Ponyville 911

by MisterMoniker


You Have The Right To Get Loud Now

Dusting off the top of her dress cap with a white hoof, Cherry waited patiently outside the front of the palace. She wanted to catch a little sun and fresh air after her and Dodge’s audience with the Princesses.

I wonder what kind of trouble Dodge is getting himself into up there, she thought to herself.

…Nevermind. I’m pretty sure I know what kind of trouble Dodge is getting himself into up there.

Scanning the grounds absent-mindedly, she noticed that the post where Lieutenant Nimbus had been was conspicuously vacant. Steel was still there, though, staring resolutely out towards the city of Canterlot and none the worse for wear from their earlier encounter. If anything, he seemed cheerful. At least as cheerful as a Royal Guardspony with a perpetual scowl could seem, anyway. With nothing better to do while she waited for whatever would be left of her partner to crawl outside after her, she trotted up beside the pegasus and shot him a glance.

“Hey, uh…Steel, right? Thanks for trying to keep that dickcheese Nimbus off my partner’s back earlier. How’s he holding up?”

“First Lieutenant Blue Steel, Miss Berries. I wouldn’t worry too much about him. Damn idiot got what he was asking for, trying to buck around with the Captain like that. He’s lucky Captain Charger wasn’t trotting around here in his prime. The medical staff wouldn’t have anything left to work with.” Steel smiled as he said it, like all of his favorite jokes had Nimbus on the ass-end of them. “And thanks for looking out for the Captain. He retired under some nasty circumstances, and it’s good to see him back on his hooves, at least. Even if he is getting right back in the thick of it up there.”

The unicorn couldn’t help but wince. Stumbling over his own tongue, Steel couldn’t either.

“…Yeah, that was a poor choice of words. Anyway, Charger’s tougher than he looks. And he looks like a brick wall. Did you know he was the only stallion to get a couple licks in on Discord when he was prancing around the Palace?” Cherry had to admit she didn’t. The most Dodge had ever told her was the fallout of his little run-in with the spirit of Chaos and a very moody Princess, and that had taken the better part of a bottle of Sweet Apple Acres’ best. The policemare sat down next to the Lieutenant, relaxing a bit and making herself comfortable.

“Well, have ya got a minute, L-T? I’m still waiting for Dodge to get back down here, so I’m not going anywhere.” She tilted the brim of her cap back a bit to get a good look at him while he talked; Dodge would never tell her the rest of this story without some more whiskey persuasion, and this Steel guy seemed like he knew what he was talking about.

“Let’s see, then…we were running VIP protection for Princess Celestia together at the time, and once the news started coming in from around the country about the outbreaks of Chaos magic, she had us escort her to the statue gardens…”

-----

Captain Charger thundered ahead of the Princess and his squad members, sprinting through the palace gardens until he could see the towering sculptures that marked the entrance to the statue exhibit. He still wasn’t sure what they were supposed to be looking for, but if something was wrong, there was no way the Princess should be the one to deal with it first.

Banking a corner with Dangle and Steel behind him, Dodge ran nearly full-throttle over a completely unremarkable and totally normal light-brown earth pony, who was currently looking very preoccupied with tasting some...dirt. A cutie mark of a simple-looking hourglass covered his flank, which was waggling in the air around Dodge’s face as the colt tried to get a better mouthful of soil. Catching a glimpse of the surprised captain, the pony spat out a wad of mud and wiped his tongue clean.

“Oh, hello Officer Charger! My, how did you get to Canterlot so fast? Love the armor, by the by, makes you look very…big. Like a big, grey-and-gold mess of concrete, really. Very intimidating. A big, grey-and-gold, increasingly angry mess of concrete. I’m sorry, is something wrong?”

“The name,” Dodge hissed, “Is Captain Dodge Charger of th’ Royal Guard. Now I heard there was some trouble in these gardens. Here’s some strange pony, wanderin’ around the statues and eatin’ dust. Who the buck are you?”

“Really, Officer – I just wished you a very good morning not a couple of hours ago in the Ponyville Police Department. You remember, I was the one in the chains. Lots and lots of them. I tried to be a bit more decent around the snacks this time, only nipped one banana. Speaking of which, I’m very hungry. This dirt here’s gone right off. Terrible stuff. Anyway-” The brown stallion stopped, his pupils shrinking in sudden realization.

“Ah. Well. I am hungry, then, forgot what time it was. Happens quite frequently, especially around dirt. Please just forget everything I just said. So, my name is-”

“Doctor!” Princess Celestia trotted into the statue gardens, flanked on each side by two Sergeants of the Guard. At the sight of the Doctor her quiet air of dignity almost visibly shattered into a dark scowl.

“Oh, hello! It’s been too long, Princess, really, it has. I was just on my way, actually. Been looking for something, nothing too important. I don’t suppose you’ve seen any angels where they shouldn’t be, have you?” Dodge stepped towards the Doctor, backing him into a corner between a stylized sculpture of a pegasus in mid-flight and the thick wall of foliage closing in the garden. Celestia towered behind the Captain, unfurling her wings and fixing a heavy eye on the nervous stallion.

