//------------------------------// // Ch4 The Naked Now // Story: Kamen Rider a New Breed // by raven618 //------------------------------// Sugar Cube Corner, 6:58 am Mr. Cake was making breakfast for his family, normally he did this a lot later but Pumpkin had woken up early so the rest of the cakes were up as well. So as he was pouring pancake batter (what you thought they could only make desserts?) his wife got the store ready for opening. A coo came from the highchair behind him. "Give it a bit Poundcake, you can't rush good cooking." It was then that the fifth occupant of the house, and honorary family member, came down the stairs. Although you would hardly recognize the bouncy party pony from the looks of her. She had notable bags under her eyes, and her mane was perfectly flat on the top, with the rest of it spread out. "Yaaawn, 'smack' morning." the pink earth pony said groggily. "Pinkie Pie? I don't think I've ever seen you this tired. Did something happen last night?" Mr. Cake asked a little worried about their tenant and friend. "It's my Pinkie sense, telling me that some pony nearby had a party last night and I missed it." She sat herself down at the table and began pouring juice into her cup. "It's only happened once before, the Summer Sun Celebration after getting my cutie mark." Mr. Cake removed himself from the stove to keep Pinkie from over filling her glass. "And the bed mane?" He returned to flipping the breakfast. "It's just a side effect, my twin sister, Inkie, called me 'Poodle Pie' until Maud helped me get it out." Mr. Cake paused at this, "Why would she call you that?" Pinkie looked up from her empty plate, "Because my mane looks like a poodle... Wait you mean it doesn't?" "No," Mr. Cake said as he placed a large plate of pancakes down on the table and a few small ones on the twin's plates. "it looks more..." he paused looking for the right word. Pound Cake then picked up on of his pancakes and squished it in his hooves. "That’s it, squashed." Pinkie looked at her clean plate a little more closely, and saw that her reflection really did have a squashed mane. "Yikes, that’s new. I wonder if this means something, or if bedmane is unpredictable." she glared at her reflection, it backed away in fear. "Oh well, best not to find out on an empty stomach." she said, returning to her normal self, with bed mane. Fluttershy's Cottage, same time Angel Bunny didn't like to wake up Fluttershy when she was sleeping this soundly, but desperate times call for desperate measures. "Gasp! Sputter. Angel, what are you doing?" The white rabbit hopped down from her head rest and onto the window sill. The now soaking pegasus trotted over to him, looked out the window, and nearly fell on her tail. She raced downstairs, waking a few of her animals as she did. The yellow pegusis stepped outside and approached the woods behind her cottage. She felt a chill run along her spine; because Celestia had only just begun to raise the sun, there was dew on the grass further dampening her coat, but mostly because she was staring at a battlefield. Several of the trees were missing branches, freshly churn dirt was everywhere, and there was a lingering sent of smoke. A trained eye would have determined that one of the parties present in this skirmish was a pack of timberwolves. The paw prints in the dirt, the claw marks on the tree bark, and the stray bits of wood and foliage were all tell-tale signs. However even the untrained eye would know this, judging by the- "Corpses?" Fluttershy asked herself, in a voice quiet even for her. Indeed there were two large wolf shaped wood piles lying just behind the tree line, one of which was missing half it's head. Tree sap stained the ground as well, indicating more then just these two wolves had been killed. "But, timberwolves have regeneration abilities. Even if the they are blown to bits they can still reform." Fluttershy went through all the local creatures she knew, including the ones in the Everfree Forest, and none of them could do something like this to a timberwolf. She felt a paw tug on her foreleg, "What is it Angel? You find something?" The bunny began hopping toward one of the corpses, the one that still had its whole face. "Wait! It might still be dangerous." she called to her little companion. Angel ignored her and went right up to the wooden carcass's mouth. Fluttershy timidly hovered after the rodent and got a closer look at the body. She found what had been the cause of death, the wolf's chest cavity had been burned away; she also saw it had something yellow in it's mouth. Reaching her hoof in she pulled out a small yellow medallion, which seemed to bear the image of a tiger on it. "Weird," Fluttershy said to herself. Once again feeling the morning cold, the pegusi decided to head back inside to dry herself and warm up. However she decided to keep the medallion with her in case it turned out to be something important. Carousel Boutique, 7:35 Rarity awoke to the smell of breakfast. Normally when this happens, she would race downstairs and find her sister, Sweetie Belle, burning juice and everything else. Thus explaining how she found herself splayed face down wrapped in her comforter. Once she got herself untangled she found not the white unicorn that was her sister at the stove, but an orange pegusis instead. "Um, morning Rarity." said the filly that was Scootaloo. "Oh, sorry. I forgot about Sweetie's sleepover, so what's for breakfast?" "I've got some toast in the toaster, some eggs on the stove, and if you could squeeze some oranges, we'll have breakfast in just a little bit." Remembering whose house she was in Scootaloo added, "If that is okay with you." "Just fine darling, it's nice to know not all of Sweetie Belle's friends cook like her." Rarity trotted over to the fridge where she kept the fruit. On her way back to the counter, she failed to notice that fleeting figure of a red, serpentine body in the reflection on the window. Sweet Apple Acres, South Orchard, 7:45 "Well then how do you explain this?" a frustrated Applejack complained to her friend Rainbow Dash. The two of them were overlooking a patch of trees that was covered in a thick bank of fog. "Well we didn't make this fog, at least my patrol didn't." the pegusis replied. "Besides, if we did we would have covered the whole town in fog. This feels more like some schoolcolt prank." "Well its some prank all right, it's thicker than Granny's zap apple jam." Applejack said, turned to her daredevil friend. "Look I want this here fog cleared out by noon today, so get a couple extra pairs of wings start working that pegusi magic of your." The orange farmer then trotted back to her homestead in a huff. Rainbow turned back to the fog, she hadn’t seen fog this thick outside of the Everfree, and even then it was formed by Nightmare Moon's magic. "Might have drifted in from the forest, or some kid got the help of a unicorn." Rainbow's thoughts strayed back to her dream last night, it had been so strange. Somepony had told her to kill somepony else, she couldn't remember any specifics but she knew it was not a good idea. "Well, better go find some help, this might take a while." As she flew back toward Ponyville, a figure in a dark cloak strode out of the fog. In it's hooves it held a gold staff which bore a striking resemblance to a piece of plumbing. Following the robed figure was a pony wearing a business suit, it's face on the other hoof had no visible features other than several white lines running across it in a rib cage fashion. The robed figure turned to the suited one, the later of which turned around and ran back into the fog. The former stared at the Apple's home for a bit longer, before returning to the concealment of the fog itself.