War in the Pocket

Chapters

War in the Pocket: the Complete Series

War in the Pocket: the Complete Series

The good earth is plentiful and provides for all that dwell upon it. Dragons, griffons, minotaurs, zebras, and ponies alike; all enjoy the bounty of the land and want for naught. In particular the land of Equestria is a place of wealth and peace unimaginable. In this land all are welcomed and the happiness of all sentient beings is secured by the regal alicorn sisters: the demigod stewards of harmony and joy.

But not all creatures are so predisposed towards sharing and love. Few remember that there once existed a race unlike any other that tread this land. They were a clever race that in ancient times was the salvation of the world. But in their cleverness they became overconfident; capricious in their invention and cruel in their designs. They became warlike, and plotted to subjugate all races and species beneath their banner.

Luna and Celestia were left no choice, and laid them low, reducing their numbers to near extinction. As they stood victorious, they looked upon the shattered forms of the survivors and knew pity. Unable to bring the genocide to completion, the sisters cast a spell that would last thousands of years, sealing the remainder of the population away.

But nothing lasts forever. Not even alicorn magic.

***

Luna’s moon hung low in the sky; a great unblinking eye keeping the night’s vigil upon her beloved subjects. But great dark clouds gathered over the skies above a farm on the outskirts of the hamlet of Ponyville. The roiling stigma blotted out the moon’s pure light, and cast the barren field at the edge of Sweet Apple Acres in total darkness. Darkness that seemed to swallow even ambient light spread like a sickness over the patch of dirt surrounding a half buried boulder.

That small, unobtrusive piece of the property had lain fallow since the founding of the homestead. Not even wild grass grew in that place. Whenever Applejack or Big Mac questioned Granny Smith about trying to work the earth there, she merely shook her head sadly and responded, “We don’t grow there, youngins. It’s bad medicine, that land. It don’t belong to ponies.”

Lightning struck, thunderless and unnaturally brilliant. The stone cracked in a shower of sparks. A sliver of the rock fell away, revealing a small crystal that glowed with amber light. The lightning flashed again, striking the jewel and smashing it.

The blinding light of the spell breaking faded away, revealing three creatures splayed out upon the ground. The largest one groaned and stood, not on four legs as a pony would, but on his two hind limbs as some dragons were known to.

He reached up and gripped the brim of his hat between two fleshy, pink fingers, adjusting it with a yawn.

“Well then. I guess we need to cook.”

***

Princess Celestia sat on a couch on the balcony outside her bed chambers, sipping tea and thinking about absolutely nothing in particular. She looked out over the city of Canterlot and smiled. Here and there she could see ponies going about their business, enjoying the rich night life of the big city. Ponies headed out for a night of drinking, dancing, and perhaps lovemaking.

She had never been one for that sort of hedonistic night worship, but the return of her sister had certainly brought a new appreciation for the dark, sacred nights. It was now very fashionable, even amongst the nobles, to lead an active night life. She enjoyed sitting and watching her ponies joyfully appreciating her sister’s night. It warmed her heart more than she could ever say or admit, especially to Luna herself, that these young ones embraced her sister in a way their distant ancestors never did.

The snap of fine porcelain shattering filled her ears as the cup she held gingerly in her hooves fell to pieces, drenching her legs in scalding hot tea. She lifted an eyebrow at the pieces of the cup, ignoring the slight burning sensation.

“Sister,” came a melodious voice behind her.

“Mhm?” Celestia responded, levitating a towel from the tea cart next to her to dab at her coat.

“We feel a trembling in our night that we believe may be portents of ill tidings for the subjects of our lands.”

“Yeah, I kind of get that,” she said, scrubbing at the stubborn brown liquid. “And please stop with the acrolect, nopony else is here. You need the practice with modern speech.”

Luna rolled her eyes.

“You used to appreciate the Equestrian language, Celly.”

“I still do, Loony, it’s just changed, ya know? Linguistic prescriptivism is the death of a living tongue.”

“Whatever. Your lazy verbiage aside; I sense a disturbance in the farce.”

“Ponyville is not a farce,” Celestia replied with a frustrated moan. The stain just would not come out.

“A town with a population of less than one thousand citizens, and it has its own princess… sounds pretty farcical to me,” Luna scoffed. “You sure are putting a lot of trust in that apprentice of yours. Maybe next week you can get a dog and she can take it for walkies for you.”

“What does that say about my trusting her to put and end to your little Nightmare Moon tizzy?”

Luna narrowed her eyes. “Low blow.”

Celestia stopped her worrying of her coat and reached over to pat her sister on the head consolingly. She smoothed her sister’s supernaturally flowing mane and held a hoof to her cheek.

“Oh, honey, short as you are, they’re all low blows.”

Luna bit her sister’s hoof hard enough to leave marks.

“Very mature.” Celestia said, cradling her hoof and pouting.

“Your mother is mature.”

“We have the same mother.”

“That’s what she said.”

Celestia sighed. A thousand years of isolation hadn’t changed the childishly playful rivalry between the sisters, but in that time great strides had been made in smack-talk and Luna was still woefully outdated in the zingers department. A few days previous she had pulled a “Talk to the hoof” with a sassy head swivel and Celestia laughed so hard she broke two ribs.

“Whatever it is, it’s Twilight’s problem,” Celestia decided. “It’s her territory now.”

Luna raised an eyebrow.

“And if this, whatever it is, was going on here in Canterlot?”

“I’d be packing a bag and waiting to get kidnapped so it could be Twilight’s problem,” Celestia said with a nod. “Getting kidnapped is the only vacation time we get around here.”

“I need an apprentice…” Luna sighed.

“It’s pretty great. And honestly I’m just not in the mood to deal with a major crisis right now.”

“What about that thing with the Principality of Zebron? The governors are pretty riled up about that,” Luna asked.

“The council of governors can kiss the sunniest part of my ass. It’s just some stupid trade disagreement over some useless metal that can’t even be forged except in a magically gravity-neutral field. What’re they going to do? Build a mechanical titan out of it? Colonize space? I’m so sure.”

Celestia poured another cup of tea and sipped daintily. “Sieg Zebron, my horn.”

***

Princess Twilight Sparkle fluttered her eyes sleepily and sat up with a yawn. It was another great day in Ponyville. Another day of quiet study and contemplation spent improving her intellect and magic.

Most of her friends were away on business or on some kind of vacation, so there wasn’t much she could do friendship-wise: Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were at their flight camp reunion back in Cloudsdayle; Rarity was in Manehattan doing something fashionable; Applejack was in Appleloosa for Applepalooza; and Pinkie was busy minding Sugarcube Corner while the Cakes were out of town for the week.

Regardless, she was ready and eager for whatever challenges or adventures she’d face today. No matter how big or small those adventures may be.

Since coming to Ponyville, Twilight had come to expect the unexpected and take each new day with stride and enthusiasm. Little did she know that one cannot expect the unexpected when the unexpected was unexpectable.

To her legitimate surprise, Spike was standing at the door leading down into the library, peering down the stairwell and fidgeting nervously.

“What’s up, Spike? Is something going…“ Twilight began to ask before being silenced by a harsh shush and a claw pressed to her lips.

“There’s somepony in the library…” he whispered.

Twilight’s entire body stiffened anxiously.

“Like a burglar?” she whispered back. She briefly wondered why, as a newly crowned princess, she didn’t have guards to protect her royal stuff, or a castle for her royal stuff, or royal stuff in general.

Her mind began to wander over what the hay she was actually princess of when the sound of breaking glass came from below.

“Okay, boys!” shouted a deep, masculine voice. “Just throw all that junk out of the window. We need room for more ovens.”

“Ovens…?” Spike asked, looking at Twilight questioningly.

“Even the biographies?” came a second, more adolescent sounding voice.

“Especially the biographies!”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. “MY BOOKS!”

Her horn lit up and tossed Spike out of the way as she charged down the stairs. Her horn flared with greater intensity as she flew down the stairs while readying her deadliest spell. She reached the upper level of the library and stood at the edge, scanning the whole library for intruders. All around her books were piled haphazardly, torn from their carefully arranged and categorized shelves. The window next to the front door was broken and she could see a small pile of books already lying in the street.

Aside from the mess and the broken window, there was no indication that anypony else was here. The library was empty and silent save her own ragged breathing and the hum of her restrained spell. Her anger gave way to curiosity as she continued her search. Perhaps they were invisible. Or maybe it was ghosts. Could they have teleported away when they heard her shout from upstairs?

She descended another flight of stairs to the main lobby of the library and began her search. But she was alone.

“How very queer…” she muttered, powering down her spell but keeping it at the ready.

Spike came down the stairs and hide behind Twilight’s legs as she slowly wound her way through the maze of displaced books.

A whistle pierced the air followed by a thud and the twang of vibrating metal. Twilight watched a few hairs gently float from her bangs to the floor, the knife that severed them quivering from the impact of striking the wall near her head.

“My bangs!” she cried.

She spun and fired blindly in the direction of the attack, her powerful alicorn magic becoming a deadly projectile of arcane force. The spell struck the wall of her kitchen, blasting a hole clear through and melting her appliances.

“My kitchen!” she shouted.

“My soufflé!” Spike wailed..

“You’re making a soufflé?” Twilight asked, her tail twitching excitedly.

“Not anymore!” he replied with a huff.

“My kitchen!” a voice cried from the direction of the spell’s impact.

Spike and Twilight whipped their heads around in time to catch a couple of faces full of book.

“My face!” they shouted in unison.

“You nitwits owe me a new kitchen!” shouted the masculine squeak Twilight had heard from upstairs.

“Who keeps throwing things!?” Twilight shouted angrily.

“Down here, you stupid horse,” the voice answered.

Twilight looked down and stared.

She stared and she stared and she stared.

“Owloysius! There’s a mouse in the library!”

She dodged another book.

“I’m not a mouse, you dizzy dame,” the tiny thing replied.

The creature standing in front of her, sure enough, didn’t seem to be a mouse, or at least any kind of mouse she’d ever seen. It was roughly a hoof tall, just around the height of Fluttershy’s rabbit Angel, discounting the ears, and mostly furless, but with a patch of white hair on top of its head sticking out from under a red stocking cap. It was also wearing a green jacket with a red vest and tie over a white shirt, and a yellow pair of short pants.

“What the hay are you?” Spike asked, finally breaking the silence.

“We’re elves.”

“Elves?”

“Did I stutter? Yes, elves. And don’t bother trying to call that owl of yours again, he’s been otherwise… occupied…” the elf informed them with a menacing smirk.

Twilight’s eyes went wide.

“What have you done to Owloysius!?”

“Hey, hey, we ain’t done nothing,” the elf responded with a smug grin as he adjusted his tie and rolled his shoulders confidently. “My associates and I merely facilitated his own predisposition, of himself, as it were.”

The elf snapped his fingers and the sound of books being shoved off a table drew Spike and Twilight’s attention to the center of the library. Two more elves, dressed oddly enough in matching white aprons and chefs hats, had cleared away a wall of books that had been obscuring Twilight’s view of her number two assistant.

He was laying flat on his back, wings spread out lazily, one leg twitching in the air as he snorted loudly at the sudden noise and rolled over. His twitching leg kicked an empty bottle, one of several, off the table, where it dropped to the floor and shattered.

“OWLOYSIUS! DRUNK, AGAIN!” Twilight cried in shock.

“Told you that owl was nothing but trouble,” Spike said with a tut.

“I don’t trust a bird what doesn’t enjoy a sniff of the old creature,” the elf said with a chuckle. “That aside, my name is Ernie.”

Ernie pointed to the other elves standing near Owloysius and trying to look tough.

“The kid is Jay. We call him Vinnie because it’s more thematic.” The apparently youngest of the group lifted his chef’s hat and ran his hand through his sweaty ginger locks.

“The chubby one is Chubby. We call him Chubby because he’s chubby.” The potbellied elf dropped his tough guy act just long enough to pull his hat off, clutching it to his chest sheepishly and nodding his head. The frizzy curls of his hair didn’t bob with the motion so much as jiggle like a bowl of pudding or an overfed gut. Chubby cleared his throat and put his hat back on, resuming his adorable semi-menacing vigil.

Twilight stared and stared and stared.

Ernie cleared his throat loudly.

“I’m sorry?” Twilight asked with a slight jump.

“You sure are,” Ernie scoffed. “Not gunna introduce yourselves?”

“Oh, um, well, I’m Twilight Sparkle? And this is Spike,” Twilight managed to say with a nod in Spike’s direction. “He’s kind of my assistant, or my brother, or something. It really depends on my mood.”

“I love you, too, Twilight,” Spike muttered.

“Quiet, assistant.”

Ernie clapped once, loudly, silencing the pair. Twilight and Spike stared at his hands, fascinated by the sound, which was very unlike the clopping of two hooves or the dull thud of dragon claws.

“Introductions out of the way, welcome to our humble little home and get the hell out.”

Twilight blinked.

“Wait what?”

“You heard me, Twilight Sparkster,” Ernie growled. “Take your little purple buddy and vamoose! Beat it! Egress with postesthaste!”

Twilight’s jaw went slack.

“I don’t understand,” she stated succinctly.

“It’s very simple,” he replied. “This is our tree. It’s an elf tree. Ergofacto, a tree for elves. Not horses. So clippity clop your little cloppity clippers on down the boulevard so we can get back to our legitimate business concerns.”

Twilight’s ears flopped in consternation.

“I still don’t understand. This is a library, has been since before I moved to Ponyville,” she stated. “If anything it’s a tree for books. And I live here, and I’m a princess, so I guess it’s also kind of a castle.”

She looked down to Spike who had finally moved out from behind her and was standing to her side. He shrugged.

“Royalty, eh?” Ernie said. “How’s old Shiny Ass and the Tantrum Queen? They still kicking around or did they finally die of cake poisoning?”

Spike bit his claws to hold in the laughter while Twilight frowned thoughtfully.

“I think he means Celestia and Luna,” Spike managed to choke out.

“You know the other princesses!?”

“Of course we do,” shouted Vinnie from the table. Ernie shot him a glance to remind him who was the brains around here. “Sorry boss.”

