an eye on it. It might not have blown up, but if it vomits on anything, you are cleaning it up and apologizing! Do we even have anything to feed it?”
“I can give it some milk. I know we have some of that in the ice chest.” Spike smirked and turned to go through the door to the small kitchen and dining area. “Grab a saucer, ok Twi?”
Twilight shook her head again and followed her brother into the small subsection of the main room, her horn flaring to life to open a cabinet. “We give it milk and then we check the property, just in case.”
The cat mewed as Spike set it gently on the counter and turned to the ice chest. He opened it with a grumble and started searching for the jar with the milk in it. “Whatever you say boss, but we aren’t…” Spike faded out as he sniffed, his nostrils flaring.
Spike stood up straight and held his claw to his nose. “Why does my claw smell like smoke and blood?”
“What?” Twilight whirled around, a small saucer in her grip. Spike looked at her and shrugged. “Isn’t that the hand you grabbed the cat with?”
“Yeah.” Spike inhaled sharply and ran his tongue over his chin as he pulled in more air. “Come to think of it, I don’t smell a cat.”
The battle mage set the saucer down gently on the table and lifted her staff, shoulders and neck tense. “Spike...where is the cat?”
Spike blinked at her and as one they turned and looked at the empty counter tops.
She hadn’t planned on this.
The dragon complicated things. They were notoriously resilient to both magic and poison. They had the senses of a guard animal and built-in armor and weapons. At least this one wasn’t very big. It was barely taller than the unicorn.
She was going to have to use what little element of surprise that remained to her. She dived under the large couch in the main living area and worked her jaw as her body shifted, her poison sacks filling with something she was hopeful would be toxic enough to get past a dragon’s fortitude. The fur her body had fell back as chitinous plates appeared and locked in place around her new limbs. Her new pincer scythes sharpened to a razor edge as she licked them, coating them with the venom she’d made.
They would come looking for her any second. She would take out the pony first, then deal with the drake. Once they were both down, the pretty princess would be next. When they walked near she would strike from cover at the pony’s legs. A small nick was all it would take to deliver the poison and then about a minute before it sent her into shock. As soon as she struck, she would move to new cover to flank the dragon, if she could get behind it she had a much better chance.
She raised her thorax and bunched her legs under herself to spring as she heard hooffalls coming her way.
“Where did it go?” Spike scratched his head as he and Twilight looked out into the main room. “Think it’s hiding under the furniture?”
“I think that wasn’t a normal cat.” Twilight hefted the nearest chair into the air with her telekinesis and leveled her staff by her side.
‘Well, no duh!” Spike shook his head and dropped to all fours and lowered his head to scan under the overturned furniture turned barricades. “Let’s just find it before anything happens and I have to apologize to more than one Princess.”
Twilight chuckled mirthlessly and lifted another chair and swept her staff back around. As she moved to look around the chair and into the corner of the room she caught a flash of black near the floor by her hooves. Before Twilight could react, there was a roar from behind her as she was violently yanked into the air by Spike’s claws.
The dragon threw her into the far wall and the impact knocked the wind from her. Twilight groaned and rolled to her hooves, but when she tried to stand there was a sudden pain in her right rear ankle. She blinked to get the stars out of her vision and looked down to see a small but growing puddle of red around her hoof.
Spike roared again, loud enough this time to rattle the window shutters and shake dust from the ceiling. He dived into the furniture, batting couched and end tables away with draconic strength and reducing them to so much kindling and scattered fluff as his claws tore through them. He spun and brought down his tail down on top of what was previously an ottoman, smashing it to the floor and holding it there.
“Twi! You alright?” Spike turned and stood up. “I saw some giant friggin’ bug or spider or something, I dunno. It jumped at you and I tried to get you away!”
Twilight hissed at the pain her leg was giving her and forced herself to her hooves. She grit her teeth and sucked in a breath. “A spider? I saw...something too. Just before you grabbed me, it got my ankle.”
“Are you ok?”
