//------------------------------// // Twilight's Exdangetremous Quest // Story: Wrath Of The Jabberwock // by Mr. Grimm //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle looked out the window of her bedroom at her town. Though it looked no different from a few days ago, it was at the same time drastically dissimilar. The joyful aura it once held had been replaced by a dismal fear. The unicorn couldn’t help but be reminded of some dark age villiage on the verge of invasion by the way the town’s inhabitants scurried from place to place, glancing over their shoulders every few seconds. A brown earth pony with spiky hair was boarding up the windows of his time-piece shop. A grey Pegasus with unusual yellow eyes pulled a cart full of muffins down the street to add to her stockpile. Twilight even saw Oddball down by the marketplace, and he only came into town once a week. Twilight glanced back at her room. Since the night of the town meeting, the walls had been covered in maps, charts, and diagrams of the monster. The unicorn had been doing the only thing she could do in a time like this: analyze the situation. She had been mapping the creature’s rampage, trying to find a pattern. The only thing she had to go on was that it was heading west, but other than that here was no discernable pattern. It had completely ignored some towns, but obliterated others. Twilight, being who she was, couldn’t stand not knowing why. All morning she had spent pondering the situation. But slowly, she was reaching a conclusion on how to find out. It had started out as a frivolous idea, and she had thought it to be much to dangerous. However, she had eliminated all other possible solutions to her dilemma. The only choice she had was to go to the attacked towns and find clues herself. She wasn’t going to try and tell herself that it wasn’t hazardous. It was. But she would be doing it for a greater good. If she could discover the cause of the Jabberwock’s rampage, then perhaps steps could be taken to prevent further attacks. Spike was in the kitchen making himself a sandwich for lunch when he heard a loud hiss. Instantly he jumped four feet into the air, sending the sandwich components all over the room. When he touched back down to the floor, he dove beneath the table. He waited for the Jabberwock to come charging in through the wall, jaws snapping and claws ready to slice. But it never did. Instead, he heard the the loud hiss again. This time he was able to recognize it. It was not an abomination from another era, rather, it was the sound of air being pumped into Twilight’s balloon. He wondered why in the world she would be taking that out in a time like this, and for a moment wondered if she was running away. Worried, the dragon scurried out from under the table and ran out the front door. Once he circled around behind the library, he saw an enormous purple blob half full of air, and a purple unicorn feeding hot air into it via a pump. She was surrounded by sandbags, ropes, hooks, and charts. It was clear that she was planning something. “Twilight,” cried the small reptile, “What are you doing?” Twilight looked up at him with a serious look on her face. “I’m going to gather evidence,” she replied. Spike’s eyes went wide. “On what?!” “On the attacks,” said the unicorn as she put several sandbags into the basket, “You see Spike, this problem needs to be solved like any other. And the only way we can do that,” she paused for a moment as she magicked a rope into a coil, “Is to gather data.” Spike’s mouth fell open in shock. “But that’s--” “Dangerous, I know,” finished Twilight, “I’m well aware of that. But I’ve figured out the safest possible way to do it.” Her horn glowed as she unfolded a map in front of her scaly friend. “I’m traveling to where the beast has been,” she said as she pointed out several towns marked with red dots, “And I’m only traveling in areas it hasn’t been seen.” She pointed to towns bearing blue dots. “But look it from here to the closest blue dot,” said Spike, “That’s gotta be at least a hundred--no, two hundred square miles!” The map suddenly refolded itself. “It’s one hundred and thirty-two square miles,” said the unicorn as she went back over to her basket. Spike ran up to his equine friend and blocked her from the pump. “Twilight!” he shouted as he grabbed her by the shoulders, “Listen to me! The Jabberwock is loose