“Yeah we know them,” Ernie muttered. “Those two jerks were the ones that sealed us in that rock.”

“Sealed? What? Why have I never heard about this? What were you sealed away for?”

“I ain’t surprised you don’t know anything about it,” Ernie barked. “We knew too damn much! We did too much! They were afraid of us! I don’t know how long it’s been since we’ve been away, but I bet none of these books will have any mention of elves. They wouldn’t want their dirty little secrets out.”

Twilight’s curiosity was piqued harder than ever.

“What did you know?” she asked breathlessly, leaning in closer to Ernie.

“Well for one, we know how they move the skies.”

Twilight began to hyperventilate and foam at the corners of her mouth. For all she had been privy to since becoming a princess, that was one secret that Luna and Celestia had refused to reveal.

“How do you know!?” she shrieked.

“Calm down!” Ernie shouted back, slapping Twilight hard in the face, getting a gasp and then a howling laugh out of Spike. He sat on a pile of books at just the right height for a chair. “We know because we elves were the ones who built the machinery that does it.”

“Wait, machinery?” Twilight rubbed the tiny red mark on her face. The raising and setting of the sun and moon was controlled by machinery? It wasn’t some secret ultra powerful spell?

“Yeah, machinery. When that idiot Starswirl the Bearded screwed up that dumb spell to fiddle with your cutiewhatsits, he messed things up real bad and we were the ones that had to clean up your mess.”

Starswirl’s Destiny Spell: the spell that could change a pony’s destiny. It was the spell that had earned Twilight her wings. She had never heard of the spell before the day Celestia had sent her a half-finished incantation and told her to solve it. Even after rising to alicornhood, none of her exhaustive research had uncovered anything about Starswirl’s original imperfect casting of the spell. Celestia and Luna had always coughed loudly and changed the subject whenever Twilight brought it up.

“It was utter chaos!” Ernie shouted with a dramatic flourish of his arms. “His spell caused a chain reaction of nonsense that flipped the whole world’s pancake on its ear! The rotation of the planet and the orbit of the moon were kaput! The seas were quieted! Non-magical creatures checked out by the score! Luckily we managed to set things straight. We built a magic device at the core of the planet that could reboot and regulate the rotation of the whole shebang, and the one on the moon got that spinning, too, which started pulling at the tides again.

“The device that orbits the moon also creates a magical field as it travels across the sky. That field allows manipulation of the amount of solar radiation and light that gets through. That’s how Luna changes the stars. You let a few stars shine through, cover a few others; do that a few times and suddenly ponies start thinking you’re actually controlling the stars.”

Ernie leaned in a little and smirked. “The real, unobstructed heavens are only visible from far beyond the moon’s sphere of influence. You’d flip your noodle over how many stars are actually up there.”

“So you’re sitting there with a straight face and telling me that all of this,” Twilight waved her hooves around, “all of pony society for thousands of years has been a great big lie?”

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

“To what end?”

Ernie shrugged. “Power, I guess. You’d have to ask them yourself. You’re gunna try and tell me you believed in that malarkey about a geocentrifugal universe? The frickin’ sun is a massive ball of superheated plasma in perpetual nuclear fusion and weighs trillions of tons. How’s one little dame supposed to flip that around every single day? Way easier just to spin the planet around. Ain’t nobody going to know the difference.”

“Okay,” Twilight groaned as she rubbed her hoof over the spot between her eyes that was now throbbing painfully. “Okay… okay. Okay. Okay so if… okay…”

“If those machines were made by elves then why do the princesses control them?” Spike asked. Twilight pointed a hoof at him and nodded forcefully.

“Well originally it was controlled by the Elfin King,” Ernie said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Good King Oberon was a lot of things: poet, warrior, inventor, scholar, but most of all,” Ernie’s voice took a tone of fond remembrance, “most of all he was an ass-man. And no creature that ever walked on this big blue marble ever had an ass that rivaled what you’ll find on an alicorn.”

Twilight heard a snicker behind her and turned to find the other two elves staring at her rear. Her tail curled over her flank and she rose up on her hind legs to cover her rump protectively.

“Stop looking at my butt!” she shouted. Her horn lit up and threw a book at the pair. They dodged at the last moment and the book slammed into Owloysius, eliciting a pathetic drunken ‘whooooo’ as he fell to the ground without waking.

She turned back to Ernie and Spike, who were also staring at her rear, the latter with a conflicted look in his eyes and a heavy blush. She stared them both down and then dropped back to her hooves, her tail still resolutely stiff against her hindquarters.

“Okay a lot of that sounds plausible, I’ll grant you,” Twilight conceded, “but that doesn’t change the fact that this is my tree, and you all need to either put these books back or leave immediately.”

“We don’t think so, Sparkster,” Ernie growled, hopping back to his feet and snapping his fingers to summon Vinnie and Chubby back to his side. “This is an elf tree, built with elf magic, and that means it belongs to us.”

“Wait, are you saying this tree is thousands of years old?” Twilight blinked.

“You better believe it. You know any other pony houses built out of living trees?” Ernie stomped his foot loudly for his size. “One-hundred percent genuine elf craftsmanship. This tree has existed since before the time of your grandmothers’ grandmothers and it’ll live a thousand more generations. Elves live in trees and we build ‘em to last!”

Twilight blinked: an action that was becoming too familiar to her. She honestly couldn’t remember many more magically carved treehomes like hers. She never really paid much attention to it, but it really was a masterfully crafted mesh of spellworks.

“Well regardless of who built it, your kind hasn’t walked this realm for generations,” Twilight sniffed haughtily. “So… squatter’s rights.”

Ernie blinked. “Say what?”

“You heard me,” Twilight said with a flip of her mane. “Elves abandoned this place and ponies moved in. Squatter’s rights.”

Ernie worked his jaw up and down in shock. Vinnie and Chubby stared nervously. They’d never known their boss to be speechless and it was making them a little nervous.

“You leave now or we make you!” Ernie snarled. He balled his hands into fists and bared his teeth menacingly. If this moll thought she was going to keep this tree she had another thing coming. The land of Equestria would once again know the terrible power and savagery of the elfin race.

***

The books in the street were lifted by the shimmering aura of Twilight’s magic and flew back in through the smashed window. A moment later, a large dustbin floated out and dumped the angry elves on the ground roughly.

“You cheating witch!” Ernie shouted angrily. His face was red with ire and embarrassment in equal measure. He leapt back to his feet, kicking up dust in an angry little cloud, and hopped up to the window sill. A broom slapped him in the face, dropping him back to the street.

Ernie rubbed his face and was startled at the sound of the shutters over all the windows slamming shut simultaneously. Seconds later the sound of nails being hammered filled the morning air.

“This won’t stop me!” he swore. He ran to the door and hopped up to the knob, furiously trying to turn it.

There was a click, followed by the sound of sliding bolts and tiny chains. He dropped to the ground in shock and stared at the door in disbelief.

The little metal flap over the mail slot flipped up, letting Twilight lock eyes with Ernie through the door.

“Squatter’s rights!” she shouted defiantly, slamming the flap closed and nailing it shut.

“She locked the door,” Ernie breathed in shock. “She locked the door… THAT DIRTY BITCH LOCKED THE DOOR!”

***

Twilight locked the door and blew up at her mangled bangs. That initial knife attack had been way too close for comfort. She’d have to hit the stylist to get the uneven locks back into uniform shape. She might even need an extension until it grew back.

But there were more important things to worry about.

“Spike! Take a letter!”

She took a deep breath and began to dictate. “Dear Celestia, I don’t even know where to begin with what just…” Twilight stopped when she noted the absence of the sharp, frantic scratching of Spike’s claw writing on fresh parchment.

She turned around and looked at Spike questioningly. He was looking at the floorboards, one foot behind him and digging his big toe into the floor nervously. His face was flushed startlingly red.

“Twilight, um…” he began to fidget. “I was thinking t-that um, maybe, I might… s-stop chasing Rarity, ya know?”

Twilight quirked her eyebrow harder than she ever had in her life.

“I think that… that I might like somepony else,” he managed to choke out nervously. “Do you think that, maybe, I don’t know, you might want to go and get a coffee with...”

Spike was interrupted by a bucket of freezing ice water that appeared above his head and dumped itself without warning.

“Don’t you start now,” Twilight warned. “I don’t care how nice my butt is, I’ve only got time for so much ludicrousness at a time. You just keep it in your metaphorical pants until we deal with this elf problem.”

“S-s-s-so a-a-after?” he asked hopefully through chattering teeth.

“Shower! Cold! Now!!” she pointed up the stairs and Spike obeyed without further question. “Stupid beautiful, flawless alicorn rump… make me write my own letters like some commoner…”

***

Luna and Celestia sipped tea while Canterlot burned all around them. Fireponies and weather pegasi were frantically putting out fires and searching for injured ponies while the two princesses nursed their wounds. They rested atop the mangled and ruined remains of a massive, four legged mechanical vehicle that had moments previously been rampaging through the city. It had taken all of their combined power to subdue the device. If either of them had been forced to face it alone, they might not have fared so well.

“Well those zebras sure shut you up, Celly.” She scratched her hoof at the stenciled name, ‘Z GUNDAM,’ on the side of the cockpit. Ostensibly Z was for Zebra.

Before Celestia could respond, a plume of green flame flashed in her face and dropped a scroll. She caught it with her magic before it could roll away to the ground below.

“Letter from Twilight,” she mumbled as she read. “Uh oh… she knows about the machines.”

Luna looked down at the zebra warmachine and frowned.

“Not this. The other machines.”

“The you-know-what machines? How’d she find out about those?”

Celestia continued reading and her eyes went wide as she flipped to the next page.

“The elves!”

Luna spit her tea.

“Are the safety protocols in place!?”

“No mention of anything indicating the geass we placed on them when we sealed them away,” Celestia muttered as she hurried through the missive. “No way to tell if the compulsion took hold.”

They looked into each others eyes fearfully for a few seconds, pregnant with tension. Celestia wordlessly passed one of the two parchment sheets to her sister and they each ate one, separating and destroying the letter that contained such potentially catastrophic national secrets.

They continued staring at one another before Luna finally worked up the courage to speak.

“Twilight’s problem?”

“Twilight’s problem.”

“I’ll kidnap you if you kidnap me.”

***

Twilight shoved books back onto the shelves with a grumble. Everything was out of order, and now Spike couldn’t be trusted to help because he just kept staring at her whenever she turned to face the shelves. He had been relegated to the kitchen, sanding down the scorched wood and salvaging what could be saved of the appliances.

There was a knock at the door. Spike stuck his head out the kitchen and Twilight stared him back down. She went to the door and held her ear against it, listening intently.

“Who is it!?” she shouted through the door.

“Delivery!” came a bubbly, but muffled, voice through the door.

Twilight unlocked the door and opened it just enough to peek out. The strabismic mailcarrier that Rainbow Dash sometimes called Derpy was standing there, a huge grin plastered on her face, holding a medium sized box

“Hello, Ditzy Doo,” Twilight greeted. She stuck her head out and looked around. “You alone?”

Ditzy giggled cutely. “You’re never alone when you have mail! Every letter is a friend and every package is a hug from a distant land!”

Twilight glared down her nose at the mare.

“Yes, I’m alone,” Ditzy giggled nervously.

“Anybody ever tell you that you giggle a lot?”

“They do! It always makes me laugh when ponies notice that,” she giggled.

“Who’s the package from?” Twilight asked.

Ditzy lifted the package over her head to read the shipping label with her wonky eye. “Some book company.”

Twilight flicked her tail excitedly. It was probably the new dictionaries she’d ordered. She’d found so many mistakes in the old ones, but the publishers had always ignored her letters, no matter how many she sent. Now that she was a princess, by Celestia, they’d get some correct editions.

She eagerly pulled the box into the library and floated a shiny new bit by way of a tip to Ditzy. She slammed the door quickly and refastened the locks.

Twilight stood over the box and licked her lips excitedly. She was about to open the package when her eyes caught the shipping label Ditzy had read.

‘Some Book Company, Equestria,’ it said in a childishly messy scrawl.

“The hay…?”

Twilight jumped back as the box tore apart, revealing the three elves, each brandishing a weapon. Ernie smirked as he flipped out his tiny switchblade.

“We got the drop on you now, you purple daughter of a…” Ernie’s insult was silenced by a hardcover almanac that dropped directly onto his head. Two more books fell on Chubby and Vinnie, putting them out of the fight.

Twilight hopped up onto the book and did her best impression of Pinkie’s skip as she bounced on all three books in a little circuit.

“Spike! Get the broom and trash can!”

***

“I don’t think this is working too good, boss,” Vinnie sighed as he lay face down in the dirt road.

“Oh, are you sure? Are you sure this isn’t all according to plan!?” Ernie shouted. He pulled himself up off the dirt and glared at his two subordinates. “Well, Chubby!?”

“Y-yes, Ernie?” Chubby squeaked nervously.

“You got something to say?”

“No, boss!”

Ernie glared daggers at Chubby. “Why the hell not!? You’re my war-bard, aren’t you? You’re supposed to be my strategist!”

Chubby rolled over and sat up, crossing his legs and pouting thoughtfully.

“Well… like you said earlier, getting into the library is the first step,” Chubby mused, his nervousness over his superior officer’s scrutiny vanishing in the face of the intellectual exercise. “But it’s only half the problem. We have to get her out, too.”

“Obliviously,” Ernie snorted.

“We also have to get the books out so we have somewhere to put the ovens,” Chubby continued. “What about if we tackle the problems one at a time? I suggest the books first, they seem to be her weakness, so one thing should lead to the other.”

Ernie considered this. “What do you have in mind?”

***

The elves had been quiet for nearly half the day now, and Twilight was worried. She kept glancing over at the door expectantly, waiting for the other hoof to drop. The elves were crafty, and presumably extremely magical in some way she didn’t yet understand if their race had built even half as much as they say they had. Their last attack had been childishly simple but effective: the hallmark of true strategic acumen.

Their next attack could come from anywhere, come in any shape. It was a battle of wills and wits the likes of which she’d never faced. They wanted her tree, they wanted her and her books out, and they’d likely not stop until they succeeded.

