Munching Rainbows

by Frozen

Ms. Pie's sense for preparedness

Spike returned from Rarity’s boutique and strolled nimble-footed into the library.

“Ahh, right on time Spike. Come here and I’ll show you something...” She greeted without moving her eyes off the board in front of her. The unicorn focused on the pinboard that was plastered in pictures that came with the reports Celestia had forwarded to her shortly before Spikes depart.

“Look Twi, what Rare has made for me!” The dragon lifted up his dragon tail and ogled a gem encrusted bracelet that stuck at the tip of his tailspike.

“Oh how thoughtful of her! Did you find enough gems so she can deliver her first big order of exclusive nightgowns in time? And more importantly - did you take pictures of the scene?”

“Yeah, we could find enough gems to make up for the stolen ones. And to answer your second question: a gentle dragon never tells...” the dragon had put on an absent smile.

“I’m not sure if I want to question what is on your mind either, but I’m talking about photographic evidence...” Twilight clarified.

“Those pictures weren’t photographic at all! She is a graceful mare and knows it is best to stay classy.” The dragon sharply replied, turning his back on the librarian.

A few moments later, a dictionary engulfed in a purple aura tapped against the scales of the baby dragon. “You honestly should look up the definition of ‘photographic’ - you’re in for a surprise...” the lavender unicorn advised her assistant, trying to contain herself.

The dragon grabbed the book and read the passage that was highlighted. Slightly blushing he sucked air through his teeth, then approached Twilight, handing her pictures of the destroyed property while avoiding eye-contact.

The unicorn that had been recently assigned to investigate the reports of damaged and missing property nodded, satisfied as she attached a picture that consisted of a wide angle shot showing the interior of the dressmaker’s shop to the board. She was confident of her theory that ruled out the parasprites from the list of potential suspects.

“Spike, please think back to the day we started cleaning up after the parasprites. They had caused extensive damage all over Ponyville. Now, take a look at these pictures and tell me: Do you see anything like that?” Twilight knew the answer, but she wanted an independent opinion.

“Uhmm... I guess so, there are bite marks all over the place.”

“Let’s take a look at the details...” Twilight flipped the pin board and presented him with several magnified and enhanced copies of the previously shown pictures.

“See here...” Twilight levitated a small red marble and let it circle in front of a picture that Spike immediately recognised as the Sugar Cube Corner’s kitchen.

“Can you explain to me how parasprites are supposed to cover the whole kitchen in flour? It is implausible that they created this mess using only the flap of their little wings.” The unicorn now was fully engaged in presenting the gathered evidence.

“But there are other inconsistencies, like this...” The marble floated over to another picture and tapped against it, now circling around a bunch of bouquets that had been piled up in a front of a display inside the local florist’s shop. Twilight sent a questioning look to Spike, that was still confused about the conclusions she made.

“Does this look to you like the result of a parasprite eating frenzy? Even if you’d assume that this was done by a single parasprite, there is no way that they would have spent time on throwing the flowers onto one big pile while eating the vases. The creatures that we suspect have no will of their own - they act on pure instinct. Eat. Sleep. Multiply. As simple as that.” Twilight let these words simmer, as she hoped that her assistant would pick up on the consequences these insights had.

“That means...” the dragon slowly said, still not quite grasping the implications of Twilight's words.

The unicorn let the marble float back onto the table while the dragon stretched his words hoping the well read element of magic would cut him off and continue with her explanation before he ran out of words.

The door was pushed open and the mailmare entered, conveniently ending the need for Spike to pretend that he had an answer.

Derpy put down a paper bag that bared the logo of Sugar Cube Corner and explained to Twilight that Rainbow Dash had sent her to deliver this package. Twilight opened up the bag and found familiar ochre slime within.

“Where... Where did she get this?” Twilight asked and lifted her eyes towards the grey pegasus.

“Hmm...” The pegasus scratched her mane in a pensive manner.

Twilight was getting a bit impatient at the thought that she had yet to write her report for princess Celestia. But the arrival of the grey pegasus would prove to be a very fortunate coincidence.

Derpy continued to scratch her mane with growing vigor, until a parasprite tumbled out of it. The flushed out insect started to fly around the mailmare, gaining speed in the process until a loudly buzzing rainbow streaked set of rings formed around the stunned pegasus mare.

“Uhh thats pretty...” the grey mailmare mumbled and produced a muffin from her mailbag for her to nibble on while watching the spectral spectacle that played out around her.

The dragon stepped up from behind Twilight and rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

“What has she gotten herself into now? Wait, did she somehow shrink Rainbow Dash?”

“No Spike, it’s worse. He... He... It’s only a parasprite that is probably capable of supersonic flight... And these things never come alone...” The thought of this struck fear into her, that was slowly consumed by her curiosity.

“What now Twi? Do you plan on keeping it? I’ve got a feeling that it’s getting hungrier by the minute and just staring at it won’t keep the library from becoming an appetizer for that beast!”

Derpy naively acted on the idea of a having a pet parasprite, extending a hoof and trying to coo the parasprite into landing on it. Her hoof must have been a bit too close to the flightpath of the parasprite as it was deflected towards Spike after the impact on Derpy’s hoof.

