62 The Arena Champion, Part One
Twilight Sparkle braces herself, her legs tensing as she closes her eyes - a precaution against blinding or mind control - mentally preparing herself for the unexpected. Her ears twist one way and then another as she runs through her list of shield spells: which would be most effective against an incoming pegasus, or torrent of water, or magical bolt from some heretofore unknown enemy lurking in their midst. Is she vulnerable to a sonic attack? Could she charge a defensive teleport back to the library? Should she bring her Friends? Did she want to risk precharging, and potentially misfire if her concentration is broken?
After a moment Twilight cautiously opens one eye, then the other, looking around at the town. Still safely in the center of Ponyville, town hall just to her north and bridge across the river to the south. The Ponyvillians seem to have gone back to their daily business, no longer walking in lockstep with each other, just generally milling about the marketplace as if everything is just fine. Which it is, of course. Why wouldn’t everything be just fine?
“Y’all right there, Sugarcube?” Applejack asks as she walks up to the slightly twitchy unicorn. “Ya seemed mighty worried that something bad were ‘bout to happen.”
“Oh, nothing’s wrong,” Twilight says, her nervous chuckle so obvious that Applejack doesn’t even need to raise an eyebrow. “Just had a sense, you know.”
“Like a Pinkie Sense?” Pinkie Pie asks as she leaps out of the river, shaking herself dry, her mane instantly regaining its poofiness.
A thoroughly drenched Twilight frowns as she glares at Pinkie Pie. Well, she would be glaring if her wet mane wasn’t completely covering her eyes. She slowly lets the breath out, reminding herself that this is her Friend she is thinking about. Though how she can do half the stuff she is purported to do, and that Twilight has observed, definitely needs investigating. But not today. Today is going to be just fine, and she’d like to keep it that way.
“Darling, you really must come to expect this sort of thing,” Rarity says as she steps out from behind Twilight, completely dry. She flicks her mane back as if imagining that her mane is the one soaking wet. What a travesty! A crime against fashion!
Twilight huffs to herself; she had even been preparing to defend against some sort of torrent of water! How did she lose focus so easily? She should have been ready for this!
Rainbow Dash flies over, no longer accompanied by the two Wonderbolt instructors. “Need any help?” she asks as she inspects Twilight’s soaking form. “Just thought I’d make sure this time before hitting you up with a blow job.”
Twilight closes her eyes, if only for a brief second. It works better than her heat spells, at least. “Fine. But be quick about it.”
“Don’t know any other way!” Rainbow exclaims, her patented Rain Blow-Dry enveloping Twilight in a tornado of water-sucking power. Now dry, but with mane and coat askew, Rainbow swaps from suck to blow, a wave of heated wind aimed directly at the purple unicorn. The pony powered blow dryer calms the unruly mane and coat, smoothing and straightening the hairs.
“Wow,” Twilight says, more than a little impressed at the improvement. “You been practicing that?” She grins as Rarity pulls a brush through her mane, helping restore her prefered manestyle.
“Nah, I’m just a natural!” She pauses for a second before adding, “Well, listening to Doug theorize with Trixie helped too.” Rainbow looks around as they continue to the south end of town; she bluntly asks, “So, what’s over there? Didn’t we want to head back to Sweet Apple Acres?”
“Spike should be arriving on the morning train,” Twilight explains as she waves at Fluttershy, the yellow pegasus chatting with a few birds as she walks into town. Fluttershy waves back, the birds taking off as she joins the back of the pack.
“Oh. Okay.” Rainbow, along with the rest of the herd, nuzzles Fluttershy as they arrive at the train station. Rainbow whispers to Rarity, the unicorn nodding and moving with Twilight to the raised platform. Rarity begins chatting with Twilight, perhaps a little louder than necessary, asking about what kind of heat and wind spells she could perform, and how perhaps they might be used to style their own manes.