There was a knock at the door. The suddenness of the sound jarred her badly and she almost blew the door apart with a spell.

She crept up to the entrance cautiously. She prepared a shielding spell, just in case.

“Whozzit!?” she yelled at the door.

“It’s Ernie,” Ernie’s voice shouted. “Open the door, we just want to parlay, no funny business.”

Spike ran up with the broom held tightly in his claws. They shared a glance before both nodding and moving closer to the door.

Twilight undid the locks and opened the door slowly. Spike held the broom at the ready to sweep the trio back out of the tree.

Ernie, Vinnie, and Chubby stood in the doorway, eyeing the broom like a cobra.

“I’m just going to say right now, I ordered more brooms, and they’re on the way,” Twilight said with venom dripping from every word. “Now what do you want?"

“We want library cards.”

Twilight blinked. She was not expecting this, but her years of practice as a librarian kicked in and she replied without thought.

“Do… do you have proof of residence in Ponyville?”

“That’s kind of what this whole thing is about, isn’t it?" Ernie growled.

A light blush tinged Twilight’s cheeks.

“What did you want cards for?”

“We want to check out the books,” Ernie said with a grin.

“Uh, which books?”

“All of them!” Chubby shouted happily, a proud smile on his face.

Twilight just stared at the trio in complete shock until the sound of Spike’s claw slapping against his face snapped her out of her stupor. She wordlessly closed the door, slowly, with great creakiness, and locked it.

***

“Okay, I’m not mad,” Ernie said, rubbing his temples and slowly walking away from the door. “It was a stupid, stupid, stupid… stupid, stupid plan, but I did agree to it, so I suppose some of the culpritability falls on me.”

Chubby relaxed and sighed heavily.

“We are, however, continually stymied by our own disability to capture this one stupid tree,” Ernie continued. He was now rubbing his temples so hard that his eyes were bulging a little at the pressure.

“She’s more clever than we could’ve guessed,” said Vinnie.

“It don’t matter how clever she is!” Ernie howled, kicking at the dirt and jumping up and down in anger, the comment having finally pushed him over the edge. “I was a general of the elfin armies! Hand groomed by Oberon himself! I broke the walls of Maresopotamia and I can’t break down this one stupid door!”

Ernie sprinted at the door with all his strength. He leapt up, putting all his frustration into a single kick, and bounced off painfully.

“Keep it down out there!” Twilight yelled from inside.

Ernie lay on his back, biting his lip to still the quivering. He was a soldier, a warrior, a leader; he would not cry, not in front of his men. But the urge to just let it all go was strong in him.

Banishing and sealing at the hooves of the princesses. Being away for who knew how long. Finding a still standing link to his old culture and being denied it by one cruddy purple dame and her scaley buddy. It was all too much, and the old war wounds were still a dull ache against the throb of fresh ones at the hands of Ponyville’s librarian.

It was too much indignity to handle.

“Come on, boss, we’re with you,” Chubby soothed. He waved Vinnie over and together they managed to prop Ernie against the door frame. They each took a side and sat shoulder to shoulder, supporting him.

They sat together silently, watching ponies go about their business. A few ponies stopped to stare, but none had worked up the courage to come up and talk to the trio. It had been like this all day, for the most part.

“It’s kind of funny that they still wear saddles, right?” Vinnie commented, finally breaking the silence after nearly an hour of silent contemplation. The sun had already begun a slow descent into the horizon. Celestia usually only made a show of lowering and raising the sun in one big sweeping gesture for special occasions.

The other two chuckled.

“Considering they don’t remember us and we were the ones that invented saddles?” Chubby said with a grin. “I never liked the idea of riding pony slaves around like that, but yeah, it’s pretty funny they’ve turned it into a fashion statement.”

“You always were a bit of a pony sympathizer, Chubs,” Vinnie laughed.

“I just don’t think they’re that different from us, is all.”

Chubby frowned a little at the memory of the teasing he used to get from the other soldiers about his compassion towards ponies and other ‘inferior’ races. Sometimes it was harmless, other times it was cruel. Vinnie and Ernie had never made him feel bad about it, though.

“What’s in an elf’s heart is his own business, long as he stays on the job, and truth be told, I don’t completely disagree with your point of view,” Ernie had once said about the issue. That was the day that Chubby knew he’d follow his C.O. to Tartarus and back.

“How much do you guys remember?” Ernie asked suddenly.

“I remember everything,” Chubby replied. “My family, my training, our history, tactics we used, the songs I wrote… all of it.”

Vinnie nodded. “Same.”

“Yeah… me too,” said Ernie. “But when I try to put all that to use here,” he slammed his fist backwards into the tree angrily, “it gets all muddy and fuzzled like my head’s in a bucket and someone’s whispering in my ear.”

Silence fell back over the group. They watched the sun set and the moon begin its rise.

“I think they did something to us,” Chubby concluded. “The princesses, I mean... This definitely isn’t the mythril armor we went to sleep in.”

Vinnie and Ernie looked at him with wide eyes. They stared, their minds working through the shock to finally reach the same grim conclusion. They sat back and stared into the night. Lampposts were being lit by a stallion with a candle cutie mark. He stopped his work to stare curiously at the elves before waving and getting back on the job. Chubby waved back mechanically.

“So what do we do about it?” asked Vinnie.

“Do we want to do anything about it?” asked Ernie.

Chubby glanced at Ernie out the corner of his eye. “I think I know what you mean.”

“I don’t,” Vinnie huffed. “Don’t you guys want to be soldiers again?”

Ernie sighed. “Soldiers of what army? We might be the last three elves.”

The trio winced as the words they had all been thinking finally made it out into the open.

“I mean,” Ernie said slowly, marshalling his thoughts and emotions, “besides the fact that it doesn’t seem we can do anything about it, I don’t think I want to. What can we do? Get revenge? For what? We started a war, we lost it; it’s never fairer and nothing’s more square than that. I would’ve liked to have died a warrior’s death, but losers like us don’t get their way do they? The only thing I got on my mind is…”

“Yeah, us too…” Vinnie sighed. “Or me at least. I don’t know about Chubby, but I didn’t even blink at you telling us the first thing we needed to do was find a place with some ovens.”

“No, me as well,” Chubby nodded. “Can’t stop thinking about cookies.”

“To be fair,” Vinnie said, “that’s how you’ve always been.”

“That’s true!” laughed Chubby.

“Guess that means we’re bakers now,” stated Ernie. “But that doesn’t mean we can beat our swords into plowchairs yet!”

He jumped to his feet and his two subordinates followed suit.

“This is our last battlefield, boys! The last war we have to fight! We capture this tree and then we’re retired! We can live in peace with the ponies, but first we do battle with their princess, and make them remember what elves can do!”

Chubby and Vinnie raised their fists and howled triumphantly.

A horseshoe landed in the ground between the trio and embedded itself on its tip like a dagger. The elves jumped back and looked up to the balcony jutting from the side of the tree.

“Will you three idiots keep it down!?” shouted Twilight. “Some of us are trying to relax after a long day of shelving books!”

She went back in and slammed the balcony doors shut. The sound of hammering filled the air again a moment later.

“We’ll fix your wagon, Sparkster,” Ernie muttered.

“The only question is how?”

Ernie glared at Vinnie but his anger deflated quickly. A sudden low grumble sounded from Chubby’s stomach, calling to the stomachs of the other two elves to growl in sympathy.

“An army marches on its stomach,” Ernie chuckled. “And I guess we’ve skipped a couple of meals.”

Chubby set his gut to jiggle with a gentle tap, “Not that you’d know.”

Ernie and Vinnie howled with laughter as Chubby lifted his apron and beat out a bongo solo on his tummy.

“Stop!” Ernie commanded suddenly, his laughter dying in his throat. “I got it!”

Chubby pulled his shirt back down nodded. “What’s the idea, general?”

“That idiot blew up the kitchen, right?”

The other two nodded.

“That means,” Ernie said with long, drawn out syllables, “that she’s destroyed her own supplies. She’s going to have to leave the tree eventually for food, we just gotta starve her out.”

Vinnie and Chubby smiled at each other. They had a plan, and the will to execute it. They were starting to feel like soldiers again.

***

Chubby lay on his back next to his brothers in arms and stared up at the leaves above him. Over the course of the night the hunger pains had worsened, and Ernie and Vinnie weren’t doing much better. The sun had been high in the sky for hours now, and there had been no sign of Twilight Sparkle leaving the library. He tried to stand up, to tell others that they needed to abandon the operation, to find something to eat, anything at all; but his strength failed.

“I’m glad it’s finally finished. A good meal always feels best after a day of hard work. And good job getting the kitchen back in shape.”

Chubby could hear Twilight’s voice. It sounded clear, not like the muffled whispers he had been hearing through the door.

“Good enough job that you’ll go out with me?”

“You’re just a dog with a bone aren’t you?”

“It’s not a bone that I want to sink my teeth into.” Spike clicked his tongue twice.

“If you don’t stop that I’m getting you gelded,” Twilight growled. “HEY! I forgot you guys were here.”

The trio lifted their heads enough to see Twilight and Spike standing a few feet away. Spike was holding bulging grocery bags and Twilight’s saddlebags were similarly laden.

“H-how,” Ernie croaked, his voice breaking from dehydration. “We been here all night, you never left.”

“We left this morning,” Twilight replied. “Alicorn magic, remember? I just teleported out.”

“Teleported?” The crack in Ernie’s voice rose in pitch to a whine filled with despair and pain.

“Yup! Like this!” Twilight flashed brilliantly and was transported a half a hoof away from her starting position. “You should honestly just give up. You can’t beat me.”

Ernie struggled on his back, turtle-like, squirming and flexing his fingers like claws, trying to use the last of his waning strength to wrap his hands around Twilight’s throat.

“You-you bitch, I’ll kill you and bake your eyes into a croissant,” he panted.

Twilight rolled her eyes. She opened her bag and tossed an apple at the starving elves.

“Don’t say I never did anything for you. I want you to go away but I don’t want your blood on my hooves,” she sighed.

“That’s a good thing you just did, Twilight,” Spike said. He lifted a claw to give Twilight a congratulatory pat.

“That claw better be headed for my shoulder,” she growled, sensing the motion without looking.

Spike chuckled nervously and moved his claw forward to pat her just behind the shoulder.

“Squatter’s rights!” Twilight shouted as teleported them both back into the library with a flash, leaving the three elves to crawl desperately to the offered meal.

***

“Another letter from Twilight,” Celestia sighed. She didn’t even unroll the scroll and blindly tossed it onto a growing pile in the sand behind her. She stretched and yawned loudly on her back in a lawn chair on the white sands of the Aperuba resort’s private beach.

“She’s very insistent,” Luna said, sipping from the coconut held in her hooves through a crazy straw. A light pink puff bloomed in Luna’s face, tiny glittering hearts dissipating as they fell to the ground. She unrolled it with her magic while she sipped.

“Cadance is very upset, but politely so, that we sent for her to Canterlot and left her to clean up that mess with the zebras.” She tossed the scroll over to the pile. “She’s very much like you in your youth, our ‘niece,’” Luna held her drink with her magic so she could make air quotes around the word niece.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Celestia blushed, pushing a pair of sunglasses closer to her face.

“Yes, I’m sure you don’t know much about an alicorn being born naturally to one of the castle’s most trusted servants,” Luna said with a hoof to her chin. “A servant well past child rearing age, whose husband had died a few summers previous.”

“Yes well, there are even indiscretions in the halls of Canterlot,” Celestia coughed. “Even those stuffy nobles can forgive a minor tryst in the face of such long service to the crown.”

“Mhm, I’m certain.” Luna smiled. “And everyone knows how much the crown enjoys being serviced for as long as possible.”

“Oh, shut your mouth.”

Luna wiggled herself further into her chair in smug satisfaction.

Point: Luna.

A cabana boy made his way down the beach carrying a large colorful drink on a tray. The gorilla was wearing a tiny speedo and bowtie, revealing his huge, muscular form, glistening with sweat.

“Mmmm, thank you,” Celestia purred. “You’re a big one. Tell me, how do you like the feel of the sun against your skin?”

“It’s very warm,” he replied in a deep baritone.

“Want to feel it some more later tonight?” She wiggled her rump in emphasis.

“Will that be all, your highness?”

“Oh, poo,” Celestia pouted flirtatiously. “No fun. But maybe you could bring another of these down for my sister?”

Celestia levitated a golden bit out of the bag next to her chair and tossed it a few feet away.

“Ooops, clumsy me, wind caught it,” she smirked.

The gorilla trudged over to where the coin lay and stooped to pick it up. Celestia lowered her glasses and looked at his rear.

“Nice,” she whispered. “I’d love to put a banana in that split.”

“Knew it,” Luna said with a clap of her hooves.

“Knew what?”

“Knew mom was lying and you were born with colt parts!”

“What!?” Celestia shouted. “Just because of the banana thing? I’m allowed to let my hair down while we’re on vacation. And you’re a fine one to talk about weird banana sex talk. I sure wasn’t the one that frequently took one to the bathtub.”

“I was playing Yellow Dolphin and the Secret of Coltlantis!” Luna blushed.

“And we all knew what the secret was,” Celestia said with a snicker.

“Well at least I wasn’t born with great big, meaty stallion hooves!”

“I. DO. NOT have stallion hooves!”

Luna set her empty coconut down in the sand and made robot motions with her forelegs. “Hoofasaurus~ Beep boop~”

Celestia growled and sipped her daiquiri angrily while Luna continued making robot noises and pretending she was a giant mechanical dinosaur with enormous hooves terrorizing a city.

***

Chubby ran through the streets of Ponyville, his partners huffing and puffing along behind him. He stopped and turned his nose to the air, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply.

“This way, this way, this way!” Chubby yelled gleefully.

“H-how… is he... so fat… and… so fast…” Vinnie gasped.

Ernie just kept running. He knew he was probably slightly purple in the face but didn’t care. He could smell it, too, now.

The trio had finished their apple and decided the best use of their precious calories would be to secure more rations to fuel the siege. A few minutes into the search Chubby had frozen like he’d heard a rattlesnake and then took off at high speeds in the direction of the center of town. The burst of energy from the usually sedate Chubby was enough to spur Ernie and Vinnie to follow.

