My Little Pony, Kidnap is Magic!

by Xanders

The Letter

Twilight was out for the afternoon and Spike was cleaning the library when he felt a familiar queeziness coming on. Quickly, so as to not burn anything (goodness knows he wasn't going to forget that escapade anytime soon), Spike turned away from the shelf he was facing and grabbed hold of it to steady himself.

Each note felt different. Like, a note would feel various levels of nausiating depending on how big it was, and lots of them would make him feel very ill, but they also had ... a character to them. Most of the notes felt calm, sometimes he could almost taste Celestia's wry grin of amusement as she sent the missive.

This note, like only one other before, felt dreadful – as in, full of dread. Or rather, heavy anxiety. So it was with trepidation that Spike grabbed the small letter and read it through, and with outright panic that he rushed out in search of his guardian.

---

"Now, you girls learnt yer lesson? Farm tools are dangerous and should never be used fer givin' mane-cuts!" Applejack oversaw the Cutie Mark Tearaways cleaning out the cowshed. The chore was actually quite an easy one – the cows were generally quite tidy whenever they stayed the night, and all that really needed doing was changing some of the hay bedding.

"Fer the hundredth time, yes! Ah'm sorry we borrowed yer shears! We won't do it again!" Applebloom did look sorry, and they'd been at it for an hour now.

"Okay, y'all can leave now. But Ah'm mighty peeved at this, Applebloom. Ah don't think Scootaloo's parents'll be too impressed with her new mane-style." Applebloom and Sweetie Belle looked a little ashamed at that. Scootaloo seemed to beam, though.

"I think it looks cool," the orange filly reasured her friends, as they all fled.

About a minute of peace was all the time Applejack got before a purple and green blur burst into the cowshed, stopping and panting, bent over, for half a minute when he saw her. "Applejack-I-need-to-know-where" he gasped, "Twilight is."

"Whoa there, partner! What's wrong?" Spike looked like he'd been running all afternoon, and his eyes were wide, panicked, glancing all around.

"Cadence!" he sobbed, the word feeling like a cork popping out of a barrel, "Cadence has disappeared, no-one knows where she's gone." He started blubbering, and Applejack pulled him towards a straw bale to sit down. "I've got to find Twilight and you five and get you to the library. But I couldn't find anyone and I was worried and-"

Sitting down next to the baby dragon, Applejack tried to comfort him, pulling him into a hug. "Hush, now, Spike. Calm down, yer panicking. Panicking won't find Twilight, and it'll just make you more worried. Now, Ah want you ta start from the top. Tell me how ya heard alla' this."

"A l-letter. F-from the Princess. She s-said to gather at the library, and she'd be sending guards to pick us up." Spike seemed to have calmed down a bit now. At least, he'd stopped shiverring quite so much. “But Rarity and Pinkie Pie aren't at their homes. I don't know where anypony is.”

"Okay, sugarcube. Ah think Twilight's out at Fluttershy's place with the others, somethin' about tea with Discord? Ah couldn't attend on account of the Cutie Mark Pain-In-The-Butts sleepin' over here, but Ah think Big Mac'll have'ta handle them tonight. Jump on up," Applejack moved so that Spike could climb onto her back. He clearly appreciated the offer, and climed on with a small "Thanks."

---

The teaparties were quite fun, when you relaxed into them. Discord would make bad jokes all evening, and sometimes cutlery would rather dance across the table than stick in your hooves, but Discord was surprisingly well mannered when the mood took him, and quite a good conversationalist.

Twilight especially enjoyed hearing Discord's plans for his book. Or books. He was never clear which, and Twilight had thought he was making some convoluted joke she didn't quite understand until a manuscript appeared on her desk one evening. It was ten pages, written in various different scripts – from cursive to gothic – and was a strange mix of prose and poetry. It was... Shocking, to say the least.

It seemed to be about a young unicorn colt who was the personal student of Prince Shineymane Sunbum, and who needed to learn about the magic of friendship before the full moon on Nightmare Night, when Baddreams Skyrock would escape from his prison on a star by crashing it into the moon. Unfortunately, the nameless protagonist is too wrapped up in his studies of children's stories to make friends. The manuscript finished as he arrived in Ponytown and started talking with his assistant, the talking manticore pup Prickle, about the preparations for the town's Nightmare Night extravaganza.

Twilight actually felt flattered, in a way. At least he hadn't called the unicorn Midday Sprinkleflanks.

---

Fluttershy's cottage door had never seemed so intimidating. Spike stood slightly behind Applejack, fiddling nervously with his claws. They'd decided that Applejack would bring Twilight out and then he'd tell her the bad news. He really wasn't looking forwards to this.

Applejack knocked on the door, three times. Discord's face appeared on it and immediately broke into a beaming grin. “Applejack! And the dragon! What a pleasant surprise! You arrived just in time for desert, you lucky things,” he exclaimed as the door swung open, and bowed for them.

“Darling, hello!” Rarity had left the table and was moving to intercept Applejack as she entered the room, “While I love seeing you, I thought you were looking after the Crusaders tonight?”

“They're bein' looked after by Big Mac. We've got trouble,” all six ponies started paying attention now, “Twilight, could we talk outside fer a bit? You need to hear this first.”

Confused, and a little worried, Twilight nodded, “Yeah, sure.”

---

Outside, Twilight was surprised to see Spike looking rather worse for wear, and he looked like he'd been crying. Before he said a word, she rushed to him and swept him into a tight hug. “Oh Spike, what's wrong? Why have you been crying?” she lifted her hoof to stroke the spines on his head.

“Cadence,” he started, gravely, “She's... She's missing. They think she was kidnapped.”

“What?” Twilight froze, “H-how? Who could kidnap an Alicorn? Sombra?”

“I don't know, Twilight, but we've gotta get to the library. Celestia's sent some guards to pick us and the other five up from there.” Spike seemed surprisingly composed, but he'd had longer to deal with this than her, so she supposed that made sense.

Twilight sighed, closing her eyes before breathing out deeply to try and calm herself down. I can panic later. Panic won't help right now. Withdrawing from Spike's embrace, Twilight forced herself to take the news in her stride. “Right... Okay. Let's get the others then,” her voice sounded weak, even to her.

Still, Applejack jumped to it. “Ah'll go an' get the others, then.” She headed into the cottage.

After a second, Twilight had a thought. “Spike, can you send a letter?”

“Yeah, certainly. I don't have any parchment, though.”

“That's fine, I've got some,” she always brought paper and a quill to the tea parties, just in case Discord had some important insight into magic or philosophy that she wanted to remember.

As she started putting pen to parchment, two bodies emerged from the doorway. “Ah'm sorry, Twilight, but he wants to come too.” She'd forgotten about Discord. After a few moment's indecision, Twilight figured his powers couldn't be more useful than in this crisis.

“Okay, the Princess will want to talk to you anyway. Could you teleport us all to the library?”

“Why Twilight, it would be my honour to perform magic for you. Everyone, on the count of three. One,” he raised his talon in preparation, “Two-” The world went white.

Author's Note:

Alright! Any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading the second chapter.

Comments

[EonCronus]

You have my interest... now let's see if you can grab my attention

[Greenish Smile]

This looks promising... do not screw this up!

[Eclipsestorm4]

Cool.