> Rainbow Dash Eats a Kitten
>  by Shark8
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1:	Cute Enough To Eat
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



The Story Wherein
Rainbow Dash Eats a Kitten



Chapter 1:	Cute Enough To Eat
(Or: A Tasty Sort of Accident.)


“Hey Rarity!” the boisterous voice resounded across the Carousel Boutique, startling the addressee enough to cause her to jump in surprise.
Rarity put a hoof to her chest and took a calming breath, trying to feel her heart fall back into a normal tempo.
“Rainbow Dash, don’t scare me like that!” Rarity chided.
While it was true that Rainbow Dash could be surprising, it was nothing compared to their mutual friend Pinky Pie, who could somehow seem to be everywhere at once… and one time, after a small incident at a certain pool, that did come to be the case it was often Rainbow Dash who pulled a solid second in ‘surprising’ and pranks.
In short, the rainbow-maned pony was the penultimate pony on Rarity’s “Likely to Startle Me” list which, oddly enough was a real list, and kept between the pleather and rhinestones. (The third item was “Disco staying dead”, which explains the rhinestones.)
“Wah? Why would you be scared?” Rainbow Dash asked as she entered the room. “It’s not like I snuck up on ya.”
“Well, if you must know… my attention was elsewhere.” Rarity reluctantly replied, then smiled a big genuine and almost giddy smile, “Opalescence had kittens!”
“Huh.” Rainbow Dash trotted forward an looked into a basket that was at Rarity’s feet.
Inside, atop cloth scraps, were several little kittens: two black & white tabbies, an orange tabby, a black& white “tuxedo” pattern, and a calico. They squirmed fitfully at times and caused Rarity to coo with delight.
“Aren’t they just cute enough to eat?” Rarity asked, her eyes closed as she basked in the pure saccharine cuteness that she felt wafted from the basket at her hooves.
“Um, yeah.” Rainbow Dash said dryly and without enthusiasm. Her friends should know by now that Rainbow Dash wasn’t about “cute” — it was simply too girly to be awesome, and therefore had to be discarded with disdain or else she would end up being a dork.
“So, anyway, I need a favor Rarity.” Rainbow Dash said.
“Oh? Do go on.” Rarity said, opening her eyes and evaluating the pegasus from hoof-tip to withers already ready to start planning an outfit for her.
“Ah, well, you see the Wonderbolts are having a get-together and they invited me…” Rainbow Dash began, only to be interrupted by a squeal of delight from Rarity.
“Oh, I know just the thing! It’ll be a gorgeous gown, you’ll look so cute in — you’ll love it.” Rarity looked almost ready to bounce around like Pinkie Pie did.
“Ah, well, it’s only semi-formal…” Rainbow Dash said, rubbing the back of her neck with a hoof and hoping that would be enough to stave off the ‘cute’.
Rarity’s reaction, however, was utterly unexpected — her joy seemed to instantly melt away leaving a sort of angry irritation in its place — narrowing her eyes, she glared at Rainbow Dash.
“Semi-formal.” Rarity said, disgust evident on her voice, “Why must you vex me so!? Not formal enough for something fancy, but not casual enough for average, normal attire. Agh! Make up your mind!”
“Um, well… if it’s a bother I can go somewhere else.” Rainbow Dash said, backpedaling towards the doorway.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Rarity said, enveloping Rainbow Dash in magic and dragging her back into the room. “I won’t have you going in anything that’s not perfect. You stay here, I’m going to go look in my storage room for some patterns I bought last year that might do.”
And with that the white unicorn left Rainbow Dash alone in the main room of the Boutique. For several minutes everything was fine, but then Rainbow Dash began to get bored. She looked at the various knickknacks around the room, the different cloths, even a mannequin that was wrapped like a mummy for some reason. Eventually she came back to the basket of kittens.
Alright, so they were kinda cute. — Not that Rainbow Dash would ever admit it.
‘What was it that Rarity said?’ Rainbow Dash thought to herself, ‘Ah, right… “cute enough to eat.”’
‘How would that even work?’ Rainbow Dash asked herself as she picked one up out of the basket and held it in her hoof.
‘Maybe…’ Rainbow Dash opened her mouth and placed the kitten on her tongue… it felt weird. Really, really weird. The fur tickled her tongue and suddenly she felt ridiculous for even touching the kitten. She reached up to grab the kitten when the door to the Boutique slammed open and a voice yelled out “Hey Rarity!”
That was enough to cause Rainbow Dash to inhale/gasp in surprise, swallowing the poor defenseless kitten — it wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her, imagine that!
“Has Opal had her kittens yet!?” The voice, Sweetie Belle, yelled.
“Yeah, I wanna see them!” Apple Bloom added, shouting over the sound of Rainbow Dash’s coughing fit.
“Oh, hey Rainbow Dash.” Scootaloo said, trying to ‘play it cool’ and, for the most part, succeeding. “Are you here to see the kittens too?”
“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash choked out, “Something like that.”
“Oh, here they are!” Apple Bloom cried, plucking a kitten from the basket, “Look at this one!”
The one she held up was the black & white “tuxedo” patterned cat.
“I’m gonna call him Double Oh.” Apple Bloom said, nodding her head in satisfaction.
“Double Oh?” Sweetie Belle asked, giving a questioning look to her friend.
“Yeah, he’s all dressed up like a secret agent.” Apple Bloom explained.
“Why would a secret agent be dressed up?” Scootaloo asked, “Wouldn’t they want to, you know, stay out of sight?”
“I don’t know, they just do! Ask Pinkie Pie. If you don’t believe me.” Apple Bloom said, slightly incredulous at her friends not believing her.
“I like this one.”  Scootaloo said as she picked one of the kittens out of the basket and then smiled as she held him up. “He looks like a ‘Zazzles’ to me.”
“Do you want one?” Sweetie Belle asked, offering one to Rainbow Dash with her magic.
“Um, no I already had one.” Rainbow Dash replied, rubbing her barrel as if to sooth her stomach from a rough meal.
“Oh, ok…” Sweetie Belle said, disappointment written on her face.
That was when Rarity returned from the back room, fairly prancing with happiness as a few patterns and fashion magazines hovered in front of her. Her gasp was enough to freeze everyone in place.
Well, everyone except the kitten that was in Sweetie’s magical grip. The kitten fell towards the floor with a suddenness that contrasted with the paralysis everyone else was experiencing.
Inches before it hit the floor Rarity’s magic enveloped the kitten and gently deposited it in the basket.
“Sweetie Belle — I’m very disappointed.” Rarity scolded without raising her voice, the tone and contents both tearing into their target far more effectively that yelling or shrieking would have.
Rainbow Dash coughed once, breaking up the stillness that had descended and drawing everypony’s attentions — well, everypony except Apple Bloom who took the opportunity to place Double Oh back in the basket with a mental promise of ‘I’ll bring you a laser-watch later.’
Rarity made her way to the basket and checked on all the kittens… though, something seemed a bit off she couldn’t seem to put her hoof on it. In any case, all the kittens in the basket looked to be none the worse for wear.
“And you Rainbow Dash… why would you just let them do something like that?” Rarity asked, glaring up at the Pegasus, “I thought you were more mature than th… right.”
After a few moments where Rarity just looked at Rainbow Dash she broke the awkward silence with “Just leave, I’ll have your outfit ready in two days.”


*     *     *


Rainbow Dash felt bad for disappointing Rarity like that, it was made all the more intense because Rainbow Dash knew she should be more responsible.
She made her way to her favorite café and ordered her usual lettuce and asparagus on rye sandwich, which sat on her plate as she poked at it with a hoof and thought about the whole incident with the Crusaders and the kittens.
Eventually she ended up putting the sandwich in a tortoise-box for Tank, stuffing it in her saddle bag, and wandering around Ponyville.
After several hours she found herself roused from her daze by her stomach growling loudly. Looking around she quickly saw that she was in front of Ponyville’s pet shop.
Remembering the sandwich, she pulled it out of her saddle bags and looked at it… it looked utterly unappetizing, but then her stomach growled again. She forced herself to take a bite but it was disgusting.
She looked up at the display and, as she saw the kittens, her mouth began to water. It looked like Rainbow Dash’s body knew what it wanted, and it wanted kittens.
Rainbow Dash shrugged and entered the pet shop, having a kitten really did sound good.
> Chapter 2:	Once you Pop you can’t Stop
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 2:	Once you Pop you can’t Stop
(Or If You Give A Mare a Kitten…)

Rainbow Dash walked along the streets with Pinkie Pie, who was yammering on about tangents to tangents to the pranks that they were planning on pulling, she seemed mostly oblivious until Rainbow Dash caught sight of a small alley-cat and her belly let out a fierce growl.
“Gee Dashie, you sound like you’re starving!” Pinkie obliviously observed, happily bouncing along and missing the pause and misstep that the pegasus made.
“Yeah…” Rainbow Dash said, feeling a bit guilty about her newfound appetite; it was odd: she never would have thought meat would be so good — kittens, especially, were so fluffy, and crunchy, and oh-so-delicious. Oddly enough though, full grown cats weren’t appetizing at all… they tasted rather too ‘sharp’ and were stringy. Her stomach growled again as her thoughts prompted more of the hunger which hadn’t been sated in two days.
“Oh, look there’s miss Cheerilee. Hi, Cheerilee!” Pinkie said waiving a hoof enthusiastically at the teacher who, for some reason, looked rather down.
“Why so glum?” Pinkie asked after trotting up to the teacher.
“Oh, well… it’s been three days since I’ve seen my cat, Sparky.” She said, picking at the food on her plate.
Neither she nor Pinkie noticed the nervous chuckle from Rainbow Dash along with the shifty-eyed look she gave as she said, “I’m sorry to hear that and have no idea what happened to Sparky.”
Rainbow Dash’s attention wandered back to the alley cat which seemed to be on its way to the small patio where they were, apparently looking for food scraps the ponies dropped. The cat was one that looked to be right between ‘cat’ and ‘kitten’ —“katten”?— and had a very pleasing speckled brown-gray and black coat.
Rainbow Dash lowered her head to ground level, opening her mouth as far as it would go and beckoned the cat to come forward with one hoof.
‘Come on, get in here!’ she thought hoping that she could snap up the katten before anypony could notice.
“Sparky was so sweet,” Cheerilee said, explaining to Pinkie Pie about the cat, “He would always know when I had a bad day at school and cheer me up with a purr.”
“I thought you liked teaching, though.” Pinkie said, scratching her head in puzzlement.
“Oh, I do!” Cheerilee said, trying to keep Pinkie from jumping to conclusions… especially since the last time that happened the Pink Terror had dragged her all the way to the swimming lake and pushed her in… something about experience being a great teacher after she’d mentioned that “it might be fun to learn how to swim” — who knew what she might do if she thought Cheerilee was dissatisfied with her job. “It’s just that some days are… stressful.”
“Why would teaching be stressful?” Pinkie asked.
And, with such perfect timing as only fate can supply, there came a shout of three voices in unison declaring: “CUTIE MARK MYSTERIOUS PET DISAPPEARANCE INVESTIGATORS! YAY!”
“M’wap?” Rainbow Dash said, her mouth full and the katten’s tail sticking out and lashing about like some sort of demented tongue and her eyes wide in surprise. Had she been found out and her shameful secret exposed to everypony?
Cheerilee sighed and massaged a temple before gesturing in the direction from which the shout had emanated — “That.”
“I see.” Pinkie Pie said, nodding in understanding just as the Cutie Mark Crusaders rushed the patio swarming Cheerilee.
“Hi, miss Cheerilee!” Sweetie Belle started, greeting their teacher.
“We heard you’re one of the folks who’s had their pets go missing.” Apple Bloom injected.
“So we’re here to solve the mystery!” Scootaloo finished just as a slurping sound and an audible gulp came from her hero, Rainbow Dash.
“So, can you tell us about your cat?” Sweetie Belle said, pulling out a pad and pencil.
“Just the facts, ma'am.” Scootaloo said, adjusting her fedora.
Across the patio the visiting detective, one Sergeant Friday, looked around in bewilderment for his hat as he paid for his lunch — he could have sworn that he’d set it on the hat-rack as he’d entered… finally sighing in disappointed defeat. This was why he shouldn’t take vacations, he always lost his hat. Always.
Meanwhile, Cheerilee did her best to not snap at the children. They meant well, or at least that’s what she told herself, multiple times, to try to keep herself under control.
“Hey, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo excitedly turned her attention to the pegasus.
“No! Why would I know anything about where Sparky is—” Rainbow Dash’s panic was interrupted by a loud belch and a tuft of fur fluttering out of her mouth to alight on the ground.
“What was that?” Apple Bloom asked, pointing at the furball.
“Nothing!” Rainbow Dash said, shifting her eyes between the Crusaders, Cheerilee, and Pinkie Pie, “Nothing at all.”
A few more moments of Rainbow Dash looking from pony to pony lasted before she made a mad dash out of the café’s patio and disappeared down the streets of Ponyville.
“What was that about?” Sweetie Belle asked, scratching her chin with her pencil.
“Heck if I know.” Apple Bloom shrugged.
“It’s just Rainbow Dash being awesome!” Scootaloo half-squealed/half-shouted, anything Rainbow Dash did was awesome, it was a law of nature or something.
Cheerilee rubbed her temple again, trying to get rid of the headache that was threatening to overwhelm her.


*     *     *


Rainbow Dash ran as fast as she could, trying to lose the eyes that were staring at her. She could feel them, watching, judging, condemning her for enjoying the kittens. It was all Rarity’s fault… if she’d never mentioned that kittens were cute enough to eat, she never would have tried it.
She sighed. She knew she really couldn’t blame Rarity… it was her own fault that she was cursed to desire the ingestion of the cuteness of kittens.
Rainbow Dash blinked in surprise… ‘ingestion?’ — she must’ve spent more time with Twilight Sparkle than she’d thought… and for the life of her she couldn’t decide what was more disturbing: becoming an egghead, or becoming a felevore.
Maybe she could get some advice on diet from Fluttershy, her old friend had a lot of experience with all sorts of animals. So, yeah, Fluttershy would be a great pony to ask for advice… though Rainbow Dash would have to find some way to discreetly ask the questions. For some reason she just knew the yellow pegasus would frown on her cat-eating.
In what seemed to be no time at all Rainbow Dash found herself in the meadow outside Fluttershy’s cottage and, as luck would have it, her friend was right there attending to one of the bears that she was acquainted with who, it seemed, had gotten his paw stuck in some sort of container that looked suspiciously like a cookie jar.
As Rainbow Dash neared the bear eyed her and then what looked like a moment of recognition washed across his face and he gave a growf-growl-growf which Fluttershy translated.
“Oh, hi Rainbow Dash… Edward Bear here says hello.” Fluttershy was slightly surprised at the turn of events, but quite elated to find one of her animal-friends talking to one of her pony-friends… it was just so magical.
The bear gave a few more growls and something that sounded like a chortle which, again, Fluttershy translated.
“He says, ‘Oh bother, what was the message I was supposed to give her…’” Fluttershy looked at the bear and gave him a questioning look. That was… strange.
The bear, however, was oblivious to this as it examined writing that was on its paw — bears don’t have paper, you know — before growling out another string for Fluttershy to translate.
“‘We know what’s been Nebelung at you and wanted to ask if you Korat join us for a game of poker, it would Manx us very happy if you would.’” Fluttershy translated, including the puns themselves… though she was quite confused as to how and why the names of cat breeds would feature in a poker invitation.
The bear chuffed and gwarf-ed again, ticking off items on his claws as he continued on.
“He says a lot of fun carnivores are going to be there: Manny the Manticore, Craig the Cragadile, Timmy the Timberwolf and… Spike. — I didn’t know Spike was a carnivore.”
“Well, why would you have been afraid of that big dragon if they didn’t eat meat?” Rainbow Dash asked, honestly wondering why the big dragon had scared her.
“Um, well, they’re so big, and large, and scary…” Fluttershy said, getting smaller and quieter with each descriptive word.
“Well, I’m sure Twilight wouldn’t let Spike attend such an event if it wasn’t safe…” Rainbow Dash muttered to herself as she rubbed her chin in thought… the thought of playing poker with a bunch of carnivores (and winning, obviously) was awesome, and how could Rainbow Dash pass up an offer like that?
> Chapter 3:	Break Me off a Piece of That Kitty-cat
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 3:	Break Me off a Piece of That Kitty-cat
(Or Crispity Crunchity Peanut Buttery Kittens!)