The pair rounded a corner and smacked into their heavier friend. Chubby was standing in the street, gaping wide eyed at a building: a building in the shape of a ginger bread house covered in frosting with a cupcake spire. The irresistible smell of baked goods wafted from the structure and into the street.

Chubby hurried inside with the other two hot on his trail. The inside of the sweet house was just as sugary as the outside and filled with cases stuffed to bursting with an assortment of baked goods.

The elves ran up to the nearest case and impulsively began licking the glass. They continued undeterred by the lack of actual taste from the glass, for a while, before a high pitched giggle broke the sugary spell.

A pink mare with huge fluffy hair like cotton candy was kneeling behind the glass and watching them lick away feverishly.

“That’s so silly, you can’t eat glass, and your little tongues were like slurpslurpslurp,” the mare said through giggles.

“We’re commandeering your food!” Ernie barked.

“Rude!” the pink girl shouted from behind them. She had somehow gotten the drop on them and held a rolled up newspaper in one hoof. She whacked Ernie in the face with it when he turned to face her. “Very bad whatever you are! Bad!”

Ernie growled and held his nose, ready to attack the mare. He was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Chubby was shaking his head and stepping forward.

“I’m sorry about my friend, miss…?”

“Pinkie Pie!” she replied happily.

“Miss Pinkie Pie. Ernie didn’t mean any harm, he’s just really hungry. We all are. Could we have some food?” He looked down sheepishly. “I... I’m afraid we don’t have any money though, but we can work for our dinner!”

Pinkie smiled down at the elf. “What’s your name?”

“Chubby,” he responded with a bow of his head, “and this is Ernie and Vinnie, ma’am.”

“Ohhhhh you’re just so dang polite, how can I say no?” Pinkie cooed. “Especially to such a little cutie cute! Your cheeks are so chunky wunky I could just gobble them up!”

Chubby blushed furiously as Pinkie smooshed his cheeks together with her hooves. She pointed them to a table and disappeared behind the counter to get them something to eat.

***

“Wow, so then twilight told you to just leave?” Pinkie asked, completely flabbergasted that her friend would do something like that to her new friends.

“Yeah and all we wanted was for that dizzy moll to amscray like a banana so we could take over her library and turn it into a bakery,” Ernie shouted, beating his fist on the table.

“I know Twilight loves books and all, but really,” she pouted. “This town sorely needs another bakery, and that’s a great location. It’s not like we couldn’t build a library somewhere else.”

“Right!? But try telling that to her! We make her an offer she can’t refuse and she refuses! It just ain’t done. Good pair of cement horseshoes is what she needs.”

“Hehe,” Pinkie giggled at Ernie’s tiny tirade. “You’re so funny. You look like a grandfather but you talk like a godfather. But I never called my grandpa grandfather, I called him grampy, so would that make you a godpy?”

“No idea what you’re even talking about,” Ernie sighed.

“Well, I agree with you for the most part,” Pinkie said after a few moments of thought. “Twilight has that big library in the old palace in the Everfree forest, and we can build another library here in town anywhere. But that’s an enchanted tree, and elves live in enchanted trees; you just don’t have the choice she has.”

Ernie nodded enthusiastically.

“That said… I don’t think I can get involved here,” Pinkie said. “I mean you’re my friends now and I definitely see where you’re coming from, but Twilight’s one of my absolute bestest best besterest friends, so I think I need to sit this one out.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Ernie replied sagely. “I hadn’t even thought of asking. I get what it’s like to be torn between two allegiances.”

“Hey, that doesn’t mean you can’t stay here until this all works out!” Pinkie exclaimed excitedly. “The Cakes are out of town for another week or so visiting family, so I’m in charge! You can stay here at least until they come back!”

“You sure that ain’t a conflict of loyalties?” Vinnie asked with a raised eyebrow.

“It would be,” Pinkie said carefully, “but the teeny tiny hairs in my nostrils have been ticklish since you walked into the store, and I still haven’t sneezed. That usually means that everything’s going to end up for the best as long as I just stay the course and help all my friends the best I can.”

“That ‘Pinkie Sense’ thing you were talking about?” Ernie asked.

“Yeah! I get the feeling that by the end of this we’re all going to end up friends. Even you and Twilight. I don’t know how it’ll happen, but that’s the fun part of making new friends, right?”

Ernie just shook his head. “I don’t see that happening, but I won’t argue.”

He looked at Vinnie and Chubby. The former was licking frosting off his fingers and the latter was staring at the table trying not to meet Pinkie’s eyes.

“Guess this is HQ for the time being, boys,” he said to the pair. “Chubby, you’re going to stay here and help Pinkie run the shop while Vinnie and I press the siege.”

“W-what!?” Chubby sputtered hoarsely. He hadn’t spoken at all since Pinkie had pinched his cheeks and called him a cutie cute.

“She’s putting us up, and I won’t have this unit owing debts,” said Ernie. “You’re going to have to work thrice as hard to make up our share.”

Chubby nodded happily. “Will do, boss!”

Ernie looked up at Pinkie and smirked. “Sure I can’t talk you into turning coat? This squad’s always got room for a hellion or two.”

Pinkie waved the compliment off with her hoof and a smile. “No, no, I really can’t get involved. I mean I couldn’t even tell you that there’s a trebuchet in the unlocked shed in the back. That would be choosing sides.”

She leaned forward and winked conspiratorially.

Ernie’s grin widened and lit up his face. He hopped off the table and made for the door, followed closely by Vinnie.

“You take real good care of this gal, Chubby,” Ernie ordered, “best behavior. She’s made of gold.”

***

Ernie and Vinnie panted and wheezed as they rolled the small boulder up onto the neon pink painted siege engine’s bucket. The rock had been rolled all the way from the park a few blocks over, but a few blocks may as well be a few miles when you’re moving something twice your size and thrice your weight.

“Okay,” Ernie gasped. “Okay, we’re ready.”

Pinkie’s trebuchet was just a big bigger than a pony and calibrated to toss things in a nearly straight line. It wouldn’t break the palace walls down but it was more than enough for their purposes.

They took a moment to catch their breath before Vinnie climbed up on the machine and walked out onto the lever that triggered the mechanism that dropped the counterweight. It was made so that a pony only had to depress a pedal at the end of the lever to fire the payload.

Ernie wiped his brow with a handkerchief before taking a wide stance with hands on hips.

“Giving you one last chance, Sparkster!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Squatter’s rights!” came the immediate reply. The flap of the mail slot flipped open and Twilight peered out. “Is that Pinkie’s trebuchet? I told that girl to lock her shed!”

“You got till the count of five to get out here before we bust this tree open!” Ernie commanded. He grinned maniacally. “One! Two! FIVE!”

Vinnie jumped as high as he could and came down on the lever, triggering the mechanism. The machine lurched and bucked as the weight was shifted around and tossed in a low arc.

The missile made contact, striking the door with full force. But instead of buckling under the mass of accelerated stone, the door seemed to suck the projectile in. Ernie watched with wide eyes, realizing that the wood had taken on a rubberlike quality and was absorbing the blow. The door snapped back into shape with a loud, elastic crack, throwing the stone back down the street in the direction it came.

Ernie bit his lip and suppressed a whimper as he watched his impending doom rapidly approach.

***

“Wow, I can’t believe you fixed it!” Pinkie clapped her hooves happily and fiddled with the knobs on the newly repaired oven. “That oven has been wonky for days now!”

Chubby crawled out from behind the appliance and shoved it back into place flushed against the wall. He dusted his pants and shirt off before climbing up on the counter to retrieve his apron and hat.

“It’s no big deal,” Chubby said with a grin. “Elves are great with machines, even ones we’ve never seen before. It’s just instinct for us.”

“But you didn’t even need any tools!” Pinkie replied.

“Well I have magic,” Chubby explained. “All elves have some kind of affinity for building. Ernie, Vinnie, and I are machinist elves. We can alter the properties of most any kind of metal just by touching it.”

In demonstration, Chubby walked across the counter to where a large steel mixing spoon sat next to a bowl. He picked it up and crunched it in his bare hands. Pinkie followed him and watched as the metal became pliable in his hands, molding like clay beneath his fingers. Within a minute or two the spoon had been crafted into a small statuette of Pinkie which Chubby held up for her to admire.

“Oh, oh, oh!” Pinkie bounced in excitement. “That’s amazing!”

Chubby smiled and squished the model. He stretched it back into shape, gently massaging it back into its original, simple form in a matter of seconds. Pinkie clicked her tongue in disappointment. She’d been hoping to keep the little statue.

“If you can build stuff with your magic, why don’t you build another tree house?” Pinkie asked once the wonder of the feat had worn away somewhat.

“Well,” Chubby scratched his cheek, “we just don’t have that talent. Our affinity only applies to stuff that’s metal. I mean we know how to do stuff like carpentry and masonry by hand, but to build a tree house like that requires the specific elfin magical talent for working with wood. Otherwise the tree just dies as we carve out its guts.”

Pinkie sat down and looked at the ceiling thoughtfully, a hoof rubbing her chin as she puzzled out this new information. “So it’s kind of like how unicorns could move clouds around with their magic, but only pegasi could ever build a city like Cloudsdayle?”

“Exactly!” Chubby exclaimed. “Or it’s like how some earth ponies can do things like lift impossibly heavy rocks or smash them to pieces like it was nothing.”

“Oh, yeah!” Pinkie shouted. She blinked and rubbed at the back of her neck with a small embarrassed grin. “I can actually do that a little bit. Not as good as my dad and sisters, but still. Kind of silly of me that that wasn’t what first came to mind… Guess it’s been a while since the good ol’ family rock farm.”

“You grew up on a rock farm?” Chubby asked. “Like the kind that grows magic gems? What was that like?”

Pinkie pursed her lips and blew rudely as she collapsed onto her back. Chubby looked over the edge of the counter and tried not to think about how cute her hair looked all puffed out around her head like a pillow.

“It was hard,” she explained. “Like a rock. And boring. Like a rock. Everyday just pushing rocks around so they could soak up more earth magic out of the ground. Grow those gems nice and big to sell at market. Then once they’re good and ripe, punch the rocks open and collect the gems; kind of like those chocolate eggs with toys inside. No time for parties, no time for dancing, everything tasting like dust.”

She sighed heavily. “Still miss my family, though. But they love that life more than I did, so they understand why I moved away to take a baking apprenticeship. They’re not here with me but we’re still together, even far apart, you know?”

Chubby sighed and sat on the edge of the counter. He ran his fingers through the grooves in the wood, tracing along little knicks and divots where a knife slipped or a bowl was dropped too hard.

Pinkie noticed the look on his face sat up quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t even stop to think that you might be missing your family…”

“It’s okay,” Chubby said with a sad smile. “It was a long time ago…”

There was a moment of silence where Pinkie and Chubby stared at one another, not really sure what to say, or even if there was any need to say anything.

“So, uh…” Pinkie started nervously. “What was it like growing up for you?”

Chubby shrugged. “Nothing special. Mom was a seamstress, could do anything with cloth. My dad and three big brothers were all woodsman elves. Family business was building ships in a town called Spireton Cove.”

“Oh, you built boats?” Pinkie asked with interest.

“Well kind of,” Chubby explained, rocking his hand side to side in a noncommittal motion. “I had no talent for lumber, so I built more of the incidentals than actual ships; anchors and nails and the like. That work went by quick, so I mainly just earned my keep by singing for the rest of the shipwrights while they worked. It made the day go by quicker.”

Pinkie gasped mightily. “You can sing!?”

“Sure can,” Chubby said with a smile.

Pinkie watched with wide eyed anticipation as Chubby stood and cleared his throat. He took a deep breath and belted out a few scales, his tiny body somehow producing tones with more power and volume than should have been possible. His warm up led into a saucy song about a drunken shipwright and a barmaid eating a bucket of oysters that left Pinkie on the ground rolling with laughter by the end.

Chubby blushed furiously. He’d only meant to do some scales and show off his pipes a little, but thinking about his family had given him the urge to sing one of his dad’s old favorites. It was kind of bawdy for mixed company, but Pinkie seemed to enjoy it.

“You’re amazing, Chubby!” Pinkie said once her laughter had died down.

Chubby’s blush deepened a little more at the compliment. “Thanks. I’ve always loved singing more than anything. That’s probably why I ended up as a war-bard when Good King Oberon decided to declare war on the princesses and instituted the draft. It was usually an officer’s position, but I had a good head for music, and I guess someone decided I was clever enough to go straight into the training for it.”

“Okay, I know I’m asking a lot of questions here,” Pinkie said with a grin, “but what’s a war-bard?”

“Well originally it was just a position in a military unit that kept up morale and relayed commands through drum signals,” Chubby explained. “But the songs that the war-bards wrote about different battles were more or less accurate accounts of the operation, so they were used as combat reports and historical records. Over time the job sort of evolved into a war scholar position, on account of how much time we spent studying and learning the songs of bards before us. We became strategists as well as entertainers.”

“Wow, so you’re a real brain, huh?” Pinkie teased with a waggle of her eyebrows. “I can’t wait for this war you have with Twilight to be over so you can be friends. I bet you’ll get along great.”

Chubby started blushing again at the teasing. The pink mare was so much friendlier than he’d ever known a pony to be towards and elf, and though he’d had his share of female admirers for his musical talents, he’d always been a little shy around women.

“That’s really cool that we have so much in common though,” she chirped happily.

“In common?” Chubby tilted his head, wondering just what she meant.

“Your talent is making elves happy,” she explained. She stood and turned to the side to wiggle her flank at him. “Mine is making ponies happy! See the cutie mark? I like parties. You like singing. Maybe you can sing at my next party!”

Chubby sputtered at the strangeness of baring her rear like that. Ponies, it seemed, had never gotten over the exhibitionist urge to show their butts to each other every time their cutie marks came up. Even more strangely, this lack of modesty only applied when cutie marks were involved. The reaction Twilight Sparkle had when he and Vinnie had been checking out her rump came to mind. He blushed even hotter at the thought of having ogled her like that. But he was only a man, and sometimes you can’t help but look when it’s right in front of you.

