The Lion and the Lamb

by CrazyChickenLady

Chapter Fifty-Six: The Great Soda Pop War

Chapter Fifty-Six: The Great Soda Pop War

Horn glowing, Rarity levitated two bottles of soda from the table behind Rainbow Dash to shake them up violently, point them both at her, and open them.

“Girls!” Fluttershy cried out from around Smokey. “No, please! Not in the house…!”

Rainbow Dash, as well as the other mares and Spike, unfortunately didn’t hear her. Laughing jovially, the rainbow-maned pegasus continued spraying her friends.

“Oh, my goodness… This is going to be quite a mess to clean up…” Smokey mused, surveying the puddles of soda on the floor.

“Ohhh!” Fluttershy moaned. “My posies!… My furniture!”

The remaining equines laughed joyously as they played out their soda war -- Pinkie Pie going in for close range hits as often as she could, despite being thoroughly soaked at this point -- and poor Spike, who just attempted to get away and get behind Smokey, kept finding himself victimized by either being a direct target or used as a shield.

At least Twilight Sparkle, to her credit, apologized to him once she had realized her purple pillow was anything but soft -- cuddly as it was. The other mares, however, did not seem to be so reserved in using him as their sacrificial lamb.

The older dragon was upset at the carelessness of Fluttershy’s friends. He really needed to do something…

Taking in a deep breath, he opened his mouth to shout, “STOOOOP!”

The fighting ceased instantaneously, all of the mares staring at him. Blinking, Fluttershy stepped out from behind him with Chenoa held in one foreleg, taking in a breath. She had been about to say how very disappointed she was in all of them when…

“Quick, get him!” Pinkie exclaimed, turning her unopened soda at Smokey to spray him, trying to force him towards the door.

“Oh, no…” he groaned, realizing his error. Turning tail, he ran right out the door in a sad attempt to escape.

Screaming and turning her back so Chenoa wasn’t sprayed, Fluttershy bolted out the door with Smokey as the two of them were playfully assaulted and driven out of the cottage, the other mares pursuing them outside.

Smokey heard the chick laughing with mirth a few feet away. Apparently, she didn’t mind the soda soaking her mother. In fact, she found Fluttershy’s dripping face and mane quite funny. In an attempt to protect the mare and child, he stopped and beckoned the yellow mare over.

Fluttershy bit her lip and closed her eyes. Shaking lightly, both in slight indignation and just generally being upset, she tried to look around Smokey’s wings as the other mares continued their war among each other, having now largely ignored the two.

“Well… at least we’re outside…” she sighed, before Pinkie Pie whirled around to spray her again.

Smokey gasped, closing his wings around them like a bat to shield his friend and child from the onslaught of soda pop. However, his head was still vulnerable and the pink pony took full advantage of that.

Indeed, the other equines had now decided to include him again -- they were down to their last bottles anyway. Grins shared around, they surrounded the red dragon on all sides, shaking their bottles and letting them rip.

He braced himself, willing to take it as long as the pony and chick inside his wings didn’t receive it. The sprays to his face made it difficult to breathe, but those didn’t last very long and he sucked in as much air as he could before the next blast.

Once every single bottle was empty, Smokey was sopping wet and sticky all over. Slowly, he opened up his wings to release Fluttershy and Chenoa.

Stumbling a couple of steps, Fluttershy turned around to face Smokey with wide eyes.

“Oh! Smokey, are you all right??” she asked, flapping her wings to bring herself up to his eye level.

“Of course. It was only soda,” he replied with a small smile. He was going to spend extra time in the shower tonight to get rid of all the stickiness.

“Thank goodness!” Hovering closer, she wrapped her free foreleg around his neck in a hug, pressing the side of her face against his -- despite him being covered in soda. Pulling away, she planted a kiss on his cheek. “… For protecting us.”

“Oh, come on, Fluttershy!” Pinkie Pie giggled. “It was just soda! It’ll come off!”

“… Yes… About that…” she began as she turned around to face her friends. She had her eyes narrowed and her lips in a pout. While she was certainly not angry, she very much looked disappointed.

The dragon felt like he was going to melt right there from the kiss. As the yellow winged equine was about to admonish her friends, he interjected.

“Miss Fluttershy, we’ll all clean it up.”

“That’s not just it. It’s one thing cleaning it off ourselves, but it’s so hard to clean soda off of wood, out of furniture, making sure nothing is sticky. We’re going to be cleaning for hours…”

“Now, darling, that’s not true. You’ve got us. We’ll certainly help!” Rarity offered. “It was wrong of us to fight indoors anyway…”

“Yeah, sorry, Fluttershy. I wasn’t really thinking.” Rainbow Dash chuckled nervously, dropping her empty bottle. “We’ll help out when the party’s over. There’s still that cake Pinkie brought.”

The corners of Fluttershy’s mouth twitched upwards into a smile. She was still somewhat upset, but she couldn’t be too angry at her friends. After all, they hadn’t MEANT to upset her. If it had all been outside from the beginning, the pink-maned pegasus wouldn’t have been so perturbed -- she would even have participated.

“It’s… fine. You said… Pinkie brought over a cake?”

She hadn’t SEEN one anywhere…

“Yep!” Pinkie Pie chirped, spinning around to bounce back into the cottage momentarily and roll out a colossal cake that even made the Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness look miniature in comparison.

Eyes nearly popping out of his sockets as he analyzed and acknowledged the sheer size of the cake, Smokey fell back to land on his bottom.

“How… are we going to finish that thing?”

