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Chapter 3

After a a bit more frantic galloping around town, Pinkie Pie and Rarity had gathered the rest of the Elements of Harmony. Soon, the six heroic mares stood at the head of the path leading into the dreaded Everfree Forest, where nature was unnaturally independent of any pony's guiding hoof.

Fluttershy's gentle voice sounded from the back of the group, its source hidden behind Applejack with only a trailing pink curl of tail visible. "Oh... Poor Button Stitch. She must be so lost and afraid."

Rainbow Dash dusted off from the path and hovered above her friends, soothing her nerves in natural pegasus fashion by getting some air under her hooves. "Well I can't think of a better place for a freak pony than this freaky forest."

Applejack peered into the darkened woods, her nervousness apparent in the faint cracking of her voice. "Fer all we know she might like it in there just fine. Sure as sugar no sane pony would wanna go into th' Everfree at night."

Twilight Sparkle gave the blonde mare a reassuring smile. "Well, it's a good thing for Button Stitch that all the ponies in Ponyville are crazy, and the six of us are a little bit crazier than most. Lets go." She lit up her horn, casting a beam of illumination from its tip that cut through the gloom between the ominous trees that flanked the path ahead of them.

Rarity followed suit in lighting up her horn, but rather than a searching beam it spread a cool, soothing glow in a radius that enveloped the little group of mares, pushing back the encroaching shadows as they set out. She turned with an expectant look on her face to the pink mare bouncing along beside her. "Pinkie dear, are you able to track her?"

The bubbly party pony pursed her lips. "I lost the trail when she pulled that Jones-Maltese spatial-perceptual inversion. I guess we just have to wait 'til I start twitch-a twitch twitchin' again."

Twilight silently filed away yet another Pinkieism to the long list of confusing things the party pony said. She gave a curt nod, causing her beam to bob a little as she swept it back and forth. "I suppose the best we can do in the meantime is keep our eyes and ears open for anything unusual."

Applejack lashed her tail as she cast a fearful gaze about and swiveled her ears. "This whole durn place is unusual. It's like lookin' fer a needle in a haystack."

Pinkie Pie chimed in in agreement in her usual chipper voice. "Or looking for an unpredictable weirdo in a big scary forest. Maybe... Ooh!" She came to an abrupt stop, her eyes rolling up to stare at the top of her head as her ears began to flap. "My ears! My ears are floppy!"

Her companions stopped and turned their attention toward her, causing the pink mare to grimace and cover her eyes as Twilight accidentally flashed the beam from her horn in her face. The lavender unicorn gave an apologetic chuckle as she dimmed her search light. "Heh heh, sorry." She laid her hooves on the Pinkie's shoulders. "Is it Button Stitch? Is your Pinkie sense Pinkie sensing her?"

After a moment of staring at the pretty dancing spots in front of her eyes, the party pony shook her head as best she could against her ears' counter-oscillations. "Nope. This isn't a combo. Floppy ears all by themselves means that somepony's gonna need a bath soon. "

Rarity let out a frightened squeal and began nervously jogging in place, her glance darting in all directions. "No no NO! Please don't let it be me! PLEASE don't let it be me!"

The cotton candy colored mare squinted down the path ahead of them and pointed a hoof. "It's... it's her!"

Twilight intensified her beam and sent it in the direction Pinkie had indicated, where it illuminated a shadowy figure staggering toward them. The vague silhouette resolved into the familiar black and white patterns of a zebra they all knew quite well, but something seemed off. She took a few more shaky steps and collapsed.

The band of mares galloped over to help her as Applejack shouted out in alarm. "Zecora! Sweet cinnamon swirls, are you okay?"

Fluttershy was first to reach her, and crouched down to support her head with gentle hooves. The soft spoken pegasus let out a gasp. "She... she's all squishy with... p-paint?" She brought her butter colored hoof away to reveal a smear of grey across the bottom.

The zebra herbalist stirred and groggily raised her head with Fluttershy's assistance. A dazed smile stole across her face. "Ah, my Ponyville friends, what a sight for eyes quite sore." Her expression became haunted. "All I can say is: The horror! The HORROR!"