“Such a cutie cute,” Pinkie muttered as she pinched his cheeks again. “Stop blushing about whatever gross boy-thoughts you’re having and help me make some cupcake frosting!”

***

“Damnit, Vinnie,” Ernie growled, “stop hitting my feet.”

“Sorry, boss,” Vinnie apologized. “But it’s dark in here, can’t see three inches in front of my face.”

Vinnie lowered his voice and added to himself, “Not that I’d want to…”

After the failed assault with Pinkie’s trebuchet, Ernie had concluded that further frontal assaults would be imprudent; so, once Vinnie had rolled the rock off of his commanding officer, the two of them had returned the siege machine to Pinkie’s shed behind Sugarcube Corner.

A quick consultation with Chubby had led the pair to track down some assistance in their latest infiltration scheme. With a few sweets left from their lunch at Pinkie’s, they were able to secure the labor of mole and a fairly large rat to hollow out a tunnel into the library.

The hole was a claustrophobically tight fit for the elves, but they got down on their bellies and crawled commando style through the long, dark passage with Ernie leading the way. It was a good thing they’d left Chubby back at HQ. While neither of them doubted his skill as a warrior or a tactician, they very much doubted he would’ve squeezed himself through the tunnel.

Near the end of the passage, mere inches from full infiltration, the predictable happened: Ernie got stuck.

“Vinnie, stop,” Ernie said with slight panic in his voice.

“What happened? Is someone out there?” Vinnie whispered urgently.

“I’m stuck.”

“No, really, what happened?”

“You halfwit, why would I joke about this!?” Ernie rasped harshly. His breathing and heart rate were starting to quicken as panic started setting in. “Vin, I think I’m hyperventilating. I’m gettin’ heart palindromes, over here.”

“Well… Stop it!” Vinnie shouted, no longer caring about being quiet. “Stop it, right now!”

“You’re going to have to push me,” Ernie commanded.

Some of the color drained from the younger elf’s face. “O-okay…”

He reached forward with a grimace of distaste and placed both hands on Ernie’s squishy buttocks. He gave a shove, but all it managed to do was drive his hands deeper into the pliant cheeks of the elf that he considered a second father. He bit his lip and tried again.

“Stop playing with it and push!”

“I can’t get no damn leverage!”

“Okay, look,” Ernie said between long, deep breaths. “You’re going to need to use your hands.”

“I am!”

“No, for leverage. Put your head against my ass and move forward, I’m real close to the exit so it should push me out.”

Vinnie went white as a sheet. With trembling hands he removed his hat and shoved it into his back pocket. He clenched his eyes shut, leaned his head down, and crawled slowly forward until the top of his head met with Ernie’s rump.

“Stop trembling, damn you, that feels weird!”

Vinnie’s eyes went wide with panic and he shoved forward with a mighty battle cry.

Ernie tumbled out of the tunnel with an audible pop, followed closely by Vinnie. The older elf lay on his back breathing raggedly, trying to get his heartbeat back under control; while the younger elf kneeled against the wall with one hand, the other wiping away the sweat on his brow. They seemed to be in some small nook of the library surrounded by magazines and other periodicals.

“Whooo?”

Both elves jumped to their feet at the sudden noise.

“Okay…” Ernie started. “I know you’re probably mad, I understand, but look, we didn’t MAKE you drink all those bottles of apple hooch. That’s on you.”

“Who!”

“Hey, you watch that tone, you dirty pigeon! You’re the one with the problem; it’s not my fault you got in hot water for it.”

Owloysius turned his head slowly until he was looking upside down at Ernie. He narrowed his eyes menacingly and reached a wing behind his back.

Ernie and Vinnie both went wide eyed at the small, owl-sized broom he now held.

“Now don’t do anything crazy,” Ernie soothed. “This don’t gotta get ugly, hear? Let’s all take a deep breath and think this through like rational beings.”

Vinnie cracked under the pressure and dove for the tunnel, only to bounce off a wall of violet magical energy.

“Well would you look at what we have here, Spike,” Twilight drawled out ominously. “Looks like a couple of flies flew into our honey pot.”

Spike and Twilight rounded the corner into the periodicals nook, each carrying an appropriately sized weapon.

“Oh, are you looking at these?” Twilight smirked as she spun her broom around in her magical grip so she could admire it appraisingly. “They’re nice, right? New. They have good balance.”

She took a practice swing.

“Very heavy.”

Another swing.

“Stiff bristles.”

She sat back and ran a hoof over the end of the broom.

“Very itchy bristles.”

Ernie grit his teeth as Vinnie whimpered pathetically next to him.

“You think you’re tough now, but one day you’ll make a bigger broom, and then another, and another. Until one day you make a broom so big you destroy yourself with it.”

Twilight just grinned smugly and brought out the dustbin.

***

Chubby wiped his brow and sighed happily. It was late, the doors of Sugarcube Corner having closed not long after the sun set, and he was alone in the kitchen. He’d sent Pinkie up to bed hours ago, at the first sign of a yawn from the ultra-energetic pony. He’d spent the time cleaning every surface of the kitchen and washing every utensil and cookie tray.

It was hard work, but Chubby couldn’t remember ever having enjoyed himself more. He’d always enjoyed cooking; besides making music, it was one of his favorite pastimes. Not that there had been much opportunity to practice his culinary skills once he’d joined the army. More than once he’d wondered to himself how much of his enjoyment was the novelty of engaging in his old hobby, and how much was whatever weird curse the princesses had placed on the three elves.

“Hey.”

Chubby turned and smiled at Ernie as he crawled up on the counter with a groan. The older elf dropped heavily onto the counter and sat cross legged.

“Thanks for leaving the back door open,” Ernie said.

“You’re welcome.” Chubby looked over the edge and saw Vinnie slumped against the counter, biting back yawns. “Pinkie set us up a cot in the store, behind the counter.”

He smiled as Vinnie quickly shuffled off to bed. “How’s the operation, general?”

“The purple bitch remains intragnizent in regards to the issue of ownership of our tree,” he grumbled.

“Ah.”

“You don’t happen to remember how to make a magic-harmonization decoupler, do you?” Ernie asked.

“Nope,” Chubby replied with a shake of his head. “Think the princesses took the knowledge of the really complicated stuff out of our heads… We still have our talents for engineering, otherwise. I fixed an oven today. Never did that before.”

Ernie loosened his tie and ruminated on that. “Dully noted.”

The two old friends sat in silence as Chubby washed and Ernie chewed his way through a plate of chocolate chip cookies that Pinkie had made earlier.

“So how was your day?” Ernie finally asked.

“It was amazing! Pinkie’s like the greatest girl ever,” Chubby exclaimed excitedly. “And, Ernie, the cooking, Ernie, oh it’s so much fun. I could kiss Celestia right on her mouth about now. I’m having such a great time with this baking stuff.”

Ernie smirked. “So I ask how your day is and the first thing you mention is that cute little mare?”

Chubby sputtered nervously. “We-well I did spend the day with her and we made…“

Ernie silenced him with a wave, “Don’t worry. I ain’t teasin’… much, anyway.”

Chubby scrunched up his face but didn’t say anything else about it. He sighed heavily.

“Hey, Ernie, you’re really going to press this war against Twilight Sparkle?”

“Of course,” Ernie replied through a mouthful of cookie. He glanced at Chubby from the corner of his eye. “You don’t agree?”

“It’s just...” Chubby paused and tried to gather his thoughts. “She’s Pinkie’s friend.”

“She is.”

“Pinkie’s really got faith that this is going to have a peaceable end,” Chubby muttered sadly.

“Ain’t gunna happen,” Ernie replied tersely, but with no real anger. “Pinkie’s a good kid, and it’s going to kill me to break her heart over this, but we got no choice here.”

Chubby reached into the sink and yanked the plug out to let the dirty water drain.

“We always have a choice, Ernie,” Chubby snapped.

“Even with this… thing on us, you thinkin’ that?” Ernie asked with a raised eyebrow.

“We’ve got the choice to embrace it, and I thought that’s what we’d decided to do,” he huffed.

Ernie shrugged. “Okay, then we have a choice and I’m consciously choosing to proceed as scheduled.” He reached for another cookie and waved it at Chubby to punctuate his words. “We watched Luna burn our trees to the ground by the score. That tree’s probably the last one built by elfin hands that’s still standing. We need to repossess it.”

“There might be more…” Chubby muttered.

“We might die of old age trying to find another,” Ernie countered. “Point is, this one’s right in front of us, and I ain’t letting no bookworm princess have it.”

Chubby stared at the empty sink and worked his jaw nervously.

“Ernie… do you think that love can bloom, even on a battlefield?”

Ernie nearly dropped his cookie in surprise.

“It’s only been a day… we really having this talk?”

Chubby nodded without lifting his head to look at his friend. “I mean I’m not exactly buying a ring here, but… it could be something… eventually… I think.”

Ernie mulled that over. “This is… it ain’t somethin’ we can talk about lightly, here. I know you’ve always been one for treating the four leggers same as any elf. And you know my stance on your tender feelings toward them,” he explained in a very measured tone.

“What’s in an elf’s heart is his own business,” Chubby nodded.

“That ain’t changed,” Ernie sighed. “Not my business to tell you how to feel. But…”

Chubby lifted his head and stared at the older elf nervously. “But...?”

“But you really sure that this might go somewhere?” Ernie questioned.

Chubby nodded again. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about all day. Or rather, it’s something that’s been in my head all day, and I haven’t really had to think about it. It was just there, kind of eating away at me.” Chubby shuffled his feet and shifted his weight, fretting over how to explain exactly what was bothering him.

“You know why I’m asking if you’re sure, don’t you?” Ernie raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“Yeah, it’s what’s bothering me, too… the worry that this whole campaign against one of her best friends is going to blow up in my face if I start having real feelings here…”

“And if she starts feeling that way back it’s just gunna hurt her more if things go too sour,” Ernie finished. “You even sure she might be interested?”

“Dunno, maybe,” Chubby shrugged. “I mean, I know when a girl’s flirting, and she’s been really flirty with me. I’ve watched her with customers all day, and she’s real friendly, but definitely not flirty. Not even when good looking stallions came in. At least not the way she’s been when we were alone.”

Another pregnant silence went up between the two as they each considered their situation. There were a lot of different interests and goals in play here; far more interests and goals than just getting the tree from Twilight. Meeting Pinkie had given them a little eye of calm in the center of this storm, but it had also exponentially complicated matters for the group.

Ernie stuffed the rest of his cookie into his mouth and dusted off his hands. He stood and put a hand on the younger elf’s shoulder.

“Kid, I’ve known you a damn long time,” Ernie said as he shook Chubby’s shoulder roughly. “I’m telling you this as your friend: I really, really don’t think things are going to go the way Pinkie hopes, but I also think that if you even want a shot at caring about her you need to believe in those hopes of hers. If she believes this is all going to come out sunshine for everyone, even if you don’t believe that yourself, then you need to believe in her. Let her know you’re rootin’ for her; if not with your words, then with your actions. If this thing between you is meant to be, it’ll happen, no matter how this goes down.”

“That actually makes me feel a little better,” Chubby smirked, letting a little of the tension be squeezed out by Ernie’s hand. “Any more relationship advice?”

Ernie laughed and shook his head sadly. “Maybe not advice, but I can give ya an honest opinion.”

Chubby looked his old friend in the eyes and gestured for him to continue.

“I’ll tell ya this right now, it ain’t gunna be easy; a pony and an elf. And I don’t just mean the physics of it.” He clapped his hand roughly on Chubby’s shoulder. “But that said, I figure if any elf and pony could make it work, it’d be a couple of weird ones like you two.”

Ernie jumped off the counter and started off for bed. “Don’t stay up too late, Chubs. Finish up and get some rack. You got your own fight ahead.”

Chubby stood alone in the kitchen for a while longer before he even dared to move.

He’d always been friendly with ponies, especially before the war. Once he’d been drafted he’d had to keep his mouth shut as he watched his people enslave ponies, along with every other race that refused to bow to their rule.

It had broken his heart to watch.

Spireton Cove, the place of his birth, had had a fairly large pegasus population, and even a few earth ponies had made their living in the lumber mills. He’d grown up with ponies. They were as familiar to Chubby as any elf.

But to have romantic feelings for one?

He knew what his parents would have to say on the matter of their youngest son shacking up with a pony. But their opinion wasn’t what was important. All that mattered was how Pinkie felt. That would be the deciding factor for him on whether he should pursue anything moving forward, he decided.

He pulled off his hat and ran his fingers through his curly mess of hair. He knew he wouldn’t be sleeping any time soon, he had too much Pinkie on the brain for that, so he let his eyes wander over the kitchen.

On one of the counters sat a large mixing bowl full of cupcake frosting that he and Pinkie had made. They’d been joking and chatting so intensely that they’d botched up the recipe. The frosting somehow had been way too thick, coming out more like a cream than a frosting. Pinkie had just covered it with some plastic wrap and left it for the morning before heading up to bed. She had mentioned maybe using it for some cream puffs but wasn’t sure yet.

Chubby frowned at the bowl thoughtfully. He was suddenly struck by an idea for what to do with the creamy filling. He grabbed a couple of cookie sheets from the drying rack and started molding them with his magic touch.

***

Luna sat at the hotel bar alone. Males of all variety, filled with liquid courage and bolstered by the equally intoxicating hoots of encouragement from friends, had been approaching her all night. She, of course, turned them away politely and expressed her wishes to enjoy the evening alone.

At least until she’d thrown a particularly sweaty minotaur out a window. It was a lesson to every low down skunk in attendance that an ass grab was not a viable opening gambit when approaching a lady of any status, let alone an ageless alicorn princess.

She sipped happily from an iced drink that was somehow the same color as her sister’s multihued mane. The juke box a few hoofs away played a happy island song with steel drums as the backbeat for a male singer with a baritone that fell over the bar like velvet.

A puff of pink glitter and hearts deposited a scroll on the bar into an empty tumbler from an earlier drink. She levitated it out and read Cadance’s missive with a frown.

The cleanup of the mechanical invader had begun and the metal carcass was to be stored in the Everfree forest until a suitable method could be found for disposal. Luna’s frown deepened at the news. Such a device was too dangerous to leave out in the open like that, even in the completely irreparable condition it was left in.