“I’ll see your calico, and raise you one tabby.” Spike said, plopping the two kittens into the basket as he tapped the cards laying on the table in front of him.
Grwof! (Too rich for my blood.) Edward Bear said tossing his hand on the table.
Snap! (I call.) Craig said tossing his two kittens into the basket.
Manny and Timmy had dropped out, quickly losing to the stronger players.
“I’ll see all that, and raise…” Rainbow Dash pushed two kittens into the pile then plucked a delicious looking Devon Rex from the basket and tossed him in, too. “This guy!”
“I’ll see that.” Spike smiled, handing over a tasty morsel as he stared intently into Rainbow Dash’s eyes.
Snap! (I’m out!) Craig said, tossing his cards on the table.
Rainbow Dash looked at the delectable kittens in the pot, then at her cards, then at the kittens again as she felt her mouth start to water: so many delicious kittens!
“C’mon luv, you ain’t got what it takes…” Spike interrupted her thoughts.
“I call.” She said, tossing her penultimate kitten into the pot.
Spike sucked a breath through his teeth, before running a hand through his blond hair, then flipping over one card: 5♣. Then another two: 6♣ and 7♣… then the 8♣… he hesitated for drama’s sake before raveling the 9♦.
“That’s pretty good…” Rainbow Dash nodded, admitting the strength of his hand, before revealing hers: 4♣, 4♥, 4♦, J♥, 4♠.
She took a moment to flash Spike her second-cockiest and most pleased-with-herself smile before gathering all the kittens from the pot into her basket.
Oh, yeah! She was going to feast like a queen tonight! Rainbow Dash shuddered in pleasure at the anticipation before a thought interrupted her: should she save a few? If she gorged herself, then she would have to find more kittens that much sooner.
Spike groaned, then mumbled something about her being almost as insufferable as “that bloody git, Angel.”
“Angel?” Rainbow Dash asked, instantly thinking of Fluttershy’s rabbit.
“Ya, a self-important Nancy-boy ponce that’s obsessed with hair-gel… a sod of a parasite that, for some reason, can do no wrong!” Spike ended his tirade with a disgusted retching sound.
“Well, I’ll admit Angel bunny’s a dick…” Rainbow Dash began, only to be interrupted by Spike’s laughter.
“No, not the stupid rabbit… a vampire. Though I suppose all that applies to him too, if you change ‘hair-gel’ to ‘hare-gel’…” Spike said, rubbing his chin in thought.
To Spike’s immense pleasure, there was a moment of silence around the table before everyone else groaned. After all, psychological pain was the perfect way to introduce their new friend to his stories about Angel and the rest of Sunnydale.


*     *     *


Rainbow Dash grinned as she flew down to Ponyville, she was finished with the day’s weather patrol and, inside her saddlebags, she had a furry little kitten to eat. Edward, spike and the rest of the carnivores were excellent company, and she wasn’t saying that just because she got nearly a dozen of the niblets: enough to last her nearly two weeks, if she was careful!
Rainbow dash’s reverie was interrupted by three familiar voices arguing:
“And I’m telling you it’s not!” Sweetie Belle yelled.
“Oh, come on Sweetie Belle! ‘Cāntīng mă māo’ is obviously the place that we ought to look for the missing pets.” Apple Bloom said, pointing at the sign of Ponyville’s only Chinese restaurant, “Ain’t that right Scootaloo?”
“No, it’s not the Chinese place, it’s—” Scootaloo broke off as movement caught her eye, “— Rainbow Dash!”
Rainbow Dash was quickly surrounded by the Cutie Mark Crusaders, each bombarding her with questions, all ranging from: “Have you got any leads on the missing pets for us?” to “Do you like my hat?” to “What is the airspeed of an unladen swallow?” — in other words, standard fare from the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
The questions didn’t give Rainbow Dash any room to breathe and she found herself starting to hyperventilate until the fateful moment when her snack decided to let a ‘mew’ issue forth from her saddlebag.
“What was that?” Sweetie Belle asked as the entire town, it seemed, dropped into instant silence.
Thinking quickly Rainbow Dash said, “Mew should go check that place out, I’ve always thought it was suspicious…”
“Meow.” the kitten cried, pleading for the outside world to free it from the dark and warm confines of the saddle bags.
“What was that?” Apple Bloom asked turning around to face Rainbow Dash.
“I said ‘meow’, as in you’d better look into it right ‘meow.’” Rainbow Dash replied as nonchalantly as she could.
“Oh, ok.” Apple Bloom said, turning back around to face the Chinese restaurant and the rest of the Crusaders… “Hey, guys, you don’t think Rainbow Dash is actin’ kinda funny, do ya?”
“No, Rainbow Dash is just busy being awesome like always!” Scootaloo chimed in, leading the other Crusaders to the restaurant — they were going to solve the mystery of the disappearing kittens.
Rainbow Dash let out a sigh of relief, she’d almost been found out yet again. Fortunately for her the Crusaders were not the sort to single-mindedly obsess over a single issue… ‘oh, crap.’
Her attention was then turned to the distant but still audible cry of:


“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS ABDUCTION AND INTERROGATION SQUAD! YAY!”


> Chapter 4:	A Chowder of Cats
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 4:	A Chowder of Cats
(Or Now Walk the Cat Back.)

Wong Wok or, as he was known when away from work, Long Walk, woke with a start and the cold, dark room he found himself in only served to reinforce his terror. In his lap he felt something move… it was alive!
More panic flooded his senses as the unknown creature(s) moved about, all he knew about it was that it was warm and furry, and without any light it was truly terrifying.
There was a creak, from a door opening, which seemed to be a scream, amplified by adrenaline saturated organs and suddenly there was light! Bright, painfully so, as a figure appeared in the doorway, silhouetted in the most terrifying way.
Wong Wok felt himself swallow and squirm trying to escape his bonds — bonds that he now realized were holding him to a rather uncomfortable chair.
“How many kittens do you see?” the voice came out, it would have sounded soft in a more natural setting but here it was loud, demanding, and it would not be denied.
Glancing down, still blinking his stinging eyes, Wong Wok looked down at the creature that he’d felt in his lap… he saw kittens, and there was only one thing he could do.
“There! Are! Four! Kittens!” He yelled at his captor, throwing as much anger and conviction into his voice as he could, hoping it would mask the terror and uncertainty.
“Very good, we know that you can count now…” the voice said, then continued... or was it a new voice? — Wong Wok couldn’t be sure.
“So, why don’t you begin by telling us how you’re putting the townsponies’s cats into your ‘authentic Chinese Cuisine’, hm?”
“I’m not!” Wong Wok yelled, struggling again at his bonds, “Gao the Gryphon is the cook! I’m just the delivery-guy, I don’t even get to go in the kitchens!”
“Lies!” a new voice said, only to be given a harsh glare by the pony in the doorway, as a head wearing a bow became visible momentarily.
The first pony pushed it back, stage-whispering “Quit it Apple Bloom, you’ll ruin the effect!”
“But I wanna interrogate ‘im too, Sweetie Belle!” came the reply.
“Yeah! I want to help too!” another voice joined in.
“No! Scootaloo, put the bolt-cutters down.” The voice from the silhouette said, addressing the third pony, “I don’t care if it was in the ‘Methods of the Mafia’ book you got with your hat.”
The third voice mumbled something that Wong Wok couldn’t make out.
“Yeah, it is a cool hat!” Apple Bloom chimed in.
“But a cool hat’s got nothing to do with being an interrogator!” Sweetie Bell stamped her hoof in frustration at her friends.
“But Gummy does!” Pinkie Pie said, popping out of nowhere and holding her pet alligator.
“What?” Sweetie Belle asked, utterly dumbfounded both at Pinkie’s arrival and her the content of her message.
“Alligator, investigator… they’re both ‘gators.” Apple Bloom explained.
Sweetie Belle resisted the urge to groan, especially because somehow it made a weird, twisted sense — and Pinkie making sense could mean she was losing her mind, and that thought really disturbed Sweetie Belle.
The awkward atmosphere was broken by an alarm going off and Pinkie pulled an alarm-clock out of her mane and proceeded to freak out over what she saw, “Oh, I’m going to be late, so late!”
“Um, for what?” Apple Bloom asked.
“There’s a ‘You’re Going Away Forever’ party that I need to throw at the cemetery.” Pinkie explained.
“You mean a funeral?” Sweetie Belle deadpanned after it dawned on her what Pinkie was saying.
“You betcha, I’m putting the fun into funeral!” Pinkie said, and with an enthusiastic wink-and-nod ‘bye’ she was off… very off indeed.
The calmness that filled the void after Pinkie’s passing was both welcome and needed, the three fillies and their captive basked in the glorious silence for a few moments until Scootaloo remembered something.
“Weren’t we in the middle of interrogating him?” Scootaloo said, indicating their captive with the small alligator in her hooves — pushing him forward so that he could bite their captive’s hoof.
“Alright, talk! Tell us everything you know about kittens!” Scootaloo said.
“And the eating thereof!” Sweetie interjected, upset at Scootaloo upstaging her position as interrogator.
At this point Wong Wok burst into tears, ready to confess everything.
“My name’s really Long Walk, the management wanted something that sounded ‘authentic’ so they renamed me Wong Wok… and my cutie mark’s not really a Wok, they just make me wear a decal over me real one! And, one time, I swapped out the fortune in a cookie with one that said ‘Enjoy Your Last Meal’ — , I’m sorry! So, sorry!”
To his bemusement one of his captors giggled, followed shortly by another.
“That’s pretty funny, what happened?” One of them asked.
“I don’t know, I just delivered it like I was supposed to!”
“You don’t know anything?”
“No! All I know is that I was surprised when Rainbow Dash answered the door…”
“And? And!”
“And what!? I just thought it was weird that she’d say that the food smelled ‘Zazzlicious’ or something like that!”
“Hey, Scootaloo, bring Gummy back here!” Apple Bloom called, beckoning for the Alligator Interrogation unit, which caused Long Walk’s terror to redouble. (There is a reason why there is so much science fiction about rogue AI units.)
And from there his confessions became more and more incoherent.


*     *     *


Rainbow Dash was worried: the Crusaders were closing in on her. She just knew it. Sure, she’d thrown them off the trail by pointing them in the direction of the new Chinese restaurant, but she had to find some way to make it stick. That’s when she saw her friend Applejack loading up her cart to end a day at Ponyville’s market and she had a wonderful idea.
“Hey Applejack!” Rainbow Dash said, greeting the too-orange pony.
“Hi Rainbow Dash.” Applejack said, slipping into the harness and starting the walk home, “What’re you up to?”
“Hm, just a little concerned about Apple Bloom and the other Crusaders.” Rainbow Dash said, conspicuously telling the truth to the element of honesty.
“Oh, what’s wrong.”
“Well, you know they’re investigating the pet disappearances, right?”
“Sure do — darndest thing, that.”
“Well, they seem to think that it’s related to the new Chinese place in town.”
“Cāntīng mă māo?”
“Yep, that’s the one.”
“It’s the only Chinese restaurant in Ponyville, Rainbow Dash.” Applejack sighed.
“Well, yeah, but that’s not the point,”Rainbow Dash said, ready to tell the truth to her friend in just a way to make “I can guarantee that these pet disappearances weren’t happening before they opened their doors.”
“And what’s this got to do with Apple Bloom and the fillies.”
“Well, don’t you think it’d be upsetting if they found out that they put ponies’s pets in their food?”
“Well, I reckon so.”
“So, shouldn’t we check it out and take care of it instead of letting them find out?”
“I guess.” Applejack shrugged, she didn’t really like gettin’ into other ponies’s business.
“Great, meet me in the alley behind the restaurant at seven, ok?” Rainbow Dash said, taking to the air in excitement.
“Sure.” Applejack said, with enough enthusiasm to give Maude a run for her monotone money.
“Say, I’ve been wondering, is there any sort of apple that you don’t like?” Rainbow Dash asked as she settled back to the ground.
“Sure is.” Applejack said, much to Rainbow Dash’s surprise.
“What is it?” Rainbow Dash asked, curious as to what the apple-themed pony would answer… 
“Pears.” came the reply.
“Applejack, pears aren’t apples.” Rainbow Dash said, dryly relating the facts to her friend.
“‘Course they are: they’re roundish, like an apple. Greenish, like an apple. Have thin skin, like an apple. Have white meat, like an apple!” Applejack said, informing Rainbow Dash on just how similar to apples pears were — obviously because they were apples, “But they just taste too darn funny!”
“That’s because they’re pears.” Rainbow Dash said dryly.
“Exactly!” Applejack said, nodding.
Rainbow Dash shook her head, dumfounded that Applejack thought that pears were a sort of apple.


*     *     *


“This is really good!” Apple Bloom said, reaching for more of the Chinese food to put on her now-empty plate, and glancing over at Scootaloo who was munching away at her share, still upset that she couldn’t find Zazzles anywhere.
“Yeah, I know!” Sweetie Belle replied, sauce staining her muzzle, “I’m really glad that Rarity let us have these leftovers.”
Scootaloo didn’t say anything and instead finished off her portion before reaching for the fortune cookie in the middle of the table. Breaking open the crispy cookie she read the message and was overcome with a sense of forlorn doom: ‘Enjoy Your Last Meal.’
“Guys! Guys! It’s Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo gasped, the realization bursting from her lips.
“Yes, being awesome… we know.” Sweetie Belle said in her best unenthusiastic and deadpan voice.
“No, she’s the one who’s been causing the disappearances.” Scootaloo said, rushing the explanation, “She said that it was Zazzlicious, remember?”
“Hey, that’s right!” Apple Bloom said, remembering the information that their interrogation had revealed.
“So, what are we going to do?” Sweetie Belle said, pulling out he pad and paper, “We’ll need some solid evidence.”
“I have a plan!” Apple Bloom said, rushing out of the kitchen and into the Botique’s main room where the kitten’s basket still sat.
Reaching in she pulled out the black and white tuxedo-cat and said, “Double Oh, are you ready to embark on a dangerous mission in solemn and secret service for her majesty?”
“Mew.” Came the response, with all the weight that that carried.
> Chapter 5:	Temptress in a Teacup
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 5:	Temptress in a Teacup
(Or Let’s Let the Cat out of the Bag.)

“There you go.” Rainbow Dash said, as she set her last two kittens into the ridiculously large cage she’d “borrowed” from Fluttershy… she resisted the urge to devour one, they were needed for her plan.
The cage itself was strangely sturdy — and now occupied the alley behind the Chinese restaurant, sporting signage declaring the kittens as ‘Provisions’ (written in Rainbow Dash’s own nearly-illegible scrawl) — the one time she’d asked Fluttershy about the cage she was told that it was for holding meat-weasels, whatever they were. She’d never seen any thing in the cage, just it sitting all alone behind Fluttershy’s cottage, but now it would prove key to Rainbow Dash avoiding being ostracized because of her new non-vegetarian appetite.
It was odd, Rainbow Dash supposed, but she rather enjoyed her game of cards with Spike, Edward, and the others… much more than she thought she would have. It reminded her of something Fluttershy had once said: carnivores tend to be more gentle and less territorial than many herbivores. — The only reason Rainbow Dash didn’t immediately dismiss that observation was that it was Fluttershy making it, and the animal-friendly mare knew a lot about nature than Rainbow Dash ever would.
“Now all we have to do is wait for Applejack where we can ‘discover’ the evidence.” Rainbow Dash said to herself, resisting the urge to rub her forehooves together and laugh maniacally.
…For a few minutes — looking around, Rainbow Dash saw nopony looking her way and let loose her best laugh just to relieve her tension.


