Wrath Of The Jabberwock

by Mr. Grimm

The Frihidfuleous Monster Revealed

As she walked through her front door, Twilight wondered why Oddball had given her a book about a monster that had been dead for centuries. She knew that he was, well, odd, but still. As far as she knew the Jabberwock had been slain shortly before the defeat of Discord. Everypony knew the tale. The Jabberwock, a virtually indestructible monster feared even by dragonkind, was defeated by a brave Griffin who had forged a magic blade capable of destroying the beast. The story had even been turned into a poem that colts and fillies learned in grade school.

But despite the rather blunt detail that the beast was dead, Equestrians still feared the Jabberwock. When ponies talked of it, others listened. It had become something of a boogeyman to the inhabitants of Equestria, used by parents to scare their children into obeying. At one point Twilight herself had been told by parents that the Jabberwock would get her if she didn’t stop reading into the late hours of the night. Of course now she realized that they just wanted her to good night’s rest, but at the time she was so frightened that she would always sleep with her back to the wall.

Twilight took the books from her bag and gingerly set them on her desk. She glanced up as she heard someone enter the room.

“Hey Twilight,” said Spike. He glanced down at the books on the desk. “You went to Oddball’s place, huh?”

“Yes,” answered the unicorn, “I needed the book on Dragons to learn more about the attack.” Spike walked over to get a closer look.

“Too bad we didn’t know he had this before I went on that quest,” he said, “It would have saved us a whole lot of trouble.” He glanced over at the second book and, as Twilight had upon first seeing it, raised an eyebrow. “Jabberwocky?” Twilight shrugged.

“He gave it to me when I told him about the attack,” said the purple mare, “I don’t get it either.” Spike opened the book, and a small cloud of dust flew from the yellowed pages. There on the dry, stained sheets was an illustration of a lithe, scaly monster, something that looked so alien and grotesque that dragons refused to let it to be classified as one of their own.

“Jeez,” Spike said with a shudder, “I can’t believe they made a kid’s poem about this thing.” Twilight, upon hearing this factual error, could not for the life of her stand by and let it be uncorrected.

“Actually, Spike,” she said, “The poem was written to celebrate its defeat. Ponies back then were more appreciative of the arts. We only learn it early because it’s such an important part of pony history.” She added with a small smile, “And it also kind of sounds silly.”

“Silly?” Spike said with a skeptic air as he ran his eyes over the faded ink stanzas, “It’s insanity. How can anyone understand any of this? And what’s a Mome Rath?” Twilight shrugged as she opened A Historie Of Dragons.

“I’m not sure,” she said, “I think they’re creatures that lives in the Tulgey Wood. That’s where it the Jabberwock lived. Not many ponies like to go there.”

“So where is the Tulgey Wood?” Spike asked, his eyes still not looking away from the picture of the snarling beast.

“East Trottingha-” Twilight suddenly paused and looked up from her book, eyes wide and mouth agape.

Rainbow Dash was flying across the border of East Trottingham, crossing over to the western part of the country. She smiled as she soured through the clouds, looking down over the rolling hills peppered with groves of sparse trees. It was different from Ponyville, but still looked every bit as warm and inviting. The grass looked particularly soft, and Dash was very much tempted to land and take a quick nap on the green.

But not today. She had a job to do, as part of the Pegasus Express. She’d already visited five towns in the past half hour and warned them of the dragon attack, but there were still many more to go. Getting into the Pegasus Express had been easy for Dash--She was, after all, an exceptionally fast flyer. But they set the bar high when they looked for members, and only a fifth of all who tried out were ever admitted. Therefore, each Pegasus who became a member always had a high number of checkpoints to make. It was difficult work, but Dash found she enjoyed it, even though it was only used in emergencies such as the dragon attack.

As she flew over a small wooded grove, Dash thought back to what she had seen at the scene of the incident. Over half of the town had been burnt to the ground. Fortunately nopony was seriously hurt, but many were left homeless. Dash didn’t feel too worried about it. The ponies of Equestria were very generous and hard working, and she was certain that the town would be rebuilt with the help of nearby villages. But she was worried about the dragon. There had been no sighting of it since the disaster. Strangely, every pony Dash had spoken to at the town said that nopony had actually gotten a good look at the beast. They’d seen something huge and lithe come charging out of the nearby forest, but hadn’t stuck around long enough to see what it was. But it was quite clear that it was a dragon, judging from the amount of fire damage it had caused.

The beast growled as it heard a noise, dropping the young sapling it had been gnawing on. The noise it heard was familiar, but it couldn’t remember what it was. It was coming from a distance, but grew louder the closer it came. As it neared, the beast suddenly recalled what made that noise. They were the whistling of wings, wings that were attached to the flying equines. Upon remembering this, the creature also remembered what had happened the last time it encountered the equines. The memories this conjured up were unpleasant and painful, and kindled a smoldering grudge in the creature’s mind. Slowly, the beast began to rise up from the ground.

Something suddenly shot out of the treetops beneath Rainbow Dash. The Pegasus’s eyes went wide as she realized that it was too late to avoid a collision. She let out a short scream as she crashed into it, the force of the impact shaking her to her very core. The moment she hit it, a thunderous screech echoed across the valley. The Pegasus bounced off of whatever she had struck and fell onto the outstretched bough of an oak tree. She managed to grab a hold of the branch before she fell any further. Addled and frightened, the Pegasus looked around for whatever had knocked her from flight. It found her first. Dash’s line of vision was suddenly filled with a huge, scaly thing.