Cadance was a kind and loving ruler, but a military thinker she was not. Luna wondered if maybe it wouldn’t have been a better idea to set up Shining Armor as their gull instead of his wife. Somepony needed to tell the young princess that her dumping ground was a poor idea, but if it came from her or Celestia it would be tipping their cards, so to speak, regarding this extended ‘kidnapping’.

Luna hopped off the bar stool and headed for the room. They were staying in the resort’s two bedroom penthouse suite. The fight over who got the bigger room had almost devolved into a brawl, but Luna eventually acquiesced to her sister’s whim on the grounds that the idea to bail on the mess in Canterlot was her idea.

Luna stepped off the elevator and directly into their suite. Their penthouse took the entire top floor, so the elevator opened straight into it, provided you had the security key.

“Celly? You here?” Luna called out to the empty room. The lights were on so she had to be somewhere. She walked over to her sister’s room and opened the door.

Celestia was lying in bed, the covers pulled tight up to her neck. The room was swelteringly hot and musky with the heavy smell of sweat.

“What are you doing covered up like that? It’s too hot in here,” Luna asked. She undid the latch on the balcony’s sliding glass door with her magic and let the cool night air in.

“I’ve got a stomach ache, and a hangover,” Celestia grumbled. “What do you want?”

“Cadance sent another letter,” Luna informed. “She’s sending that Gundam monstrosity to the Everfree forest to get it out of the way of the repair crews.”

“Everfree? She’s making it a Twilight problem, eh? Cadance grows wiser as a ruler by the day,” Celestia smiled proudly.

“Regardless,” Lune rolled her eyes. “I think we should return. The kingdom still stands, so it’s safe to assume that everything is safe in regards to the elf problem.”

“Sure. In a few days. At least until after I’m over this cold.” Celestia punctured each sentence with a wheezing cough.

“I thought it was a stomach ache and a hangover.”

“Those too.” She stuck her hoof out from under the covers and waved her sister away. “Now go on, let your poor infirmed sister get her rest. She’s so fragile.”

“Whatever… I’m going back to the bar.”

Luna turned and slammed the door roughly with the intention of irritating her sister’s headache.

Once the bedroom door closed, the bathroom door opened. The gorilla cabana boy that had attended them on the beach stepped into the room with a towel wrapped around his waist.

“Is she gone?”

“Sure is,” Celestia rolled over and grinned. She threw off the covers to reveal her lacey saddle and stockings. “Now get over here and rub some sunshine on your face.”

The cabana boy hesitated for a moment. “You’re sure my manager won’t find out about this?” he asked nervously.

“Baby, trust me, you’re going to want everyone to know about this.”

***

“Ernie! Please reconsider this!” Vinnie pleaded as he chased his superior through the Ponyville streets, which were mostly empty in the wee hours of the morning. “This is too much!”

“If anything we haven’t gone far enough!” Ernie spat as he walked up to the tree, eyeing the window left open on the third floor. “We’ve been so obfuscated on getting inside that we haven’t considered how we’re going to deal with her once we’re in. This is a solution that handles both those problems in one fell swipe.”

“See reason, Ernie! Or at the very least be more careful!”

“I don’t need to be careful, I’ve got a bomb,” Ernie barked.

The plastic pipe bomb he carried was small but powerful. It was slapped together with a dash of good old fashioned elf ingenuity, some chemicals, plumbing supplies, and old fireworks from Pinkie’s shed. It was powerful enough to destroy anything inside the tree while leaving most of the structure in tact. Any damage done would be repairable once the tree was back in their possession.

"Pinkie's going to be really sore if you outright blow her friends up!" Vinnie suggested.

"Alicorns are tough! Little bomb like this shouldn't do more than maim," he reasoned.

"And her little dragon!?"

"They're even tougher!"

"What about the owl!?"

"He's an egg!" Ernie held out a hand to silence his subordinate. "Now shut up and let me make this omelette!"

He pulled out a match and struck it against the bottom of his shoe.

“See you in Hell, Sparkster!” he shouted as he lit the fuse.

Ernie reared back and chucked the bomb as hard as he could. The explosive flew in a long, slow arc, dropping into the window with a thud audible from the street.

Ernie gleefully plugged his ears and hunkered down to prepare for the imminent blast.

Seconds ticked away… then minutes.

“The hell?” Ernie grumbled.

A stream of green fire erupted in front of Ernie’s face, startling him. The flames cleared and in their place sat a rolled up scroll.

Vinnie and Ernie exchanged glances in confusion.

Cautiously, Ernie picked up the paper and broke the seal to read the missive.

“’Nice try, but next time’…” he read out loud. He flipped the paper over and looked for the rest of the message. “Next time what!?” he shouted up at the still open window.

Another flame bloomed and dropped a scroll. Ernie snatched it up immediately and unfurled it.

In his haste to read what turned out to be a blank sheet of paper, he barely noticed his own bomb, now lit by a magical green flame, roll out of the scroll. The words ‘Try Harder’ were written angrily on the side of the explosive in a fat black marker.

***

Chubby was awakened by a gentle shake of the cot he and the other two elves had shared. It was pony sized, so it comfortably fit all three of them with lots of room to stretch out.

“Reveille already?” he yawned. He sat up in the cot and found himself nose to nose with the bubbly pink pony that he’d just been dreaming about.

“I don’t know what that is.” She smirked and poked his nose with her hoof. “Boop. Time to wake and bake.”

Chubby smiled and rolled onto the floor so Pinkie could put the cot away. He began some early morning stretches to work the kinks out of his joints.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Seven,” she replied happily. “We open in an hour but I let you sleep in a little since you worked so hard yesterday.”

Chubby watched the mare as she took the bedding to a broom closet. The whole thing was balanced on her back as she bounced joyfully. Chubby had noticed the day before that Pinkie seemed to bounce most everywhere she went. He realized he was staring and quickly looked away.

“I got most of the breakfast stuff baked already, just have put it in the displays,” she informed him. “You can help me with that and then get some breakfast for yourself so you can get started on stuff for the lunch rush!”

“Sounds good.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed suddenly as she led the way into the kitchen. “I couldn’t find that botched bowl of frosting this morning! You didn’t throw it away did you?”

Chubby grinned.

“Nope! I actually used it to make you a surprise!”

Pinkie’s lungs filled deeply and emptied in a screech of excitement.

“What is it what is it what is it!?” She danced ecstatically on the tips of her hooves as she chanted those words.

Chubby smiled even wider. He walked over to a floor cabinet and pulled out a covered tray that he set on the floor in front of Pinkie.

She gripped the towel covering the surprise with her teeth and threw it across the room, revealing a large pile of shortbread cookies with two very distinct designs: a grinning, fat little elf and prancing pony with a huge, poofy mane.

“Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed. “They look like me! And you! They’re us! Tiny cookie Chubbies and Pinkies!! How’d you do this!?”

Chubby reached back into the cabinet and pulled out a couple of trays. The trays bore indentations in the same shape as the cookies. One tray was for Pinkie cookies, the other for Chubby cookies.

“I used my magic to shape some molds into these cookie sheets with my fingers. I’m real happy with how they came out,” he explained.

“Stupendicredutastic!” Pinkie picked a Pinkie cookie up to inspect it. “Wait. They’re stuck together… What is this?”

“It’s the cream we made last night,” Chubby replied as he picked up a Chubby cookie. “It was too thick for cupcakes, but I figured this would be a fun way to use it. You know, make kind of like a sandwich. A sandwich cookie, if you will.”

Pinkie’s eyes went wide as Chubby pulled the cookie apart and licked the frosting off before biting the head off the cookie.

Pinkie stood stock still, staring at Chubby with a strange, unreadable look in her eyes. Chubby put the half finished sandwich cookie on the tray and shifted his weight nervously.

“Um… is that not okay? Should I not have made these?” he asked nervously.

Pinkie dropped the cookie and picked Chubby up, gripping his shoulders roughly with her hooves. She began to shake him violently.

“YOU TINY GENIUS! THIS! WILL! CHANGE! EVERYTHING!”

Pinkie pulled him forward and planted a hard kiss on Chubby’s lips before dropping him roughly. She descended on the cookies, licking and slurping her way through the tray experimentally, trying to figure out every possible permutation of eating this new kind of confection.

Chubby lay on the ground, his face completely flushed scarlet. His head swum dizzily, and not from the shaking he’d just received at Pinkie’s hooves. Despite her strange ability to unhinge her jaw to swallow her meals whole, Pinkie’s mouth was surprisingly petite.

She had very small, soft, comfortable lips...

“Yeah… it changes everything,” he muttered dreamily.

***

Ernie coughed and bit back the tears of pain now threatening to fall from his eyes. As soon as he’d seen the bomb fall to the ground he’d broken into a run, but the resulting explosion had pushed him across the street and into the wall of somepony’s house. He was now lying in a small garden, staring at the sky and moaning painfully for the uncaring radishes that surrounded him.

He coughed again and a small puff of smoke rose from his mouth. Vinnie’s face came into view, a worried frown on his face.

“Ernie? You okay?” He held up a hand. “How many fingers do you see?”

“Get that hand out my face,” Ernie growled through clenched teeth.

Vinnie sat down against the wall next to Ernie while the older elf got himself sorted out. The crowd of ponies that had been brought out of their homes by the ear shattering explosion was slowly dispersing. From what Vinnie had overheard, disturbances of that nature weren’t completely uncommon in and around the area of the town’s library. Twilight Sparkle herself was considered something of an eccentric, and more than a few of the ponies had shrugged and returned to their business with muttered curses about their ‘Princess of Problems’.

“Does Chubby really got a thing for Pinkie?” Vinnie asked abruptly once Ernie’s coughing fits were under control. He’d meant to bring the subject up earlier when Ernie mentioned it to him, but the fact that Ernie had been making a bomb pushed that conversation to the back burner.

“Seems that way,” Ernie sighed.

“Is it mutual?”

“Not sure yet, but he seems to think so. He’s gunna play it by ear.”

Vinnie nodded. “That’s for the best… Hope it works out for him. Someone deserves some damned happiness out of all of this, Chubs most of all. He was too gentle for the service, if you ask me.”

Ernie raised an eyebrow. Vinnie may not have shown it often, but he was a sharp kid full of insight. That insight was what had separated him from the rank and file, and was the reason Ernie and Chubby had taken him under their collective wing.

“What about you?” Ernie asked. “You think you might want to settle down with some mare any time soon? Provided we don’t find any elfin ladies, that is.”

“Well, a lot of the stuff Chubby used to say about equality between the species always made some sense to me, so… I guess I’m not necessarily against it,” Vinnie shrugged in response noncommittally. “I’m not going to go out looking, but if something finds me, I could be receptive.”

Ernie nodded. “Yeah, you’re young. You got lots of time to think on it.”

“And you?” Vinnie asked. “Think the old silver fox might go forth into this brave new world of interspecies romance?”

“Nah,” Ernie sighed. “My Maria died in the war, and old as I am she’s not too far out of reach. She’s been waiting in the Feasting Halls who knows how long for me… I can wait a bit more for her.”

Vinnie shifted uncomfortably but looked down at his older friend with a gentle gaze. Ernie never talked much about his wife. She’d been a nurse in another platoon. “Died in an operation in Zebrica,” was all he’d ever say of it.

“But that’s a long way away,” Ernie groused. “I got a few more decades of piss and fight in me. We need a new plan to break this stalemate.”

“Maybe we need to go more high tech?” Vinnie suggested.

“We can’t,” mumbled Ernie, still lying on his back and staring at the sky. “We got no knowledge of the old tech.”

Vinnie played with the hem of his apron thoughtfully. “Maybe we can find something pony-made?”

“Yeah,” Ernie scoffed, “we’ll just find a piece of pony weaponry lying around. One that’s just powerful enough to take down an alicorn. Hey, maybe Pinkie had one she didn’t mention. That would sure be helpful. Or maybe we can pick one up at the grocery store. I’m sure they’re right next to the damned cereal.”

“You don’t have to be mean,” Vinnie sighed.

“I’m afraid I do, Vin. High tech weaponry isn’t going to just fall out of the sky into our laps…”

Further argument was stalled as a dark shadow fell over them, the sound of furiously beating wings accompanying it. Ernie’s eyes went wide with shock at the sight of a whole fleet of pegasi flying through the air. They were all wearing harnesses attached to heavy cables; collectively hauling a massive mechanical wreck that vaguely resembled the four legged shape shared by all equines.

The machine was obviously in terrible shape: huge gashes all along the chassis were accented with scorch marks, and some of the limbs bent and twisted into odd angles. The belly was cut open, exposing hanging entrails of tangled wires and cables. It was probably irreparable by pony means.

Ernie grinned devilishly as his mind returned to the bit of news Chubby had shared with him the night before regarding their mechanical aptitudes.

The word ‘irreparable’ meant two decidedly different things to ponies and machinist elves: to one it was an absolute, to the other, it was a challenge.

***

Twilight Sparkle was lying on a pile of cushions in the middle of the library’s main lobby. She flipped a page on her book with a lazy flick of her magic. She was reading the only book on elves she’d been able to find in the library. It was buried deep in the back of the basement storage, dusty and forgotten. The ancient tome was thick and bound in rough tree bark, in a fashion that hadn’t been in style for at least five hundred years.

“How’s the research going?” asked Spike’s voice as he hopped playfully down the stairs one at a time and walked over to where Twilight read.

“Well as can be expected,” Twilight grumbled sadly. “Simon the Smelly Elf just learned about the magic of soap but still refuses to brush his teeth. Now the entire town is whipping into a frenzy to lynch him in the square.”

“Wow, those old timey children’s books used to get rough,” Spike commented.

She slammed the foal’s book shut and tossed it on the returns cart. She rolled over onto her back and groaned.

“I can’t believe there is nothing on elves in this whole library except some stupid, ultra-violent kiddy serial from hundreds of years ago,” she groaned.

“It’s not even the first in the series,” Spike added. “But hey, I sent a letter to the library in Canterlot asking them to do a library loan on anything they have on elves.”