*     *     *


“There you go.” Apple Bloom said to Double Oh as she finished putting the laser-watch around his neck like a collar.
“Mew.” Double Oh said, pawing at the makeshift collar, almost triggering the high power laser.
“Now, you’re going deep into enemy territory, so keep your wits about you Double Oh.” Sweetie Bell said, gesturing at the chalkboard covered in scrawls.
The chalkboard showed their plan for catching Rainbow Dash in the act, as well as getting their Cutie Marks, and concluded with Mayor Mare giving them the keys to the city… along with a fifty-bit gift certificate for Chinese food… man that stuff was good!
The Crusaders gathered up their supplies and rushed outside, there was still a lot that they had to do to get ready for their plan… like setting up the net that they had made from yarn and cloth-scraps they’d begged off of Rarity who’d indulged them with what, to her, was refuse.


*     *     *


“There you go.” Applejack said, handing the jar of apple sauce to Twilight Sparkle… seeing how she had to be in town anyway, she thought she’d drop off the applesauce that she’d promised Twilight… not that it was the crushed or ground apples that people called applesauce, but a sauce for apples: two parts mayonnaise, one part caramel, one part tomato-paste, and just a dash of dried mushrooms! — It was great stuff, her own special concoction, developed as a filly and jealously guarded… until now, what with sharing it with Twilight Sparkle.
Well, now it was off to take care of business with Rainbow Dash… Applejack sighed, it wasn’t like she didn’t like the pegasus, just that… well, Rainbow Dash was ornerier than a mule with sand in his britches. Well, at least is wasn’t having to help with Pinkie Pie, that girl was more confusing than a rattlesnake in a cowboy hat! (Applejack could never figure out if the rattlesnake was wearing the cowboy hat, or if it was inside the cowboy hat… which is why it was so confusing.)
So she trotted along, towards Cāntīng mă māo, glancing down the street to see Apple Bloom and her friends setting up some sort of contraption that had, apparently, been nearly destroyed by Derpy making deliveries. She shrugged and continued on to the alleyway where after a minute of waiting Rainbow Dash alighted.
“Glad you could make it, Applejack!” Rainbow Dash said, perhaps a bit too cheerfully.
“Well, I gave my word…” Applejack started to reply, before her attention was drawn to a rather large cage containing kittens and labeled with a sign that she thought read ‘provisions’… it might have also said ‘perversions’, but Applejack couldn’t think of anything that would mark the little furballs as perverts.
Unless they were related to the ‘furries’ that Big Macintosh ranted about… apparently he thought they were pretty perverted, taking animal skins and wearing them like a pony’s own clothes, sometimes adopting affectations of those animals. Big Macintosh said, “‘Tain’t natural! Dressing up to to look like something you’re not, along with assuming its nature!”
Applejack smiled remembering the conversation and how she’d laughed when she pointed out that he was part of a LARP group and such could be said of him. (Of course he’d denied that, claiming that LARP represented a noble and dignified endeavor to become a part of a story in a way that lesser methods could not… and that it contributed to experience, especially on “Double-XP Wednesday”.)
The mewing of the kittens drew Applejack back into the present.
“Hey, do you happen to know why there’s a cage of kittens here?” Applejack asked Rainbow Dash.
“Sure do!” Rainbow Dash said, having already thought up phrasing that the Element of Honesty couldn’t call a lie, “It’s because they were put here by the pony responsible for all the missing pets!”
“I dunno… it seems awfully convenient to me.” Applejack said, rubbing her chin.
“Ah, come on Applejack… it’s not like there’s a law of the universe that says because the Cutie Mark Crusaders thought of it that it’s either wrong or doomed to catastrophe, right?” Rainbow Dash said, elbowing Applejack in the ribs.
“I guess it’s plain to see that the Cāntīng mă māo has been using the town’s cats in their food.” Applejack said as she stared intently at the restaurant’s back door.
And in that moment, while her attention was turned away, Applejack failed to see Rainbow Dash’s cocky and slightly creepy smile slide into place.


*     *     *


“There you go!” Derpy said as she handed over the third crate to the gryphon, “that’s the last of them.”
“Thank you, miss.” The gryphon replied, twirling his long mustache with a talon, “If that will be all…”
“Well, you do have to sign this form.” she said, bending over to fetch her clipboard and accidently hitting one of the large crates.
There was a small, quiet chorus that sounded like a clowder of kittens emanating from the crate.
“What was that?” Derpy asked.
“Only the freshest and most high quality ingredients for my cooking.” Gau the Gryphon said in a tone that made it sound intuitively obvious to the casual observer as he finished signing and handed the clipboard back.
“Oh, I see…” Derpy replied, “I guess that makes sense. And it’s got to be why all my friends love your food.”
“Indeed!” Gao the Gryphon agreed, “Only the finest ingredients, imported fresh from the Gryphon Empire would do, it’s why the Chinese food of Cāntīng mă māo is second to none here in Ponyville.”
“Well, I’ll have to try it sometime.” Derpy said before leaving, as she exited she saw those three adventuresome fillies rebuilding whatever contraption that she’d accidentally collided with earlier.


*     *     *


“There you go!” Applejack yelled at Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash as she stopped her gallop and thrust a foreleg at Gao the Gryphon, “He’s the one that’s responsible for the town’s cat-disappearances; he’s putting them into his food!”
Gao the Gryphon gasped, sputtering with rage for a moment before he roared back, “How dare you! I use only the finest ingredients, I would never stoop to using —” the gryphon shuddered violently in disgust, as if merely saying it was physically distasteful, “— ally-cats!”
“Can you prove this?” Twilight Sparkle asked, still slightly perplexed as to the how and why she had been dragged into this — yes, she knew (intellectually) that her official position as Celestia’s personal student had given her an unofficial official position… but how that translated into the authority in this sort of situation completely mystified her.
“But of course!” Gao the Gryphon said, folding his wings back into position and gesturing into the restaurant, “I just got a shipment today, even.”
“Well… Let’s go see.” Twilight said, hoping that she could ease Applejack’s concern over the situation.
The Gryphon escorted her into the building and after a minute of working the lid popped open one of the crates: it was a shipment of exotic vegetables that wouldn’t grow well in Equestria. He moved to the second and, likewise, it was full of vegetables. When he got to the third one Twilight was expecting more, but instead she was greeted with dozens of cute furry kittens.
“I would never use alley-cat.” Gao the Gryphon grumbled at Twilight.
“I think I’ve seen enough…” Twilight said, indicating the crates before she turned around and returned to her waiting friends.
“Well?” Rainbow Dash asked, even as she was interrupted by her belly growling. It was apparently really bad because she put her foreleg on her stomach like it was hurting.
“He’s not responsible for the missing cats.” Twilight said, turning away to return to her library.
“I’m so hungry.” Rainbow Dash muttered to herself, looking around wildly for something to eat until her eyes set on a kitten sitting in a teacup just a few dozen yards away.
Rainbow Dash’s stomach growled yet again, ever more insistent for ever more katzenfleisch… she couldn’t resist, it was just too much. So she made her way over and, after inhaling the rich aroma wafting up from the teacup, picked it up and emptied its contents down her throat.
In an instant Rainbow Dash’s world turned upside down as a net, cleverly hidden on the ground and in plain sight, snapped up trapping the wayward pegasus… and an instant later three fillies jumped out from behind the corner of a building.
“We did it!” Sweetie Belle squeaked in joy!
“We solved the pet disappearances!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.
“It’s Rainbow Dash!!” Scootaloo yelled, pointing up at her hero even as her new hat slid over her eyes.
> Chapter 6:	Justice, with a Side of Kittens
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 6:	Justice, with a Side of Kittens
(Or Kittens, with a Side of Justice.)

Silver Star looked down at her cute filly, Scootaloo, asleep on her bed. The little orange pegasus was just so adorable, especially when she was dreaming like she was now: with her legs and wings making small twitches and talking in her sleep.
“Is…Rn-bw Dash…” Scootaloo said in her sleep, smiling as she did.
“Sweetie, it’s time to get up.” Silver Star said, waking Scootaloo up.
The orange filly reared up and let out a big yawn, the sort that made Silver Star want to yawn herself, and after a few moments blinking she hopped out of bed.
“Today’s the day!” Scootaloo exclaimed, as she jumped out of her bed — it was the first time she was going to see Equestria’s judicial system in action, the day she would see The Trial of Rainbow Dash!


*     *     *


Equestria’s legal system was ancient, revered, esteemed… in short, it was a venerable institution with roots going back to Discord’s reign, or perhaps further. As such, it always drew a crowd when a high-profile case was to be brought up, and what could be more high-profile than the trial of the Element of Loyalty?
Celestia smiled her serene smile as she took her place at the Judge’s Table, along with her sister Luna. The Table was a great slab of marble, representing the stability of the justice system, the weight of its responsibility, and the hard reality of justice — or at least that’s what Celestia had told ponies when she’d ‘inherited’ the mantle of “Ruler of Equestria” from Discord. The truth was that she rather liked how the polished surface gleamed and the patterns of the marble swam beneath the light’s reflection.
“BRING FORTH THE ACCUSED!” Luna said, properly using the Royal Canterlot Voice… the Official Shouting in the Court was still a much-respected tradition that survived even after its use in the royal courts had fallen out of favor.
Obediently several of the gold-clad guards left, only to return with the rainbow-maned pegasus minutes later, her gaze nervously passing across the crowd of spectators as her bound wings showed the twitches of struggling, though every so often she would wince and bring a forehoof to her stomach.
“BRING FORTH THE WHEEL OF JUSTICE!” Luna said, and another group of guards disappeared to retrieve the device.
“You, Rainbow Dash, stand in this court accused of catnapping!” Celestia said, rising to her full height which, added to her raised position, meant she was towering over the pegasus — say what you might about Discord, but he certainly had an eye for theatrics.
“O-only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays!” Rainbow Dash protested, hoping that the court would recognize the Official Nap Days of the Ponyville Weather Team, “and when I’m really tired!”
“SILENCE!!” Luna said, raising an accusing hoof to point at the accused.
Just then the guards came in, dragging behind them a wheel which was sectioned off into various labeled segments and had an indicator resting at one point.
Celestia sent a blast of magic down to the Wheel of Justice, setting it spinning and cuing the spectators to begin the Official Wheel of Justice Chant:
“Wheel of Justice, turn, turn, turn;
tell us if this mare should burn, burn, burn!
Give us entertainment, for this we yearn;
validate now our concern!”
The wheels turning had slowed to the point where the segments were readable, things like “Trial by Fire”, “Jury Trial”, “Burn at the Steak”, “Aquaman”, “Trial by Kittens” were written thereon and passing under the indicator.
“Um, sister, what exactly is ‘Aquaman’?” Luna asked as she leaned over and quietly inquired.
“I… I don’t know, Luna.” Celestia replied, “In all the time we’ve been using it I’ve never seen that one come up.”
Luna nodded, reached a hoof down and slowed the wheel down, putting a little extra breaking on it when the Aquaman segment was about to come under the indicator.
“AQUAMAN!” Luna announced to the spectators, who apparently hadn’t seen her cheating — or didn’t care.
Suddenly there was a bright flash and standing tall and proud, clad in green and gold, and in all his bearded glory was Aquaman!
Looking around at the setting he noticed: the large clearing filled with ponies or all sorts of bright, nearly offensive, colors; a game-show wheel; a giant stone table with the words “I’m Judging You” emblazoned thereon; and the beings sitting behind the table were interesting, too — they looked like some combination of pegasi and unicorns and, if the crowns were anything to go by, were some sort of royalty.
All this together was enough to clue the hero onto why he had been summoned — it happened with the other super-heroes from time to time, and now it was his turn to show an entire race what Justice was really about!
“Outrageous!” Aquaman exclaimed, thrusting his fist to the sky in excitement. This was going to be awesome, at least twenty percent more awesome than Batman’s story.
So, there was only one thing for him to do; taking a deep breath he thrust himself into action, belting out a powerful and invigorating song about Justice that he would later refer to as Aquaman’s Inspiring & Instructional Song of Justice, which was similar but not congruent to Aquaman’s Rousing Song of Heroism.
The point of the Judicial is to search out the truth,
administer justice increased security and wealth, 
it makes safe society for our elders and youth;
expunging the filth is a fount of community health!

Listen now to my song:
Is it more desirable to punish those who do wrong,
or to keep from harm the guiltless? 
Such a question is not thoughtless!

When you come across a house with a thief,
do you burn it down while the others are asleep?
Certainly removing him is a social relief!
But at what cost, if the innocents are lost?

Why, it’s justice that keeps us from becoming jackboot thugs!
To hold as sacred the righteous dispensation of punishment, 
but for the guilty we can’t just have lollipops and hugs!
This is the proper problem of any government!

A heavy hand, making a lawbreaker of all…
will make the people grumble and the government fall!
But making everything unregulated by the law,
…that is a fatal flaw!

And as the last strains of the song’s final refrains concluded there was another flash and the mighty defender of the seven seas vanished leaving only the memory of his glorious song.
“I-I’m so confused, sister.” Luna said, looking utterly perplexed by everything that had just happened.
“Shhh… It’s ok Luna, it’s ok.” Celestia said, using a wing to embosom the younger alicorn, “It’s just one of Discord’s jokes… I think.”
Reaching down Celestia gave the wheel another spin — this time it would give the proper method of trying Rainbow Dash, she was sure — And, indeed, it was.
The wheel had come to rest on the most poetic of trials for justice: trial by kittens.
Celestia cleared her throat.
Luna didn’t seem to notice, still blabbering about being confused, so Celestia elbowed her in the ribs.
“Oh!” Luna said, her attention drawn back to her role in the Court, “TRIAL BY KITTENS!”
Luna waited for a drama-filled breath before using the Royal Canterlot Voice again: “BRING FORTH THE KITTENS.”
One of the guards came forward, passing off a burlap sack containing a score of kittens. Celestia nodded in acknowledgment before she summoned magic to herself and blasted the ground, digging a deep hole — nodding to the guards they threw Rainbow Dash into the makeshift oubliette, followed shortly by the sack of cats.
“Eat them all and you will live!” Celestia declared, glad that it wasn’t burning her at the steak… the ponies often found it unnerving and disturbing having to slaughter a cow, and cooking a slab of it’s meat, and being forced to eat it while still hot to determine a pony’s guilt or innocence. (If it didn’t burn them they were guilty, so it was always in their interest to try to eat the steak as quickly and recklessly as possible — more than a few ponies had died choking to death on their trial.)


*     *     *


Down in the oubliette, the stomach pain that Rainbow Dash had been experiencing came to fruition as the bright red beam of a laser shot out, cutting a clean hole in the pegasus’s side and allowing a black and white kitten to fall out.
Somewhere up in the stands a young pony with a big bow in her mane yelled out in happy surprise “Double Oh!”
Realizing that she now had a chance to eat all these delicious kittens without exploding Rainbow Dash relished dropping each of the kittens down her throat, and when they plopped out her side she’d gobble them up again — it was like infinitely delicious fun… Rainbow Dash wondered why all her punishments couldn’t be like this before she remembered the time that Pinkie had made an “all you can eat” special at Sugarcube Corner before Mr. and Mrs. Cake put a stop to it… apparently forcing the customers to eat until they exploded was bad for business.
> Chapter 7:	Unnamed (auto named on publish)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 7:	Unnamed (auto named on publish)
(Or: The Chapter Which must Not Be Named.)

