Today was a brand new day for Twilight as she yawned and stretched out before climbing out of bed and trotted over to a desk to go over the facts of what she was dealing with.
With a glow of her horn she brought out a list of things she wanted to remember. Fluttershy and Rainbow were going to have an important talk. Rarity and Applejack were barely put off their regular routines and were going to be busy at their jobs today. As for Pinkie she was almost normal except for the odd occasions she’d twitch and promptly took a quick look around while wielding a rubber chicken in a threatening manner.
As for Twilight herself, she had studied up on transformations, mystical creatures and other inane things for most of those days she spent cooped up in her library trying to find out what creature had her mentor up in arms. Twilight was working hard especially after hearing Canterlot Castle was flooded with pudding to find a solution to the powerful being invasion, it seemed the being had an airship at her command and was beginning to get Celestia burning with righteous fury. She hadn’t actually met this creature and only caught a fleeting glimpse of it; Rainbow and Fluttershy were the ones to actually meet her in pony.
Rainbow had said she was a nasty customer and Fluttershy for whatever reason seemed to partially defend the crazy creatures’ actions of pepper bombing Ponyville. Pinkie however didn’t say much about the creature other then knowing her name and the possibility of having a history, if Pinkie would just open up about this ‘Kazooie’ then they’d know what caused it to cause such large amounts of havoc. It was for naught as Pinkie hadn’t opened up to any of them about Kazooie and kept exclaiming that she should handle her, but Twilight was already determined to make this a group effort and wouldn’t have it any other way.
This was all the knowledge Twilight had to go on aside from what Celestia had already told her about the bird that changed into a rhino and her escape from Canterlot Castle.
“Hey Twilight, you’ll never guess what’s for breakfast!” Spike said walking by the doorway, Twilight sighed as Spike had been in the same rut for the past few days. After taking care of her morning preparations she sat down at the table in her breakfast nook of the tree she lived in.
“Pancakes!” Spike exclaimed proudly setting a short stack before Twilight covered in strawberry syrup and his own covered with a bit of maple and a few ruby shards for texture. As Twilight ate her pancakes she wondered how she was going to deal with a entity that was magically gifted in transformation, as of yet Kazooie didn’t seem to be doing anything too threatening like transform into a dragon to eat anypony. If only Twilight knew Kazooie had an invulnerable Tyrannosaurus transformation, she only seemed to be doing things that seem like wide scale pranks.
As they continued to eat in silence, Twilight decided to compliment Spike on another well done breakfast even if it’s the same things they’ve had for the past few days. After the compliment Spike would have exclaimed his thanks if it weren’t for a sudden gurgling and very familiar burp of green flames that caused a scroll to appear before them.
Twilight levitated the scroll before her and instantly took to reading it, while Spike nudged up to her side carrying his half eaten stack of pancakes to read along with her.
“My faithful student Twilight, it has come to my attention that the state of the current ‘new being’ situation might have worsened, I’m sending a carriage to pick up you and any of your available friends. This is an urgent matter and… Luna stop laughing about this, this is quite a serious matter that requires our immediate attention! Excuse this line of written dialogue as it appears, I forgot to disable my dictation spell for that moment. Again please get your friends together and come to the castle at your soonest convenience; I’d rather not have to explain this as it is easier to show you what has disturbed me.” Twilight immediately got a look in her eye she had to go get her friends, as far as she knew there was no book to help her with this situation and she just grabbed her saddlebags and what she thought might be useful before setting out, she stopped when she realized there wasn’t a small dragon sitting on her back. “Are you coming Spike?”
“Nah, I think I’m going to hang around here. Haven’t seen Owlowiscious in a while, I’d enjoy a little quiet time to myself.” Spike took to lazing on his back. “I’ll look after the library until you get back.”
Twilight set out to look for her friends; the closest ones were Pinkie and Rarity. Either one of them were going to take a while no matter what she did to get a word in edgewise. She chose the lesser of two evils and went with Pinkie first. She really disliked Rarity playing with her mane with no end in sight; at least Pinkie will distract Rarity should she decide to get inventive again.