“If you’ve turned up, Doctor, then it’s safe to assume something is definitely wrong. Why are you here?” The slightest glint of anger flashed across her amethyst eyes.

“Well, you know, just happened to be in the area, and such. Noticed something strange about the statues around here, figured I should pop in and have a look around. Statues have always been a tender issue for me, I feel very strongly about them. In fact-” He stuck his tongue out, sniffing loudly and attempting to lick the air.

“What the hell’re you doin’, ‘Doctor?’” Dodge almost clipped him upside the head as the stallion’s tongue wiggled around near his face.

“’M thasthing, why, whath’s it lookth ‘ike?”

The Captain had no words for what he was watching. The Princess groaned behind him and stepped away to begin inspecting the grounds. With a cocky grin, the Doctor sucked his tongue back into his mouth and scurried under Dodge’s armor-clad chest.

“Now, Princess, you might be interested in this...” He sniffed the air a bit more, licked his hoof, and held it to the wind. “Yes. Excellent! It seems that there was very recently a very massive amount of temporal energy displaced in…that general area. Something that was up until now quantum-locked has moved. A very neat trick, that. Can’t imagine the amount of energy it would take to shift it; ooooh, that’s bad. That is definitely very not good.” He pointed towards a curiously empty pedestal in the middle of the grounds, completely absent of any statue at all.

Seeing the pedestal, Princess Celestia immediately bristled and stomped her hoof into the ground. A spiderweb of cracks split the earth around her as sunlight sparkled throughout her mane.

“Captain, have your soldiers send word to Ponyville. Now. I need to speak with the bearers of the Elements.”

-----

The bearers of the Elements of Harmony had come almost immediately at the Princess’ summons, piling into the Tower of the Elements as Celestia herself ordered Dodge and his squad to guard the doorway and bar any other panicked citizens from entering. The Doctor had since disappeared back into the gardens, mumbling something vague about helping. Good riddance, Dodge thought to himself. He paced resolutely outside the doors of the Tower’s entrance hall. At least Steel and Dangle were nearby to help calm his nerves. Dangle was doing her stellar best to get under her pegasus friend’s hide, poking fun at him at every opportunity.

“Y’know, Steel, I think that unicorn mare fancies you. The white one? Oh, she was gorgeous, wasn’t she? And the look she gave you when she came trotting inside…it just sets my heart all aflutter.” The unicorn gave him a lascivious grin, enjoying the odd twitch in Steel’s wings that to an experienced instigator was just another clue of his rising irritation.

Ignoring the two lieutenants for now, Dodge grumbled a bit to himself and reflected on the hoof-ful of details the Princess had given him on the crisis currently sweeping across the country. She had only told him that a powerful enemy of the Princesses, a creature named Discord, had broken free of his prison and was likely planning to stage a coup against them. The Guard may not be up to the task of facing a spirit of his caliber at their current capacity – Dodge would have to speak with Shining Armor and bring a plan for reinforcing the nation’s active duty personnel-

“Oh, Steel, your wings are so large, so strong! So magnificent! I find myself completely unable to resist the noble allure of such a gentlecolt as yourself. As I am the Element of Generosity, I am prepared to give everything to the most fabulous of all the pegasus Guard…” Dangle teetered back and forth in pantomime, draping a hoof across her helmeted face and sighing in ecstasy. Without warning, a white-and-gold blur careened into her, knocking her off her hooves and into a wrestling match on the palace floor.

That’s it. You’re done, Dangle!” The pegasus tossed his giggling partner around like a rag doll, his closely-cropped sky-blue tail flicking back and forth in agitation as he tried to buck her somewhere not covered in armor.

In too deep to back out now, Dangle continued to giggle as she rolled and juked out of the way of her friend’s strikes. “My, Sir Steel, your form is exquisite – your muscles, to die for! Let us explore the depths of love together and-“ a hoof flew past her face, rattling the gold helmet on her head and causing her to erupt into a new fit of laughter. “Darling, be careful! You could ruin my coiffure!

That’s enough. The two o’ ya settle down and get back to your posts. Dangle, just…stop bein’ you for a couple’a minutes, alright? Steel…” The Captain looked his soldier up and down, clapping a hoof on Steel’s shoulder. “…Good eye. Ya got a fine taste in mares. Too bad she’s outta your league.”

The lieutenant murmured something dark under his breath before returning to his vigil next to the doors. Dangle dusted herself off from the scuffle, popping a few dents out of her savaged armor with well-placed bursts of telekinesis. The two still looked a little rowdy, but they were presentable enough. A good thing, too; the doors cracked open, yawning wide to let the six Elements of Harmony run out of the tower’s entrance hall. Dodge wasn’t sure what these six mares were supposed to do, but he’d heard the stories about how they had taken down Nightmare Moon only a few months prior.