“Wow, this is really good!” Scootaloo said, transferring another few scoops of Chinese food onto her plate.
“I know, right?” Sweetie Belle said, closing her eyes and smiling contentedly — Rarity would say ‘absolutely adorable’ in spite of, or because of, the sauce-stains around her muzzle.
“Now, Sweetie Belle… what would Rarity think about your appearance?” Fluttershy asked, offering the filly a napkin before returning to her plate.
“She’d say that she’s adorable!” Apple Bloom piped up, taking her now-empty plate to the sink.
“Ya know, I reckon she would.” Apple jack said, interrupting her hearty and  enthusiastic eating to agree.
“I wonder how much longer it’ll be…” Twilight said, glancing towards the door where Rarity and Rainbow Dash were. “If they don’t hurry up, we’ll finish up all the food before they can get any.”
“Ah, don’t worry about them, luv. They’re big enough to take care of themselves.” Spike said with a wave of his hand.
“Why are you even here!?” Twilight Sparkle asked, pointing an accusing hoof at the vampire.
“Rainbow Dash invited me, remember?” Spike replied with a shrug before turning to the purple dragon sitting beside him, “So, Spike… you were going to tell me more embarrassing things about miss purple pants over there, right?”
“Embarrassing? I don’t think Twilight would like that… I mean she’s a great friend, and good with magic, but she doesn’t take being teased too well.” Spike replied, gesturing to the unicorn,
“Fair enough.” Spike said, “Though I heard that once she gets into a book she can’t hardly put it down.”
“That’s right.” Spike said, nodding, “One time she stayed up for three nights reading nothing but a series of books, Starswirl: Mage of Awesome.”
The dragon leaned in toward the vampire and whispered, “For the next month everything she talked about was related to Mage of Awesome… she even ‘borrowed’ some of Shining Armor’s Oubliettes and Ogres rule-books to make her own Mage of Awesome campaigns!”
“Spike!” Twilight said in that annoyed tone that only she and Buffy seemed to manage.
“What?” the dragon and vampire asked in unison, creating an odd stereo effect.
Twilight made a disgusted noise and shook her head in annoyance.
When it was apparent that the purple unicorn wasn’t going to say anything else Spike (the vampire) asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have a copy of those, would you?”
“Of course I do, back at the library next to my comics.” The dragon answered and, with a bit of a grin from knowing that it would tweak Twilight, added “Would you like to play a campaign or two?”
Picking up on the teasing-Twilight sub-text, Spike replied “I’d love to.”
Twilight just groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose — it was going to be one of those days, er, nights.


*     *     *


The needle, held in Rarity’s magic, hovered over the pegasus as if waiting for Rainbow Dash to quit moving. There was a bit of thread trailing behind that eventually made its way to the pegasus’s side.
“Hold still! If you wouldn’t flinch every two stitches we’d already be done.” Rarity scolded Rainbow Dash yet again.
“But it hurts!” Rainbow Dash argued, stamping all four of her feet for emphasis in a pattern that would have been cute for a filly… which is why the action ended up making her look rather foalish.
“Well, you’re the one that said you didn’t want to go to the hospital.” Rarity replied, adjusting her glasses.
“Well, yeah, can you just imagine what they’d do to me after they found out I eat kittens?”
“Treat you like any other patient?” Rarity countered.
“As if!”Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, “I was talking to Spike and he told me all about how freaks can be subdued by ‘doctors’ and then taken to a lab and studied.”
“Oh, dearie, you really shouldn’t believe everything you hear…” Rarity said with a shake of her head, “Besides, I bet it’s just a story from one of his ghastly comic books.”
“I don’t know if Spike reads comic books.” Rainbow Dash replied, wincing as the needle plunged into her side. “In fact, I don’t know if he’s read the Daring Do books, I ought to get him to sometime.”
“I would think that he’d just be able to ask Twilight… you know, living in a library and all that.”
“No, wrong Spike.” Rainbow dash laughed. “He’s actually pretty cool, I’ll have to introduce you… I already invited him to Pinkie’s we’re-glad-your-trial-went-well-and-you-didn’t-explode party.”
Rarity just rolled her eyes and got back to work, it seemed that all her friends were more than a little strange. She was so close to being finished with this little sewing job, though she really had to question whether or not installing a zipper into Rainbow Dash really was as ‘awesome’ an idea as the pegasus claimed it would be.


*     *     *


Meanwhile, deep in the Everfree Forest creatures stirred in the darkness.
Strange creatures, with red eyes, and loose, pasty skin. Strange creatures with red eyes, loose pasty skin, and vague and undefined magical powers! — They had long bodies that somehow brought hotdogs to mind, if hotdogs had feet, and faces, and teeth, and claws, and magic… in other words not like a hotdog at all, except for somehow having that sort of associated with them.
They burst out of the underbrush, they dropped out of the trees, they exploded from the very bowels of the Earth, as if they were some sort of reprehensible creature offensive and forcibly cast from the Earth’s very presence… and also like a symptom of ecological dysentery.
More and more spewed forth, coming from every corner of the forest that could conceivably be likened to an orifice, as well as a few that couldn’t.
It was the hoard — the terrible hoard that had always been kept in check by the threat of The Cage, but The Cage was gone… the Cursed Yellow Terror would not be able to capture one of their members, its fearsome Stare would be rendered ineffective by the sheer number of the creatures! At long last they could strike at the Cursed Yellow Terror.
The creatures, they were to be feared and respected, for they were meat-weasels!


*     *     *


The door separating Rarity’s kitchen from her boutique’s main room suddenly opened revealing Rarity and Rainbow Dash and startling the three Cutie Mark Crusaders who jumped at the sudden sound and movement.
“Look!” Scootaloo said pointing a hoof at the two mares, she was about to continue when Sweetie Belle cut her off.
“It’s Rainbow Dash!” she said, in her best Scootaloo voice.
Apple Bloom grinned and laughed.
“I don’t sound like that!” Scootaloo said in outrage.
“I think you do!” Apple Bloom choked out as she tried to gasp for air.
“Hey everypony! Look at this!” Rainbow Dash said, turning her side to the room and lifting a wing to reveal a zipper closing the C-shaped cut she’d gotten when Double Oh had lasered his way out of Rainbow Dash’s digestive tract. “Isn’t it awesome!?” — Rainbow Dash emphasized the point by twisting her head around and unzipping her side, then re-zipping it.
“I am more than slightly disturbed.” Scootaloo said, in a tone that suggested the shattering of her childhood idol.
Sweetie Belle and Pinkie Pie both looked a little sick while Apple Bloom got a smile on her face that anyone who knew her had associated with darker shades of humor — Applejack and the other Crusaders were thereby both apprehensive and forewarned for what Apple Bloom was about to say. The rest of the room’s occupants, however, were caught unawares.
“Flesh-pockets!” Apple Bloom said, before degenerating into a bout of giggling.
Apple Bloom had singlehoffedly made half the room’s occupants’s Chinese food threaten to return.


*     *     *


Meanwhile, in another plane of existence, Aquaman stood before his friends and colleagues at the monthly meeting for the Justice League, finishing up his retelling of how he had been summoned to a world full of colorful ponies to help them with the true meaning of justice.
“…and so I concluded my song about Justice and was teleported back!” Aquaman said thrusting a green-gloved fist into the air, “It was Outrageous!”
After a few moments of silence Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow, turned to Batman and asked one question, complete with sarcastic air-quotes: “Batman, have you been testing your ‘non-toxic’ shark-repellent on Aquaman again?”
> Chapter 8:	Break the Cage
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 8:	Break the Cage
(Or Dance of the Meat-Weasel.)

‘Yes! Another chapter of Rainbow Dash Eats a Kitten!’ you think, clicking on the link for the new chapter, ready to read more crazy randomness. Unfortunately, as the chapter loads you drop your keyboard which falls to the ground like a brick, landing on the spacebar and scrolling down the chapter.
‘No!’ you cry, unable to ever read those portions of the story, because unlike a book you cannot merely turn the page back to reread it… you scramble to lift the keyboard from laying on the spacebar so that you’ll get to read at least some of it. ‘Well, at least I’ll get to read some of it.’

_____________________________________________

The meat-weasels half-marched half-danced counter-clockwise in a thick ring around their prey, the shadows cast by the three bonfires both illuminating the meat-weasels as well as giving a certain ambiance to the whole scene as they cavorted and capered around their captives: Rainbow Dash, her friends, Spike, the other Spike, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who were all huddling together as their relentless chant continued — “Yummy! Yummy! Yummy! Yummy!”
Even as the ponies watched, a small ring broke from the first and, as they marched clockwise, against the rotation of the larger ring, they punctuated the chant with a counterpoint of: “In the tummy! In the tummy!”
Applejack, already unnerved by the meat-weasels, let out a panicked shout of a question: “What are they going to do to us!?”
“Well, I think it’s safe to say that they intend to eat us.” Twilight replied flatly.
“How!? How can you know that!?” Applejack almost shrieked.
“‘Yummy, yummy, in the tummy.’” Twilight answered dryly.
“I don’t wanna be eaten!” Applejack yelled at Twilight, shaking her by the shoulders, “Ya hear Twi, I don’t wanna be eaten!”
“Um, I’m s-s-sorry to i-interrupt…” Fluttershy said, before trailing off into the chant around her.
“What’s that,” Spike said, cupping a hand to his ear, “If you have something to say, now’s not the time to be a Stuttershy.”
Pinky glared at the young dragon, with a glare that said ‘that’s not nice’ but before she could say anything the other Spike knelt down in front of the pegasus and laying a comforting hand on her withers spoke to her.
“C’mon luv, if you know of a way to get out of this, let us know, ok?”
“I-I, w-well, you see…” Fluttershy trailed off, took a big breath and nearly shouted, “We need my meat-weasel cage!”
“A cage?” Twilight asked, her attention torn away from Applejack’s nervous behavior of trying to look every direction at once. “I might be able to summon one…”
“But, Twilight,” Spike interrupted, pointing a claw at her, “You haven’t done any actual summoning spells.”
“But I know the theory!” The unicorn replied, “Solidly.”
With that the purple unicorn began inscribing runes, magical circles and other geometries upon the earth in the space between them and the meat-weasels — she continued work for several minutes before she stopped and gave everyone a nervous grin.
“Alright, here goes.” She said, pouring magical power into the array at her hooves.
There was a bright flash of light and, in a small crater that looked like a sphere had cut out a portion of the earth, there was a figure, crouched, naked, and slowly rising to its feet.
“Hey, does anyone have some clothes?” The figure asked, the voice hauntingly familiar to the elder Spike who stood dumbfounded for a moment before the realization hit him.
Before he could react, from out of nowhere Pinkie Pie pulled an oversized Rainbow Dash costume, one that had huge bulging eyes that were not just a little creepy, and said,  “I do!”
The figure, in no condition to be turning down clothes reached out and took the proffered apparel, “Thank you.”
“Tha- that’s bloody Nick Cage!” Spike finally got out, pointing at the figure clambering into the Rainbow Dash costume.
The shy pegasus, finally gathering up enough courage to speak again, said to Twilight, “I don’t think that Cage will work.”
From the outer ring a rock came and hit Nicholas Cage, instantly the mood changed as the actor whipped around glaring at the ring of meat-weasels, “Who threw that?”
When none of the meat-weasels spoke up the actor took an angry step toward the direction the rock had come from, causing both the inner and outer rings to step away from the angered actor, keeping him centered.
“Seriously! Who does that!?” the actor screamed, pointing an accusing finger at the meat-weasels.
“Or, well, I could be wrong.” Fluttershy said quietly, staring at her forehooves as she played with the dirt on the ground.
“Darling,” Rarity said, pointing out how the other side of the enclosing circles had come closer to the group, “I don’t think that this Cage will be enough.”
“It’s ok, I’ve got another costume!” Pinkie said, pulling out a Nicholas Cage costume and shoving it into Rainbow Dash’s hooves.
“Pinkie!” the pegasus protested, “Why are you giving this to me?”
“Because we need another Nicolas Cage, Dashie!” Pinkie explained cheerfully.
“Bu- bu- but why in the heck would you have a Nicolas Cage costume?” Rainbow Dash sputtered, utterly perplexed at the turn of events.
Pinkie gave Rainbow Dash a flat stare, as if the blue pegasus were asking why gummy was in interrogation. “Who doesn’t have a Nicolas Cage costume?”
“I don’t know, it just seems oddly specific, and awfully convenient.” Rainbow Dash said, hoof behind her head as she gave a nervous laugh.
“What!?” Pinkie said in surprised offense, “Did you just call me a deus ex machina?”
“Um, maybe?” Rainbow Dash squeaked out, hugging the boneless visage of Nicolas Cage close to herself as if to derive comfort from the costume.
“Rainbow Dash! I can’t believe you!” Pinkie shouted, turning away and angrily crossing her forehooves.
“Look, I’m sorry… I’ll wear the costume, see?” Rainbow Dash tried to mollify the pink pony as she put on the Nicolas Cage suit, but all that it elicited was a ‘humph!’ and jerk of the head away.
So Rainbow Dash took a step toward the meat-weasels, already upset with herself for calling Pinkie a deus ex machina, and began to fight the meat weasels just as Nicolas Cage was doing on the other side of the group, yelling angrily enough that little ribbons of spittle flew from his mouth and into the meat-weasels.


*     *     *


Rainbow Dash and Nicolas Cage sat back to back breathing heavily, the bodies of meat-weasels strewn across the forest floor and their friends huddling uselessly nearby.
“That was pretty intense.” Nicolas Cage said, wiping a bit of spittle from his mouth.
“Yeah, I’ll say.” Rainbow Dash said, adjusting her posture.
“You know, you did pretty good.”
“Yeah.”
A moment passed and then Cage got a mischievous gleam in his eye as he smiled.
“I guess you could say I’m pretty into you.” he said, gesturing at the Rainbow Dash costume he was wearing.
“Huh?” Rainbow Dash said, totally not getting his reference.
From the group of friends, Rarity spoke up, loud enough to echo across the clearing if the trees wouldn’t block the sound, “Oh, she’s so clueless! A confession of love like that only comes once in a lifetime!”
“L-l-love!?” Rainbow Dash sputtered.
“Oh, yes, it’s quite obvious…” Rarity said, breaking from the group and pointing a hoof at Rainbow Dash, still clad in the Nicolas Cage costume, “that you’re into Nicolas Cage as well!”
“W-what!?” Rainbow Dash said, blushing hard. “There’s no way!”
“I’m afraid it’s as plain as the clothes on your back, luv.” Spike said, in mock sad resignation before winking at the real Nicolas Cage and whispering, “Can I get an autograph? Later, I mean.”
“I don’t know, it looks like you two were made for each other!” Twilight said, joining in — usually she was the one that didn’t pick up on these sorts of social teasings, so she decided to join the herd and, for once, get in on it. And you know something? It was fun!
“So, I’m thinking they need an embarrassing nickname…” Sweetie Belle said, eyeing the two.
“Rainbow Cage!” Scootaloo yelled out her vote.
“Nicolas Das— no, that just sounds dumb.” Apple Bloom said, sitting down to think of a good name.
And so the group made their way back to Fluttershy’s house, teasing the new ‘couple’ along the way.
> Chapter 9:	To Cage a Rainbow
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 9:	To Cage a Rainbow
(Or The Betrothal of Rainbow Dash.)

As they traveled on to Fluttershy’s house even Applejack got in on the teasing, singing “Nicolas and Rainbow sitting in an apple-tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”
“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes three-hundred-days-of-pregnancy followed by a third-of-an-hour of labor, and then comes Rainbow pushing a foal’s carriage!” — Sure, it lacked the playful rhythm of the children’s taunt on Earth… but it was a bit more explicit about the process.
Rainbow Dash, for her part, was blushing so badly that one might have mistaken her for Twilight or Pinkie if it weren’t for the multi-spectral mane. Every time she tried to deny it one of the group would counter it. Like when Spike over-dramatically proclaimed “methinks the lady doth protest too much!” (Nicolas Cage made a comment about the horrid English accent and Spike countered that he was from England.)
Even Nicolas Cage got in on it, kneeling in front of her and saying:
“Oh, fair mare!
 My love is more than I can bear,
 and as a couple would cause others to stare,
 thine bounteous love hast caught me unaware!”
— and with that he made absurdly overacted motions, earning a bit of a glare from his professed object of love but eliciting laughter from the rest of the group.
Seeing the glare he leaned in and whispered in her ear, “It’s not as bad if you play along; they’re just teasing you for the reaction you know.”
And with a wink he was back on his feet, traveling with the rest of the group.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were relentless in teasing Rainbow Dash, asking all sorts of questions like who the maid of honor would be, or what color the bridesmaids’s dresses would be, or how many foals she wanted, or what names she was considering.
(Fluttershy; red; six; Lightning, Rod, Smooth Flight, Turbulency, and Zephyr — for anyone who’s interested.)
When they reached the edge of the forest Spike halted and said, “Well, this is as far as I go.”
“What, why’s that?” Scootaloo asked.
“Vampire. Sun.” Spike said indicating himself and the sky respectively.
“Oh, right.” Scootaloo laughed, “I hope we’ll see you again soon, Spike.”
“Ohhhh… Scootaloo’s got her eye on Spike!” Apple Bloom said, all too eager to turn the same teasing on Scootaloo as she had on Rainbow Dash.
“Wh— no! — I…” Scootaloo began to panic like Rainbow Dash had at the beginning.
Spike just laughed, ruffled the little orange pegasus’s mane and said, “Nah, I’m a bit too old for the nibblet.”