Meanwhile outside the town on a little hill near the Whitetail Woods two winged ponies were sitting next to the each other quietly contemplating what to say.
“Rainbow…” Fluttershy said quietly. Sure Rainbow might frighten animals, happens to be aggressive when challenged and overall excitable, but Fluttershy liked her all the same. Could she really ground her friend who flies so beautifully? Well it would be figuratively grounding a pony who flew fast and free, Fluttershy just wanted her to slow down to enjoy things in life. Her heart was already quickening as she remembered the time Rainbow snuck into her house to drag her out of bed for apple cider, Rainbow didn’t need to get her to go get apple cider but she did it anyway. Rainbow was always trying to get her to better herself or was at least always trying to be there for her.
“Flutter…” Rainbow offered up just as quiet. She was busy remembering a time when Fluttershy was cheering loudly for her bouncing on a cloud after she did a Sonic Rainboom at the stadium. Never had Rainbow remembered seeing Fluttershy act so joyously or excited unless they were together, there was the fact that she snuck into her house for no reason other than to complain about how Pinkie hogs the cider when the Apple’s make it. Why did she do that anyway? She didn’t really need Fluttershy for anything that day and she took the time to drag her there instead of just getting an earlier spot in the cider line.
Looking between themselves they sized each other up for a minute, there were thoughts passing through each of their heads. They were thinking of doubts, possibilities and what life would be like with or without each other.
Fluttershy finally relented to the pain of the pressure on her skull and threw her hooves tightly around Rainbow’s neck and started crying. Rainbow just sat there a moment before she started to return the hug to gently rubbing a hoof up and down Fluttershy’s back closing her eyes and smelling the mane currently shoved in her face.
“Rainbow, can we… can we do something special together maybe?” Though she was still sobbing Fluttershy could be heard loud and clear as she was being held in a warm friendly embrace.
Moments later Pinkie found the two just staring at the sky lying far apart from each other and she joined them on the ground for a moment before telling them that Twilight got a message that they were needed by Celestia.
Back in the library, Twilight was already considering a disaster of epic proportions, but then again Canterlots Castle was still standing and so was the area surrounding it and there were no large pillars of smoke flowing off of the buildings. So it couldn’t have been that bad right?
Rarity burst into the library and Spike was instantly looking in her direction, the poor baby dragon knew it would never work but he could always dream.
“Sorry Twilight, I couldn’t get Applejack to come. She’s going to be busy in Manehatten for the next few days with Big Mac. Something to do with their relatives the Orange’s I believe, other than that none of the rest of us have any really pressing matters to attend to and I needed to go to Canterlot anyway.” Rarity always did good business anytime she was in Canterlot and Twilight hoped that the others arrived before Rarity got any of her ideas.
It wasn’t a long wait, Twilight managed to send a message to her mentor that five of them could make it, but Applejack had pressing business in Manehatten even if she was unsure of what it was.
“There, I hope Celestia is okay and that we’ll be able to help her.” Twilight only got a scoff from Rainbow who landed right next to Fluttershy who gave off a squeak and a blush considering where one of Rainbow’s hooves went.
“She’s a princess, I’m sure she can handle herself until we get there Twilight.” Rainbow then slowly took noticed that her right hoof was making slow circles around Fluttershy’s cutie mark and she pulled away without anyone but Fluttershy noticing. In fact Fluttershy seemed lightly disappointed the hoof wasn’t there anymore and the blush on her face said a lot about that.
“But still this Kazooie has done some pretty dangerous stuff; she could have actually destroyed Ponyville if she wanted to.” Twilight was still trying to figure out what motivated a creature to be as destructive as Kazooie. If only Twilight knew that Kazooie was doing because she was really bored and was helping Fluttershy at the time with controlled amounts of chaos.