“I’ll live.” Twilight set her jaw and stood tall for a moment while she brought her staff’s tapered end down on the floor. The tip flashed as she formed a connection to the junction of ley lines that criss crossed under Canterlot and pulled. Energy, raw native arcane potential flooded her and everything seemed to slow to a crawl and the non-magical material around her became slightly transparent. Spike, glowed in front of her like a forge at full burn, while under the ottoman he was holding down there appeared to be an amorphous blob that glowed like a hot coal.
Twilight raised her staff again with glacial slowness and tipped it toward the glowing and growing blob. Even at her enhanced speed she could see it changing and enlarging. She had to do something and do it fast before it broke free from the hold Spike had on it. Twilight called up a spell in her mind that would generate a large blast of fire. She wanted to burn it on the spot though, not cause structural damage to the house, so she wrapped the arcane formula in a metamagic adjustment case, and narrowed the blast of heat into a tight beam and focused it’s energy at the point where she wanted it hit.
Spike was just starting to notice what was going on with the thing under the ottoman when Twilight completed her calculations and realized her spell as reality. The energy she pulled from the ley lines coursed through her horn and used her natural telekinesis as a bridge to the staff and the staff as a focusing agent. In less time than a foal’s blink, the air immediately behind the ottoman went from room temperature to about 500 degrees and burst into flames, engulfing the footrest and the creature underneath it.
Time jerked back to full speed and an unearthly scream threatened to blow out Twilight’s eardrums as her spell went off. The spell lasted but an instant but the room felt like oven as the now flaming furniture was thrown aside and a smoking black, green and blue shape exploded out from under it and knocked Spike back. Twilight blinked as she got a hint of something vaguely pony shaped with bright green eyes before the creature was on top of her and shoving her face into the carpet.
“Neat trick. Now, please scream for me.” The voice Twilight heard speaking sounded just as normal as pony’s she might hear on the street, there wasn’t a hint of the otherworldly creature it was coming out of. “I want that little trollop to coming running. I like my prey winded and emotionally compromised.”
“Get off her!” Spike yelled as he scrambled to get back up amid the pile of broken furnishings he’d landed in.
“In due time, drake.” The thing on top of her did something and Twilight felt something sharp and pointed press into her hip above her wounded ankle. “After this pony is down, I will put you down like the mongrel you are. Then I will go and gut your Princess.”
Twilight growled and tried to turn away but she couldn’t hold back the yelp as the creature once again drew her blood. The pain wasn’t as sharp as the first wound, which now burned intensely, but it made her all the more weaker. She gasped and turned her head to look up at the bug-like creature to see one of its ‘hooves’ now sporting an enormous claw spike that looked like it could eviscerate her.
Twilight didn’t intend to test that.
She was still connected to the ley line but she had no way of judging a spell safely enough to avoid endangering herself, Cadance and Spike. Empowering her magic wasn’t the only way she could utilize that power. Not for the first time, Twilight was glad Princess Celestia gave lessons in melee combat to her battle mage corps as she channeled a tiny portion of that energy into her limbs. Twilight bucked and shoved the creature off of her and whirled to face it but the room didn’t stop spinning when she did and Twilight collapsed again with a breathy grunt.
Spike rolled back onto his feet and bunched up to pounce when a section of the ceiling dropped silent behind the bug thing. Twilight sucked in air as the fallen piece resolved itself into Cadance a moment before the princess slipped up to the creature’s back and stabbed it between two overlapping plates of chitin with a shard of steel.
The thing hissed and rotated its head around to look Cadance in the eye. “Ah, there you are.”
Cadance smirked and whipped out with her other hoof and drove a second shard-like blade under another plate of exoskeleton, yanking a true scream out of it this time. “Sorry for not making my death easy for you.”
“You’ll need more than a couple knives to stop me.” The creature twisted its arm around bonelessly and swiped at Cadance as the pony ducked and dodged.
“Good thing I packed this!”
Cadance let go and left the blades embedded in the bug pony and skipped back a step. She raised a wing and leveled her Minotauran hull-breacher canon right at its back. “Say hello to my little friend!