Twilight deactivated her light and leaned in to question the stricken zebra. "What happened?"

Zecora shuddered as she sat up. "Some sort of strange pony attacked in the night." She looked ruefully down at her sticky, dripping coat. "It... it made my white stripes black and my black stripes white."

Pinkie Pie reached out and swept a hoof along the zebra's side, smearing the inverted stripes in a streak of grey. She raised it to her mouth, took an experimental taste, and grimaced. "Eeugh. Technicolor..." Twilight and Applejack exchanged confused glances as the pink pony spat disgustedly to get the flavor out of her mouth.

A moment later she drew herself up, her eyes and ears fluttering and flapping in tandem once more. "Ah HAH! Got her!"

Rarity stood next to her, staring at the looming trees outside her circle of illumination. "Where? Where is she?"

The ponies and zebra's ears all perked up as a long, mournful, booming, and somehow incongruously effeminate bellow echoed through the darkness. Rainbow Dash jabbed a hoof in the general direction of the wailing. "That way!"

With that she darted out of the range of Rarity's glow before anypony could stop her. Twilight reared up, throwing out her beam after the brash pegasus' vanishing rainbow contrail. "Come on, everypony! We can't let her get lost too!"

Fluttershy called out, her soft voice raised in concern. "What about Zecora?"

The zebra climbed shakily to her feet with the gentle yellow pegasus' help. "The attack made me dizzy, but I'll be all right. It's best we get busy, and keep Rainbow in sight." She arched her back uncomfortably and shook away some loose drops of paint with a wan smile. "I'll deal with getting cleaned up later, you need my help, to track this invader."

Twilight took up the herbalist's fore hoof and gave it a grateful shake. "Thanks, Zecora, you're a friend indeed. Lets go!"

The lavender unicorn stuck out her tongue in disgust as she released her hoofshake, a smear of grey goo sticking to the bottom of her hoof. She paused to wipe it away on a patch of grass while her friends thundered out of the clearing. Her eyes widened in alarm as she realized she was being left behind, and she galloped away after their trailing tails. "Hey! Wait up!"

***

As the mares got closer, the tumultuous lament echoing over the treetops became more intelligible. "Bloo hoo hoo hoo hoooo! Why? WHY? Why does this always happen to meeee? What did my poor mou-stache ever do to anybody? I ASK you?" The sound of thrashing, boiling water became audible as the ponies cleared the tree line.

Ahead of them in the glimmer of the summer moonlight, a towering, sinuous form reared up out of the river with its back to the mares. Twilight's search light played across the giant water serpent's glittering purple scales as she and her companions skidded to a stop at the river's bank. Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be seen.

The lavender mare called out to him in a clear, polite voice. "Hello? Mister Serpent?"

Zecora nudged the bookish unicorn, leaving a dab of grey on her coat. "I've met this creature, and from what I perceive, he greatly prefers that you just call him Steve."

Twilight cast the zebra a bemused glance and called out to the river's massive denizen once more. "Um... Steve? What happened? Are you all right?"

The giant serpent reared back and threw his arms wide as he lamented to the sky above. "Of COURSE I'm not all right, you silly GOOSE! Oh it's all too horrible! What is this world coming to? Is it ME? Am I some kind of magnet for this sort of thing?"

Pinkie Pie gave an impatient little hop, her wide eyed gaze following his trailing orange pompadour as he wove back and forth in the throes of colossal melodrama. "What happened to your mustache this time?"

The vast and sinuous lord of the river rounded on them, tears welling in his huge staring eyes. "Some simply GHASTLY creature floated by and painted a mou-stache on it!" The assembled ponies stared up at him as he gestured at the flowing orange locks that streamed from his reptilian upper lip. A pair of thick black strokes had indeed been painted on one side in the shape of a mustache, making it look sort of like a huge carrot with raised eyebrows.

Applejack was the first to collect her thoughts. She shouted up to him. "Can't y'all just wash it off?"

The towering serpent bunched his shoulders and wrung his long, clawed hands. His lower lip trembled as his eyes glistened pathetically. "But... but I just spent three hours WAXING it..."