“Yeah, she didn’t though and she rarely outright kills things if she knows they won’t come back to life thirty seconds later. That is unless they are annoying or happen to be a boss level entity; she could still have that undying hatred of moles… NPC’s are usually invulnerable but that doesn’t mean they can’t feel pain.” Sometimes Twilight thought that Pinkie was just being too weird but it was interesting to hear the creature has killed before, meaning it was capable of something most ponies wouldn’t think of unless they were in a live or die situation. She now had a healthy fear for her friend’s lives.
“Are you sure you won’t tell us more Pinkie? Why are you keeping this so far under wraps?” Twilight didn’t know much else of what Pinkie was talking about, but she filed it away as what little the happy go lucky pony told them of the strange entity.
“Nope a dope, I still say I’m the only one that can face her on even grounds. Also as to why I’m keeping a lot of this a secret it’s because there are just some things that some ponies are not supposed to know! The knowledge would boggle your mind to the brink of insanity and possibly beyond it; it’s how I got the way I am in the first place and remember how you went crazy trying to figure out my Pinkie Sense. So who wants cupcakes?” Pinkie hopped around Twilight and smiled before bouncing away to pull out a tray of cupcakes from out of nowhere for all of them.
It took a few hours for them to arrive at the landing zones at the edge of the castles city, they had to walk to the palace through most of Canterlot as Celestia had made the area a no fly zone and wasn’t taking any risk that the being was still in the area ready to destroy her precious snack stores again.
On their way through Canterlot an odd scene of Rainbow walking alongside Fluttershy was present; it was odd as Rainbow almost never touched the ground for more than ten minutes at a time unless she was indoors. Along the way Fluttershy stated she had some business to attend to, as did Rarity who was looking in a completely different direction. Rainbow tried to follow Fluttershy like a puppy before Pinkie dragged her off whimpering to a nearby novelty store. This left Fluttershy alone to talk to someone she sorely needed to and it was possibly the reason why most of them were in Canterlot anyway.
“Guys where are all of you… ugh, Fluttershy do you mind if I tag along? We’re obviously not getting to Celestia anytime soon and I guess she did say to come at our convenience.” Twilight couldn’t believe her friends could be distracted so easily much less that Fluttershy was distracted by a band; then again Fluttershy knew a thing or two about music so it would probably interest the shy pony.
Walking up to the band Fluttershy smiled as she listened to the strange tune they were playing, it was rather invigorating to see Kazooie not doing something mean for once. It was a soft tune with a few heavy beats from the drummer, the accordion player was really good but she was quite odd with her spiraling eyes.
After it ended Kazooie closed eyes immediately snapped open as she put her instrument away and came face to face with Fluttershy.
“Hey Peebs how’s life? I promised to not interfere with you for a week and I intend to do so, what do I owe your pleasant visit?” Kazooie played it cool while studying her purple friend nearby, there were an interesting set of variables on her and she had obviously met Octavia before.
“Um… I wanted to thank you… for helping me, if that's okay. I just wanted to know what that music you were playing was called and what you’re doing here.” Fluttershy wasn’t entirely trusting of the innocent eyes Kazooie gave her but didn’t press the issue.
“Don’t mention it; Banjo always did say I do my best work when I’m destroying the natural order of things. The music we were playing was called Sunny Windmill Isle and as to what I’m doing here is earning a bit of pay by joining the pony society to indulge in a bit of culture before I head on out to fight a giant volatile monster I heard about near… was it Manehattan? Sheesh the turtles are never going to stop laughing when I tell them about it should I go back to Manhattan to play bash the foot soldier. I also made a friend in Screwball here, I’m thinking of adopting her as she fits the nature of my world perfectly might even find someone to love myself while I'm in this world.” Hearing a screeching noise Kazooie and Fluttershy turned to Owlowiscious and Philomena dive bombing their way into Kazooie’s backpack. Screwball smiled and climbed into the backpack herself wanting to ask them about their date having become part of Kazooie's random assortment of passengers.
