"So what you're telling me, is that the entire Pegasus squad is out of commission?"
The Earth Pony guard saluted as he spoke. "Yes sir. Their soufflé shooters and cotton candy cannons have made aerial attacks too dangerous to attempt. If it wasn't for Miss Rainbow Dash here, I doubt that everypony in the squad would have escaped uncaptured."
At this, everypony in the library looked over to the blue Pegasus. Although, she was looking decidedly more vanilla and pink colored at the moment, what with all of the sweets that had been blasted on her. Fluttershy was busy using a wet rag to try and clean her up.
Rainbow Dash let out a loud grumble. "Man, this'll take forever to clean out of my wings..."
General Spritz sighed as he rubbed a hoof on his forehead, his long, blue tipped brown hair shifting as he massaged his head.
"There was some good news however, sir." The guard added.
"What is it?"
"Before they were eventually knocked out of commission, P-squad managed to locate the building these things are coming from. Some bakery called 'Sugercane Cabinet' I think."
Twilight gasped. "Sugarcube Corner! Pinkie was supposed to work there today!"
"Oh dear! She must have been the first one to get captured by these foul and fiendish sugary schemers! Whatever shall we do?!?" Rarity asked dramatically as she flopped herself onto her suddenly appearing fainting couch.
"Calm down Miss Rarity." General Spritz said. "From what we can tell these confections are only taking hostages, so we can safely assume that she is unharmed."
Tempered Steel, an orange coated and browned haired Pegasus who had been leaning against a nearby bookshelf, merely scoffed at that. "Right, because one hundred thousand tiny cookie soldiers only kidnap ponies just to invite them to a tea party."
General Spritz ignored him as he moved to the map of Ponyville that was on the table. He took a red marker and drew a big circle around the tiny icon of Sugarcube Corner. There were various pencil lines and erasure marks on the streets near to the bakery, and judging by the ever increasing circle, things were not looking good for the ponies.
"How is the rest of the battalion doing?" General Spritz asked.
"The Unicorn Squad is doing well, but it's only a matter of time until they become too exhausted to cast the counter charm they learned from Princess Twilight." The guard said. "Additionally, our shield bearer Earth Ponies are in much of the same position. The smaller cookies are easily dealt with, but ever since they started riding those eclair camels and using those Bon-Bon-flash-bombs, we've been losing ground and ponies slowly, but surely."
The brown coated stallion said nothing as he stared at the map, plans and facts flowing through his mind. After a few tense moments, he closed his eyes and sighed.
"There's no way we can stop them. Unless I suddenly get a lot more guards, or some sort of super weapon, we're all gonna be in trouble." He said solemnly.
Nopony in the room said anything for a moment, each considering the pesky problem at hand.
"How about the Mirror Pool?" Tempered suggested.
Everypony glanced up at him. "What's the Mirror Pool?" General Spritz asked.
"It's some sort of magic pond type thing." Tempered said as he stood up straight. "You get a pony In front of it, and suddenly there's two of 'em. I read about it in the papers a few months back. Seems like as good a plan as any."
Twilight shook her head. "That won't work. When Pinkie Pie made all of those clones, they didn't listen to a single word anypony said while they annoyed half the town. Besides, we won't be able to even use it without..."
Twilight paused. She put a hoof to her chin and furrowed her brow as she thought. "Wait..." She muttered. "That just might work!"
"You have a plan?" General Spritz asked.
"It's not a plan so much as an idea." Twilight said. "I've gotten really skilled with my illusions, and when the Pinkie clones were in Ponyville, every single one of them became obsessed with fun because the original Pinkie wanted more fun as well. If I could make an illusion of Pinkie being hungry-"
"-then we can make as many ponies as we need to fight back!" General Spritz exclaimed.
Twilight shook her head again. "I'm not about to make 100 Pinkies to have them run rampant afterward. Just one should be enough."
"How exactly is only one Pinkie gonna help us?!" Tempered exclaimed.
Twilight turned her head towards him. "The real Pinkie can swallow an entire triple tiered cake in one gulp and go back for sevenths."
All of the mares in the room shuddered as they remembered the disaster that had been Pinkie's last New Years party. To call it unpleasant would be an insult to disturbing images everywhere.
