Bearding the Villain in His Lair
Dan's Comments
DISCLAIMER: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc.

Applejack and Winona followed suit. "Don't want to hear about it?" Applejack asked.

"Not when he got squashed. Yeah, he hurt a lot of ponies, but squashed?" Pinkie said, and exited the police station and headed straight back toward the doughnut shop she'd stopped at earlier.

"Don't get your face too close to the glass this time," Applejack warned and put a leash on Winona, who seemed as eager as Pinkie to return to the place.

"Naw, they're open, so we can go inside and look," Pinkie said and entered along with over a dozen police and half that number of alchemists. She and Applejack waited their turns and ordered. Winona letting out the occasional happy bark at seeing the owner, a very large, jet black Earth Pony stallion who looked like he was having the time of his life filling orders and kibitzing with the customers. "Apple fritter, with a side of tea, green jasmine," he said looking at Applejack and then looked at Pinkie, "Oh a tough one. Death by Chocolate with a chocolate milk."

Pinkie's jaw dropped. "How, who, what told you?"

"Oh, I'm getting better at reading the customers. Now I know you wanted to try some of the Star Shatter tea, but unless you're trying to stay awake really hard, I wouldn't," he said, then grinned, "Besides I recognize the scion of Sweet Apple Acres, and the Ponyville Party Maven, everypony knows the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony."

Applejack giggled at Pinkie's reaction. "Well, if'n I ordered the orange marmalade filled?"

"You'd get it," he said as he took the bits and gave them their orders. He nodded and started working the same trick with another customer, only this time it was a regular, so it was just good memory.

Applejack bit into the fritter and her world lurched. The apples were Sweet Apple Acres sourced, but the fritters she and even Granny made with them were pale imitations of the wonderful taste in her mouth. She was briefly torn between ordering another, or demanding the recipe. She turned to Pinkie for advice, but Pinkie's eyes were closed and there were tears streaming down her cheeks. "Pinkie?" Applejack asked and the mare held the half-eaten doughnut.

"This is what chocolate is supposed to be," Pinkie said quietly, "This is chocolate perfection. This is what it means to be chocolate."

Applejack glanced at the fritter and sighed. "Yeah."

Only Winona's happy barking brought Applejack and Pinkie out of their funk. Agamid Don was bringing a bowl of something for Winona and a smile for Applejack and Pinkie. "I think you've found out why so many people come in every day," the stallion said as he petted Winona, who would have jumped into his lap if he'd had one at the moment.

"She seems to like you," Applejack noted.

"There's no accounting for taste," he said and endured a furious licking from Winona, "I don't think that's what is meant by that. So what're you heroes here for? Savage monsters from the depth of time? Checking up on the reputation of Equestria's most famous apples? Industrial espionage?" He directed the last at Pinkie. "I saw you trying to eat your way through my window earlier."

Applejack couldn't help herself, she laughed at mental the image of Pinkie, Daring Doo style, trying to sneak in and steal the secret plans.

"No," Applejack ignored Pinkie's frantic denials, "You heard about the alicorn sightings, we're just following up on one who got away."

" 'Got away', don't they all basically want one thing?" he asked, "And beg pardon for asking, was one able to, ahem, accomplish the goal in a more than satisfactory, perhaps even salutary manner, so recurrence would be desired instead of abhorrent?"

Pinkie gasped and fell over. Several of the cops immediately facehoofed. Applejack understood the words but the concept still left her boggled. "No," she managed, "We're just keeping track of all of them."

Don nodded. "Well can I get you anything, besides the location of that alicorn and my recipes?"

"Y'all can make the marmalade-filled?" Applejack asked sheepishly.

"I can do anything," he said, "It's just that sometimes I don't. Or people beg me not to," he said, and announced, "Back in a moment." He stepped into the back where the workers were refilling the trays.

"Orange marmalade?" Pinkie asked and rubbed her hooves at discovering one of Applejack's darkest secrets.

"Ah am related to my cousins, the Oranges," Applejack said defensively. Still it was all Pinkie could do not to twirl her mustache.

A bit later, Don returned with a doughnut on a tray, and a sheet of paper. "There you go, on the house." He dangled the paper in front of Pinkie. "You don't breathe a word of where you got this." He handed the paper to Applejack. "And maybe, she'll let you study it."

Applejack twirled 'her mustache' and grinned at Pinkie who was nearly salivating at the recipe.

"Glad to meet you both, but customers wait for nopony," he said and headed off to start filling orders again.

Applejack carefully folded up the recipe and put it in her hat. "Let's go Pinkie."

Pinkie whined and pointed at her hat.

"Ain't heard no Pinkie Promise, nor any kind a promise," Applejack said as they headed back onto the street. Winona following at Applejack's heels.

Once they were some distance away, they stopped, Pinkie started a Pinkie Promise, but Applejack interrupted, "Either that was the alicorn, or he was in there working behind the scenes."

Pinkie put her hoof on Applejack's forehead. "Hmm, no fever, you must have just gone crazy," Pinkie said.

Applejack swept her hoof away. "Think about an alicorn with a baking cutie mark," Applejack said, "Maybe he wanted to tie in with the Cake's operation, or just set up shop. Those doughnuts were too good to be true." Applejack glanced around. "Unless lots of magic was involved."

