You can't plan for this
Attack of the 2000-Foot Baby Dragon
Igneous Rock finished his rock brew and closed the folio.
“Good thing Trixie left on her own,” he said to himself. “She’s a nice girl, but unicorns just aren’t cut out for rock farming.”
With Marble and Limestone working together the next gravel shipment to Vanhoover looked to be back on schedule. Perhaps the delivery pony would have to wait for an hour or two, but at least he would not need to return empty-hooved.
And if I go to the South Quarry tomorrow night and finish packing the boulder shipment by Friday, that should make up for the girls’ vacation. Then we have twelve hours extra time when they get back…
A dull blue flash caught his attention. Igneous looked out the window, but all appeared as it should be. Out in the grey field of the Pie Rock Farm, Marble and Limestone Pie were staring up at the sky.
Slacking off again.
Igneous unlatched the window and stuck his head outside.
“Get back to work, you two!” He yelled. “You’re not on vacation until next week!”
Limestone opened her mouth, but Igneous closed the window before she spoke.
Using the tea kettle as a mirror, Igneous put on his collar and combed the knots out of his sideburns. At fifty-two he was finally starting to feel his age. Last year he started setting an alarm clock, and now he was utterly dependent on it.
A mighty bump threw off his balance and knocked the steel mugs off their hooks above the sink.
Going back to the window, Igneous did not see his daughters anymore.
The ground shook again, more violently this time. Igneous grabbed his hat and dashed out the door. He had not to take more than a dozen steps before he saw the source of the commotion.
“Maud!” He called, squinting his eyes against a storm of rock flecks and dust. “MAUD! MAAAUD!”
The earth shook one last time; a thin fissure opened, reaching almost to Igneous’ front hooves. Slowly the dust settled, and a grey mare in a dusty jumpsuit and a scratched up face shield emerged.
“Yes dad?” She said in her usual monotone. “What is the problem?”
“Are you still breaking that boulder from yesterday?” Igneous asked, wiping some sweat from his brow.
“It’s a big rock,” Maud replied. “I only need half of it.”
“Can we move it further from the house, sweetie?” Igneous suggested. “You’re shaking the house apart.”
Maud lifted up her mask and looked over her father’s head. There was a look of surprise on her face, though to most ponies would have described it as “slightly less bored than usual”. It was enough to make Igneous turn around.
In the blue sky to the west there was a pattern of brighter blue. The longer he stared at it the clearer it became, though it was certainly not solid. At its highest point it looked like a fluffy blue cloud with a hooked tendril. Descending was a smooth arch towards the southern horizon, which rose suddenly to a point before dropping again more steeply than before.
Beneath this were a pair of three concentric ovals, taller than they were wide. These were slightly easier to see, as they seemed to be covered with glass which reflected the sun ever so slightly.
Extending from the lower edge of these “eyes” (Igneous Rock could scarce believe what he was seeing), the outline of a short muzzle was broken only by a wide smile.
“Hey! Pinkie Pie!”
Igneous turned to his other daughters with a disapproving frown, but they paid him no mind. They had unhitched themselves from their work carts and were reared up, waving their hooves above their heads.
“Hello Pinkie Pie.” Maud joined in, waving one hoof at about shoulder-level.
Just then Cloudy Quartz appeared from the other side the house with a big tub of obsidian blocks on her back. Her gold-framed spectacles fell from her nose when she noticed the giant apparition of her daughter.
“Oh my goodness.” She set down the tub and walked slowly to join her husband and daughters, with one hoof raised to her mouth the entire time. “Pinkie Pie! What has happened to you?”
The eyes downwards slowly, settling on the rock farm. Pinkie’s smile widened, and she lowered her head until her chin rested on the horizon. Her outline became clearer, and a heavy wind swept across the land soon after her movement.
Pinkie Pie’s voice had grown according to her size. It was a deep, powerful bellow like the bass tone of an organ.
“HI MOM AND DAD!”
Igneous Rock held tight to his hat and pressed his ears tight against his head. Marble and Limestone ducked and covered beneath their carts.
Only Maud remained nonchalant, staring at Pinkie Pie as most ponies stared at tumbleweed.
In their shocked state nopony noticed the new rhythmic vibrations in the ground.
Pinkie Pie’s eyes widened in horror.
A blue-tinted shadow fell over the rock farm, and the Pie family turned as one towards the north.
A giant blue slab descended from the sky. Its edge was rounded except at three pointed peaks. Even Maud let out a surprised gasp as the thing giant foot fell in the middle of the field barely ten feet from the house.
The shockwave bounced everypony a full foot and a half off the ground. Marble fell on top of Limestone, and both immediately turned their gazes upwards.
The foot connected to a stubby leg, to hips at an altitude that could make pegasi nervous. The dragon’s chubby body went up and up, disappearing far above the clouds. His claws were big enough to pick up the farmhouse.
Igneous Rock sat down slowly, with his eyes wide open and his chin burrowing into the ground. Cloudy Quartz had already fainted.
Maud looked up at the translucent dragon with half-closed eyes and set lips.
“L… let’s all take the day off,” Igneous Rock stammered. “W… Where did you girls say you wanted to go?”
“Las P… Pegasus,” Limestone whimpered without looking away from the gigantic invader.
“Let’s go,” Igneous said. “Let’s go. Right now. Come on.”
"But..."
"NOW!"