*     *     *


“I– I’m sorry, but I can’t send you back Mr. Cage.” Twilight said, sadly admitting that she just didn’t have enough practical summoning experience. “I promise I’ll try to learn enough to send you back… but for the meantime you’re stuck here.”
“I see. That’s understandable.” Cage nodded, looking around the inside of the tree/library/home he found himself in.
“Until we get you some place of your own you can stay with me and Spike.” Twilight said, indicating the upper level of the library which served as a bedroom.
“Thank you.” he replied, “I’m sorry to impose.”
“No! It’s my responsibility since it was my spell that brought you here, Mr. Cage.” she said.
“Well, there is the small issue of clothes...” he replied, indicating the Rainbow Dash suit he still wore.
“I think I can talk Rarity into making something for you.” Twilight said.
After everyone went to bed, Nicolas Cage stared at the ceiling wondering what this strange world held in store for him. He found himself staring at the Rainbow Dash suit discarded next to the bed and remembering the poor kid that everyone had picked on… even he had, and maybe he should apologize.


*     *     *


The next day, Rainbow Dash awoke and flew in to work to get her assignments for the week; it was nothing big, just overcast most of the week with a few light showers toward the end of the week.
After dragging in the nice gray clouds she commandeered a small one for a little nap… that was perhaps the biggest perquisite of the Ponyville weather-job: being able to get a steady income as long as the weather was on time.
As she began smoothing the cloud out for a nap she saw the human, Nicolas Cage, making his way to Rarity’s boutique, still clad in the Rainbow Dash outfit, and being led by a small purple dragon. Remembering the teasing from the day prior, she felt her heart rate increase and her embarrassment at all the things her friends had said.
Shaking her head, she returned to her task of making a place to nap.


*     *     *


Spike was bored. Really bored. But he couldn’t leave until Mr. Cage got some new outfits from Rarity, he knew he should have brought a couple of comic books to read…
“Hey Spike!” Sweetie Belle said, interrupting the young dragon’s boredom, “How’s it going?”
“Meh. Alright, I guess.” He said, shrugging.
“You don’t look alright.”
“I’m bored.”
“Well… how about we make something?” Sweetie Belle suggested.
“I have an idea!” Sweetie Belle said with a mischievous grin as she pulled out cardstock, colored pencils, colored paper, glue, and Rarity’s gem-dust.
And, five minutes later the outline for a card, a mock wedding invitation, was coming to life — it was, of course, for the wedding of Spike (the vampire) and Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle was not going to let that one drop any time soon, especially since it was clear that Scootaloo rather liked the vampire after Rainbow Dash had fallen off her pedestal with the ghastly “flesh-pocket”.
Ten minutes later the card was finished and, in Sweetie Belle’s opinion, looking quite professional with the shaded calligraphy, the paper lace, the paper inlays and shapes. It was quite an attractive looking card… the only problem was that Rarity was not even close to finished.
“Well, maybe we could make another.” Sweetie Belle said.
“But who?” Spike asked.
“Rainbow Dash and Mister Cage!” Sweetie replied with a wink.
And so the two got to work making another card, far more colorful and intricate than the first. It took them twenty minutes and just as they were admiring it the door to the boutique opened and in strode Rainbow Dash.
“What’cha doing?” She asked, looking at the dragon and filly.
Spike, unfortunately, was so startled that he let off a bout of dragonfire which consumed the card and sent it to Princess Celestia.
“Making wedding invitations.” Sweetie Belle said, holding up the Spike/Scootaloo one for Rainbow Dash to see while winking at Spike.
Rainbow Dash laughed as she read the card, “I wonder how Princess Celestia will take an invitation to Scootaloo’s wedding…”
“Well, it wasn’t that invitation.” Spike started confessing, not seeing the glare Sweetie Belle was giving him.
“Oh? Then…” Rainbow Dash prompted.
“It was yours —” Spike said, interrupted by a note from the princess.
“I would be most honored to attend Rainbow Dash’s wedding. I look forward to meeting this Nicolas Cage and seeing what kind of stallion could sweep Rainbow Dash off her hooves.” Spike read aloud.
Rainbow Dash was stunned into silence, so much so that she may as well have turned into a statue for a few minutes.
“Ohmygosh!Ohmygosh!Ohmygosh!Ohmygosh!” Rainbow Dash hyperventilated, the princess was coming to see her get married to Mr. Cage. There was no way she could disappoint the Princess, that would be worse than failing to get onto the Wonderbolts!
At that moment the door opened and Nicolas Cage, the unaware and soon to be groom, stepped through carrying a variety of clothes ranging from a duplicate of the Rainbow Dash costume, to something that looked like a cross between that costume and a business suit, to what looked to be a pair of feety-pajamas.
“Hi, Mr. Cage.” Rainbow Dash said through her teeth as her face quite obviously was forced into a smile — She couldn’t let the princess down, so this left only one thing to do, “Would you like to go out with me?”
> Chapter 10:	The Prettiest Rainbow To Date
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



SPECIAL JUMBO SIZE!


Chapter 10:	The Prettiest Rainbow To Date
(Or Obligatory Romance Subplot Chapter.)

Rainbow Dash led Nicolas Cage to her new favorite restaurant after a small detour to the library for him to stow his new clothes, and she had to admit that she liked the suit, which was a light cerulean a few shades a darker blue than her own coat, and contrasted nicely with the dark red shirt underneath, both the shirt and jacket offset by the purple handkerchief and cummerbund which matched her eyes.
If anything, Rarity’s work in matching Mr. Cage’s clothes to Rainbow Dash seemed prescient… though Rainbow Dash couldn’t make up her mind as to whether or not it was Rarity getting in on the “you were made for each other” joke or simply working off the pattern of Pinkie’s Rainbow Dash costume for his admittedly strange body-type.
“I hope you like Chinese food.” Rainbow Dash said, leading him to Cāntīng mă māo for one of their excellent lunch-specials. Not only were they really good, but she noticed that it seemed to really alleviate her craving for kittens for some reason.
A shadow of guilt crossed her face for a brief moment as she remembered trying to frame them for the neighborhood’s missing cats. But, apparently they forgave her, at least enough to allow her to buy food from them. (Rainbow Dash didn’t know it, but the affirmation that they were not putting the town’s cats into their food by Twilight Sparkle really helped their business… so much that they were having to import three times as many crates as before.)
“So, you look like you have something on your mind.” Nick Cage said as he took a seat which was just the slightest bit too small.
“Um, yeah…” Rainbow Dash said, looking away as she brushed a strand of her mane out of her eyes.
“Look I’m sorry about how you’ve become the butt of the joke with your friends.” Nick said, taking a hoof in his hand and drawing her attention to his face.
“I… No, don’t mention it. I’m tough enough I can handle it.” Rainbow Dash said, resisting the urge to look away even as she felt a blush creep to her cheeks… she didn’t know why, but it was nice being the center of his attention, and he really was quite sweet caring for her like this.
He nodded, “That’s part of why they do it.”
Rainbow Dash sat there for a minute before she broke the silence with a plain “Thanks.”
“Hello.” the waiter interrupted, setting down two glasses of water and derailing Rainbow Dash’s thoughts which actually were getting dangerously close to romance, “I’m Wong Wok, and I’ll be your server today.”
The startled Rainbow Dash blushed furiously and grabbed her water to take a big drink, while Nicolas Cage calmly took the offered menus with a nod of thanks.
“Thank you,” He said, nodding again in thanks before turning back to Rainbow Dash, “Can you recommend anything?”
“I think I’ll have my usual: the Lóng Hŭ Fèng.” Rainbow Dash, indicating her choice of the ‘Dragon, Tiger, Phoenix’ —it was particularly good at alleviating her more base cravings… and the taste! If she could have, she would have purred just thinking about it. “They say that it’s amazingly awesome for the body.”
“Hm, there’s a thought.” Nick said, looking over the menu… “Though the wonton soup and the spicy blood-orange chicken looks good.”
“Chicken?” Rainbow Dash cocked her head, it was kinda weird hearing someone order chicken… though with as much trouble as Elizibeak had been that one time she couldn’t fault someone for wanting to strangle a chicken, and then of course you’d have to do something with the body.
“Can I take your order?” Wong Wok interrupted, spoiling whatever else she was going to say.
“Ah, the ‘Dragon, Tiger, Phoenix’ for me.” Rainbow Dash answered, slightly glad that he’d interrupted her before she could say anything embarrassing.
“Yeah, I’ll have the wonton soup and the spicy blood-orange chicken.” Nick said, handing back the menu.
The waiter nodded, “Very good, it’ll be a few minutes… would you like any appetizer?”
Rainbow Dash shook her head, as the entree would be more than enough for her, while Mr. Cage simply said ‘no.’
The two talked about various things until the main courses arrived, with Rainbow Dash learning about his love of acting and, surprisingly, singing; Nicolas Cage, on the other hand, learned about Rainbow Dash’s love of flying and acrobatics, he was also mildly surprised when she blushed mentioning an adventure series she liked to read.
And then, in what seemed like no time at all, their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of their food… and while they did start talking afterwards, the mood was dampened from what it had been. They did share a small bit of each other’s food, Nicolas saying he could “taste the dragon” and Rainbow Dash slightly intrigued by the different texture of the chicken.


*     *     *


The next day Rainbow Dash took Mr. Cage to see her clear the skies of clouds, and afterward to Ghastly Gorge where she treated him to an aerial acrobatic show.


*     *     *


The next day she took him out on a picnic and, reclining on the traditional red-and-white checkered blanket the two got to talking.
“So, I heard from Twilight that you can’t go home.”
“Yeah, just like the saying.” Nicolas said, and with what might have been a sad smile, he gave the saying: “‘You can never go home.’”
“But… well…” Rainbow Dash stumbled, trying to ask ‘do you like me’ before coming at it indirectly, “Everything here isn’t so bad, is it?”
“Yeah, it’s not bad here…” he gave a sigh, “but it’s really not what I was expecting a week ago…”
“And?”
“I’m not sure what I can do here…” he said, running a hand through his hair, “You see, I’m an actor… and there really doesn’t seem to be much demand for one here, especially one that’s not a pony.”
“Yeah, I think I can see how that would be…” Rainbow Dash searched for a word to describe the apprehension and uncertainty of the future but unable to think of one, just letting the sentence die. 
“Unsettling?” Nicholas Cage asked.
“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash nodded, feeling a little sad for the misplaced human.
Mr. Cage shrugged, indicating a small dismissal of the problem, “I’ll find something to do.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you will.” Rainbow Dash said, her eyes darting down to his hands, “I saw how you helped Time Turner repair the hour-glass’s stand yesterday.”
“He needed my help.”
“And you gave it to him.”
Nicolas shrugged in reply, “It wasn’t a problem, I just had use the hammer while he held the hour-glass steady… I was more worried about slipping up and breaking it.”
Rainbow Dash smiled at him, he really was kind… and he was brave, too, with how he had charged the meat-weasels… and he was fun to be with, every time she saw him her heartbeat would quicken and she found herself really enjoying it when he looked at her, even for the briefest of moments.
‘Yeah,’ Rainbow Dash thought, ‘Being married to him wouldn’t be too bad…’
She watched his hand come towards here and ruffle her mane, it was… different.
‘But…’ Rainbow Dash asked herself, ‘does he like me?’


*     *     *


That night, Rainbow Dash found herself staring at the ceiling of her cloud-house thinking about the human she’d been spending more time with, she even saw his face form in the textures of the clouds which formed the ceiling of the room — if this was a movie, this is where the camera would zoom-out while spinning as she said ‘Nicolas Cage’ in a long and drawn-out manner. (But this is a fanfic, so you’ll just have to imagine it.)


*     *     *


The next day Rainbow Dash avoided Nicolas Cage, feeling entirely too flustered and unsure to talk to the human. While the pegasus put up a tough front, it was also true that she didn’t have a lot of experience dealing with ‘mushy stuff’ like romantic feelings and the directions that her thoughts had taken disturbed her… not because she didn’t like them, but because she was scared that she liked them too much.
On the other hand, Mr. Cage was bewildered about the sudden loss of his lunch/afternoon companion. He tried to think of anything that could have offended her but he couldn’t think of anything except teaching her the game of HORSE using a rock and a makeshift hoop.
Returning home early, he asked Twilight Sparkle about it.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said, “everything was going fine and then she just disappeared.”
“Well, I’m not sure…” Twilight said, “The only thing really different about her recently is her spending a lot of time with you… oh, and eating kittens?”
“Kittens?”
“Yep,” Twilight said, nodding, “Apparently she liked it enough that she started eating them regularly.”
“I… see.” Nicolas Cage said, not really seeing it. “And are these kittens…”
“Yes?”
“Fluffy?”
“I believe so,” Twilight said, “I haven’t had them myself, but she’s made several comments that indicates she likes the texture as well as the taste.”
“I see…” Nicolas Cage said, “Is that normal?”
“Eating kittens?”
“Yeah.”
“No, it’s not…” Twilight said, shaking her head, “well, unless you’re a Gryphon… or Chinese.”
“Do you think that’s the reason?”
“What?”
“Well, do you think it is possible that she is ashamed or afraid of eating kittens in front of me?”
“That could be.” Twilight admitted.
At that moment Spike returned from the basement where he had taken a set of books for repair, seeing Twilight and their new tenant so deeply engaged, he couldn’t help but pry.
“Wha’cha guys talking about?” the dragon asked.
“Oh, Nick here was just wondering if something happened to Rainbow Dash recently.” Twilight explained.
Spike nervously gulped, glancing from unicorn to human and back again, when neither of them seemed particularly interested in him he sighed in relief.


*     *     *


Rainbow Dash sighed, looking out the window of her house toward Ponyville. That was where he was, but how could she go and see him and let him know her feelings when it was obvious that they were so different? Was it even possible for a man like him to accept her? …especially when it was so obvious that she was a freak, a pony that ate kittens.
She sighed again, wishing that they could just be together… wondering what he was doing… desiring to know what Nicholas Cage felt… it was all tearing her up inside, and she didn’t know what to do, so she sat and cried.


*     *     *


The next day Rainbow Dash also avoided Nicholas Cage, but she was thinking about him. She was thinking about what she should do, about the wedding invitation, the princess, Nicolas Cage, and everything…
She went to talk to Rarity, getting to the door of the boutique before her courage ran out; she took to the air screaming at herself and completely missing Nicolas Cage call out her name.
Back at her home she sat down at her table with a cup of tea and thought about the situation again. Finally, though, she thought she had a way to see if Mr. Cage really liked her, if he really accepted her — ‘Tomorrow,’ she thought, thinking about her plan as she exited her home and flew toward her favorite pet shop.