Twilight exchanged puzzled glances with Rarity, Fluttershy, and Zecora, before she stepped forward and cleared her throat. "Well, uh... Steve... We don't want to seem insensitive to your... your um... your problem, but we were wondering if you could tell us what direction the pony that... attacked your mustache might have gone? It's kind of important that we catch her."

Steve the serpent drew himself up and arched an eyebrow, throwing a thunderous finger snap toward the deeper forest on the ponies' side of the river before huffily crossing his arms with his mustachioed snout in the air. "I'll say it is! If I ever got my hands on that TACKY little rapscallion, I would give her SUCH a PINCH!" He gave a petulant jerk of his dragon-like head in the direction he'd snapped. "She went that-a-way."

The lavender unicorn nodded and smiled, humoring him as no pony had ever humored a three hundred hoof long river serpent before. "Thank you, Steve. We'll make sure to bring your grievances to her attention." She gave him a nervous grin and bobbed her horn. "Now if you'll excuse us, we also need to find a friend of ours, a pegasus pony with a rainbow colored mane and tail. Would she have passed this way as well?"

Steve formed a pensive S, planting a hand on a curve as he laid a finger on his cheek in thought. "Mmmm. Can't say... Sounds positively FABulous, though. I hope she doesn't get a mou-stache painted on her."

Before any of the ponies could respond, a sandy voiced scream echoed from the depths of the forest. Their heads whipped around in alarm, as Twilight cried out. "Rainbow Dash!"

They galloped away, as Steve let out a high pitched shriek of his own. "Oooo! Mercy me! The mou-stache marauder strikes again!" With that, he swooned into the river with a tremendous splash.

***

The band of ponies crashed headlong into a clearing and skidded to a stop with a collective gasp. Before their disbelieving eyes, they saw Rainbow Dash lying flat on her back with her wings and limbs splayed in a puddle of bright, sour green paint. She was coated from ears to tail tip in the stuff, and she gave a feeble groan as her maroon eyes fluttered open. Her fellow Elements of Harmony and their zebra companion rushed to her side.

Fluttershy crouched down and spoke urgently in her ear as the thoroughly painted pony stared up into space. "Rainbow Dash! Are you all right?"

Her fellow pegasus spoke in a dazed voice to nopony in particular. "Ughh. I feel so funky..."

She shook her head, snapping out of her reverie and flinging small globules of lime green paint in all directions. With a grunt she surged up to a seated position, leaving a perfect, Rainbow Dash shaped outline of bare dirt beneath her. She looked at her friends with wide, shellshocked eyes as she told her tale. "She... she jumped me! The giant snake thing was back there throwing a big hissy fit about his mustache or something, so I decided to grab some altitude and do a wide angle search pass. I spotted her drifting along the riverbank and she ducked into the tree line. I didn't wanna let her get away, so I dove in after her thinking I could maybe catch her and, well... I guess she caught me instead. It all happened so fast, I felt like I was inside a cyclone."

She climbed shakily to her hooves and grimaced, her wings hanging down limply over her paint drenched sides. "This is really gross."

Zecora gave a snort and nodded in weary agreement, her coat, tail, and mane forming ragged spikes as the globbed on black and white paint began to dry and crack over her shivering frame. "Tell me about it, I surely don't doubt it..."

Pinkie Pie looked around with a grave expression on her face, thrown a bit off kilter by her fluttering eyes and ears. "I'm beginning to think our job isn't to save Screwball from the Everfree Forest so much as it is to save the Everfree Forest from Screwball."

Almost on cue, a harsh, bestial roar shook the trees around them.

Applejack let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm gettin' mighty tired o' playin' scream tag with this ornery critter."

Zecora hunched her shoulders nervously. "That sounded like a wyvern, my knees are a shiverin'."

At this, all the ponies turned and gave her a flat stare. The zebra herbalist huffed and scowled back at them. "I've been mugged, run around, and am covered in slime. YOU go through that then try to make a good rhyme!"

Before anypony could reply, another roar sounded out, answered in turn by a sound reminiscent of a train whistle blowing at full steam and punctuated by a noise like a grand piano dropping into a swimming pool full of ducks.

Without another word the search party charged toward the commotion.

