//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5 
// Story: For The One We Love 
// by bahatumay 
//------------------------------//

	Fluttershy retreated, back against the wall, and pressed a hoof against her chest in an effort to slow her heart down. Why would he be here? What could he possibly want here? She looked over, and saw Fritter playing happily on the floor with a measuring cup. He was out of sight. She sighed in relief. She wouldn’t let him see him. 

But why had he come here? And why now?

And how did he always keep finding her?

Pinkie wondered the same things, except she was much more vocal about it. “What are you doing here?” she asked, prodding Skyblaze in the chest, “and why are you here right now? And how do you always know where Fluttershy is?”

Skyblaze brushed off where she'd touched him. “It's… shall we say, 'personal business',” he said loftily, “and I like to keep track of my things.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s not Fritter’s birthday party. You, mister, are uninvited!” Pinkie shrieked. She attempted to slam the door shut, but Skyblaze had placed his hoof inside and let the wooden door bounce harmlessly off his thick, metal ponyshoe. 

“Oh, well, now. That’s a shame. Shouldn’t a father have the opportunity to go to his own foal’s party?”

That threw Pinkie for a loop. “What?”

And if it threw Pinkie for a loop, imagine what it did to Fluttershy. She felt as though her heart had just been encased in ice. She looked at Fritter, blissfully ignorant of anything. 

The tiny nigglings of doubt began to gnaw at her brain again, tiny doubts she thought she had squelched long ago. Fritter's color could as easily have been attributed to Skyblaze’s parents and passed through that line. Though still a tiny foal, his wings were built strongly, much stronger than hers. And his natural manestyle… 

What if Fritter wasn't Mac's?

“But you’re not Fritter’s father,” Pinkie said, confused. “That’s Macintosh.”

Skyblaze’s lip curled slightly at that name. “I’m sure he’d like to think that; but there’s a good chance that he’s not. You see, Warbringer’s deflowering was my doing.”

“Who said anything about flowers?” Pinkie asked. “And wars are terrible things to bring. Have you thought about cake, instead?” she suggested pleasantly.

Skyblaze blinked, then shook his head. “No, no; see… I had the… shall we say, ‘privilege’ of having Fluttershy first.”

Fluttershy grimaced at that memory.

“What?” Pinkie asked. 

“I was the first one who had sex with her,” Skyblaze clarified, a bit more annoyed this time. 

“What?”

Skyblaze fought the simultaneous urges to facehoof and/or strangle this mare. “I pushed her head down, lifted her flank up, pulled her tail to the side, and rammed my-”

“Oh, I get that part,” Pinkie interrupted. “What I don't get is why you waited until now to say something.”

“Oh.” Skyblaze blinked, but quickly regained control. “That’s because there’s a statute of limitations of a year on all newborn paternity claims. After a year, the claims expire; but up to the day before, they are valid.”

Pinkie counted up on her hooves, and then a look of horror crossed her face. “You did that on purpose,” Pinkie gasped. “After tomorrow you couldn't do anything!”

Skyblaze smirked and nodded. “But today, I still can,” he confirmed. “And now I’ve come to take him.”

That pushed Fluttershy past her breaking point. She darted out of the kitchen and stood face-to-face with her former fiancee and glared. “I won’t let you!” she hissed.

“Yeah!” Pinkie agreed, standing next to Fluttershy. “None of us will!”

Skyblaze laughed. “There’s only two of you; and the big red idiot isn’t here to save you this time.”

Pinkie stuck her tongue out at him. “Hey, watch it! That’s my maybe-cousin, you meanie-head! And there’s more than just two of us!” She sat back on her haunches and began beating the ground with a rear leg, looking somewhat like a giant pink rabbit thumping a danger signal.

The reaction was instantaneous. Animals began poking their heads out from the holes in the walls and peeking in through the windows, and even the youngest knew that Fluttershy needed help.

And even the meekest were willing to step up for her. Rabbits and jackelopes and squirrels and skunks and birds and even a fox emerged from their hiding places. Snakes and badgers and even a couple of mongooses emerged, and these last few had fangs.

Skyblaze was many things, but an earth pony he was not. He knew none of these animals, and he shuffled backwards ever so slightly. They could have been venomous. The ground was an uncivilized, barbaric place. His son would be raised in the clouds like a normal pegasus.

Still, he managed to remain relatively in control. “You won’t stop me,” he said. “It’s my right, and-”

And then Harry the Bear showed up, poking his large, shaggy head in from the rear door. He looked down at Fluttershy and let out an apologetic whine, as if to say sorry for showing up late. Fluttershy gave him a comforting little nod, and he turned back and glared at Skyblaze.

To Skyblaze’s eternal credit, he managed to not wet himself like a little foal.

Barely.

This somewhat tense standoff was interrupted when Fritter, noticing the absence of his mother, waddled out, looking for her. Finding her familiar yellow frame, he scampered up and grabbed on.

The look on Skyblaze’s face turned predatory. He reached out a hoof to grab him.

And then Angel Bunny decided that he had had enough of this guy, and threw a carrot at his face.

It really went downhill from there, really. Skyblaze was assaulted by feathers, sticks, claws, paws, anything and everything else, really. Birds swooped in, raking their spurs anywhere they could find fur, squirrels and chipmunks bit and scratched, mice scampered up his legs and bit his inner thighs, and even a tortoise clamped down firmly on Skyblaze's hind leg.

To Skyblaze’s surprise, though, it was Fluttershy who calmed the assault. “Stop!” she cried, her voice carrying despite its low volume.

Her animal friends obeyed (even if they did shoot her a look of confusion first), and one by one jumped off of Skyblaze. Skyblaze, now bleeding in about a hundred places, pushed himself to his hooves, trying (and failing) to look as though he were nonplussed by all of this.

It also didn't help that a beaver had gotten to his mane, which was now about half as long as it used to be and missing a large chunk from the front.

“As I was saying,” he spat angrily, “Fritter is mine, and…” His voice trailed off as he realized that Fluttershy was the only other pony in the room. Tearing past her, he looked in the kitchen and then sprinted to the window, but there was no little foal in sight. “What? Where is he?”

For in the confusion, Pinkie Pie and Fritter had vanished.