out there! It already bulldozed four towns like it was nothing! What do you think it’ll do if it finds you?!” Twilight broke away from his grasp and went back to pumping air into her balloon. “I already told you I’m not trying to confront it,” she said, “I’m only trying to find out why it’s attacking.” “Who cares why it’s attacking?” said Spike as he tried to pull Twilight away from the pump, “The only thing that matters is that it is, and someone needs to stop it!” Twilight turned around and gave the young dragon an angry look. “If we knew why it was attacking,” she snapped, “Then maybe we could figure out how to make it stop! We aren’t in the dark ages anymore, Spike. It’s just going to get worse if we use brash violence against something that’s unstoppable! We need to look at this rationally!” Spike wanted to protest further, but already knew that Twilight wouldn’t listen. When she made up her mind about doing something, there was no stopping her. “And you want to do this whole thing by yourself?” he asked. Twilight narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you saying I’m incapable?” “That’s exactly what I’m saying!” cried Spike as he wrung his claws in desperation, “Twilight, this is madness!” “Madness?” Twilight shouted incredulously, “This is science!” The force of the noise caused Spike to topple over into a pile of sand bags. Before the dragon could climb to his feet, another voice rang through the air. “Twilight,” said the voice of a familiar pink mare, “Whatcha doing with your balloon out? The Jabberwock might steal it!” Twilight and Spike turned around to see Pinkie Pie looking at the two of them curiously. They in turn looked at her curiously, as she was dressed in what appeared to be a suit of armor crafted out of tinfoil and old baking pans. “Um…Pinkie,” muttered Twilight, “What are you wearing?” Pinkie gave her friend a quizzical look, then smiled. “Magic armor, silly!” she said as she rolled her eyes, “I’ve got to wear something to protect me from the Jabberwock.” Spike and Twilight looked at each other for a moment, then back at their metal-clad friend. “That’s not really magic armor, Pinkie,” sighed Twilight. “Well of course it’s not!” the pink mare replied with an enthusiastic hop, “But the Jabberwock doesn’t know that!” Twilight face-hoofed in response to the true but illogical statement. “Can you, uh…can you show me how to make one of those?” Spike asked sheepishly. Twilight shot him a dry look. Contrariwise, Pinkie Pie looked estatic. “Sure I can! We just need to go get some old pans from Sugar-Cube Corners. We’re not using any now because we’ve sold EVERYTHING! Mr. and Mrs. Cake are boarding up all the windows and stuff, and gave me the day off!” She suddenly broke off and looked back at Twilight. “Oh, hey Twilight, You never told me why you had your balloon out.” “She’s going to look for the Jabberwock,” Spike answered. Before Twilight could correct him, Pinkie leapt up in the air and gave a frightful gasp. “Twilight, are you crazy?” she cried, “You can’t go after the Jabberwock! The Jabberwock goes after you! You’re not making any sense!” “I’m not the only one,” sighed the purple mare as she turned back to her work, “And I’m not going after it. I’m going to visit where it’s attacked to see if I can find out why.” “Oh,” said Pinkie, now sounding so releived that one had to wonder if she’d been frightened at all, “Can I come?” Twilight froze, and dropped the rope she had been levitating. “No!” she blurted as she whirled around, “I mean, I don’t think there’s enough room in the basket.” Pinkie gave her friend an unspeakably pleading face. “Pleeeeaasse can I go? I wanna help too! I don’t have anything to do now, ’cause everypony’s all busy panicking and nopony wants to spend time with me!” Twilight tried to avoid looking at the wide, childish eyes of the poofy-maned mare. “Pinkie, I really don’t think--” “PLEEEEEEEEAASSSEEEEEE--” “Alright!” cried Twilight, “Alright, you can go!” A huge grin suddenly spread across Pinkie’s face, and she leapt in the air for joy. Twilight already looked regretful of what she had done. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” cried Pinkie as she hopped up and down in excitement, “I’ll be right back with my things! Don’t worry, I travel light!” She was suddenly gone in a cloud of dust. “Wait!” Spike called after her, “What about my armor?”