Animal Antics

Chapter 6

The ground trembled slightly, as the five mares rushed towards the scene of the book creature’s unfortunate meeting with a Pinkie Pie Party Ball.  As they arrived, the dust began to settle as the results of the impact became clear.  The creature, whatever it was, was reduced to a mere pile of books.  Tomes, dictionaries and scrolls began tumbling from the hill of texts, landing with a soft thump at the pile’s base.  And in front of it was Twilight Sparkle, frozen with an expression that was either sheer disbelief or complete horror.  A small pocket book was impaled on her horn, as she stood hoof deep in books.  A flash of white zoomed around her body, before stopping to reveal Angel Bunny smacking her with his foot, with little visual effect.  The other animals around began dispersing, seeing that their mission was completed.

“Angel Bunny!  You stop that this instant!” Fluttershy yelled, zipping to the bunny and giving him a glare. The intimidating gesture faltered, however, when Angel looked at her with an even more venomous glare.  “W-well, you know, if you don’t mind that is…”

Meanwhile, Rarity was tentatively stepping around the dust mounds formed by the impact of the behemoth, as Pinkie Pie was climbing the pile with a grappling hook.  Applejack pawed at the books on the ground, while Rainbow Dash, following Fluttershy’s lead, zoomed to Twilight, shaking her and pushing Angel off.

“Twilight!  Twilight!  Are you alright?”  No response.  “Twilight?” she knocked on her head a few times, “anypony home?”  Silence still greeted her.  Frustrated, Dash did the only thing she could think of.  Spotting a dark cloud in the distance, she fetched it and positioned it over Twilight, bracing herself for the shocked outburst of an angry, wet pony.  What she didn’t expect was a lightning bolt turning Twilight Sparkle into a roasty, toasty pony.  Everyone’s eyes darted to Rainbow Dash, who had already thrown the cloud away into the sky and was whistling a very nonchalant tune.  Everyone’s ears perked up as they heard a small cough coming from the blackened unicorn next to her.

Shaking the soot off her body, Twilight Sparkle blinked her eyes a few time, as if just waking up.  Feeling a bulky mass at her hooves, she looked down and was perplexed to see books all around her.  Turning around, the confusion was replaced with shock and despair as she noticed the enormous amounts of literature strewn haphazardly in the field.  Turning to her friends, who had now formed a small group and began approaching her, she cried out.  “What happened here?!  Why are there so many books piled up in the middle of the field?!  Why does my head hurt?!  Why…”  She paused momentarily, sniffing at the air.  “Why do I smell like burnt hay fries?”

Letting out a collective sigh, the mares moved in, with Rainbow Dash taking initiative.  “You mean you don’t remember going completely nuts and stealing everyone’s books, filling the sky with lightning and apparently attacking all of Fluttershy’s animals?” she finished with a circling of the eyes and a flourish of her hooves.

Hearing the accusations, Twilight’s eyes widened as she began to recall the snakes.  And the bear.  And the destruction of the library.  That last recollection hit her especially hard, as she felt her back meeting the ground with a hard smack.  A pink hoof waving in front of her face snapped her out of her dumbstruck state as felt more hooves lift her off the ground.

“Silly Twilight, you shouldn’t be sleeping on the grass!  Unless it’s a grass bed!  Then you could sleep on grass all night!  Or would you be sleeping on a bed?  Grass Bed?  Bed of Grass?  Grass Bed?  Bed of Grass?  Gra-“  Pinkie Pie found herself with a white hoof in her mouth, and a glowering Rarity looking at her with an expression that seemed to read ‘Never again’.

Eyes watering, Twilight found her voice again. “You mean…I did all this?  I stole everyone’s books and tried to hurt the animals?”

“It looks that way, sugarcube.”  Applejack responded, patting her friend on the back in a comforting manner.

Turning to Fluttershy, Twilight walked slowly to her, head hanging down.  “Fluttershy I…I’m so sorry.  I don’t know what came over me.  I thought I could handle this, but all I ended up doing was causing a giant mess.”  Tears began falling as sobs began to break up her speech.  “C-can you e-e-ever f-forgive me?”  She nearly jumped when she felt a pair of legs wrapping around her neck.

“Of course Twilight.  Everyone makes a bad decision once in a while.  It’s just something you’ve got to learn from and fix, that’s all.”  Fluttershy looked at her friend’s face and wiped the tears away.  “Although, you may want to apologize to the animals.  Don’t worry, I can go with you and help you.  That is, if you want me to..”

