Grace before Mealtime

by helmet of salvation

2. Captive Audience

His pursuit of the fillies thwarted, the manticore turned his attention to Pinkie Pie, charging after her with a long, low, angry roar. The fleeing earth pony responded by melodiously vibrating her outstretched tongue, partly to goad the beast and partly to quell the sense of primal terror she unexpectedly felt paralysing her limbs. "Can't catch me," she chirped for good measure.

A jet of flame singed the tip of her tail.

"Oh that's right, you don't have to." Pinkie unleashed a falsetto scream of panic and galloped ever harder, ducking down the side of an abandoned shed near the forest perimeter. The manticore raced after her only to find another pony mare in his path: an alicorn, or winged unicorn, with a purple coat and deep purple and majenta-striped mane and tail. She did not flee but stood her ground, head bowed and wings flared in an unmistakable display of challenge.

The manticore's eyes gleamed. The few prey animals who had dared face him in the past did not live long to regret their recklessness. He slowed his approach to give himself time to slip under her single-horned charge and seize her by the throat.

But there was no charge. There was no alicorn. She had not taken to the air nor darted to the side, she had simply disappeared. In her place was an orange-coated earth pony mare, galloping straight towards him, clutching a whirling lasso between her teeth. Staggered by this turn of events, the predator reflexively coughed out a stream of fire.

Applejack lowered her lasso and expertly guided it around the trajectory of the fire, without so much as singing the rope. She leapt past the manticore's head and ran behind him, drawing the lasso tight around his maned neck. The beast turned to follow her but was caught as if in a tangle of vines. Twisting wildly, he saw that Princess Twilight Sparkle, the vanishing alicorn, had re-materialised behind him. Unfamiliar with Equestrian magic, he had no way of knowing that she had cast a holding spell on him; nonetheless, he instinctively sensed she might somehow be responsible for his predicament.

He was not completely immobile, however. He thrashed his scorpion-like tail, shooting razor-sharp spikes at his captors. Applejack frantically but agilely danced and weaved away from the barrage. Twilight Sparkle, forced to concentrate on her spell, was more hampered in her movements and could not evade the oncoming barbs for much longer. A change of schedule was required.

"Rarity!"

About time, thought the ivory-coated unicorn as she galloped from the gloom of the derelict shed. She wanted to fight alongside her friends, not lurk on the sidelines like some dam in distress. Especially not in that dreadful old shed, with its horrid smells and beastly cobwebs and ...

A double-barrelled fusillade of spikes and flame streamed towards her. Rarity vaulted gracefully over them, shutting out the pain of the flames' radiant heat, and took her place between her two companions. She directed her spiralled horn towards the monster's sweeping tail. Her magic telekinesis was nowhere near as strong as Twilight Sparkle's but it was enough to force the tail away from the three ponies and back towards the creature.

"I think a spiralling effect would look fabulous, don't you?" Deftly, Rarity remotely twisted the manticore's tail into a tight spiral, arresting its movement and blocking the release of any more spikes. Applejack gratefully lifted her rope towards Rarity, who bit down on a section and dug her hooves into the earth. Pinkie Pie was there too—how she made her way past the manticore, her friends neither knew nor particularly cared at that moment—and did as Rarity did.

The predator stopped struggling. His tremendous power and speed came at the expense of stamina, and he sensed that further resistance at this stage would only exhaust him. Better to regain his strength and breath, find out what these ponies intended to do with him, and wait for the right moment to catch them off their guard and break free.

A shadow passed over the manticore. He looked up and almost reeled in astonishment at the sight of a dense raincloud looming a few feet above his head. Clouds did not come nearly this close to the ground in the Everfree Forest. Neither did they carry creatures atop them. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had ridden the cloud back to the battleground, having safely deposited the Cutie Mark Crusaders at Ponyville's observation tower. Rainbow peered smugly over the edge of the cloud, ready to douse any more flames that the manticore might loose. Fluttershy alighted from the cloud and hovered directly in front of the beast's dire face, hairless save for his eyebrows, maxilla and chin. The fear and self-doubt she had felt during her rescue of Sweetie Belle were completely absent as she held the manticore with a stern, even glare.

"What is the meaning of this?"

The manticore froze. No prey animal - no non-manticore creature at all - had ever communicated with him on such a level before. What was more, the pony's voice, despite its dainty, delicate femininity, carried a distinct air of authority. In spite of himself, the monster felt compelled to listen.

"The nerve of you," Fluttershy continued indignantly, "chasing after those poor little fillies, fighting their protectors, starting a forest fire. Explain yourself".

The manticore lunged forward as far as his restraints would allow and let loose a long, loud, low-pitched and aggressive roar. A sense of uncanny dread began to permeate Twilight Sparkle, seizing up her muscles, sapping her strength. Just in time, she became aware of the sensation and fought to keep her focus on her spell. My friends are counting on me, she told herself. It's just a noise. Noise can't hurt you. Noise. Cannot. Hurt. You.

"I understand that you have as much right to eat as we ponies do," Fluttershy replied, her voice less angry yet no less firm, "but this is Ponyville, in Equestria. Your hunting grounds are in the Everfree Forest".

Again the manticore lunged and roared ferociously. Twilight Sparkle almost buckled under the wave of terror that washed over her, almost lost control over her spell. Furious with herself for quailing at such a crucial time, she let her anger take the place of her fear until her strength returned, then renewed her concentration.

"Well I'm sorry if prey has been elusive in your territory lately," exclaimed Fluttershy, as a parent to a child misbehaving over a lost toy, "but if things were that desperate I would have been only too happy to help you. All you had to do was look for the property filled with critters. It shouldn't have been that hard to figure out".

The manticore responded with another roar, but shorter and noticeably quieter than the others, although still loud. Also, he did not lunge this time.

"No. You march straight back into that forest and think about what you've done. I'll meet you back here at lunchtime, if you're ready to behave, and we'll see about finding you some alternative source of nourishment. Now go."

Fluttershy pointed her hoof emphatically towards the forest, then nodded to her friends on the ground, who warily released the manticore from his bonds. The creature gave Fluttershy one last, lingering look then started back towards the forest.

"Wait!"

The manticore halted. Fluttershy's friends watched tensely as the delicate pegasus walked virtually unprotected towards the manticore's head.

"You still have a couple of sugared almonds stuck in your mane. Here, let me get those out for you."