Animal Antics

Chapter 2

Angel Bunny was no stranger to Inspection Day.  Having been with Fluttershy for so long, he would be surprised if there wasn’t one.  As such, he knew certain methods of getting his bunny brethren to follow his word.  Of course, knowing where Fluttershy kept the carrots lying around and being able to bribe them didn’t hurt either.  However, as he stretched out upon his bush-throne, high above the other bunnies, he saw something that perplexed him.  Instead of the usual yellow pony he allowed to coddle him, a purple thing was approaching instead.  Angel stood tall and narrowed his eyes.  If there was one thing he didn’t like, it was unexpected intrusion.

“Alright, where are these bunnies?”  Twilight wondered aloud as she approached the area Fluttershy had guided her to.  Along the way, she had wondered if she could truly handle this, but quickly dismissed it.  She was Twilight Sparkle!  Element of magic and personal protégée to Princess Celestia herself!  Surely she could handle some cute little critters.

“There you are!” she exclaimed to the bunnies, startling a few and gaining the attention of others.  She gave a quick glace over.  There were big bunnies, small bunnies, some that were bouncing and some that were hiding.  She began looking for Angel Bunny, having trouble as she struggled to tell the bunnies apart from one another.  A squeaky grunt drew her attention, as she looked at a bush that was about half her height.  Standing upon it was a bunny wearing a cloak made out of leaves and carrying a stick around as a scepter, completing the regal image with a crown made of berries and vines.  It looked at her with a disapproving glare.

“Ah, hello Angel!  Fluttershy told me to come over here and inspect the bunnies.  I’ve also got the carrots with me.”  Twilight explained.  Glancing at him, she noticed he still maintained his uncaring expression.  Giving a nervous smile, Twilight began her examinations.  Picking up the closest bunny with her magic, she began to recall steps to identify animal illnesses from an animal caring guide she had read.

“Ven you pick up ze critter, you must examine it thoroughly and vith INCREDIBLE detail!  Do not be fooled by ze creature’s outer appearances!”  lectured the voice in her head.  Nodding to herself, thought wondering why she gave the voice an accent, she prepared to examine her patient with an eager, determined smile.

The bunny had a peaceful life.  With Angel the Mighty being able to supply carrots in exchange for favors and the Fluttershy always caring for him and his brethren, he felt joy fill him every morning.  However, at this moment, he felt nothing but fear.  The demon had caught him and, as much as he would have liked to escape, he was paralyzed with fear.  He saw the smile, that evil, demonic smile, a smile that could mean only horrors unimaginable.  What he felt next made him wish he had never left his burrow.

The demon turned him, over and over again, threatening to make his concept of balance a mere memory.  Pressure was going all over him, from his head, to his belly, even his feet.  He suddenly felt himself being pulled, stretched and even shaken.  Balling up was an action that led to no result, as the demon’s power was far too great.  Finally, as quickly as it had started, the torture seemed to have ended.  He was placed on the ground, dizzy and scared.  To finish, the demon cruelly shoved a carrot into his mouth and patted his head.  Scampering off to the corner of the pen, he could only breakdown and weep at the terror he just experienced.

Angel was dumbfounded.  He had just witnessed one of his bunny brethren get spun around, probed and scarred from this pony’s “methods” of examination.    How she managed to get approval from Fluttershy to check out the bunnies was a mystery to him.  All he knew was that this purple menace was NOT going to make another creature suffer.  Not on his watch.  Jumping from his throne, he hopped towards this clueless pony, malice in his eyes.

“Well, that wasn’t so hard!”  Twilight thought to herself, making mental notes about what she did so she’d be able to repeat it for each bunny there.  She felt a series of hits on her leg, and looked down to see Angel Bunny hitting her with his foot, a scowl on his face.  “Oh, Angel, did you see how well I did?  I’m a natural, aren’t I!  Don’t worry, I’ll get to examining all of them in a little bit, just after I finish perfecting what I did mentally.”  She finished with a smile adorning her visage, blinding her to the horror-struck face of Angel.  As she went to pick up the carrot sack and head over to her next target, she found herself suddenly yanked back, the sack unmoving.  Looking back, she noticed Angel gripping the sack tightly, pulling it away from her.

“Angel, don’t worry, there’s plenty of carrots for everyone.  You’ll get one too!” Twilight huffed as she pulled against the bunny’s surprisingly strong grip.  Getting fed up with his antics, Twilight started to use her magic, not hearing a series of squeaks from Angel.  Pulling with her magic and still finding resistance, she looked down to see all the bunnies pulling on angel, trying their best to stop the demon with the carrot sack.  “Let…go…of…this…SACK!” Twilight screamed.

Angel narrowed his eyes, grinned malevolently and let go.

Fluttershy floated out of her house, rag in her hooves.  She did love caring for the critters, even if she did have to clean herself off every once in a while.  “I hope Twilight is doing alright…” she muttered aloud.  Her peaceful thinking was interrupted by a loud scream.  Startled, Fluttershy turned towards the bunny grounds, just in time to see a large carrot sack fly off into the horizon.

“A cata-what now?” Applejack asked dumbfounded.

“A catapult!”  Applebloom exclaimed!  The little filly was indeed standing in front of a catapult, about as big as an apple tree.  Bouncing around it was Scootaloo, followed by Sweetie Bell, each one either cleaning it or just poking it to seem busy.