Pinkie considered. "As another baker, I find myself drawn to that answer, rather than I'm that poor a baker in comparison. But if Don was cutie marked to be a baker, instead of . . . no, the Cakes have baking cutie marks, and even their specialties aren't as delicious as that." Pinkie sat on her haunches and massaged her mane. "No, it makes sense," Pinkie said and stared at Applejack, "And Winona agrees. So who do we tell?"

"Everyprincess," Applejack said, "Now."

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It was closing time, so he shooed the last patrons out. He'd already congratulated the 'staff', and gotten from the alchemists a few 'luxury food' items. Which he'd prepared with his own hooves. He wasn't as good as they were, but the idea that 'the master' would serve the servants was a new experience for them.

He enjoyed having thrown their world view a little off-kilter, and was surprised to find Posey, in uniform, outside the store. "Is this a polite way of telling me I'm under arrest?" he asked, "Lewd and lascivious contact with an officer of the law perhaps?"

Posey laughed and shook her head. "No, I just got off shift and wondered if I could find a brave, strong pony to walk me home."

"I know I have a mirror around here somewhere," he said, making her laugh.

"You nut," she said and kissed him on the muzzle. The guard charging towards them put a damper on things.

"Sergeant, I know you just got off shift, but Princess Cadence, Applejack and Pinkie Pie need to talk to both of you about Tirek. It seems something's come up," the guard said while holding her salute.

Posey saluted back, then sighed. "No rest for the weary."

"It's an old interrogation trick: you tire them out, then question them," he whispered to her.

"You watch too many spy movies," she said and brushed his muzzle with her hoof.

Old instincts died hard, and his were still first rate. When the building dropped on them, neither he nor the two guards were directly under it. But the brickwork split at the mortar and sent piece flying in all directions. He hadn't had time to erect a shield strong enough to fully protect them. Buildings rarely attacked out of the blue, so he raised a stronger one the instant he could. His durability let him weather the storm of masonry with little problem. The two guards were less lucky. The interrupter had a few bruises and a concussion, even local healing would take care of that.

He looked down at the broken form of Posey Blossom. He knew he couldn't feel 'friendship' as the ponies did, but he could value relationships, and dragons hoarded what was valuable. The relationship with this mare was valuable above pearls of any price.

He was no healer, but he knew enough. In an instant she was restored enough that she would recover. He looked into the sky and the four alicorns who seemed to be dropping pieces of buildings on the screaming populace for their own amusement stood out against the sky. Although he whispered, the rage he felt would have killed, "That's enough, by Yig that's enough!"

He ditched his disguise and launched himself into the air, accelerating as he did.

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Luna had arrived after Cadence and regretted her delay immediately and deeply. As much as Shining Armor had trained his bride, she was no match for four of them.

Especially four who seem to hold pony lives in such low regard, she thought, the arrival of a fifth sank Luna's spirits. Then she realized he was against them. Hope flared then died as she watched the newcomer's attack. Brave, but foolish, taking off under a strafing attack would be a good way to win the Equestrian Cross, she thought as the black alicorn vertically climbed streaming into the midst of the quartet, It's an even a better way to get killed.

As she prepared to join the unequal fray, she watched as the black alicorn performed a Luft Berry turn which not only moved him from in front of all four, to behind most, but beside one at close range.

"Even the wingmasters can't perform that turn in a climb, it's physically impossible, especially at 50 feet," the captain of her batpony guards exclaimed as they took to the air with their liege.

"You just saw it done," Luna replied as the black alicorn ripped off the wing and crushed the horn of the nearest alicorn, sending the villain screaming to the ground. The other three stared in shock, then attacked. Luna had watched the Earth pony guards' practice, and that their strength regularly broke armor that pegasi would consider too heavy for flight. She rarely considered what that strength would do in the air. Landing a blow that shattered wing bones on one of the alicorns threw the black alicorn backward, but it was just a setup to apple-buck the one behind in the head. The former screamed in terror as he fell, the latter silently dropped. If he would ever rise again was questionable. The last attempted to flee. The black alicorn pursued.

Luna vaguely considered her own pursuit. The black one hadn't even dropped the wounded alicorns on the stricken on the ground, whereas the others had taken great pains to harm her ponies. She left the last one to the black alicorn's tender mercies and descended.

"Let the guards capture those," Luna ordered as she landed, "Let us see to the wounded and the trapped." Cadence landed and apologized.

"If you did your best, you did all that could be expected of you," Luna told her, "And we have much work ahead of us."

The wounded were numerous, and there were many trapped. Many of the building pieces that had been picked up and dropped had been occupied. The princesses worked alongside the others, and Luna was vaguely delighted when the last of the group of alicorns was found, every feather and hair stripped from his body. Even his horn had been unraveled looking more like a tumbleweed than a horn.

Whatever had done it left all four of them alive and utterly traumatized. They rather sheepishly went along with the guards taking them to be banished.

The citizenry had managed to find enough courage to face the day in their damaged city. One of the local restaurateurs had trays of doughnuts and urns of coffee he was passing out to the police and aid workers. He seemed well known to the locals, and his wares rivaled Pony Joe's in Canterlot. The joke that his coffee could raise the dead, and raze the living struck a spark in Luna's mind about tea. But at a quick glance, the baker was gone, and Luna had more pressing problems to pursue.