The lavender unicorn mare, Twilight Sparkle, gave him a respectful nod as she trotted by. Her earth pony friends Pinkie Pie and Applejack followed closely behind. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash flitted through the air, the cyan flyer sharing a daredevil grin with the Captain as she passed. Rarity flicked her beautifully-styled mane as she brought up the rear, pausing only long enough to whisper a couple words into Steel’s ear. He blushed fiercely as she cantered to catch up with the group. Dangle watched with a smirk as the six ponies ran towards the garden’s labyrinth, apparently on the move to bring the fight to this Discord character.

“So what did she say, Romeo?” Dangle fluttered her eyelashes at the pegasus.

“She…really likes my mane. Shut up.” The red in his face said a little bit more than that. Dodge was about to dig into his soldier a bit on it, but Celestia’s cry from the Tower interrupted him.

“Princess! Squad, on me!”

Captain Charger burst through the double doors, splintering wood with the lieutenants flanking his sides. The princess was sprawled across the marble floor in a heap of her own feathers. She was unconscious, but it didn’t look like she had been harmed. Dodge and Steel posted themselves on either side of Celestia as Dangle checked her vitals.

“It looks like she’s asleep…I can’t find any breaks or lacerations. She’s just – uh…” The high-pitched whine from Dangle’s horn fizzled out as she noticed the creature lying next to her.

“Nurse Dangle, the patient’s in terrible shape! Get me 12,000 cc’s of chocolate milk and fetch my rubber gloves. I simply cannot work without my rubber gloves.” The monster stretched out across the marble like a snake. Everything seemed wrong about him, a mishmash of apparently random animals piled into one strange, grinning prankster. His red eyes were full of smiles, laughs and unadulterated madness – every facet of his appearance telling more about his nature than his name ever could.

The Draconequus’ head disappeared in a flash of fireworks as a metal-shod hoof split the floor under it.

Discord! What did you do to the princess?” Dodge roared at the Chaos spirit, shaking a puff of dust from his hoof. The trickster himself reappeared floating above the group with a casual grin on his face.

“My, the illustrious Captain Dodge Charger, assisted by his cohorts Lieutenants Steel and Dangle, if I’m correct? To be honest I haven’t done much of anything to the old bore. I admit I was a little worried she may try to interfere in my little game with the Elements, so she’s taking a nap for now…why, do you think I should do something to her?” He smiled deviously. With a snap of his fingers, a massive, brightly-flashing wheel appeared in the air next to him. The spirit’s tufted tail whipped out and sent the wheel spinning wildly while a tiny marker at the top ticked against the spokes around the edge.

“As the three of you seem just as somber and depressing as your beloved ruler, I think I’ll liven things up a bit further. Now, I’ve had a few centuries trapped in stone out there to think about all the things I’d like to do to the dear princess, but I’m afraid that I’m a little preoccupied with her friends in the labyrinth. So! Welcome to an exciting round of Wheel of Misfortune! What will we be doing to Her feathery Highness today? Will it be ‘trapped in stone for one-thousand-plus years?’ No? Maybe ‘to the Sun!’ I like the idea, dramatic irony always did just tickle me. Ooh! How about ‘bananas?’ Strange and mysterious, and slightly disturbing depending on where your imagination takes you with that one.” Discord cackled wildly as the wheel began to slow. At a glance from Dodge, the pegasus beside him stepped to the side and unfurled his wings.

“I swear, you heap of happy-ass bullshit, the minute y’come back down here I’m gonna break my hoof off in your ass n’ play the piano on your appendix,” the captain growled.

“Goodness, Charger, do you kiss your princess with that mouth? I wonder if you can still collect a two-bit deposit on empty threats.”

Nodding to Steel, Dodge stepped over the prone body of the princess and whipped his tail as signal. The pegasus burst from the floor at top speed, soaring straight towards the grinning immortal hovering above them…and straight towards Discord’s outstretched talons.

“I’d like to buy a vowel.”

Massive rubber letters burst into existence around the Guardspony’s body, tightening against him and constricting his limbs. Steel crashed back to the ground with a screech of metal against polished marble, his entire body bound in a mess of large, red A’s and O’s. Manic laughter filled the hall as the lord of Chaos drifted back down to the ground after him, his wheel in tow. The ticker stopped with a soft ding.

“Oh, dear. This may be even more fun than the ‘bananas’ option. What do you think, Captain?”

Emblazoned with festively blinking lights under the ticker was one word: Molestia. Squinting, Dodge could make out the fine print dotting the edge of the wheel above it. Princess Luna will not appear in this episode.

-----

Miles and miles away from the nation of Equestria, from the surface of the planet itself, a very small moon rotated peacefully in the blackness of space. If a curious astronomer had looked through their telescope at the surface of the Moon, they might have noticed a new feature in the crags and crevices of their beloved satellite.

Spelled out across the wide lunar plains in a series of smoking craters was a simple message with an agitated blue speck flying circles around it:

ARE YOU BUCKING KIDDING US