General Spritz nodded. "If you think it will help, then it's our best bet. Tempered Steel, you're the only trained soldier here with wings. You are to provide Princess Twilight and the Pinkie clone an escort to and from the Mirror Pool. Under no circumstances can we afford to screw this up."
Tempered saluted. "Yessir! I'll go get my saddle bags ready immediately!"
With that, both Twilight and Tempered dashed up the stairs to get ready.
Just then, Applejack burst through the front door, sweating and gasping for breath.
"Sweet *gasp* Apple *gasp* Acres *gasp* has been overrun!" She exclaimed.
"What happened?" General Spritz asked sternly.
After catching her breath for a minute, Applejack explained, "Well, after the pegasi were knocked out of the sky, we couldn't handle their heavy sugar weaponry, so we had to fall back. We got as many ponies out as we could, but we lost quite a few to their Twizzler snap traps. I sent everypony else to join the rest of the citizens at Town Hall."
At the mention of Town Hall, General Spritz had an idea. An idea so deliciously genius, it rivaled the opposing cookie forces in sweetness.
"Miss Applejack, take your friends to Town Hall and tell everypony there that there's gonna be an emergency meeting! Rocky Rumble, I want one of those cookies captured right now! Time is of the essence!"
Rocky saluted and dashed out of the library to complete his orders. Applejack and the rest looked at General Spritz as he started to furiously scan the map.
"You have a plan, Sugarcube?" Applejack asked.
"Princess Twilight and Tempered Steel will need time to complete their mission." He said as he started to fold the map. "And I plan on giving them as much as I can."
~~~/\/\/~~~
The citizens of Ponyville all sat before the stage in Town Hall, murmuring amongst themselves about this surprise meeting. After a few minutes, General Spritz walked up onto the stage. He loudly cleared his throat, and the crowd all turned to look at him.
"Thank you all for coming." General Spritz said loudly and clearly. "Time is of the essence, so I'll be brief. As of this moment, we cannot defeat the monster munchables by ourselves."
This revelation caused a ripple of confusion and worry to spread across the crowd. After a few moments, General Spritz held up a hoof to calm the crowd down.
"We can't defeat them by ourselves," He continued. "Because we need your help in stopping them. Bring it in!"
At that call, a unicorn guard walked onto the stage, a cage on his back. Inside of the cage was a dark chocolate cookie. It was standing on two very muscled cookie legs and shook the bars with it's very muscled cookie arms. White icing made a caricature of a sharp-toothed face on it's flat form, and it snarled and growled at the crowd. General Spritz calmly took the cage from the unicorn and held it up to the crowd, ignoring the grumpy cookie inside.
"This cookie is just one of the many kinds of cookies that are currently attacking your homes." General Spritz explained. "Thanks to Princess Twilight, we have determined that these cookies are not real creatures. Rather, they are simple pastries that have been animated by some sort of charm, which Princess Twilight has also given us the counter spell for."
With that, he turned towards the unicorn and held up the cage towards the unicorn guard. "If you would be so kind..." He said.
The unicorn lowered his head, and with a simple white flash from his horn, the cookie became a normal cookie once more. The icing no longer looked scary, instead merely sitting there with a smiley face on it.
General Spritz calmly opened the top of the cage, pulled out the cookie, and took a bite out of it.
The crowd all murmured amongst themselves at this revelation. If they were so easy to defeat, then why did they even need help in the first place?
As General Spritz swallowed, he dropped the cookie back into the cage and gave it back to the unicorn, who promptly left the stage. He then turned back to the crowd.
"Despite how easy it is to remove the charm, even that does not completely stop them. The magic is dispelled for only a few moments before it returns, and even crushing them doesn't defeat them. We have determined that the only way to stop them for good is to eat them. And that's why we need your help. Steps will be taken to ensure that you all will be as safe as can be during the battle. We desperately need your help. Your TOWN needs your help. So, who's with me?"
The crowd all talked amongst themselves, clearly unsure about joining in.
General Spritz sighed. "Did I mention that they're free?"
With that declaration, the entire crowd cheered. They all started to leave Town Hall, eager to help fight the tasty terrors.
As General Spritz left the stage he said to one of the guards, "Get me a glass of milk. I need to get the taste of dark chocolate out of my mouth. Eugh."