Twilight smiled. “Thank you, Spike. Good initiative. Did they say anything back?”

“Only reply I got said they’d get to it after the clean up.”

“Clean up?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, that’s what it said. No mention of what they were cleaning up. Maybe they’re doing reshelving and inventory?”

“That or the entire city was razed while we’ve been sequestered in here like a couple of shut-ins waiting out those stupid elves.”

They both broke into laughter at the very idea of something so ludicrous.

“I’m sure if anything that huge happened, the other princesses would’ve sent for you,” Spike said. “Either way, do you think maybe we should open the library now? What if somepony wants to borrow a book?”

“Well we put a bell out there, so if somepony wants something they can ask for it and I’ll slip it through the mail slot,” Twilight huffed. “Not like that bell will ever ring. As a princess I am filled with infinite love and compassion for all of my little ponies, but boy, are they a bunch of illiterates. I can’t remember the last time anypony checked out anything that wasn’t Daring Do or comic books.”

Their conversation was interrupted by hooting and the sound of beating wings as Owloysious glided gently into the room. He landed on top of a bookshelf and began to preen.

“You get those candles all set up?” Twilight asked.

“Whoooo.”

“Great,” Twilight beamed. She grasped a fat white candle off the large table in her magic and levitated it closely to inspect the enchantments one more time. “Provided we did everything correctly, these candles will light up once something breaches the perimeter of the library.”

“You don’t think thirty candles is a little much?” Spike asked. “The whole library looks like the bathroom when you get ready for your extra long Saturday bath nights.”

“You don’t worry about my Saturday baths, that’s Twilight Time,” Twilight explained with a flip of her mane. “And these candles don’t make any noise, just light up. If we place them everywhere in the house, in places our eyes are naturally drawn to, we’re less likely to miss them going off.”

“I guess that makes sense. You sure are getting good at combining your magic with my fire, Twilight,” Spike complimented.

“Well your magical dragon’s breath is very useful,” Twilight returned the compliment.

“Our magic sure does mesh together… magically…” he continued as he took a side step closer.

“Mhm,” Twilight replied, turning the candle over appraisingly.

“We really compliment each other well.” Another step.

“Sure do. We’ve known each other a long time.”

“Sure have. We’ve got such great… chemistry.” He sat on a cushion.

Twilight put the candle back on the table and looked over at Spike. He was doing his best to make bedroom eyes. She rolled her eyes but smiled. His attempts at wooing were getting less desperate, and had settled into that perfunctory state that most of his attentions for Rarity had eventually devolved into. He’d pursued this strange new fixation on her far more openly than the one he’d had for Rarity, but things were becoming a bit more low-key now. His heart was still into it, but he knew he wasn’t making any headway so his flirting had sort of just become something he was doing from time to time, seemingly without really thinking about it.

“You’re going to need another cold shower soon,” Twilight chuckled.

She yanked the cushion from under him and dropped it on his face as he fell to the ground. She walked over to the fictions to find something to read, swaying her flank with a little more swerve than normal. It was nice to get some attention from a guy, for once; even if it was unwanted, weird, and semi-incestuous attention.

Spike pushed the cushion off and watched Twilight slink away. “Girl, you sure know how to sweep me off my feet.”

Twilight stopped and looked over her shoulder. “But I didn’t. You were sitting down…”

“But I love to watch you go,” Spike muttered in response.

She rolled her eyes and returned to her normal gait the rest of the way to the shelves.

***

“Chubby! We’re out of sandwich cookies!” Pinkie shouted as she ducked her head into the kitchen through the double swinging doors.

“Chubby or Pinkie type?” he asked.

“Both!”

Chubby smiled and opened finished plating an enormous pile of sandwich cookies that he shoved off the edge of the counter with a kick. Pinkie ran in and ducked her head, catching the tray as it fell with the ease of a whole day’s practice. She bounced off back into the lobby with a shout of thanks over her shoulder.

It was the end of the day so he expected that would be the last of the sale batches.

Chubby started mixing up more frosting as he waited for one last small batch of shortbread cookies to finish baking. He hadn’t told Pinkie yet, but this small batch of cookies just for them was going to be chocolate with strawberry cream.

After Pinkie had devoured the initial batch of sandwich cookies, she had insisted he make more to put in the shop. It took him some time to make the extra molds so he could cook larger batches, but by the time lunch had rolled around sandwich cookies had been added to the normal lunch time menu.

Ponies had been reluctant at first, after a few free samples they wholeheartedly embraced the idea of cream filled cookies. Word had spread fast, and not long after lunch it seemed like half the town had come into Sugarcube Corner to try the newest confection.

Chubby had spent the entire day filling orders while Pinkie handled the packed shop. It didn’t help matters that it seemed like half the cookies were ending up in Pinkie’s stomach.

That didn’t matter to Chubby though. Pinkie loved his creation, and he loved baking for her. One smile on her face was worth all the cookies in the shop to him.

Chubby finished the frosting just as the timer for the cookies went off. He put on some makeshift mitts he’d sewn together out of dish towels, and pulled the chocolatey cookies out of the oven. He took a good whiff of them and swallowed back his drool.

Making the cookies for the shop required him to be fast: a quick squirt with the pastry bag and he’d slap the cookies together. But now he could take his time and put love into every individual cookie. He carefully sculpted the perfect amount of frosting onto each cookie with a spatula, making sure the filling came to the edge with just a little bit of spill over, but not too much.

Just as he was finishing the last of the cookies Pinkie bounded into the kitchen and threw herself on the floor next to the counter Chubby was working atop. She blew all the air out of her lungs through pursed lips and sighed.

“All closed up. What a day,” she groaned. “All my joints hurt and my hair is so frizzled.”

“Your hair is always frizzled like that though,” Chubby said with a smile.

“Yeah but now it’s frizzled with stress!” she replied, returning the smile.

Chubby laughed. “By the way, Vin and Ern stopped by to get something to eat earlier today. They said they wouldn’t be back tonight because they’ve got something big to work on.”

He finished off prepping the plate and held a chocolate-strawberry Chubby cookie out for Pinkie to see.

“Want to try a new recipe?” he asked, playfully wagging the cookie. “It’s just us tonight, so we don’t have to share.”

Pinkie gasped. “What have you done now, you sick genius!?” She bolted upright and snatched the cookie away, inspecting it carefully with her hooves.

Chubby remained silent and gestured for her to check it out for herself.

Pinkie held the cookie up to the light, turned it around, spun it on the tip of her hoof, and sniffed it in the span of one second. She gave another mighty sniff and licked it tentatively, with little rapid flicks of her tongue.

“Chocolate. With strawberry cream,” she analyzed. “The chocolate is from the Germane mountains. The strawberry flavoring came from local strawberry juice. This is some high quality cookiesmanship.”

Pinkie concluded her professional assessment with a nod and began shoveling cookies into her mouth with both hooves. In less than a minute she’d finished half the batch.

She’d shown remarkable restraint.

Chubby reached in and grabbed a cookie for himself once he was certain his hand would come back with all of his fingers. He examined his own handiwork.

“I’m thinking about other flavors,” he explained. He pulled the cookie apart to inspect the frosting. “I’m thinking mint would go good with these chocolate cookies. And maybe vanilla-lemon. Oooo or maybe a lemon cookie with a lime frosting would be good.”

Pinkie fell back to the floor and rubbed her slightly bulging tummy. “Chubby, you’re the best. It might be mean of me to say, but I really kind of hope you guys never get to open another bakery, because I want you to stay here to make me cookies forever.”

Chubby held the cookie up to his face and pretended to lick the frosting slowly to cover the flush of his face. It was ridiculous how easily Pinkie was able to get a rise out of him. He silently cursed and promised to himself he’d figure out a way to get this stupid blushing under control.

Chubby perched himself on the ledge of the counter above where Pinkie rested. They sat in a comfortable silence, the only sound being the soft crunch of Chubby’s chewing.

“I like this…” Pinkie said.

“Eh?” Chubby asked eloquently.

“This,” she gestured vaguely with both hooves. “Sitting here. With you. Just… comfortable-like, ya know?”

Chubby worked his jaw nervously before he managed to gather his thoughts enough to answer.

“…eh?”

Pinkie sat up and leaned her back against the counter so she wouldn’t have to look directly at Chubby.

“I just…” she struggled with the words. “I know I have a lot of friends, but I also know that it’s a good thing I have a lot of friends, to you know, sort of spread it out thin. A little bit of Pinkie is a whole lot of Pinkie.”

“Oh, come on, don’t say that about yourself,” Chubby started to protest.

Pinkie shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I know how I am. And I know I’m super platinum lucky that everypony accepts that about me. But with you…” She turned her head and met Chubby’s eyes. “We haven’t known each other long, but I get the feeling that you do a little more than just accept my weird Pinkie-ways.”

Now it was Chubby’s turn to avoid eye contact. The nervousness remained, but he could feel his heart open, and the emotions spilled out that broken dam and formed as words and thoughts that flowed freely.

“You’re not like any girl I’ve ever met,” he explained in nearly a whisper. “You’re so full of joy and emotion… Pinkie, I come from a less friendly time than this one.”

Chubby closed his eyes and hung his head low.

“I saw bad things… I’ve seen how hard this beautiful world can be. I’ve seen things so horrible I thought I’d never smile again…”

His eyes snapped open and he met Pinkie’s gaze with his own.

“But I chose to smile again. I realized that happiness is something you can make. That’s why I sing: because my music makes happiness for myself and anyone willing to listen to it. And you know what else I know? I know that you’re the kind of girl that wants to make the whole world smile. I see that in you, and I can tell you can see it in me. How could I ever get my fill of someone who so flawlessly embodies the beautiful maxim I strive to live for?”

For the first time since they’d met, Pinkie’s cheeks flushed. They sat there for a long while, staring into one another’s eyes. Finally Pinkie stood and hopped up on the counter next to Chubby. Her back legs dangled over the edge and she kicked them nervously while she rubbed the tips of her forehooves together.

“This escalated quickly…” she whispered breathlessly.

“It really jumped up a notch from cookies, yeah…” he agreed.

“This is really scary, right? It’s not just me being a big dumb scaredypony?”

“I’m frickin’ terrified.”

Pinkie stopped fidgeting and placed her hooves in her lap.

“Is… is the reason you’re scared because I’m a pony…?” she asked.

“No… but maybe a little, yeah…” he admitted. “Is the reason you’re scared because I’m an elf?”

She just nodded.

“B-but it doesn’t matter, right?” she stuttered quickly. “I m-mean it’s scary, but it doesn’t REALLY matter, right?”

“No, of course not!” Chubby agreed quickly, holding up his hands defensively. “It’d be scary even if we were both the same species!”

“Exactly!” she agreed with a series of violently enthusiastic nods.

The silence returned. It wasn’t the comfortable, warm silence they shared earlier; it had churned, thickened into something electric and heavy.

“You kissed me earlier,” Chubby commented.

Pinkie let that sink in for a minute before she was able to stammer out a reply. “T-that w-was just c-c-cookie fever. You do crazy things in the grip of the Cookie-Eyed Monster.”

“Was it just cookie fever, though?”

“No… it was… something else as well…”

“It was something else for me too,” Chubby admitted.

They both began trying to speak up, neither finding the courage to say what was on their minds. A few times they tried at the same time, only to back down, losing their nerve and not wanting to talk over one another.

“Neither of us is saying it out loud,” Chubby interjected.

“Yeah, I think one of us should…” she looked down at him expectantly.

“What’re you looking at me for!?”

“Well you’re the guy, aren’t you!? Shouldn’t you take the lead here?”

“Wow, such an old fashioned sensibility from the future-pony,” Chubby snapped.

“Oh, shut up! I’m nervous! If I can’t abuse gender roles and be demure whenever it suits me then what good are they!?”

“Are we really going to have our first fight over something like this!?” Chubby shouted.

She blinked.

He blinked.

The words hung in the air. “Our first fight,” he’d said. As though future fights between the two would be forthcoming. Fights that would be ‘their’ fights.

Couple fights.

“What about if we both say it together?” Pinkie suggested.

“That sounds good,” Chubby agreed. “On three and go?”

They each took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“One,” she counted.

“Two,” he counted.

“Three,” she counted.

“I think I might be falling in love with you,” Chubby said.

Pinkie sat there, staring down at Chubby with her mouth hanging open.

“You didn’t say it!” Chubby shouted, his face burning painfully with embarrassment.

“I got nervous!” she shouted back defensively.

They looked away from each other and pouted. A few minutes of quiet pouting went by in the blink of an eye as they got their newfound emotions under control.

Pinkie reached down and idly brushed her hoof across the side of his leg.

“Are you upset…?” she asked cautiously.

He reached out, wrapped an arm around the offered hoof, and leaned into it.

“You didn’t say it…” he offered.

“…I think I might be falling in love with you,” Pinkie whispered after a moment of courage gathering.

Chubby’s only response was to lean into her hoof harder.

“So what now…?” Chubby asked.

“I don’t know,” Pinkie sighed. “It’s only been two days, and even with everything in the open, boy-oh-boyo is this still super duper scary. If anything it’s even scarier this way, knowing for sure. It’s so exciting, but wow. I’m happy, but I’m frightened, and I’m also comfortable yet somehow nervous… It’s all just a lot to take in at once.”

“We should take it slow, then,” Chubby added. “No need to rush. We get to know each other. Let things happen how they will.”

“Okay, that’s a good game plan for the long run,” Pinkie surmised. “But what do we do right now?”

“…want to make those vanilla-lemon cookies with me?” Chubby proposed.

Pinkie smiled brightly.

“More than anything in the whole world.”

***

“Alright, Sparkster! Get your ass out here and meet your dominion!” commanded the enormous mechanical zebra standing outside the Ponyville library.

The mecha was dented and tarnished from abuse, but all the wounds from its epic battle with the princesses in Canterlot had been expertly repaired using time-forgotten magical techniques the creators of the device could never have envisioned.

It had taken the pair of elves over thirty hours of sleepless labor to beat the behemoth back into working condition. The only corner they’d cut had been the foreleg actuators. The princesses had bent them in a way that crushed way too many of the extremely fine components for them to be salvageable. Ernie had had to completely hand fabricate many of those parts out of scrap metal as he went, but ultimately decided to make it a patch job. The legs only had to work enough to get the machine into Ponyville so they could aim the weaponry at the annoying purple mare.