Rainbow pulls Applejack off to the side; Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy listen closely as the two quickly divulge the events of last night. Each pony quietly gasps a few times, though everypony’s head turns at Applejack’s loud guffaw at Rainbow’s suggestion. The four quiet down at Rarity and Twilight’s stare, eyes wandering around and whistling like nothing is going on.
Soon enough the sharp whistle of the morning train pierces through the hustle and bustle of the small town. Spike steps off the train, raising one eye at the six mares there to greet him. “Let me guess,” he says, barely repressing his sarcastic tone, “something happened last night.”
“Ya could say that,” Applejack says before anypony else can speak - Twilight looks ready to explode, but is barely holding herself back - “but, so we only have to explain it all once, we should head back to the farm. How was your trip to Canterlot?” Applejack grabs Spike’s overnight bag, easily lifting it to her back as she heads towards Sweet Apple Acres.
“Right.” Spike nods in thanks before he realizes that Applejack asked him a question. “Oh, that? It was fine. Just got Princess Luna’s mailing address, as it were. And Princess Cadance, it just so happens, should we ever need to talk to her.” Spike shrugs, trying not to look at Twilight, “Not that you’ll need to send a letter to either of them, but who knows. Maybe something big is in the works. Or you just want to catch up. You never know.” He nervously coughs; fortunately Twilight isn’t paying too much attention to his facial expressions, but Pinkie Pie looks ready to stuff somewhere between three and half a dozen cupcakes down his throat if he spoils Princess Cadance’s secret. But it isn’t his fault he had trouble getting to sleep and was wandering around the balcony and spotted her and Twilight’s brother talking!
“Mmhmm,” Twilight replies, still successfully containing her excitement. Could she teleport all seven of them to Sweet Apple Acres? She can probably take four, including herself, without too much trouble. But three teleports back to back to back would be tough. Ugh, why do these blasted ponies have to build so far away from each other, and then walk everywhere?! At least Rainbow has the sense to be flying. Oh, and she almost forgot! “Spike, can you mail this to the Princess for me?” She adds with a small smile, “Celestia, that is.”
“So, where’s Doug?” Spike asks, now slightly annoyed at Twilight’s lack of attention, though he dutifully takes the dozen or so pages, lighting them with a puff of green smoke. “Why’s he waiting at the farm?”
Rainbow flies a little closer as she explains, “Oh, I think he’s practicing some magic tricks with Trixie. Working on his delivery.”
Twilight snorts, though Spike huffs at how she pays attention to Rainbow and not him. Twilight says, a touch of disbelief in her voice, “That happen at the end of their disappearing act?”
Rainbow shakes her head, “No, I think he’s splitting her in half.”
Twilight’s cheeks rise to her eyes as her face scrunches up. A bewildered look crosses her face as she searches for the answer to her own question. But, without coming up with anything, she says, “How are those any different?”
“Wow, you really are clueless about how a magic show works, aren’t you?” Rainbow chuckles as they arrive at the farm. Though if last night Trixie hadn’t run through her routines, explaining a lot of the subtler tricks to Doug and herself, she might not have known the difference either.
Doug is standing on the top porch of the Carrot House. Two crates set on wooden dollies are separated in front of him. A pair of blue hind legs jut out at odd angles from one of them, occasionally shifting around, while Trixie’s head and forelegs stick out of the other. Trixie smiles as the seven approach and sit down nearby, her attempt at waving a foreleg impeded by the slightly too small cutouts in the wooden box. Doug spins the two crates around, showing that slightly blurry cross section of mare split in two, as he wheels the two crates back together. Trixie’s hind legs withdraw into the box, her head and forelegs following shortly after before the blue unicorn pulls open the top hatch and hops out.
Twilight gapes. Doug could split Trixie in two and then put her back together? She saw the hind legs moving! The two crates were completely separated! This isn’t possible! She raises a hoof accusingly as the ponies around her politely stomp their hooves, ignoring the impossibility of everything. It-
“Extraction successful.”