***

The seven mares came to a stop at the edge of a wide creek bed, aghast at the confrontation that unfolded before them. Their bizarre quarry, the roiling pink and purple manifestation of chaos in pony form, was faced off against one of the savage denizens of the wild forest, circling one another in tense anticipation of a fight.

The monster that the equinoid thing faced was nearly the size of one of the smaller houses in Ponyville, a nightmarish mass of thorny scales and gnarled armor plates resembling a cross between a dragon and an angry cockerel, with two scaly, wickedly clawed feet, a pair of huge, bat like wings, a lashing, bladed tail, and a gaping serrated beak. Its natural coloration was a mottled mix of rust and dark brown, except for its head and neck which had been painted a bright yellow with black and white checkered stripes in the fashion of a taxicab.

By the venomous glare in its baleful red eyes, it wasn't at all happy about it either, and quite prepared to take its anger out on the pink and purple interloper that now stared back with a wildly spinning gaze and yellow paint dripping off the tip of its swirling tail. The wyvern drew in a breath, and let out another roar, the hot wind from its gaping beak causing the little propeller on the pony thing's beanie to twirl.

Pinkie Pie took in the scene with wide, horrified eyes and raised her hooves to her mouth. "Oh no! It's going to gobble her up like a blintz!"

In reply to the wyvern's challenge, the floating ponyoid tucked a hoof under its armpit and squeezed out a strangely aggressive sounding rendition of "Shave and a Mane Cut, Two Bits".

Before the onlooking ponies or its scaly foe could even blink, the pink equimonculous opened its mouth impossibly wide and swallowed the monster in a single gulp, instantly stretching into a huge, rubbery, wyvern shaped bag with boneless seeming pony legs and a tail dangling down around its circumference. A bulge in the lumpy shape's side bearing the vague outline of the engulfed creature's wicked beak stirred and let out a muffled, thoroughly confused chirp.

Applejack stared at the battle's unlikely victor, her right eye twitching slightly. "I did NOT see that one comin'... at ALL."

Fluttershy let out an outraged gasp and launched into the air with a powerful flap of her wings. She glided around the big, writhing, pink lump, leveling a steely, aquamarine gaze into the swirling eyes of the distorted pony face that stretched across the opposite side. "You spit that right out! Do you hear me? Spit it out!"

The stretched out ponyform flailed its limbs, attempting to escape the stern faced pegasus' legendary Stare. The gigantic creature fitfully struggling inside kept its captor quite firmly anchored in place, and after a few feeble attempts to rise off the ground and float away, the fugitive equimorph sounded a mournful harmonica sound.

Fluttershy reared back and planted her hooves on her hips. "This nonsense ends right now. Don't make me count to three!"

With that, her Stare became more intense, so much so that her friends standing on the edge of the creek bed could barely look in her direction without feeling an overpowering urge to apologize for everything they'd ever done wrong and promise to do better.

A shuddering vibration shook the distorted pink shape, and twin bulges popped out on its face at the corners of its mouth as its swirling eyes crossed and went wide. A split second later, with a resounding FLAP, the rubbery pink mass turned itself inside out and snapped into the unconscious form of Button Stitch, releasing the captive monster out onto the creek bed with a thud. The beige mare hung in the air facing the watching ponies for a moment with glazed, uncomprehending eyes before falling limply to the muddy ground and laying still.

The disgorged wyvern sat blinking in stunned disbelief, as Fluttershy hovered in and laid a gentle hoof on one of its spine studded shoulders, speaking to it in a soothing tone of voice as if she were comforting a tiny bunny or baby chipmunk. "There there, it's all right. You're safe and sound."

The primordial monster was having none of it, however, and it scrambled to its feet and bolted, frantically flapping its leathery wings and crying "Yipe yipe yipe yipe." as it blundered through the dark forests leaving a trail of snapped trees and trampled undergrowth in its wake.

The six mares and their zebra companion stood in a circle around the insensate form of the errant earth pony, looking wanly at one another and down at the object of their frantic, and now successful, search. She let out a barely audible mumble as a tear pooled at the corner of her eye. "D-daven... port..."

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