“Right.  And where in tarnation did y’all find this contraption?”

Applebloom started to answer, before she found an orange blur pass in front of her and did it for her.  “Pinkie Pie!  She said that she wasn’t going to use it anymore because the prank she was planning needed a trebuchet and not a catapult.  I asked what those were but she just gave me cupcakes and the catapult telling me to ‘Use it wisely lest Equestria crumbles’ or something like that, I don’t know, I was too busy watching Rainbow Dash do some awesome tricks! Like this one where she did a corkscrew and a loop-de-loop and then she did some big flashy…”  Scootaloo continued on listing off the tricks, unaware of the slight shift in her audience’s direction.

“Ah swear, I’m gonna’ give that Pinkie Pie a piece o' my mind, givin’ you girls somethin’ as dangerous as this...uh…doohickey.”  Applejack looked less than thrilled at the prospect of something of Pie design upon her farm.

“But sis, what if it leads to our cutie marks!  We just gotta try! Puh-leeeease!”  Applebloom pleaded, giving big puppy dog eyes.

Sweetie Bell piped up, “If it makes you feel any better, she also gave us these helmets!”  She pointed down on the ground, where three battered looking helmets were lazily placed in a pile.

“Well, Ah guess if you have them helmets it’ll be okay.  What do you think, Big Mac?”

Big Macintosh just stood there for a few seconds, examining the whole scene, before letting out a wary “Eeyup.”

“Yay!”  Applebloom shouted, as the other crusaders gathered around.  “CUTIE MARK CRUSADER CATAPULTERS ARE GO!”  With that, they picked up their helmets and began winding up the catapult.

“Well, enough gawkin’ Big Mac, we’ve gotta get this here cake over to Sugarcube Corner, remember?”  Applejack prodded his side and nodded towards the cake on the ground, a few meters away from the cart they were loading up.  It was a grand cake, with 4 layers of apple based confectionary delight.  Decorated with various apple designs and topped with signature Apple family buttermilk cream, it was truly a sight to behold.

“Eeyup” was all the stallion said as he moved to the opposite side of the platter his sister was walking to, bending down prepare for the heavy lift.  “How in the world can a cake weigh so buckin’ much?  Even if it’s as big as a pony, it just ain’t right.” he thought to himself.

Meanwhile, the catapult winded up and ready to launch, the crusaders had reached an impressive obstacle, who to go first.  “Ah say Scootaloo should go, what with Rainbow Dash being your idol and all.  Ah’m sure you’ll be able to find a way to break yer fall.”  

“No way Applebloom, I’m not dumb enough to go on that death trap!  Uh, I mean, Sweetie Bell should go!  She’s a unicorn, she can just magic the pain away!”

“Scootaloo, I don’t know a lot of magic.  Plus, if I go, Rarity will be mad that I got all dirty.”

“Psh, like she’ll know.  Just go. Or are you…chicken?”

Bickering soon erupted from the three fillies, providing a distracting background for  the two older Apple siblings.

“Alright Big Mac!”  Applejack loudly explained.  “On the count of three, we’ll both lift up.  Ready?”

“Eeyup!”  he shouted back.

“Alright.  One!  Two!”

Between the bickering and the lifting, nobody noticed the giant, sack-shaped object falling out of the sky.

“ThreEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHH” screamed Applejack as the object landed but a few inches from her face, startling her and making her whip her head up.

Big Macintosh noticed two things.  One was that his sister was yelling, and second was that the platter was being jerked upward.  Between these two things, he didn’t have time to restrain his strength as he proceeded to join the motion and accidently launched the cake into the air.  Both watched, Applejack in dismayed horror and Big Macintosh in solemn contemplation, as the cake twisted and turned mid-air, before, miraculously, coming at rest.

On top of the catapult.

The sudden impact of the cake on the catapult startled Scootaloo, who had been next to the release lever.  The same lever that was soon pulled when Scootaloo fell backwards.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo…” was all Applejack could say as the cake found itself being launched at an incredible speed towards the Everfree Forest.  An awkward silence had formed over the farm, as Applejack remained fixed in place with a look of pure disbelief etched upon her face, the Cutie Mark Crusaders with sheepish grins on theirs and Big Macintosh maintaining an air of composure around him.  A few seconds later, the silence was broken as Granny Smith busted out of the farmhouse, wearing pots and pans.

“I heard that howlin’!  The timberwolves are attackin!  Quick, grab yer emergency pots and start clangin’!” the frantic mare screamed as she ran around the house clanging her attire.  Big Macintosh stood there for a while, before dragging a still frozen Applejack off to the farmhouse, leaving behind a confused Granny Smith and three fillies trying desperately to hide the catapult behind a tree.

“It is quite some work, building a new route.  All this activity has left me tuckered out.” Zecora said to herself, her house within her sights.  A few days ago, an angry manticore had torn up some trees along the route to her home, placing obstacles all over the pathway.  Knowing that a manticore, especially one in a foul mood, would be very dangerous, she opted to instead build a second pathway leading to her homestead, waiting a few days in case the manticore decided to stay around.  Approaching her door, she prepared to enter her home when she suddenly noticed it had gotten very dark.  Perplexed, she turned around and gazed to the heavens.

Just in time to see a giant cake collide into her, trapping her within a baked and delicious glob.

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