“That’s nice, I think? Anyway what are Philomena and Owlowiscious doing inside your backpack?” Fluttershy was a bit worried the owl and phoenix were taking things too fast.
“Those two have been having fun and trust me when I say I’m not forcing them to go to fast, besides I’ve followed them on one of their dates while I was battling a spirit of chaos recently. I think they are building a nest in my backpack before relocating it to somewhere safe, so they can have a stable place to return to after a date to cuddle, haven’t done anything yet that I’m not aware of. That Discord guy’s a total pansy by the way, I’ve seen scarier well known chaos bringers then him. I did enjoy the exploding chocolate milk thing though. I wonder if he’s met Pinkie… ah well, anything else you needed?” There was a disbelieving look on Fluttershy’s face, Discord was free and Kazooie did something to him? Well Fluttershy could understand why Celestia summoned them then, but she had a decision to make to either warn Kazooie about Pinkie being nearby or call Twilight to try and detain Kazooie.
“Um… Pinkie is in Canterlot at the moment.” Fluttershy turned her head to the side and away from Kazooie as she said this.
Kazooie's face suddenly went blank followed by pupil shrinkage and a sudden urge to stretch her legs to mind boggling lengths. She did this and her four green sparkling legs went back to their normal length as Kazooie shot skyward. High up in the air she scrunched up her body and she went from zero to rainboom velocity angling immediately for her next destination earlier then intended with her Beak Bomber. She’d even had the time to write an apology to Octavia for bailing out in the middle of all these actions.
Unfortunately Kazooie forgot that the extended use of Beak Bomb tended to make her unable to fly directly proportional to the amount of distance traveled at a heightened velocity. As can be expected that will end poorly for Kazooie, as for once video game physics worked against her in that regard. It was a good thing no pony could follow her as she didn’t leave a vapor trail behind herself as she flew.
“What was that all about?” Twilight made her way over to Fluttershy looking curiously at her shy friend staring at the expanding ring in the sky not made of beautiful colors but of a vibrant shade of red and yellow.
“Just a friend… she needed to do something important and she really needed to get there quickly. She didn’t even get to say… EEP!” Fluttershy wasn’t lying though she was torn by her own actions. Kazooie helped others find love and that couldn’t all be bad right? She had been smacked in the face with a sheet of paper that had barely visible magical green glow around it that quickly disappeared before Twilight could catch a whiff of it.
“What’s that…” taking it away from Fluttershy with her magic Twilight never knew Fluttershy had made any friends outside of their tight little group and was actually happy to hear it. Fluttershy was never really great at befriending so many ponies. “See you later Pony of Excessively and Exceptionally Bashful Status?”
Fluttershy receives a quirked eye from Twilight.
“Uh, she likes calling me Peebs and is kind of an excitable lo... friend like Rainbow.” At least Fluttershy was aware of why they were in Canterlot and excitable was an understatement. She was considered weak and helpless by Discord and wondered what Kazooie could have possibly done to him that would warrant the fact that chaos wasn’t spreading anywhere at the moment. He had powers beyond compare at the snap of a claw; they had trouble combating him… so why would Kazooie come away from such a meeting perfectly fine if she met him?
“It’s nice to see you making more friends Fluttershy, maybe I can write a friendship report about it when you tell me how you two met later.” Twilight heard Fluttershy squeak out a wince and didn’t bat much of an eye at that as it was just Fluttershy being herself. “Now come on, I’m getting worried about Celestia.”
As Twilight walked off Fluttershy picked the letter up off the ground and looked at the back of it. She blushed but followed the instruction by talking to the grey earth mare for her friend. “P.S. When’s the wedding Peebs? Tell Octavia I’m sorry I bailed and will be back later when her cousin isn’t in Canterlot.”
They were to soon find out what became of Discord and his current freedom from his stony imprisonment, which is if they could get their acts together to see princess Celestia.