*     *     *


Finally, the day —no, the hour— came and Rainbow Dash swooped in to surprise Nicolas Cage as he helped Carrot Top with her garden. She looked at how he deftly handled the hoe, as if his hands were meant to guide the instrument so precisely…
Shaking her momentary fascination from her head, she looked at the man and said, “Hey, Nick!”
“Hi, Rainbow Dash.” he returned, not looking up for more than a moment. “I missed you yesterday.”
Her heart fluttered hearing that he had missed her, he really was so sweet!
“I was wondering if you’d like to take lunch with me…” she said, trailing off, about to lose her nerve.
“Sure.” He said, agreeing.
As the two walked along, he asked her about what had happened, why he hadn’t been able to see her the past few days.
“Ah, well…” Rainbow Dash laughed nervously, she didn’t really want to let him know that she’d been agonizing over him, “You know, I had some personal stuff come up.”
“I see,” he said, nodding in understanding, “I hope you got it all cleared up.”
“Yeah, I think I did.” Rainbow Dash replied, checking out his butt as he entered the café in front of her… the real reason that she had rushed to open the door for him before he could open it for her.
After he ordered a bowl of the menudo and the waiter had set out the chips and salsa he asked her if she really had her personal stuff worked out, offering to help if she needed it: “You know, if you need me for anything, you can just ask…”
“Really?” Rainbow Dash asked, a little surprised at the offer.
“Yeah,” he smiled at her, “I like you.”
“But… you know I’m different from other ponies, right?” she asked, suddenly feeling unsure of herself.
“Yeah, I know.” Nicolas Cage wasn’t blind, of course Rainbow Dash was different: nopony else had such a colorful mane or tail. Obviously she was sensitive about her appearance, just like many girls…
“I– you do?” Rainbow Dash asked in shock, “You know I eat kittens?”
“Yeah, Twilight told me about it.” He said, taking another bite of his sandwich, as if he routinely ate lunch with people that ate kittens.
“Uh… yeah.” Rainbow Dash admitted, putting a hoof behind her head in embarrassment before taking a deep breath and continuing with her planned revelation to Mr. Cage.
She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a kitten, a delicious looking white one with big blue eyes.
“They’re really quite delicious.” She said, dropping it in her mouth, chewing and swallowing the tasty morsel… nice and slow so that he could get the full effect, so that she could see if it disgusted him, or if he really liked her… if he really could love her.
“I believe you.” He said, calmly and with a possible hint of a smile.
Rainbow Dash couldn’t believe how calm, composed, and nonchalant he was about the whole thing… it was as if his feelings for her overrode the natural revulsion most ponies had about it.
Maybe it really could be love. Rainbow Dash smiled at him…
“Yeah, I recently went to court over it,” Rainbow Dash admitted, though she wasn’t about to admit that it was over the catnapping and not the cat-napping she’d done when the hunger had been so intense.
“I got a zipper too!” She said, raising her wing to show it to him, “Most ponies find it unsettling…” 
She took the opportunity to unzip it, reaching in with a hoof to retrieve the kitten… only to find bloody ball of fur and bone in her hoof.
“I forgot… it doesn’t work when you chew.” Rainbow Dash said indicating the former kitten as a wave of embarrassment swept over her.
Nicolas Cage stared at the red mass atop her hoof for a long moment, enough to think that maybe her display had utterly disgusted him — then, he reached over, took a chip and scooped a bit of kitten from the fur-ball examining it for a split second before chomping down and eating it.
“It’s good!” he said, displaying the usual Cage relish for the kitten.
Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but smile, and it was the sort of smile that comes from being completely and totally accepted.
> Chapter 11:	Soft kitty, Warm kitty, Little Ball of Fur
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 11:	Soft kitty, Warm kitty, Little Ball of Fur
(Or Mean Kitty, Angry Kitty, Little Ball of Claws.)

The docks were a dreary place, shrouded in fog and smelling of decaying fish and seabird feces — but receiving the imported cargo was impossible without it so the workers put up with the stench, letting their hunger motivate them to do the job.
Another crate was lifted out of the ship and placed in the dock’s loading area, it was opened and the overseer was pleased to see the contents were alive and well.
Chrysalis, the queen of the Changelings smiled as she adjusted the Stetson she was wearing. The crates that came in contained only the highest quality kittens, the little fur-balls more than happy to purr and spread love around the hive — everything was going to plan, and the hive would be well-fed thanks to its ingenuity.
Just then, one of the last crates that was being hoisted out of the ship fell to the dock, splitting open and yielding a blood-curdling howl; the drones stopped in surprise at the unexpected, and frankly disturbing, noises coming from the crate — it was enough of a pause to allow the cat inside to slice at one of the nearby drones with her sharp claws — the breeding female inside the crate’s remains was obviously mortally wounded, and she intended to take all those around her with her.
There was a moment of silence followed by the pandemonium of changelings talking: observing how the drone was hurt, laughing at his misfortune, or observing how thankful they were that it hadn’t been them as the cat licked its claws clean… and then the cat swiped at another drone, having gotten the taste of changeling blood.
“Shoot her!” Chrysalis yelled over the pandemonium, trying to control the danger that had been released, “Shoot her!”


*     *     *


“Why do I have to wear a bear suit?” Nicolas Cage asked, still unsure about how he’d allowed himself to be talked into it for the “costumed carnivore’s kitten card-game” (or costume-and-kitten-poker, if you wanted to use its colloquial name).
“Wicker Man.” Spike replied, his face sticking out of the mouth of his shark suit.
Nick sighed, “Well, at least there’s no bees… everybody wants the stupid bees for some reason, it’s old.”
Spike glanced up from his cards, and seeing Edward the bear with his clay honey-pot raised suspiciously behind Mr. Cage and motioned the bear back, terminating the bear’s mission of bee-delivery.
“Growf.” (Oh bother.) the bear muttered, disappointed. He pulled his tiger-striped shirt a little lower, it haven ridden up as he walked around. (Hey, you try finding a costume for a bear!)
Rainbow Dash, however, saw the whole thing and snickered into her hoof.
“And why is she in a costume of me?” Nick asked, indicating Rainbow Dash’s Nicolas Cage costume.
“It’s the only costume I had… and I wasn’t about to wear that one of me, those eyes are creepy!” Rainbow Dash said, explaining away why she didn’t want to wear the other costume… even though the slight blush she acquired told Spike that she was remembering the last time she wore the Cage costume.
“Um, e-excuse me… but I’ll raise.” Fluttershy said, then hid behind the multicolored mane of the Rainbow Dash costume she had borrowed from Mr. Cage.
“Why are you even here!?” Spike asked, incredulous at the shy pegasus’s presence. “You’re not a carnivore.”
“W-well, once, when I was f-feeding the baby birds… I swallowed part of the worm.” Fluttershy explained then, seeing everyone’s attention directed toward her, tried to hide in the costume’s multi-spectral mane.
“Yeah, Fluttershy’s cool. Even if she wasn’t, it is her place.” Rainbow Dash said, indicating the interior of Fluttershy’s cottage, “Besides, it’s not like we can use the Forest with the meat-weasels still on the loose.”
“But we’ve got bloody Nick Cage!” Spike said, indicating the human.
“Yeah, we beat them off once… we didn’t kill them.” Rainbow Dash said, pushing a kitten into the pot, “Anyway, I’ll see that raise.”
“My life is really weird.” Nicolas Cage said, shaking his head and sighing, flopping his cards on the table and scrubbing his face with his hands he announced his fold, “I’m out.”


*     *     *


She still remembered that fateful day when the plan had its inception. It all started with a little box on the side of the road with the innocuous ‘Free Li Hua Kittens to Good Home’ written on the side.
~~ Start Flashback-Memory Time! ~~
When she had looked inside there was a single kitten, so fluffy and cute! —and then when it let out the cutest little ‘mew’ her heart melted like butter left too close to the toaster— How could she leave it there alone?
So she took it with her to the hive where she found the most remarkable thing: when the kitten began to purr, it sent delicious waves of love! She had finally found a solution to the hive’s hunger issues!
Armed with this new information she called for her Grand Vizier, a changeling named Steve, and instructed him to import more of these “Li Hua” kittens for the hive. (It was important that they be Li Hua kittens in order to cut out as many variables as possible — after all, how likely was it that a Bengal would produce love like a Li Hua did?)
A week later he returned with news that they would only be able to get a few kittens… the Chinese were apparently bound by a treaty with the Gryphon empire giving them the sole right to Li Hua kittens — and so they could only get them through that empire, which had seen an up-tick in demand recently.
“I see. We shall either have to eliminate this ‘excess demand’, or capture the Chinese kitten-mines ourselves.” Chrysalis said, rubbing her perforated hooves together.
“Um, kittens don’t come from mines.” Steve said.
“Of course they do!” Chrysalis objected, “Just like any mineral kittens come from deep within the cold heart of the Earth!”
“Kittens are an animal, not a mineral.” Steve said, sighing.
“Are you sure?” Chrysalis asked, not quite believing, “I was certain they came from the ground… maybe like a carrot?”
“Those are vegetables.” Steve said drily.
“So you’re saying that we can’t get any kitten seeds?” Chrysalis asked.
“No, we can’t mine kittens, nor can we farm them…” Steve watched as Chrysalis’s ears drooped, she had obviously been looking forward to increasing the hive’s supply of kittens.
“We could breed them.” Steve offered, after a moment of silence.
The changeling queen perked right up, happy that her plan on feeding the hive wasn’t unrealistic. “Yes! Then see to it, we must have kittens for the hive!”
Steve nodded, marking his to-do list with the entry “acquire kittens”.
“Oh, and bring me Mr. Cuddles.” Chrysalis said, looking forward to the kitten’s lovely purr. 
“Yes, my queen.” Steve said, bowing as he went to retrieve the kitten, who was probably being cuddled by some of the drones… again. He sighed, the drones had no sense of self discipline… in that sense they took after the queen very much.
His train of thought was interrupted by a frantic wave of drones nearly sweeping him away.
“What’s going on?” Steve yelled, trying to get through to one of the chittering drones even as he fought to stay above the tide. Unsurprisingly, he got no comprehensible answer from the chittering drones, but he finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel as he reached the tail end of the changeling tidal-wave.
“I wonder, what was that all about?” Steve asked himself, watching the drones recede down the hall… turning back down the tunnel there was a scuttling noise and movement in the corner of his eye, but when he looked there was nothing there.
The quiet was deafening and, for some reason, Steve’s heart kept threatening to climb up his neck, out his mouth and wack him in the nose with a newspaper because this is exactly the sort of setup that horror movies have.
But Steve was loyal and on a mission for her majesty, the queen — there was no way he could let a little thing like his love of scary movies deter him from retrieving the kitten.
As he made his way down the hall it became darker and gloomier and more humid, a sure sign he was approaching the nurseries where the grubs and larvae would be cared for until they molted their first exoskeleton. — Again there was movement, furtive, hidden, silent and caught only out of the corner of his eye.
“Hello?” Steve asked, his voice echoing back creepily. “Is anyone there?”
A low, soft, moan emanated from one of rooms ahead and, to Steve, it sounded like soft, forlorn, and hopeless weeping. Stepping into the dim light of one of the nurseries, Steve saw the remains of the massacred grubs, larvae, and drones… the weeping coming from one of the older drones in charge of the nurses.
“What happened?” Steve enquired.
“The kitten, no longer…” she gasped, her final words shaking Steve to his core: “cats… they kill insects.”
That, Steve knew, was his queen’s plan’s fatal flaw… as he turned to leave, he hered a sound that chilled him to his core: “Meow!”
~~ Stop Flashback Memory-Time! ~~
> Chapter 12:	Happy Kitty, Sleepy Kitty, Purr, Purr, Purr.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 12:	Happy Kitty, Sleepy Kitty, Purr, Purr, Purr.
(Or Lick Kitty, Bite Kitty, With Your Little Jaws.)

Chrysalis frowned at her new Grand Vizier, she was hauntingly familiar for some reason… but, truth be told, she was no Steve. She lacked the drive, the will, and the initiative that her former Grand Vizier had possessed.
“I think I will call you Stevena.” Chrysalis finally said, coming to her decision about what to do with this new Grand Vizier.
“My name is Synthia.” She growled back.
“Yes, but you’re familiar for some reason, it must be because you’re like Steve, your predecessor.” Chrysalis explained.
“I’m familiar because I’m your sister!” Synthia retorted angrily.
“Oh, don’t be so cross Stevena.” Chrysalis said, “After all, we have to save our hive.”
Synthia raised her perforated hoof to her temple and massaged; how their mother, the former queen, could have selected her sister to rule after her was one of life’s great mysteries… though at times she suspected that it had been anti-assassination insurance which, obviously, hadn’t really worked.
“We have to save it because you endangered it!” Synthia said slowly, over enunciating and hoping that she’d get through to her sister.
“What are you talking about?” Chrysalis asked, the puzzled tone obviously eliciting an angry reaction from Synthia.
“You brought a kitten into the hive. Then you imported more, even after we learned that draining them of their love turns them into cats, one of the few natural predators known to changeling-kind… and now our hive is being overrun by cats.” Synthia explained.
“Yes, but there’s nothing we can do!” Chrysalis said.
“We could leave, start a new hive somewhere without a cat infestation.” Synthia offered.
The suggestion instantly caused Chrysalis’s hackles to rise, as if the notion itself was utterly repugnant.
“We've made too many compromises already; too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire rooms and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!” Chrysalis declared, her anger at the situation finally overflowing, to the point where she finished off her speech with a harsh whisper, more to herself than anyone else, “And I will make them pay for what they've done! ”
Synthia stepped backward in surprise, her sister was… unstable, and a moron, the two didn’t go together well. — That, and the smile she suddenly sprouted was creepy.
“And I know just how to make them pay, Stevena!” Chrysalis said, rubbing her hooves together. “Send a squad of drones to Ponyville, they’re to retrieve the Cat-Eater, the one they call Rainbow Dash… oh, and just to ensure her cooperation, bring her beloved Nicolas Cage as well. He’s something called a ‘human’, apparently some sort of lanky biped-creature.”
“At once.” Synthia said, dryly resenting that she had to work for her sister and barely keeping that hatred from her voice.
“It really is too bad about Steve…” Chrysalis said wistfully, morning the absence of her good adviser.


*     *     *


Fluttershy stared at her winnings with a totally perplexed look, somehow she’d managed to win everyone’s kittens… but she was entirely unsure of how she managed that.
“Oh, I-I’m sorry…” she said, looking through the pile of kittens, “I didn’t mean to win everyone’s kittens… um, maybe, we could split them up and, um, keep playing?”
“Sure luv, you do that.” Spike replied, shaking his head… it was impossible for him to read Fluttershy: she acted remorseful and unsure if she got a good hand, as if sorry she would beat everyone, and remorseful and unsure if she got a bad hand, as if sorry that she’d let everyone down.
There was a sudden knocking at the door that interrupted anything else Spike was going to say, instead he said he’d take care of it, got up and went to the door, a surly “What do you blokes want?” came from the next room, followed by what sounded suspiciously like a body hitting the floor.
Nicolas Cage and Rainbow Dash exchanged glances, as if to ask “what the heck was that?” but they were interrupted by two baskets full of kittens being pushed under their noses.
“Um, I’d better see what’s keeping Spike…” Fluttershy said after depositing Spike’s new kittens at his spot and thereby replenishing his stack.
Several moments after she left there was a “It’s her!” followed by a small “can I help you?” and then another sound that sounded suspiciously like a body hitting the floor.
“What the heck’s going on in there?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Well, let’s find out.” Nicolas Cage said, rising from his chair and moving into the next room where there was nothing, not even a sign of Spike or their impromptu hostess, Fluttershy.
He opened the door to look out side and a small fluttering caught his eye, it was a paper stuck to the door with a dagger — which he took and read.
“I think we need to save Fluttershy and Spike.” he said.
“What makes you say that?” Rainbow Dash asked.
In reply he read the note aloud: “Nicholas Cage and I have decided to elope, so don’t follow us, Chrysalis Rainbow Dash.”
Nicolas Cage smiled at the cute face-hoof expression Rainbow Dash showed when she heard him read the name of the changeling queen.


