The Purloined Pony

by Chris

Page 30

“No deal. If you aren’t going to tell me your weakness, we’re just going to have to find out the hard way.”

At that, the pastry box begins to shake violently as the boggie inside hurls himself about, screaming. You hold the box down with two hooves, however, and start inching towards the library, holding the box firmly to the ground as you walk.

On your way out of the alley, you draw more than a couple wide-eyed stares, but nopony interferes. You drag/push the box into the library, where Twilight is waiting with the door open.

“Sounds like you caught a boggie. Think you could have made a little more noise doing it?”

You glare at her. “Look, I caught him, didn’t I? He won’t tell us what his weakness is, though. I thought maybe you’d know what to do.”

As you continue to hold the box down, Twilight goes back to her books. “Well, I’ve found the weaknesses of a few other fey. Elves are repelled by iron, and wolf-spirits fear the touch of silver. It seems like a lot of the weaknesses are metals. If you bring the boggie downstairs to my lab, we can start by bringing him into close proximity to various electropositive elements and seeing how he reacts.” You don’t know exactly what that means, but you assume she’s trying to say you can test the boggie and see what its weakness is. Twilight opens up a trapdoor in the floor and starts to trot down the stairs.

“Um, Twilight?” you ask. “This box doesn’t have a bottom. How am I supposed to get him down the stairs?”

Twilight smacks her face with her hoof. “Right, sorry. I forgot you couldn’t just levitate him. Let me get that for you.” And with that, Twilight picks up the boggie with her magic, sweeping him out of the box. The three of you head down to the lab, the boggie continuing to scream and curse as he dangles in midair above Twilight’s head.

A few minutes later, Twilight has him securely strapped into a chair with arm- and leg-clamps (why does she have clamps for a six-inch tall biped? you wonder). She pulls out a piece of iron pipe, saying, “We’ll start by testing some of the metals that are known to be anathema to other types of fey. I didn’t read anything that said the same material can’t adversely affect multiple species, so known weakness-inducing agents seem like a good place to start.” Levitating the iron with her horn, she moves towards the boggie.

Immediately, he begins to sweat. “No, NO! Not iron, my one weakness! Oh, you’ve found me out! Please, please let me go, I’ll never bother any of the ponies in this town again!”

Twilight rolls her eyes and taps the restraints. “These bindings are iron. Now are you going to continue the dramatics, or will you shush and let us work?”

The boggie harrumphs, then loudly begins to sing: “A hundred bottles of cider on the wall, a hundred bottles of cider...”

Twilight quickly produces a small ball gag (and why on earth does she have THAT?) and clamps it over the boggie’s mouth. As the creature glowers, she smiles and tells him, “Hey, you can’t say I didn’t give you a chance. Now, let’s get testing!”

*****

Continue to page 32

Comments

[Ganondox]

This is beautiful.