The beast let out an accusing roar as it looked at what had struck its neck. A small, bright blue equine stared up at it, mouth open and trembling. The creature’s head snaked forward until it was only a few feet away. Its nostrils flared as it took in the equine’s scent. All manner of strange, unfamiliar smells entered its sinuses. Suddenly the creature felt something strike it sharply on the forehead. Its massive eyelids snapped shut as its mouth opened in a ghastly shriek. When they opened again the equine was gone. Infuriated, the beast whipped around its head to look at the sky where it saw the Pegasus fleeing.

Rainbow Dash wore an expression of pure terror as she streaked across the sky faster than she’d ever flown before. Behind her she heard a monstrous bellow. A sudden rush of adrenaline forced her body to fly even faster. She’d seen something that she shouldn’t have seen. It shouldn’t have been alive, not in this day and age. But it was, and she had seen it. She had felt it. Though it had only been for a brief moment, Dash could still recall that the oily, scaly skin had been positively revolting to the touch. The Pegasus glanced behind her as another roar sounded off. She immediately wished she hadn’t. An enormous mouth with obtrusive chisel-like teeth was agape among the branches; a living cave in the treetops.

“Are you sure you wanna do this, Twilight?” Spike asked. Twilight nodded, but there was an uncertain look in her eyes as she peeked around the curtain into the town square. Nearly everypony in Ponyville waited out there, whispering to each other about the only thing on their minds: the dragon attack. Twilight was beginning to wonder if she should have called the town meeting at all. The news she was about to give them would only add to their worry. She didn’t have any real evidence to back up what she wanted to tell them, but it just wouldn’t feel right if she kept her suspicions to herself. There was too much at stake. If there was the slightest chance that the attack was really the work of the Jabberwock, then all of Equestria was in deep trouble.

“Are you ready, Twilight?” Twilight looked over to see the Mayor. She looked as apprehensive as everypony else, which made Twilight even more reluctant to share her thoughts with the citizens of Ponyville.

“Yes,” she answered with a forced smile. The Mayor returned her own forced smile.

“Alright then,” she said, “Let’s go get this started.” The two mares walked onto the stage, and the crowd’s nervous chatter began to die down. The Mayor climbed up on the podium and cleared her throat.

“Citizens of Ponyville,” she began, “I would like to thank you all for being here tonight. It’s been a very trying day, but I assure you, we needn’t panic. We have right here, in Ponyville, a mare who believes she might know something about the attack.” Twilight looked extremely sheepish as the Mayor said this. The audience turned their heads to look at her. “I now turn the podium to our very own Twilight Sparkle.” The Mayor stepped down, and Twilight took her place. She looked out over the sea of heads, and felt her face burn with nervousness. She took out the small pile of cue cards she’d made and began to read.

“Dear friends,” she said as she glanced out at the anxious crowd, “I’m glad you made it to the meeting. Now, I’m sure you’ve all heard about the dragon attack in Trottingham.” She paused for a moment and looked out at the crowd. She could feel all of their eyes looking at her. A bead of sweat ran down her forehead. “Now, I’ve been doing a little reading since then, and I have discovered something very important. There are no dragons in that particular region of Trottingham.” The unicorn paused again as the crowd let out a gentle murmur. Something seemed to hang in the air, an odd mix of confusion and disbelief. Still, Twilight felt it was her duty to continue and reveal her thoughts to the public.

“I know this sounds a little strange,” she said with an unintended voice crack, “But after going through some records earlier this morning, I found that there has never been a dragon seen in East Trottingham in all of recorded history. Nopony knows the reason as to why. Perhaps the environment doesn’t suit them, or perhaps--” she stopped for a moment as she flipped over a cue card, “Perhaps they consider it taboo to go near the Tulgey Wood.” The mention of the Tulgey Wood caused a minor uprising of voices. Though they whispered, they managed to drown out Twilight before she raised her voice again.

“I--uh, would like to put forth a theory presented by a colleague of mine,” said the purple mare, “That the creature that attacked the village was not, in fact, a dragon…” Here her face began to look like a deer caught in headlights. She stared out at the citizens of Ponyville, who eagerly awaited her idea. But now that she had finally come to it, Twilight couldn’t say it. She had originally intended to break the news as gently as possible, but only now realized that doing so was impossible. “I--uh…Well, the theory that my colleague had was that it was…It was… It was the--”

“JABBERWOCK!” screeched a familiar voice. Everypony looked up the night sky and saw a blue streak come from the edge of town, gaining momentum as it neared. Twilight barely managed to leap out of the way as it crashed into the stage. The unicorn looked over to see the form of Rainbow dash jumping up from a mess of broken boards, eyes and mane run wild. The Pegasus saw Twilight, and scrambled over to her. Twilight felt genuinely afraid of her friend as she was grabbed by the shoulders and pulled near. The unicorn grimaced as she realized that Dash was covered in some sort of strange, odd-smelling oil.

“Twilight!” screamed the hysterical Pegasus, “I saw it! I saw the Jabberwock! I saw it over in Trottingham! The Jabberwock is alive, and it’s out of the Tulgey Wood!” Dash turned to look out at the crowd. “The Jabberwock is loose! The Jabberwock--” she was suddenly stopped short when Twilight slapped her across the face. This promptly shut the Pegasus up. However, she instead began to shiver violently, so badly that she let go of her friend. Twilight looked out at the crowd. As she had expected, everypony looked utterly shocked and horrified, too terrified to make a sound.

The ensuing chaos that broke out seconds later would have made Discord proud.

Comments

[Armalite]

Cool story bro! And I'm not being sarcastic, this was really interesting! I look foward to more!

[RealityCheck]

gotta kvetch a bit about how Rainbow Dash "snapped out of it" "with a sheepish grin."
One does not simply snap out of hysterics like that after seeing a monster straight out of their worst foalhood nightmares chasing after them.

[SuperChaosKG]

Rainbow's a ham even when she's losing it.