Twilight smiled at her friend and gave her a hug back.  “I’d really appreciate that Fluttershy.”  Looking down, she noticed Angel Bunny glaring at her, as if trying to make her vanish with his gaze alone.  Lowering herself, Twilight cleared her throat. “Angel Bunny, let me apologize to you first.  It was wrong of me to, well, go absolutely crazy and build a giant book robot to try and capture you and your friends.”  She gave a small grin, trying to banish the awkwardness of the situation.  “Do you forgive me?”  She outstretched a hoof, her smile growing wider.

Angel Bunny looked at the hoof, paused for a moment, and then smacked it away, pointing at Twilight and making a series of punching motions into his paw.  Fluttershy sighed and walked over to him.

“Angel, couldn’t you please forgive Twilight?  She didn’t mean to cause so much trouble.  Pretty please?” she pleaded, her eyes expanding and twinkling with hope.

Angel made no motions for what seemed like an eternity, before finally extending a wary paw and looking Twilight dead in the eye.  Twilight smiled meekly and extended her hoof, meeting his paw in a shake.  She looked at his eyes and saw a deep grudge contained within them.  

“Well, it’s better than nothing.” she thought to herself.  She smiled at Fluttershy.  “Well, if you’re ready Fluttershy, let’s go.  The sooner I can apologize to the animals the sooner I can feel better about this whole situation.”  She turned to the rest of her friends.  “I can’t believe you all went through so much trouble to try and help me.”

Applejack walked over first.  “Oh now hush sugarcube.  Yer our friend and we stick together!”

Rarity joined in next.  “That’s right, darling.  It would be terrible to leave anypony in such a situation!’

“Not to mention completely mean!  Can you imagine what would happen if I didn’t remember to load the Pinkie Launcher?” Pinkie added, popping out from the book pile.

Rainbow Dash flew over and hooked her leg around Twilight.  “You should know by now I could never leave my friends hanging.  You know, loyalty and all.”

Twilight gathered them all into a group hug.  “Thanks girls.  Now, I’ve got some animals to apologize too!”

As she turned to head towards the rest of the shaken creatures, a bush at the edge of the Everfree Forest began shaking.  The six mares froze, and immediately assumed a defensive stance, preparing to face whatever beast lurked in the forest.  What they saw horrified and shocked them.  A giant circular body, lumpy in some sections and flat in others, emerged from the top of the bush.  Twigs and other debris were wedged in its body, as it slowly hobbled towards the ponies.  A series of grunts accompanied it, sounding strained and frustrated.  

The beast stepped into the light, revealing a very disgruntled Zecora, encased in some sort of globule, with a mannequin pony wedged next to her head sporting a beautiful dress.  She spotted the six mares and narrowed her eyes.

“Frustration and anger have guided my path, now tell me which pony shall suffer my wrath!” she said in calm, chilling voice.

Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy immediately pointed to Twilight Sparkle, who could only shrink a little and give a sheepish smile.  Zecora slowly waddled over to Twilight Sparkle, pulled a pouch out of the cake ball, and blew it in her face.  At first nothing happened.  Suddenly, the cake ball began shaking, subtly at first, but then with increasing intensity.  Twilight began to shake too, as the cake began flying off Zecora and attaching to Twilight.  A few seconds later, and Zecora was clean, while Twilight was now trapped inside of a giant cake ball, with only her head sticking out.  Seeing there was no more cake, Twilight raised her eyebrow at Zecora, expecting something worse.  If only the mannequin hadn’t begun shaking as well.  Twilight found herself being jerked backwards by the impact of the mannequin, firing her off into the direction of Ponyville.

“ZEEEEEEEEEECOOooooooooooraaaaaaaaaaaaaa……” she screamed as she rolled off into town.

Zecora smiled gently and, chuckling to herself, began to head back to her hut, leaving behind five speechless mares and one hysterically laughing bunny.

Spike let out a sigh of relief as he picked up the last book and tossed it into the cart.  After seeing the trouble he was going through to pick up the mess left behind by the crazy book shower, the mayor had given him a cart to help haul it all back to the library.  If only she could throw in some other helpers too.

“I hope that Twilight is alright..” he wondered aloud, hoping nothing too dangerous had happened.  An echo ringing out throughout Ponyville caught his attention.

“STOP THIS CRAZY THIIIIIIIIIIIING!”

Spike turned towards the main road, just in time to see a giant cake ball roll past him, with a certain purple unicorn’s head sticking out of it.  He looked at his book cart, then back at the cake ball and sighed.  “I’ll get a bath started’ he said flatly.  The ball continued rolling, passing ponies and stands, until it smashed into a stand at the far end of the square.  A series of screams of pain followed.  Spike sighed again.

“And the bee sting ointment.”