Meringue hops out of the second crate. Twilight’s eye twitches in realization as she exclaims, “You had a second pony in the crate, moving the legs?!”
Doug shakes his head at Meringue’s early departure, but how was she supposed to know to stay in there until the next trick? He nods to Twilight as he rubs the filly’s head encouragingly, “Yup! Midget in a box. Or, in this case, young pony. I mean, I can’t do actual magic, so, you know, have to make do and all.”
Twilight spins to Trixie, glaring at the smug smirk on the blue unicorn’s muzzle. “Is that how you performed the feat, oh great and powerful Fakesie? I thought you were supposed to be this colossus, this great and powerful thing, and yet Doug can perform just as well as you, if not better!”
Trixie snorts, “While Doug may have needed assistance to perform his trick magicless, you will find no such filly during the Great and Powerful Trixie’s great and magical performances. I’m afraid you’ll just have to keep searching for the correct solution.”
“Aargh!” bellows Twilight, pulling at her mane while her eyes twitch. How is this trick, and this mare, so infuriating?
“So,” Doug says loudly, breaking Twilight out of her funk. He smiles knowingly, glancing to Rainbow, “I take it you have something you’d like to announce?”
“Yup!” shout both Trixie and Twilight. They exchange a slightly surprised glance as both of them announce, “I would like to join the herd!” They both gasp, turning to glare and point a hoof accusingly at the other. “You!”
Rainbow and Applejack smirk to each other, though everypony is surprised as Spike exclaims, “WHAT?”
Silence pervades the Carrot House as the ponies all glance around, none as surprised as Twilight.
“You did what now?” Spike gasps, one eye squinting so hard he can feel the blood vessels in his scalp about to pop.
“I-I’m asking to join the Apple Herd, Spike. With the rest of the Elements of Harmony.” Twilight starts to go into lecture mode, “I realized last night, when I was… with Applejack and Rarity. That they are my Friends, and that I wanted to be with them, together with them, in every way possible.” Twilight smiles at Doug, though Trixie looks a little envious as Twilight moves over and gets an ear scratch.
Spike exclaims, as if he hadn’t listened to a word Twilight said, “I leave for one Luna stricken day and you get engaged? About to be married? Do you even know how many foals he wants with you?”
“Spike!” Twilight admonishes, turning her head down just enough to peer at the small dragon over her snout. “You shouldn’t use Princess Luna’s name like that!”
“Two,” Trixie quietly answers, nopony really paying attention to her. “Though he is happy with less, or more, as we want.” She moves over to Doug as well, his free hand moving to her head and mane, curling into the gray swirls.
Spike shouts, his claws spread wide, “I’ll use whichever Princess’s name I want, however I want! Get ahold of yourself, Twilight, and think about what you’re doing!”
Twilight pulls back, doing a poor job of stifling her sniffling. “Somehow, Spike, I thought you’d be happier for me. That I had finally found a pony. No, a group of ponies, of friends, that I wanted to be with. That I know I belong with.”
“Playing the guilt card a little hard there, Twilight,” Spike grunts out, crossing his claws across his chest. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t do this. It just seems like you haven’t considered everything. Like, what’s this going to mean for me? I didn’t ask for a new sire in my life! How can you do this without even asking me what I wanted?” Spike huffs, “And how do you know they all even want you in the herd? Huh?”
“Oh, no, that was basically a done deal,” Pinkie Pie interjects, nodding her head furiously. “Basically since, um, she dropped out of the sky. Like, literally, Rainbow Dash saw you and was so flabbergasted that you fit all the criteria so perfectly that she crashed into you like Celestia crashes into a bakery going out of business.”
Somewhere in Canterlot, Princess Celestia raises both eyebrows in alarm as one of her early attempts at Equestria wide threat detection and monitoring goes off. She needs to check the bakery board, pronto!
“Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash says exasperatedly before huddling next to the pink mare, whispering, “You aren’t supposed to tell them that!”
“Tell us what exactly?” Spike asks in that deadpan of his, wishing again he had an eyebrow to raise. Maybe a small mustache above each eye would suffice.
Pinkie Pie nods, crouching down to whisper in Spike’s ear, “Oh, just the five criteria that the sixth member of our herd would need. And six mares is the perfect number of mares, too! She needed to be a bookish unicorn who is crazy powerful but doesn’t like showing off that power. Oh, and is a different coat color than the rest of us.”
Spike gapes at Pinkie Pie for a few seconds as Rainbow slams a hoof into her forehead. “But, Trixie doesn’t meet, like, any of those requirements.”
“Her blue, azure, is not the same shade of blue, cerulean, as Rainbow Dash,” Rarity huffs, tired of having to explain the difference.
“She is a unicorn,” Fluttershy meekly corrects.
Pinkie Pie leans in close, “But what if she found a mysterious amulet that gave her the power of an alicorn? Would she still not be a unicorn then?” Pinkie Pie taps a hoof against her chin, “Or, what if she became an alicorn? Would she still qualify?”
Spike, along with the rest of the ponies, mostly ignores Pinkie Pie. “Fine, but she still fails, like, three of them.”
“I thought you were arguing against Twilight joining, not Trixie,” Rainbow Dash says, though she stumbles a little as Applejack elbows her in the side.
“Oh yeah,” Spike says, considering how else he can object to Twilight making such a drastic move.
“Stop helping him!” Applejack admonishes, Rainbow grinning sheepishly. Applejack turns to Spike, “Look, Ah know it’s a little sudden, and Ah’m sure Twilight will be able to explain, in gory detail, all that happened last night. But, right now we got two new members to induct in.”
Applejack steps away from the cluster of ponies and dragon, turning to Doug, Twilight and Trixie. They are watching her, obviously having heard everything that transpired, though Doug looks like he had to tilt an ear forwards to do so. Applejack smiles and nods, acknowledging Trixie before she turns to Twilight. “Ah’ll need ya to ask a little more formally, Twi.”
“Hey!” Trixie yells, her happy smile turning to a frowning pout. “How come Twilight is first? Trixie doesn’t want to be stuck as junior mare!”
“It’s not that bad!” Pinkie Pie exclaims, pronking up and down.
“You’re right, Trixie!” Rainbow Dash says, far too quickly for anypony’s comfort. “I just wish there was some way for us to determine who should be first.” She pauses for a brief moment before appending, “Well, sixth.”
“Yes!” Trixie exclaims, her mane bobbing up and down along with her head. “We need something to determine just who is the greatest and worthiest!”
Rainbow Dash hops up as Applejack smirks, hovering a few feet off the ground as she throws her hooves into the air. She shouts, “We need an IRON PONY competition!”
Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie nod along, quickly joined by Rarity. Spike seems to be considering something, lost in thought. Doug smirks before he nods along as well; he says, “That sounds great, but what exactly is an Iron Pony competition?”
Twilight shakes her head, interrupting Applejack’s response, “I don’t mean to ruin your fun and all, but we don’t need to go through with this. I’m fine being junior mare.”
Rainbow Dash huffs, crossing her forelegs. “Twilight, if you want to be a part of this herd, you’re going to have to embrace a little competition, okay?” She frowns at the unicorn’s unsure expression, moving in closer to say, “Do it for me, okay?”
“Okay, Rainbow, I’ll compete in this,” Twilight says, a slight eye roll accompanying her longsuffering smile.
Applejack steps forward, glad the competition is still on, “It’s a series of athletic contents to decide who is the best! Once and for all!”
Rainbow Dash nods, “And while Applejack or I might trounce either of you, it’s two unicorns competing, so it’ll be fair!”
“Hey!” Trixie exclaims with a frown, “Unicorns can do just as well as earth ponies or pegasi in these events! We can beat you!”
