Sharpfang was about as happy as a diamond dog could get, and why wouldn’t he be? He had the perfect job, after all. Being the personal driver for Lord Shizukh meant he got to sit in the warm, comfy seat of the incredible machine the “hoo-mans” had gifted them with, and he got to learn how to use each one of its amazing devices! From the windows that magically opened and shut themselves with a neat little whirr, to the little knobby thingy that popped out and burnt like the dickens (a fact that only took him three burn marks on the tongue to discover), the gift was just full of marvels and wonders to keep a dog entertained, and that still wasn’t the best part of his job!

No, the best part had to be that he was close enough to Lord Shizukh to gain preferential treatment, but never really within arms’ reach. Oh sure, he still had to sit close enough to the big guy at dinner where every little offense was instantly punished with a wallop upside the back of the head, but here, in this machine, there was a nice little divider between himself and the back part where the Wardog rode. There was even another window that went up and down with its own little whirr! So despite his status, he was never a convenient target for the brute’s anger, instead remaining a safe, silent constant in his life that just had to get close during dinners. It was just too bad he couldn’t say the same for Shizukh’s secretary. The poor little mutt had been strangled half to death at least three times that day, and that was just on the ride into town!

Yes, the future was looking bright for Sharpfang, so bright he had to squint just to see it. Or maybe it was just that his life of cruelty and hardship underground had left him unaccustomed to the light. Who knows? Sharpfang certainly didn’t, and he didn’t care, because he had power windows, a cigarette lighter, and whatever these sparky things were that he was about to apply to his tongue.

“Shiny,” he snickered as the wires in his paws sparked and fizzled, a bit of spittle dribbling off his tongue as it slowly approached the bare metal tips. A half-inch from contact, there was a knock on his window. Rolling his eyes, he hit the button to roll down the window, only giggling a little bit with the whirr of the tiny motor.

“Wot’s dis now? I was kinda busy,” he muttered as he looked out the window, only to find nothing there.

“Ahem,” a little voice said. Sharpfang leaned out the window to find a little violet unicorn sitting there, gazing up at him nervously. He paused, his mind trying to process this development. And trying. And trying. For somedog who picked up the basics of operating a limousine within a few short days, he really wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, even by dog standards. Finally, his brain shifted a few gears out of “Neutral” and powered up a little.

“Pony, what you doin’?” He asked.

The pony swallowed and bowed her head. “I-I’m sorry mister, it’s just…I can’t take it here anymore.”

“Oh? Wozzat?”

“Trixie’s so cruel to us,” a few tears drifted off the pony’s face as she looked back up at him. “She drives us to make these tunnels and build these statues day in and day out, and…and I can’t take it anymore! Please! I need to get out of this town! I-I’d do anything!”

His ears perked up at that, his interest piqued so high that he never even noticed the sliced onion lying at the pony’s hooves. “Anything?”

“Y-yes,” the pony said nervously, but still placed her hooves on the edge of the window and looked him in the eyes, her eyes going half-lidded. “Anything you want, anything you could wish for.”

She licked her lips and leaned in, whispering right in his ear: “Any sort of pleasure you desire, in any place you want. Just name it and it’s yours.”

It only took his brain a few seconds to process that implication, but this time the transmission was being helped along by the ol’ stick shift. A grin spread across his face. “Well, that sounds…” he paused as a scream sounded out. He turned, taking his eyes off the little pony just as a burnt-orange mare galloped right up to one of the soldiers standing outside and delivered a powerful buck right between his legs. As he sank to his knees, a scream of pain trapped in his throat, she finished him off by clocking him across the jaw. The other soldier turned, spear raised to attack, only to have it knocked aside by a cyan blur. A split-second later, a pegasus with a shocking rainbow mane landed on his back and grabbed his spear, pulling it from his grip and catching his Adam’s apple with the wooden handle.

“Wha…” Sharpfang gasped, turning back to the lavender pony. The guards had been taken down so fast, his already-slow brain never even had the chance to raise the possibility that the unicorn at his side was part of a scheme to overtake the machine. That possibility only popped up after she had nailed him right between the eyes with a magical blast, stunning him and leaving him to slump over in his seat.

“What part of subtlety don’t you girls understand!?” The unicorn gasped as Sharpfang’s eyes drifted shut, dark ooze filling his vision.

“It worked, didn’t it?” He heard a raspy voice say. “Oh, dang it, Applejack!”

“What?” Another voice, this one with a country accent, said indignantly. Sharpfang felt himself being lifted out of his seat by a magical aura and dragged into the street.

“You bucked him in the dick!” The raspy voice accused as he was lowered into something that felt suspiciously like a garbage can. “You don’t buck a guy in the dick! I mean, is that what we are now? Just a bunch of dick-bucking assholes?”

And then all was darkness.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight trotted through the streets of Ponyville, confidently making her way to the smoking ruins of the town hall. She admired her handiwork: Princess Luna’s spell had worked perfectly, even without her personal magic boost. “Who needs magic when you have chemistry?” She mused as she trotted past.

A few of the Dogs still trapped up to their necks in oatmeal jeered as she made her way past, but she ignored them and continued on. “Hey, hey! Pony!” One dog yelled, trying to get a rise out of her. “When we get outta this, we’re gonna burn this place t’the ground!”

Suddenly, his face was forced into the oatmeal by a set of pink hooves. “Oops, sorry!” Pinkie said, hopping off. “I thought your big ol’ head was a stepping stone or something! Or wait, did I hurt you? Oh, I’m sorry! Why don’t I help you feel better?”