*     *     *


The ship pulled up to the docks, ready for unloading the ‘passengers’ who would be ‘guests’ of Chrysalis’s hive until their little problem had been taken care of… hopefully Rainbow Dash was hungry, because there were a lot of cats infesting her hive.
As they waited for the docking procedure to complete, Chrysalis turned to Synthia and said, “Stevena, I miss Steve, sometimes it seems like he’s still with us, right here.”
Synthia looked at the changeling right beside her and resisted the urge to beat her over the head with a brick.
“But I had to dismiss him,” Chrysalis continued, sadness tainting her voice, “He's more machine now than changeling… twisted and evil.”
“First, I’m standing right here. Second, it’s only a hook—” Steve said raising the named prosthetic where his hoof once was for emphasis, “Third, I’m a changeling, we’re all ‘twisted and evil’, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Yes, it’s like I can still hear his voice…” Chrysalis trailed off, oblivious to Steve shaking his head in disbelief or Synthia aggressively massaging her temple as if to stave off a migraine.
Any further reminiscing about her former Grand Vizier was interrupted by a changeling from the ship standing before her like any good changeling commander would. “My queen! It is my honor to present Nicolas Cage and Rainbow Dash!”
At that moment a net dropped from a hoist on the ship revealing a gangly biped dressed as a shark and what could only be Rainbow Dash… though the bulging eyes were a little off-putting.
“U-um, h-hello.” ‘Rainbow Dash’ said.
“Ah, miss Dash, we’re so glad you could join us.” Chrysalis said, smiling her most diplomatic and least-fake looking fake-smile.


*     *     *


“Is anypony home?” Twilight Sparkle called,
“I don’t think so, Twilight.” Spike the dragon asked, pushing open the door and looking in the empty cottage.
“But Fluttershy didn’t say anything about leaving.” Twilight said, looking around the cottage.
Spike followed after and after a quick search the two of them found nothing and were just about to leave when the small dragon noticed a paper that had blown under a chair.
“Twilight, I think maybe they’re in real trouble!” he said, realizing that the changeling queen was behind the disappearance.
“I’ll bet the real Rainbow Dash found the note and is trying to take the changelings on by herself… she’s going to need help.” Twilight said after reading the note, “We’ve got to get everypony else! And the Elements, Spike!”
And with that the two gathered their remaining friends to mount a rescue of their missing friends.


*     *     *


The real Nicolas Cage and Rainbow Dash were, at that very moment, in a small skiff closing in on the ship that had held their friends. They had almost overtaken the ship once but were ambushed by sea monsters, the small diversion battling squids and a kraken had delayed them in intercepting the larger ship and the confronting the piratical pony-nappers, the villainous vampire violators!
They pulled their little skiff up onto the adjacent dock and, disembarking, raced toward their captive friends… only to have a maniacal laugh suddenly split the air and the flash of teleportation remove the changeling queen and her captives from the area.
Unfortunately, there were still scores of changelings on the docks, ready and willing to fight these interlopers, they burst forward in a stampede of malevolence ready to subdue Rainbow Dash and her human.
Nicolas Cage and Rainbow Dash weren’t in a subdued mood, though and so the two tore through the front lines like a rat-terrier through a mischief of mice.
The feeling of exoskeletons crunching under his mighty fists filled Nicolas Cage with a savage sort of joy that he would only describe later as ‘Savage, Randy Savage.’
As the human inflicted damage on the ground, Rainbow Dash terrorized the changelings from the skies, raining pain from on high.
The two were making a lot of progress until one small changeling flew off to a whistle and began blowing it, summoning more drones from the hive and turning the battle in the favor of the sheer numbers of the changelings.
They overwhelmed the ground-bound human, dragging him off to their hive, and were about to swarm Rainbow Dash when the report of a cannon ripped through the air, just like the confetti that snagged the changelings’s holes and snared their wings causing scores to fall from the sky.
Rainbow Dash looked back in that direction and saw a familiar pink pony packing more party supplies into her hearty party arty.
Her friends had come to help!


*     *     *


“…and so, Rainbow Dash, you will rid my hive of this feline menace or your precious Nicolas Cage will be forced to listen to country music until all joy is drained from his very soul!”
“Y-y-you monster!” Fluttershy cried in horror, the notion of being forced to listen to country music nauseating the kind mare on a fundamental level.
Chrysalis reared back and laughed, “Yes, my cruelty knows no bounds… you would do well to remember that!”
Fluttershy shuddered at the thought of having to eat the cats infesting the hive, but then she thought of poor Spike and being forced to listen to country music and she couldn’t decide which was more unkind… until she realized that eating could be a quick death while country music would forever scar the poor vampire, causing him to live out the rest of his immortal life thinking about all the dogs that had died, women that betrayed him, and angels.
Chrysalis saw the hesitation in the pegasus’s body-language, “Come now, you’d best be off in that direction—” Chrysilis pointed down into the depths of the hive, which the cats had assimilated into their terrible playgrounds, “—before I decide to make it One Direction.”
Fluttershy’s heart broke. There truly was no end to Chrysalis’s cruelty. She hung her head and moped down the hive’s main corridor, vaguely aware of the rhythmic throbbing of a multitude of cats purring, the interference beats causing an odd reverberating effect from the deep, drums in the deep.
> Chapter 13:	Suddenly Summoning a Prismatic Protector
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 13:	Suddenly Summoning a Prismatic Protector
(Or Shazam!)

Fluttershy walked sown the dark, dank corridor, cringing into her Rainbow Dash costume with each beat of the purrs echoing and rebounding. She couldn’t let Spike be tortured, but she couldn’t eat the cute, fluffy kitty-cats.
The tension and conflict built up inside her until it exploded as a blind and panicked gallop, turning at random and trying to escape the terrible sound until, at last, se found herself splashing in the water of an underground stream.
Suddenly stopped by the subterranean watercourse, with the sound of the running water drowning out the angry purr she finally allowed herself to calm down.
Looking about she saw light glinting off of the water, apparently from the sun outside… the egress beckoned her and she felt the welcome relief of wind on her face melting away the subliminal claustrophobic terror of the underworld.
Minutes later she emerged, like a butterfly from a chrysalis emerging into the freedom of the sky!
A flicker of rainbow in motion drew her attention, it was Rainbow Dash and, looking beyond her, she could see the rest of her friends!
She ran down the changeling-hill, tripping over the cloth of her costume and falling head over heel.
She dragged herself to her feet, and discarding her costume, made her way back to her friends just as another wave of changelings swarmed out of their hive to join the Battle of Five Mares as it would one day come to be called (even though the sixth, Fluttershy, was on her way).


*     *     *


Rainbow Dash saw the hoard of changelings erupt from the hive, a giant anthill of a construct, built from the shattered dreams of many a pony as the hive feasted on all affection and love until nothing but the soulless husks of ponies remained, that and dirt… lots of dirt.
Diving and swooping even as Pinkie Pie’s cannon provided some form of cover as it blasted the insectoid emotion-vampires from the skies again and again, she saw a small yellow figure rushing down the side of the changeling’s hill.
It was Fluttershy!
Normally Rainbow Dash would be annoyed that the pegasus had, once again, forgotten that she could fly… but given the areal difficulties of the swarming hoard of changelings she really couldn’t blame her for staying earthbound… and, in fact, it would be good if she could divert the insectile attention away from her friend and allow her to regroup with the others.
So Rainbow Dash dove, spun and wove through the clouds of changelings using every dirty trick she could think of, but she saw a group break off to assail her friend, leaving her with one option: a sonic rainboom.
The light and noise provided enough of a distraction that Fluttershy finally made it to the others, but as Rainbow Dash pulled out of a barrel roll she heard Twilight shout and point to the side where she saw an even bigger hoard was coming from the changeling-hill.
“We have to use the Elements!” Twilight shouted, even as Rainbow Dash landed and the ever-faithful dragon Spike retrieved the Elements for use.
After taking her element, Rainbow Dash confidently jumped forward, shouting “Loyalty!” as a red beam of light erupted from the mare.
Then the orange mare, Applejack, jumped forward, shouting “Honesty!” and unleashing a bolt of orange light.
Fluttershy hopped forward and, after taking a big breath, shouted “Kindness!” and emitting a beam of yellow light to join the others.
She shook her head in disbelief, but Rarity too stepped forward shouting, in as ladylike a fashion as she could manage, “Generosity!” and a green light exploded forth.
Pinkie Pie jumped forward like a steam-power catapult had been behind her, and shouted “Laughter!” and a blue light erupted out of her.
The purple unicorn, Twilight Sparkle, jumped forward completing the sequence as she shouted “…and Friendship!” and a violet stream of light burst forth to join the others.
The rainbow colors burst forth from the ponies, clashing in a kaleidoscope of color swirling and mixing before the poly-chromatic maelstrom was consumed in a bright flash of light, revealing a human figure with a fist thrust into the very air itself.
The summoned being yelled a single phrase of introduction:
“By your powers combined…” 

“I am Aquaman!”

The Atlantian king of the seas had once again been summoned on a radical adventure with the extraterrestrial equines, and this time there would be plenty of outrageous action as he narrowed his eyes and stared at the oncoming changeling hoard… yes, this adventure would definitely be something to sing about!
Smiling at the challenge, Aquaman cracked his knuckles before launching himself into battle. Changeling armor and exoskeleton were no mach for his powerful hands as they literally ripped through changeling after changeling, leaving behind a trail of ichor and shards of shattered and torn carapace.


*     *     *


Chrysalis stood in awe of the slaughter and as this new human tore through her changeling army like a beluga whale through a colony of shrimp — why she thought of such an odd, and oceanic, metaphor she had no idea, but it sounded right.
She felt her blood chill at the sheer carnage wrought against her drones, or would have if she had been a mammal, and felt despair clawing at her throat.
There was only one thing she could do, besides order the rest of her hive to their doom, and that was to abandon the entire area… something she never would have done for the cats, but seeing the sheer savagery unleashed on unsuspecting and dutiful drones was enough to convince her that discretion was indeed the better part of valor and so she sounded the retreat.
Later she would count the survivors, and find only fifty-seven changelings from her hive survived that day. (Even now the changelings hide from anyone wearing yellow chain-mail and green gloves.)  But right now, she had one thing to say, “I'll get you next time, Rainbow… next time!”


*     *     *


The black car sat silently, waiting… the red light of its scanner bouncing back and forth as the AI housed inside waited for its partner. — KITT was, as with most AI units, quite patient and resourceful when needed, but for now all he was doing was passively monitoring his partner with the comm-link waiting to make contact with the government operative. — That he didn’t like being cut off from his partner was a unavoidable part of this particular mission.
The setup was simple, the intelligence operative, who had been inserted as part of the ambassador’s staff was transmitting an information packet via  hypersonic beacon, which the comm-link would pick up, having been modified to record the whole visit — all without breaking the agent’s cover and without a traceable system like a laser-link would present, or the vulnerability of radio — plus, if the technology were found, it could be passed off as a merely the malfunction of the alarm-system on the watch.
The minutes stretched to hours, which was understandable as his partner would have to socialize with many people, one of whom would be the contact, and in order to record the messages he would have to keep them in communicator range for at least 84 seconds. And yet, this had to be done in such a way that it appeared natural, so he would have to vary the amount of time he spent with each person.
Eventually KITT’s scanners picked up someone heading towards him, pulsing the ultraviolet light scanner revealed his partner striding forth with his hands in the pockets of his trademark black leather jacket.
“Hey buddy, you ready to blow this joint?”
“Yes, Spike.” KITT intoned, relieved that his vampire-partner was finally back and that the mission appeared to have goon smoothly.
“Great, let’s go!” Spike said, opening the door and sliding into the wonderful driver’s seat of the Knight Industries Two Thousand.
As Spike pulled his seatbelt over his shoulder he felt jabbing in his ribs even as he heard KITT’s voice seem to morph into a familiar one that he couldn’t quite place, “C’mon; wake up, Spike.”
‘Bollocks!’ Spike thought, realizing that he was being woken from such a great dream.
“Come on, wake up.” the voice repeated, revealing itself to be none other than Nicolas Cage.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Spike snapped, angry at the human for waking him.
“Yeah, I’m here to rescue you.” Cage replied. “We’ve got to get out of here before those changelings come back… well, if they come back.”
“What? What happened?” Spike asked, confusion evident in his voice.
“Rainbow Dash and the others used the Elements of Harmony to summon Aquaman, and he’s busy destroying the hive.” Cage filled the vampire in.
“Wait, Aquaman?”
“Hey, don’t ask me — it’s the first time I’ve seen the Elements of Harmony… now come on, we gotta get to the docks before sundown.”
“I’m a vampire, I can’t go out there before sundown.”
“We got that covered.” Cage said as he pulled out an oversized burlap bag.
Spike grumbled as he took the bag and pulled it over his head, momentarily frustrated by the bag catching on the nose of his shark suit.
“Hey…” Cage said, smile evident on his voice, “What’s in the bag? a shark or something?”
“Shut it, you git.” Spike replied dourly.
“I thought you said you wanted more Wicker Man references.” Cage sniggered.
Spike simply growled in response, shuffling down the corridor to the hive’s exit.
“Hey, it’s this way!” Cage said, redirecting the grumpy vampire to the right.
> Chapter 14:	Applejack — Crackerjack of The Sea
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 14:	Applejack — Crackerjack of The Sea
(Or Mare of the Mare.)

“Here Applejack, read this map.” Twilight said, floating the paper up to the orange mare in the ship’s crow’s nest. “See if you can see where we are.”
As Applejack stared at the map, the characters of the names seemed to slide around, contorting, even as she tried to concentrate and determine their position.
‘Ah, blasted dyslexia!’ Applejack thought, biting the map to rub at her eyes with her forehooves in an attempt to get her eyes to focus, ‘Always at the wrong time.’
Looking back down at the map, everything seemed once again fine and normal, looking out at the sea she saw the edge of the coastline on the port, and a small chain of islands in the distance off to the starboard… so they must be about there on the map.
“We’re about —” Applejack did some calculation, given their speed of about 10 knots, and the destination, “six hours out.”
“Thank you!” Twilight yelled up to her orange, apple-bucking, earth-pony friend.
It really was strange how easily the farm-pony had taken to the sea, almost like it was in her blood… but then again Twilight had seen a lot of strange things, like the Elements of Harmony suddenly summoning Aquaman. That was quite mystifying.
His summoning by itself would have been puzzling, but conjoined with his appearance during Rainbow Dash’s trial it seemed to be almost too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence… the hero was currently in the hold below, along with Spike (the vampire) and Spike (the dragon), all of whom were sleeping.
Given the trip time she had plenty of time to ponder the strange changes in the Elements. That was, she thought, the most pressing issue at the moment. — How did Honesty, Loyalty, Kindness, Generosity, Laughter, and Friendship relate to Aquaman? — Was it because after his initial summoning the Elements recognized him as the epitome of the concepts the elements represented? — And so it went with Twilight Sparkle absorbed in hypotheses and possibilities.
For how long she didn’t know, until her thoughtful and ruminative woolgathering was suddenly disturbed by the ship shuddering and shaking.
“Where’d this sweater come from?” Twilight asked herself, looking down at the new mottled red sweater that she was wearing before chuckling self-depreciatively, “Ah, woolgathering! So obvious! — Oh, no time for that, Twilight!”
The unicorn’s self dialog was interrupted by the appearance of a giant tentacle grasping upward, as if directly drawn to the tips of the ship’s masts, even as more broke the surface and embraced the ships’s deck as if to hug the ship.
Rarity was at the helm, arguing with Pinkie Pie about whether or not this was cause for a “hug party” — the unicorn was firmly of the opinion that such a ‘reprehensible ruffian’ should not get hugs while the pink party-pony insisted that everything was better with squids, even hugs. (She even pointed out that the Matrix’s robots were indeed robot-squids, and that that had made the movie better — unfortunately for her the unicorn had never seen any such movie.)
“E-everybody, I think we should run.” Fluttershy was saying in her quiet voice, urging the ponies to abandon ship and let the squid drag the vessel to the depths.
That was when Applejack swung into action, cutlass firmly in jaw, swinging from a line high on the spars, deftly slashing at the main tentacle and driving it back.
The pain, however, caused the squid’s arms to tighten their hold and railing shattered like a model ship in a wrathful child’s grip.
Rarity handed conn to Pinkie Pie so she could blast the squid’s arms with magic bolts, joining Twilight with the defense of their vessel. Bolt after bolt struck home, leaving bruised and bloodied flesh in their wake and causing the squid below to writhe in pain.
Just as the tide turned and they were sure of driving the tentacles back, Spike the Dragon stepped onto the deck from below just in time to be snatched by a retreating tentacle.
“Spike!” Twilight yelled as the drake was pulled under the waves.
An instant later an orange form sped past and vaulted into the sea — Applejack, the most dependable of ponies, had galloped overboard to save Spike.
Rushing to the side of the ship Twilight peered at the waters trying to discern the depths but only seeing the dark waters splash against the side of the ship, each second pressing more and more concern onto her withers.
Just as the concern was about to overwhelm her, the arm broke the surface, reeling high into the sky and flinging a purple form from its grip even as an orange speck wrestled with it.
Twilight caught the falling baby dragon in her magic and lowered him to the deck of the ship an instant before the squid’s arm came crashing down into the ship shattering the planks of the deck where it hit and evoking a cry of pain from Applejack. When the arm withdrew into the ocean, dragging the pony along with it, it left a smeared trail of blood behind it… the pained look on Applejack’s face before she disappeared over the side of the ship again made Twilight think that it wasn’t the squid’s.
The sea seemed oddly quiet and a sudden gust of wind caught something and blew it off of the ship into the water; it was Applejack’s hat.
Everypony stared as the headgear wicked up water and the Stetson began to sink under the waves. — The reverie was broken by a sound that was half-gasp half-sob and punctuated by the tears that fell from the baby dragon’s cheeks, “A-Applejack, no!” Spike shouted at the sinking hat.
“I… I’m so sorry.” Twilight said, though whether it was to Spike or her friend she didn’t know.
Rarity came over and laid a hoof over the small drake’s shoulder before she too started weeping.
A waterspout flung the sinking hat upwards and arcing towards the deck, and suddenly revealed in a splash of water the orange mare!
Applejack took a step and limped as a rivulet of blood ran down her foreleg, but it seemed to be closing up right before everypony’s eyes.
“W-what happened?” Twilight asked, shocked by the sudden reappearance of her friend, as well as the wound healing before her very eyes.
“Well, my grandpa, who could spend hours underwater, always said I took after him…” Applejack explained, pausing a moment as the purple dragon gave her his biggest hug, “Me, ‘n’ Big Mac ‘n’ Apple Bloom all’re good with water.”
“Heck, I was named my grandpa, well both really,” Applejack shrugged, “Piercey Danielle Applejackson.”
“Huh, does this mean I should worry about losing my job as number one assistant?” Spike asked, wiping the snot that had drained out of his nose as he’d been crying away.
Everypony gave him puzzling looks, unable to make sense of the question.
“P.D.A. I…—forget it.” Spike laughed and hugged Applejack again.