“Indeed!” Rarity gasped. “It had slipped my mind until just now but how exactly did you MAKE that incredible cake? How much did it cost?”

“I didn’t use a whole lot.” Pinkie Pie promptly explained. “Mr. and Mrs. Cake went on a huge baking spree this week to fill a massive order. I made this from the leftovers.”

“You made that from the leftovers?” Applejack parroted, thunderstruck.

“I’m impressed!” Being so into cooking, Smokey could appreciate such a culinary masterpiece. “So… shall we start cutting it?”

“Yeah!” a general chorus came from the ponies and baby dragon as he wandered over from the cottage, deciding that it was now safe to come out. As Pinkie Pie picked up a cake knife, she glanced up at the pinnacle of the cake and noticed she was far too short to reach it and cut it. Blinking, she plopped her haunches on the ground and rubbed her chin, the cogs within her mind turning.

“Allow me!” Twilight Sparkle spoke up, her horn lighting up to levitate the knife out of Pinkie Pie’s hoof to begin cutting.

The ponies and dragons each received one generous slice and settled down onto the grass to relax. Several birds even flew near the cake to take bites from it. As they laid down, some of them sweaty, but mainly sticky and hot from both the soda war and their running around, Fluttershy smiled over at Smokey, then down at Chenoa, offering her some of her cake.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” she observed.

“It is…” Smokey sighed contentedly, glad there were no other ponies that came out this way often. He was happy to be outside in the open without needing his costume. Taking bits of the fluffy interior of his slice of cake, he tossed them, landing several feet away for the birds to eat.

Nuzzling Chenoa, Fluttershy closed her eyes as a warm breeze passed by them, tussling her hair a little. Moving her head to toss it over her shoulder and expose her face more, the pegusus’ ear twitched as she opened her eyes to watch the birds feast on the cake.

“Days like these are my favorite,” Fluttershy said. “Warm, quiet, and surrounded by friends.”

“Ah hear ya,” Applejack agreed.

“Yep. Days like this you can just relax and take a nap,” Rainbow Dash sighed as she stretched out her legs and wings before laying back in the soft grass and placed her plate on her stomach.

“Peh,” the farmer snorted. “Yew an’ yer naps…

“… Ah agree. Something like that DOES sound nice--”

“Without a shower?” Rarity frowned. “I’m all for cake, but I’m really beginning to feel rather icky with all this stuff in my hair!”

“Ummm… There’s a shower upstairs, if you need it, Rarity,” Fluttershy offered.

“Do watch out for the animals if you go up, Miss Rarity. There are quite a lot of them upstairs,” Smokey informed the white unicorn.

“Of course. The dears had to go somewhere when we were setting up the party.”

“Oh!” Fluttershy sat up. “You don’t think they’ll be coming down since we went out, do you? It’s such a mess downstairs…”

“Ah wouldn’t worry about it.” Finished with her cake, Applejack stretched. “In fact, getting this mess outta mah coat and mane prolly isn’t a bad idea.”

“Yeah, I guess a nap can wait,” said Rainbow Dash as she sat up and polished off her cake.

“We can always bathe Chenoa in the sink.”

Smokey gazed down at the chick as she and Fluttershy finished off their slice. While he and the mare had attempted to protect her from the soda attacks, she had gotten a little sticky.

“True.” Fluttershy nodded. “Um, so, what should the order be to use… the… um… I’m not that… Erm…”

“I’ll go last,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Oooh, I have an idea!” Pinkie Pie declared. “Why don’t we just forego the shower and head down to the lake? We can still wash off and have some fun!”

Rarity didn’t seem to be thrilled with this plan.

“The lake? It’s still much too cold to go swimming. And no shampoo for my hair? Euggh!”

“That sounds like a good idea! We can begin to introduce Chenoa to deeper water!” Smokey exclaimed excitedly as he shifted his attention to the mentioned chick. “I bet you would like that. You love to splash.”

“But--” Rarity began to protest.

“Whoowee! That does sound like a great idea!” Applejack agreed.

“I can get my ball!” Spike contributed. “We could play some water volleyball!”

“Aw yeah! Let’s go!”

The prism-maned pegasus pumped a hoof into the air as anticipation filled every fiber of her very being.

As Spike ran off, Pinkie Pie bouncing off after him, Twilight Sparkle chuckled and cantered off as well. Rarity still looked somewhat flummoxed, though Fluttershy turned to her.

“It’s all right, Rarity. You can still use my shower. I’ll just tell the others you’ll be right behind us.”

“Thank you, Fluttershy. I shouldn’t be long!”

The yellow equine smiled, looking up at Smokey.

“Should we get going?”

“Of course! This ought to be fun!” Smokey beamed, his hand gently grasping onto Fluttershy’s free hoof. “Come on.”

Blushing lightly, and spreading her wings, she flapped lightly to flutter alongside him as they strode off together. Applejack smirked, cantering ahead of them to catch up with Twilight Sparkle further up the path to give the pair and their child some time alone.

Comments

[Samurai_Shippo]

Ah the story continues.

[dawn seeker]

i wonder when they are going to clean up that mess the longer they wait the worse it will be
also great job

[Honest Wisdom]

Two in one day! Yes!

[CrazyChickenLady]

Thank you all for reading! I really appreciate the comments!

If you wanna read another story written by myself and my co-author, there's the other fanfic, Fire and Ice! This had even more work put into it than The Lion and the Lamb!

Love you guys!

[LunaisleavingFimFiction]

I think I know where rainbow was coming from, rarity CAN get annoying,although,seriously, soda!