“What are ya…” the dog asked, trying to keep up as she promptly hopped on his head, grabbed the corners of his jowls, and forced them up into a smile before launching into one of her trademarked songs:

“WEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL…

You might be stuck now, in the muck,

And you might be feeling down on your luck!

But behind every frown, there is a smile!

So sing with me, it’ll be worth your while!

Just…”

“Graaaah!” The dogs all screamed, desperately trying to free their arms to cover their ears. Fortunately, Twilight appeared at Pinkie’s side and stuck her hoof in her friend’s mouth.

“Does anyone else have anything to say about Ponyville?” The lavender unicorn asked. “Or do I leave her here to keep cheering you up?”

“GO! JUST GO!” The dogs all screamed.

“And take the pink banshee with you, pluh-heaze!” The first dog groaned.

“I thought so,” Twilight smiled, and released her friend’s mouth before hopping off the dog’s head. “Come along, Pinkie, we have some unfinished business at Town Hall.”

“Ooh, you better be talking about…”

“No Pinkie, we’re still not having a full-on ‘you’re not enslaved’ party for the town’s populace, I’m just,” she sighed, closing her eyes. “Really exhausted after these last few days, okay?”

“Aww, alright,” the pink mare sighed, eyes downcast. They trotted along as they approached the square, Pinkie lagging behind Twilight until the unicorn was forced to relent.

“Nngh, fine! A small party.”

“Yay!” Pinkie skipped ahead of her friend. “Come on, Twilight! Everypony’s waiting!”

“I know,” Twilight said, smiling once the sides of the “Trix-Box” and “Trix-Dome” rose up in her vision, alongside the smoking ruins of Town Hall. “I know, now, are you ready? We’re probably gonna have a lot of emotional ponies on our hooves pretty soon.”

“Ready, Freddy!” Pinkie smiled.

Twilight nodded before sending up a large purple flare, bolts materializing from the tip of her horn and enveloping the two glass structures. Slowly, the structures began to fade from existence, the broiling red clouds inside dissipating in the open air like the morning mist against the sun’s rays. Eventually, two figures trotted out of the clearing smoke: a unicorn and a pegasus.

“Now, come along, everypony,” the pegasus said gently, leading a pair of fillies along. “We’ll get you back to your mommies and daddies soon, just follow the sound of my voice.”

“I say, is this mist approved for working with perms? Because otherwise, Trixie is going to get a very stern talking to when this is all said and done,” the unicorn added.

Twilight smiled at the sound of the familiar voices. “Hello Fluttershy, Rarity, glad to see you girls made it through okay.”

“Twilight, dahling!” Rarity said, rushing to wrap her hooves around her friend as fillies and parents rushed into one another’s hooves behind her, families reuniting in the mist. “So glad to see you’re okay!”

“You girls, too! I was afraid to see what might have happened to you once the ponies in those prisons woke up with you two all alone.”

“Well, they were a bit upset at first, but I managed to calm them down once I told them what was really going on,” Fluttershy said, handing the fillies in her hooves to their respective parents.

“Dahling, these are our friends and neighbors! They were more than willing to listen to us! Of course, I did have some trouble here and there, but nothing yours truly couldn’t handle.” Twilight could only smile as a pair of stallions trotted by behind Rarity, averting their gaze and hiding the perfectly-manicured hoofmarks on their cheeks. “Really, if anything we were worried for you!”

“Oh yes,” Fluttershy added. “We were afraid things might not have gone over so well with Shizukh.”

“Yes, tell me, did that brute give you any trouble?”

“Of course not, Rarity,” the Element of Magic smiled cutely. “Once he spat out the location of the artifact, he went down with a simple stun spell. He’s in the trunk of his vehicle now, sleeping it off until a royal guard unit can retrieve him.”

“Well, Ah’ll be,” a certain orange Earth pony appeared in one of the alleyways leading to the square, her silhouette marked by her trademark hat. “Didn’t think you had it in ya, Twi.”

“Yeah,” another voice added, swooping down from the rooftops as a flash of cyan with rainbow-streaks. “Who’d a’ thought poindexter here would be able to take out a big, tough, Wardog?”

“Rainbow, Applejack,” Twilight’s smile widened. “I’m so glad you’re alright! A part of me was worried you might have run into trouble after we took Shizukh’s vehicle!”

“Tch, us? Getting trouble from these losers?” Rainbow Dash smiled confidently. “Twilight, do you know us at all?”

“Though that does remind me,” Applejack added, walking over to one of the garbage cans. She promptly bucked it over , and out rolled a trio of semi-conscious Diamond Dogs: two in heavy battle armor, and one in a little tuxedo and cap.

“I say, who are these brutes!?” Rarity gasped at the unconscious dogs landing by her hooves.

“The dogs who were supposed to be watching the horseless-chariot-thing,” Rainbow replied nonchalantly. “Seriously, it was no big deal.”

“Um, Twilight?” Rarity said, motioning to the Town Hall, still smoldering from the “attack.” “Are we forgetting somepony?”

“Ah, right,” the lavender unicorn turned to the crowd of relieved ponies gathering before her. “Alright everypony, we’ll be right back! We just need to get the mare of the hour!”

A cheer rose up from the crowd as the six turned and trotted into the ruins. “Let’s just hope she’s okay,” she added under her breath.

“I-I’m sure she’s fine, Twilight,” Fluttershy said. “I mean, you created that potion yourself, right? She has to be just fine!”

“Yeah,” Twilight offered a smile that was in no way reassuring. “Yeah, I’m sure she’s okay. She has to be.”

Author's Notes:

Man alive, I had an entire separate story here, huh!? Jeez...maybe I should've posted it as it's own thing, but honestly I was afraid that would spoil everything for anyone who hasn't read the original.