Rainbow Dash raises an eyebrow, “Really? ‘Cause, Applejack and I are, like, the number two and number one athlete in Ponyville.”
“You sure it ain’t in all of Equestria?” Applejack says with a smirk, bumping her head against Rainbow’s.
Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes, “Hey, after I call out Trixie on puffing herself up? Trying to be modest over here.”
Applejack turns to Trixie and Twilight, “We should be able to set this up lickety-split!”
“The most athletic unicorn in all of Equestria is looking forward to it!” Trixie exclaims, though she quails a little at Applejack’s admonishing glare. “The most athletic unicorn in Ponyville?” She hunkers down a little more as the glare continues, “At Sweet Apple Acres?”
“Ah’ll allow that,” Applejack says, though Rarity huffs a little. Applejack whispers to Rarity, “Well, you are looking forward to it, ain’t ya?” which draws a smile from the white unicorn.
“NO!” shouts Spike, his resolve sticking through the ponies turning to stare at him. “I mean, you think that six mares is the perfect number, right?” He needs some way to delay Twilight; what if this is a big mistake?
“Right!” yells Pinkie Pie; while the other ponies turn to briefly to regard her, there are the hints of nods in agreement. Or at least consideration.
“Well,” Spike says, his mind whirring, “What if the loser… has to leave Ponyville forever?!”
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Damn it Spike. Can somepony dope slap him please. Then again I hope Twilight puts a stop to this competition to deal with Spike. He should be her first priority and right now he is acting exceptionally foalish and his bad attitude needs to be addressed. Hopefully Doug will catch this and put a stop to it.
Okay, Here is where the Adults Reign in Spike.
A Friendly Competition to determine a nebulous standing in a herd all of the Adults agreed to join is one thing.
A contest to determine who stays or Goes when Both want to Join and the rest of the Adult herd is agreeable.No just No.
You're just going to have to get yourself another magician, that's all.
9580081
I love it when people catch the references thrown in
My mind went into a sexy directions
9619367
My work here is done.
Why is the human not saying anything?
9910492
He believes the mares can work it out. Or, when it's between Twilight and Spike, that it isn't really his place to interfere.
Expectations: friggin’ subverted
Love the comedic timing here
Awww. Poor Spikey-Wikey. I take it he’s just jealous that Twilight’s time and attention will be split between him and the herd
He does raise a valid point that it’s really rude of Twilight not to consult with his #1 favorite assistant before making such a big decision. I hope they reconcile!
10059849
If there is a sentence that sums up this series. That and heartwarming and/or adorable.
*grabs Spikie, hogties him, then gets Pinkie to shove him into Pinkiespace* Damn baby dragons. Can't live with them, can't figure out a way to make them into the perfect imitation of a robot.
10059849
Assistant is the key word there. While he technically is like a brother of sorts to Twilight that doesn't mean she needs to consult him about joining Herd Apple. Now if she was volunteering Spike to join then yes Spike should definitely be consulted first. But it's not for him to question her decision, if anything Shining Armor would have the right to but considering he doesn't even think of letting Twilight know about his impending marriage I got rule in Twilight's favor.
Lol. Spike is just upset because then Sweetie Belle becomes his Step-Sister
The increase of humor since Trixie’s arrival has been marvelous.
That’s bullshit and everyone knows it, I’m 99.9% sure that if it goes down Trixie will lose and that could lead to dark thoughts while wandering alone, which will lead him to get the Alicornium necklace and amplify those thoughts by turning it into hate and returning to retrieve the "legitimizing of him" and trying to sweep the whole herd into nothingness... That or just break up on good terms, spend some seasons and see again a successful Trixie and all (including Trixie) lament what happened years ago but still all end as friends
9911327
Is it not his herd too? Didn't he promise Rainbow to be more assertive? Doug feels like such a non-entity so much, just standing around with his limp dick in his hand while the plot happens around him.