*     *     *


An hour later Aquaman strode out of the hold, rested and relaxed, stretching after his time asleep. Looking around he saw the havoc that had been wrought upon the ship, and when he asked what happened he gave Twilight an incredulous look.
“Why didn’t you wake me up, I am king of the seas after all.” he asked.
Twilight gave the appropriate response: a facehoof. How could she have forgotten Aquaman’s power to command the creatures of the sea? Or that he was even aboard?
“I guess I wanted you to have a good nap,” she said, making an excuse for forgetting the hero. “You had a good one right?”
“Yes.” the king of the sea smiled.
“Good dreams?” Twilight asked, wondering what sort of dreams he would have, if he had dreams at all.
“Yes! It was outrageous!” Aquaman said, the joyful excitement radiating from the hero, “I found myself in what was plainly the headquarters for a team of super-heroes, like the Justice League, but it wasn’t the Justice League. You know how dreams can be, anyway…”
> Chapter 15:	Aquafriends!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 15:	Aquafriends!
(Or Aquaman’s Awesomely Acceptable Adventure Alongside the Aquafriends Accompanying Awkward Anesthesia of Aquaman.)


Aquaman breathed in a deep breath as he stood, hands on hips, admiring the sunrise on the ocean. It was beautiful, and today he had a meeting to attend, it was time to meet with the rest of the Aquafriends; Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and himself would be deciding on wether or not to admit new members — there were some good contenders, like The Flash, Green Lantern, and Booster Gold.
A good day, meaningful work, good friends… yes, he was fortunate. As the king of the seas, Aquaman’s natural leadership had rubbed off on the others and when they had formed their little “super-hero club” the obvious choice had been Aquafriends to mirror out how pivotal Aquaman had become to the group as a sort of de facto leader before their organizing made it official.
The only thing that marred the group’s dynamic was Superman, or rather how Batman and Wonder Woman treated him. While it was true that he had a vast arsenal of superpowers the other two gave him what they claimed was good natured ribbing, but Aquaman didn’t want it to become something that grew into bitterness or hate.
For one thing it simply wasn’t right, for another Superman was his friend, and for a third… well, he expected better behavior from at least the princess of the Amazons even if relations between the Atlantian kingdom and the Amazons were often strained and sour.
Making his way to the Hall of Justice, Aquaman found himself actually looking forward to reading Batman’s usually rather extensive reports on the prospective members  even if, at times, Batman seemed wont to a bit of a bureaucratic bent.
Even so, the unappreciative treatment Superman had been receiving still bugged him. Yes, he would have to deal with it soon. He could still remember the two joking about Superman, “Ah, my soup’s cold! I’d better call Superman to heat it up!” Batman would say, and Wonder Woman would reply “Quit being a smart ass, there’s a microwave right behind you.” Or Batman would say “Gah! My gazpacho soup is warm, I’d better call Superman to cool it off with his super-breath!” rejoined with, “You have those instant cold packs in your utility belt, quit being a dick.” — Poor Superman, always on the butt end of Batman and Wonder Woman’s soup jokes.
He was deep in though about how to actually broach the subject to his two friends when he they both entered the Hall Of Justice laughing over some joke that Batman was telling.
“Ah, Batman, Wonder Woman… I was hoping to speak to you ab—”
Klaxons suddenly interrupted the king of the sea as the view-screens activated showing various maps, video-feeds, and a commercial for Mentos. The voice from one of the video feeds clicked into the speaker-systems as the klaxons subdued: “Aquafriends! We need your help!”
Aquaman wheeled around to the video-display and was confronted by the visage of Professor Patrick Connor O’Gordon, fifth cousin to Batman’s Commissioner Gordon, was apparently in his lab which appeared to have suffered some sort of attack, what with the back wall missing and all.
“It’s terrible, we-we need your help!” the normally unflappable scientist cried.
“W-what is it?” Batman asked, curious as to what was causing the carnage, and why there appeared to be a sparkling rainbow striking objects in the distance.
“That Creepy scarecrow guy, I don’t know his name—”
“Scarecrow?” Batman suggested.
“Yeah, that’s the one. Well he teamed up with that man, the one obsessed with toys…”
“Toyman?” Batman suggested again.
Again the professor nodded, “and there’s a girl, too, some little witch called Sabrina.”
“Curse her perfectly blond hair!” Wonder Woman interjected in a sudden, and disturbing, fit of unbridled rage.
Despite the high-tension that was mounted everyone turned to stare at the Amazon princess.
Suddenly aware of the attention, Wonder Woman quickly explained, “She was a terror in Amazon High-School.”
“But you’re hundreds of years old…” Batman said, obviously confused.
“Time is warped and space is bendable! Alright!” Wonder Woman snapped back.
Considering the times that Batman himself had been flung through space and/or time, he wasn’t particularly sure that wasn’t a good argument, still though, it left him feeling unfufilled.
The sense of urgency resumed when Professor Patrick was knocked from the view-screen by a red and blue clad figure, none other than Superman.
“I-I’m no good… against magic.” Superman explained, bruised and battered as he tried to catch his breath, “I need your help Aquafriends, there’s no other way to stop Rainbow Brite! No, No, not The Rainbow Whip!”
Rushing to Wonder Woman’s invisible jet and Batman’s Batplane, the Aquafriends constructed a plan as they flew. Batman was especially helpful, even delving into the villain’s  histories and proposing a theory on what had happened: Scarecrow and Toyman joined forces to find the scariest toy in existence: Rainbow Brite… and make a giant version, then recruited Sabrina and using her abominable eldritch magic to give the thing life, a horrible and terrible parody of everything that might have once been good in children’s toys given life in order to spread terror across the world… it was obviously the work of the dastardly Legion of Doom.
The Aquafriends managed to get to the Professor’s laboratory in twelve minutes, but the damage was horrendous: walls had been ripped down and scientists and technicians were huddled in piles like weeping puppies, the smell of urine indicating that at least some of them were not brave enough to be heroes… or utterly terrified of Rainbow Brite… or under the effects of Scarecrow’s gas.
Wonder Woman lassoed the rampaging living-doll while Batman three multiple exploding batarangs at it, giving Aquaman enough time to close the distance and clock Rainbow Brite, sending the doll stumbling backwards.
“Don’t let Aquaman break my toys!” a voice shrieked from an otherwise inconspicuous corner.
“Quiet Toyman!” the Scarecrow hissed, preparing to throw several canisters of his patented terror-gas. 
“Og, gross!” “Disgusting!” “Gonna hurg—” and other assorted sounds of gagging and retching rang across the open area adjacent the laboratory.
For some odd reason Scarecrows patented terror gas was something he produced after eating cabbage and Hormel chile, a true terror indeed, but the unpatented fear gas was the one that provoked a fear reaction in people… and he was reading canisters of these.
This was the scene that Superman, having been beaten into unconsciousness by Rainbow Brite, woke to see. In that instant he knew what he had to do, taking a huge breath he blew the terror gas, and the new fear gas, back into Scarecrow and Toyman… but wasn’t there one more?
“Winslow!” came the cry of a young woman, blonde, running toward the gagging, choking, and terrified Toyman.
“No! No! Get away, witch!” He shrieked, so hysterical he was nearly foaming at the mouth, slinging spittle with each utterance.
“N-no! Winslow… you don’t mean it, y-you d-don—” Sabrina broke down into sobs, the irrational reaction of Toyman obviously hitting her as hard as an emotional sledge-hammer.
As this was happening, Wonder Woman and Aquaman were regaining their feet, reading themselves to resume attacking Rainbow Brite — again the lasso flew, binding the big doll and allowing Aquaman’s mighty fists to break its magically animated face.
Rounding up Scarecrow, Toyman, and Sabrina the heroes placed a call to the police who were prompt in picking up the now-subdued prisoners… almost like they’d been waiting right outside the battlefield to snatch them once they were subdued.
“Well, that looks like another crisis dealt with, right Aquafriends?” Superman said, dusting off his hands.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll fly back to the Hall now, we’ve still got to talk about those potential recruits.” Superman said before flying off.
“Look, in the air! It’s a bird, it’s a plane! No, it’s a Birdplane!” Batman said, pointing at the retreating form of Superman.
Wonder Woman sniggered at Batman’s antics, somehow the Detective was always able to turn a joke at Superman’s expense.
“Batman, Wonder Woman… Superman is a valuable member of the Aquafriends, and as such you should treat him with a modicum of honor and respect… to do otherwise is unjust, and unbecoming.” Aquaman said, hoping that they would get it.
“I understand, old chum.” Batman said, though not without a twinkle of mischief in his eyes, “Flash isn’t a member yet, so I’m going to make all the jokes I can about him being Green Arrow’s sidekick.”
“What?” Wonder Woman asked, even as Aquaman groaned.
“Green Arrow’s sidekick is called ‘Speedy’.” Batman replied, barely containing a smile even as Wonder Woman groaned at the joke.


*     *     *


“You have some strange dreams.” Twilight said drily, unsure of what to make of the fantastical and outlandish dream Aquaman had just told her about.
“I know; they’re Outrageous!” Aquaman replied with a grin that said that he simply loved being himself.
> Chapter 16:	Skilaðu til Hesturþorpið.*
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 16:	Skilaðu til Hesturþorpið.
(Or Home again.)

It was another warm, beginning-of-summer day at Ponyville and Rainbow Dash was once again on her way to imbibe and ingest with her intended, her incredible and irresistible intended.
She giggled to herself and blushed when she thought of Nicolas Cage, like a silly little love-struck filly. These past few weeks after returning from their mission to save Fluttershy and Spike, and incidentally summoning Aquaman, had been amazingly quiet, other than the tongue-lashing Big Macintosh gave ‘Piercey Danielle Applejackson’ for being “all reckless like” to ‘take care of’ the squid.
Rainbow Dash found herself laughing, and thinking, ‘I mean “Piercey Danielle Applejackson”, how funny… oh, I’m so going to tease her about it!’
Spotting her human below, waiting at the outdoor café, she swooped in for a landing, deciding to put a quick loop-de-loop on the end.
“Hey Nick!” She said, waving.
“Hi Dash.” Nicolas Cage said, taking a drink from his coffee and pushing away a pile of papers and books that he’d apparently been working on while waiting for her… though she was sure she wasn’t late.
Stealing a look back she cursed the big, old clock on the town hall which hadn’t worked in thirty years, something about being hit by a lightning bolt by a careless weather-pony that was told to all the newbie weather-ponies in Ponyville. Though, to be honest, Rainbow Dash did suspect that there was no real clock there and it was a facade put in place to allow the weather-team to say that to all its new inductees.
“So, what do ya got there?” Dash said eyeing the pile, which reminded her vaguely of Twilight Sparkle, but in a sexy Nick Cage sort of way.
“Oh, I’m just working on consolidating a bunch of stories, you know folklore…” he gestured at the distant Everfree Forest, barely visible from here they were, “Like the old stories about that forest being haunted, or—” he gestured back toward the clock at city-hall, “—that the storm that stopped the clock coincided with the disappearance of several ponies of note, a ‘Twilight Jackson’ and her husband who was described as a ‘odd and somewhat effeminate-looking Minotaur’… but while there’s references, but there’s no pictures of them.”
“That’s so interesting…” Rainbow Dash said, enjoying hearing him talk and staring into his eyes which, despite being so small, were amazingly attractive.


*     *     *


Steve came running out of the newly established hive, what they had found while excavating newly constructed tunnels… well it was incredible.
“My Queen!” He gasped, “We’ve found something.”
“Is it a piece of gum?” Chrysalis asked, like a little kid who was obsessed with the sticky, chewy substance.
Synthia rubbed her temples again, Chrysalis was obviously obsessing about something stupid, again.
“No, it’s not gum.” Synthia growled under her breath.
“Well, what is it?”Chrysalis asked.
“Come and see.” Steve said, beckoning the changeling queen into the hive. “Our scientists have never seen anything like it!”
“Wait, we have scientists?”
“No,” Synthia said, “They’re just two drones who found lab-coats and like to pretend.”
“But if they have the lab-coats they have to be scientists… or doctors!” Chrysalis objected.
“Why’d you have to tell her!?” Steve whispered angrily to Synthia, then to the queen, “Of course they’re scientists! How else would they know what ‘sucrose’, ‘fructose’, ‘lactose’, and ‘pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis’ are?”
“Hm, you have a point…” Chrysalis nodded while rubbing her chin with a hoof, “If Stevena weren’t such a great Grand Vizier I’d promote you.”
“You should, totally!” Synthia over-enthusiastically shouted, seeing the shadow of hope of passing the ‘honor’ on to someone else.
Chrysalis laughed and dashed her dreams to small splintery bits, “But then I’d miss you too much Stevena!”
Synthia felt like collapsing on the ground and crying, sobbing and cursing the fates that had made Chrysalis the hive’s queen.
“Come, my queen, it is amazing.” Steve said, ushering the queen to the tunnels.
Minutes passed, suspense filling the air, or it would have if the dust in the air would have left room for the suspense to saturate the air. But there, in the wall of the new cavern there stood a giant metallic ring that looked textured, segmented along another inset ring decorated with symbols.
“As you can see, my queen,” one of the drones wearing a lab-coat said, indicating the ring, “there’s thirty-eight symbols along this inner track… we still don’t know what they mean, but we think it might have something to do with these V-shaped protrusions on the outer portion…”
“Yes, I was hoping that you’d let us shoot it with anti-protons.”
“What!?” Steve stared in shock at the suggestion, “Since when do you shoot antimatter at unidentified objects?”
“Since we’re scientists!” The other lab-coat wearing ‘scientist’ said.