Although the parasprite had lost a huge amount of its momentum, it still knocked the little dragon over, before crashing at Twilight's hooves. She levitated the creature off the ground, as it slowly recovered from the series of crashes.

Twilight's horn became brighter as a the air surrounding the parasprite rapidly cooled down, creating small snowflakes from the air moisture. The parasprite tumbled to the ground as Twilight's magic collapsed, leaving her panting on the ground.

“Sure, go ahead Twi and hit another one of these creatures with your magic - if you get lucky we end up with another monstrous mutation!” The dragon still painfully remembered the outcome of her last magical encounter with the parasprites.

“I’m not retracing the faded script on any book again, just a fair warning.” Spikes wrist still hadn’t recovered from restoring the books that some parasprites had quenched their craving for ink on.

Meanwhile the frosty rime that Twilight had cast upon the parasprite melted away, leaving it free to fly again.

“If only Pinkie Pie were here...” Twilight sighed still catching her breath, hoping for the random party pony to show up as she often did when her name was mentioned. But nothing happened.

“Pinkie Pie? Right! She even toured with her act as a one pony polka band doubling as a paraspritecatcher... Wait a minute! She had records pressed of her performance in Las Pegasus...” As the parasprite gained a second wind, Spike sped to towards a shelf, knocked his paw on the Spine of a book entitled “Hiding in plain sight”.

The shelf began to rattle as it slid partway down, revealing the secret compartment it covered up.

“Please be Pinkies polka, please be Pinkies polka...” The dragon begged for his luck, anxiously hoping off one leg onto the other.

Twilight stared speechlessly as the dragon swung around, cranking a record player that started to play a familiar music. She ducked as a high pitched buzzing noise shot over her horn towards the source of the music. The parasprite lifted Spike off his feet, dangling him by his tail.

The parasprite flung Spike across the library. Twilight that felt responsible for him since she had once freed him out his egg, stepped in by levitating a seat cushion into place to break his fall.

A bit shaky from his tumble through the air, he looked at the record players remains that were scattered across the ground.

“Couldn’t you just catch me with your magic?” Spike asked, dusting himself off.

“Sorry Spike, I exhausted myself on that flash freezing spell.” Twilight apologised.

“Since when do we have a secret compartment in that wall behind the shelf anyway?” She looked inside the small compartment.

“Uhh, you know when we talked about a safer place to hide the elements of harmony?” Spike asked.

“Yes, you brought that up and I decided against it because I know your taste for Gems.”

“Thanks Twilight, what’s next? Do you want to mock me about how I couldn’t protect a hoard if I had one? Pinkie Pie asked me if I could hide something for her, so I put it in there.” The dragon felt offended.

“Aww Spike! I didn’t mean that.” Twilight moved up to him, placing her hoof on his scaly back.

“We talked about stopping to enable Pinkie’s randomness for her own good.” Twilight reminded Spike of the decision the closest friends of the party pony had come to after Pinkie Pie had made a series of extremely inappropriate appearances all over Ponyville, several of them involving massive amounts of whipped cream, compressed air and streamers.

“How did you even know what music was on this record?” The librarian tried to stop the pictures of the baby dragon dancing to Pinkie Pies polka, rushing through her mind. Before she could lose her containment, Spike spoke up.

“Do you recall that time we used to find little pots filled with sunscreen all over Ponyville?” The baby dragon teased, taking in the rare sight of the purple unicorn’s cluelessness.”

"They appeared only a few weeks after Pinkie Pie had caught herself a nasty sunburn while following Rainbow Dash around on her cloud cleanup day...” Spike smiled at the memory of a game of tag he had started that morning.

“Pinkie gets a sunburn and stashes sunscreen everywhere she goes. At least her logic is flawless this time... Ponyville gets swarmed by parasprites and she deposits records of her music that once lured them away. It’s like dealing with a big squirrel...” Twilight thought out loud.

The parasprite had landed besides a small glimmering piece of jewelry and sniffed at it.

“Twilight, quick do something!” Spike turned her head onto the parasprite to get her attention. Twilight's levitation spell formed around Rarity’s gift to Spike and lifted itself off the ground. Twilight was too exhausted and as the spell broke, the bracelet fell again - this time the parasprite didn’t hesitate and nabbed it off the floor before it flew away, shattering a window it escaped through.

“That’s unusual...” Twilight remarked.

“Unusual? Try theft of a delicious sign of affection!” The dragon wailed.

“We’ve got to find Pinkie Pie before that thing finds her.” Twilight went on, ignoring the baby dragon. “Judging from what happened to you, anypony that tries to deter these things is at great danger.”

Comments

[Bread Shot]

its over allready D:

[Bread Shot]

Also FIRST BUCK YEAH!

[Frozen]

1153386
The final chapters are coming up, you're right.
I want to emphasize again, that I wouldn't have come this far without the editorial help of Capitola.
Ending the story after about ten chapters feels right, it's better to go out with a bang than to drag on the plot!

If you like my story, spread the word!

A quick update on my progress:
Chapter 8 is in the second round of editing, Chapter 9 currently consists of loose notes and Chapter 10 only exists in the back of my head.

//Edit: Dangabit - I always mix up his avatar and his screenname! Sorry Capitola!

[Aether Spark]

So they gained Dash's powers and stubbornness