“You’re never going to get this tree, you tiny son of a…“ Twilight’s rebuttal died in her throat as she kicked open the balcony door and stepped out to meet her mortal foe. “Oh my demigod…”

“Yeah, you like it?” the Gundam taunted over the loud speaker. “It’s new-ish. Some nice pegasi delivered this to me yesterday, all I had to do was pick it up in the Everfree forest and do a little body work. It ain’t as nice as some of the stuff we used to have, but you modern ponies sure do make some fun toys.”

Twilight gaped like a fish at the construct. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen before and was easily the size of the treehome. She looked out across the village and could see ponies congregating in the distance, keeping far away from the conflict but watching with interest.

With the eyes of her subjects upon her Twilight found her courage. She stood straight and drew a deep breath to issue her reply.

“What’s going on out here?” Spike asked as he joined Twilight on the balcony. “Holy moly! Look at that thing!”

“Soak it in, kid,” Ernie laughed. “Prostate yourself before the glory of the Double Z Gundam!”

Spike leaned over the rail and looked at the identification decal. “There’s only one Z written on the side.”

“We didn’t have any extra paint!” Ernie snapped. “But trust me, this is the Double Z Gundam. The extra Z is for Elf.”

“There’s no Z in elf,” Spike blinked.

“I don’t need to check my spelling, I’ve got a Gundam! Z stands for whatever I want it to stand for!”

“Look,” Twilight interrupted as she frowned at Spike for breaking her stride momentarily. “Just leave, okay?”

“No, you leave!” Ernie commanded.

“No, you!” Twilight commanded back.

The machine stood silently, vibrating imperceptibly with whatever sort of engine was hidden beneath that metallic exterior.

“What…? But… What!?” Ernie stammered.

“You heard me,” Twilight sniffed.

“But look at this thing! I could kill the whole world with this behemoth!”

“The whole world and this tree along with it,” she replied. She narrowed her eyes and unfurled her wings regally. “And we both know you won’t let anything happen to your precious little tree, will you? So consider your bluff called.”

The only sound that could be heard in the silence that followed that statement was the wind as it swept across the town with a groan.

The zebra’s head whipped around suddenly and fired a pair of laser cannons mounted to the temples. The lasers struck a house across the street, causing a small explosion that left a blackened crater.

“See how good this is!? Now get out of that tree or I swear I’ll…“

“MY BABIES! YOU BASTARD, MY BABIES WERE IN THERE!”

All eyes darted back to the smoking remains of the attack. A mare with a lime green coat and a golden blonde mane was running out a shed next to the house and wailing. Panic gripped every heart and suddenly dozens of ponies, and even three non-ponies, were tensing to spring into action.

“Half my Beanie Babies were in there! Someone save them!”

This statement was met with groans shouted curses as everyone collectively clutched their chests to slow their beating hearts. Ernie growled angrily and blasted her shed.

“THE REST OF MY BABIES!”

“The crown shall replace your babies!” Twilight barked. “Now get the hell out of here!”

“Oh, good!” the mare replied. She skipped away happily to safety.

“You saw how that went down,” Twilight returned to addressing Ernie. “Those cannons aren’t exactly precision instruments. Your problem up to this point has been thinking too small. Now you’re thinking too big. Just give it up, you’re never going to beat me.”

With that said, Twilight turned with a flick of her tail and walked back into the library, Spike in tow. The door slammed shut angrily and was nailed back up.

The chest of the Gundam popped open and lowered a cockpit. Ernie and Vinnie dropped a rope and slid to the ground.

“Damnit damnit damnit damnit!” Ernie cursed and worked himself into a nice angry froth. “Son of a bitch mother-humping dirty damn stupid purple bitch idiot arghhhh!”

Vinnie stood far back and let Ernie vent his frustration. He was pretty frustrated himself, but Ernie was taking this grudge really personally. It didn’t help matters that they were running on such little sleep.

Ernie ran up to the machine and kicked the legs, working out his anger in the only fashion acceptable for a gentleman of his breeding and station: blind, directionless fury.

“Why must I fail at every attempt at conquering!?” he howled. He punctuated every word with another kick until his other leg stopped supporting him and he collapsed to the ground breathlessly.

“Feel better?” Vinnie asked.

“No… I want my tree…”

One of the Gundam’s knee joints suddenly began to creak and spark angrily, slowly buckling under its own massive weight. It began tilting to the side, leaning dangerously towards the tree.

“Oh no oh no oh no,” Ernie muttered. He stood and gripped one of the legs with both hands, sinking his fingers into the metal. He channeled magic into it, trying to make it lighter so he could right it before it fell. He was a very old elf, and powerful in the ways of their magic, he knew he could do it. In his haste to channel power he neglected control. The metal became like butter in his hands and a chunk of the armor plating came off in his grip.

It fell over spectacularly, crashing into the tree and tearing an enormous hole in the side where it rested precariously.

The two elves stared, mouths agape, before Vinnie finally found his voice.

“On the bright side, we’ve successfully breached the perimeter.”

Then the tree burst into flames.

***

Twilight shut the door and casually hammered the nails back into place with practiced ease. The machine they’d brought this time was certainly a new twist, and definitely a step up from rat holes and pipe bombs, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.

“Spike, all this idiocy leaves me hungry,” she commented. “Go make us some lunch.”

“Aye-aye, my princess!” Spike saluted crisply and ran down the stairs to fulfill the request.

Twilight looked at her reflection in a mirror against the wall and smiled smugly to herself. “You’re getting more regal by the day, baby. They can try as hard as they may, but they’ll never break your dignity.”

Then a Gundam fell on her.

“Argh, my dignity!” she screamed.

Through the sound of her own moaning and the crash of splintering wood, she could hear Spike’s footsteps as he rushed up the stairs.

“Twilight, are you okay!?” he shouted. He stopped dead in his tracks as he took in the scene.

The Gundam had crashed through the wall, taking a huge section of it down in its wake. Most of the third floor and a good bit of the second, where the mecha had finally come to a rest atop Twilight, was destroyed. Books, scrolls, quills and various other studying implements were scattered everywhere. Bookshelves and furniture were ruined splinters covering every inch of the room.

Twilight was lying on the ground, pinned under a half-crushed bookshelf held down by the weight of the machine. Luckily the wall had broken away and been pushed clear of her by the angle of the machine’s fall, likely sparing her life.

“I’m coming, don’t worry, I’ll save you!”

Twilight’s early warning detection system, overwhelmed by the sudden catastrophic breach of the tree’s perimeter, blazed to life, equally catastrophically. All around the library the candles lit simultaneously. Instead of a gentle green warning flame, they released enormous pillars of emerald dragon’s fire.

Spike clenched his fists resolutely and dashed through the flames. They licked at his scales ineffectively as he wove his way through the wreckage to reach Twilight. The third floor collapsed as he reached her, spilling the empty bottles Owloysius had been hiding under the floor boards into the far corner of the room. Owloysius fell through the hole after them and landed on the pile of – luckily – unbroken glass and rolled to the floor. He hooted sadly and went back to snoring.

“Wake up, you lousy drunk!” Spike screamed. “The house is on fire! We need to save Twilight!”

The owl spun around drunkenly and buried himself head first into the mountain of bottles like an ostrich.

Spike turned back to Twilight and tried to dig his claws into the metal husk crushing his friend. His claws were powerful enough to crush diamonds, but they just glanced off the smooth metal surface without even a scratch. He reached down and tried his best to get a grip.

“Twilight, I need you to help me lift. Use your magic,” he explained.

Twilight nodded weakly and tried to levitate the machine enough to squeeze herself out. She winced at the pain in her legs but tried to concentrate through it. It was to no avail. As her magic touched the strange metal of the Gundam, she could feel it slide off. It was dissipating somehow.

“I can’t do it,” she whimpered. “This metal deflects magic. I’m only getting half strength into my telekinesis spell.”

“Well try harder, you’ve got all that alicorn magic, so power through!” Spike grunted. He was frantically trying to lift the machine even an inch, just enough to pull her to safety. For the first time in his life he’d wished he was a big, fully grown dragon.

“I can’t concentrate,” she explained. “My leg’s hurt and the pain is breaking my focus. Just get Owloysius and go, the fire is spreading!”

Spike howled in frustration and leapt through the inferno to where Owloysius slept. He grabbed the bird by the legs and flung him as hard as he could out the hole in the wall. Spike’s strength was fueled by anger and adrenaline, so the owl sailed clear into the street. With a long, indignant hoot, Owloysius spread his wings just in time to slow his fall as he crashed into a bush and returned to sleep.

He returned to her side in a flash and began trying to free her again. The fires had spread, eating away at the tree. Strangely, there was no smoke. Something about combining the two types of magic had created smokeless fire. But smoke or no smoke, it was still deadly fire.

“Spike I said to go! The fire!”

“It’s my fire, it can’t hurt me!”

She shook her head. “But the roof might collapse!”

“Then it collapses!” he roared. “I’m not leaving you, you idiot! I love you!”

Twilight growled. “Stop thinking about my butt and start thinking about your own!”

“This isn’t about a stupid crush! You’re my best friend, Twilight Sparkle! I refuse to live without you!”

Twilight dropped her jaw in shock. What he’d said had always been understood and unspoken between them, but having it said out loud like that made the very notion of it different. In that moment it felt more real and more important than ever before. She nodded resolutely.

“Then we’re in this together, Spike,” she answered. She clenched her jaw and dug her front hooves into the floor, trying desperately to pull herself free. No longer just for her sake, but now also for Spike’s.

Spike dropped to his knees and changed tactics. He used his claws and fangs to chew and break apart the bookcase. He pulled out large chunks of wood, getting enough room for Twilight to wiggle a little, but not enough to free her.

“My hoof’s under the machine,” she gasped. “Oh, Spike, I don’t think I can get out of this one…”

Spike ignored her. He was clawing frantically at the floor, even as the ceiling began to groan and creak ominously.

“Shove over, kid!” a voice shouted over the roar of the flames and Spike’s digging.

Ernie and Vinnie jumped off the Gundam and landed on the floor nearby. They had run up the hull of the mecha like a ramp directly into the inferno.

“What are you doing here!?” Twilight demanded.

“Saving your life!” Ernie shouted. He and Vinnie hopped up on the wreckage atop Twilight and dug their fingers into the metal.

“I wanted you gone,” Ernie declared, “but you better believe I don’t want your blood on my hands.”

Twilight and Spike were awestruck as the two elves descended on the seemingly invincible machine. Their fingers sunk into the metal like uncooked dough and pulled it apart in great big chunks.

“Well you going to lay there all day gawpin’ or are we going to blow this fire sale?” Ernie demanded.

Spike snapped to first and gripped Twilight’s front hooves. He pulled with all his might and managed to drag her to freedom.

Twilight stood shakily. Her leg hurt too much to put weight on it, but with the pressure off of she was finally able to concentrate. She closed her eyes and focused her magic.

In a blinding flash of light all four of the burning room’s occupants were spirited into the street and away from danger.

***

Twilight sat in the street sadly. She had a blanket around her shoulders and a steaming cup of hot chocolate in her hooves. One of her hind legs was bandaged tightly and splinted so she wouldn’t move it too much. She’s been unimaginably lucky not to have been hurt worse.

Sitting next to her was Spike, similarly blanketed and chocolated. On her other side sat Pinkie Pie, gently rubbing her back and snuggling against her shoulder supportively.

The fire ponies had finished a few hours ago and cordoned off the remains of the library. Half of the structure still stood, blackened and hollowed out like an old stump, and almost all the books had been destroyed in the fire. Tragic as the loss of the books was, the rare stuff in the basement had survived, and the rest could be replaced. She knew every book in that library.

As for the Gundam: that was back in the Everfree forest where the elves had found it. The Ponyville weather team had been glad to help cart it out of town once the elves had disassembled it into smaller, more manageable pieces with their strange magic.

“So I cop to the machine,” Ernie confessed, “but the fire wasn’t me.”

The two ponies and dragon glared down at the elf where he sat next to Vinnie. They each had their own small blanket and tiny expresso sized cup of chocolate.

“Just saying,” he said over the edge of his mug.

Twilight sighed as she watched the shadows of the approaching evening grow long, stretching over the charred remains of her home like a blanket of darkness over its corpse. A fitting rest for her beloved home. She tried to cry. She wanted to wail and scream and banish the elves to the moon. But she just felt tired.

“Guess neither of us wins,” she muttered.

“For what it’s worth…” Ernie coughed nervously. “I’m real sorry it happened like this… I don’t have anything against you, I just… this tree was a symbol of what we lost. It was a piece of home and I guess I fell into the bad habits that cost my people our homes in the first place…”

Twilight looked at Ernie. Really looked at him for the first time. She saw a tired old man, nearer the edge of his life than the start of it. Somepony beaten and worn away by a lifetime of hardship and sorrow, awoken into a strange new world where everything he’d bled and shed blood for was not only moot, but erased from history.

“I wish you’d have explained it like that sooner, we probably could’ve worked something out,” she admitted.

“Take it from an old man,” Ernie replied, “all the reason and logic in the world won’t convince someone of something they’re not ready to hear. And truthfully I don’t think either of us was ready until just this moment.”

Twilight nodded sagely. There was wisdom to those words.

“Besides, you were right to fight back,” Ernie added. “I had no business trying to be a conqueror again. That life’s rightfully behind me.”

They watched silently as the pony that lit all the streetlights on their block made his rounds. He’d brought a cart with him and laid out a few extra lamps for them with a sympathetic smile.

“Thanks for saving my life,” Twilight said as the sun finally began to set.

“Sorry that I had to save it,” Ernie answered.

Pinkie watched the exchange with a knowing smile.

“Okay!” came a shout from the ruined tree. Chubby ran under the cordon tape and crossed the street with a huge smile on his face. “I checked out the tree. Now I’ve studied the theory on their construction, but I’m no expert here, so keep that in mind.”

“Well?” Pinkie asked standing up and walking forward.

Twilight, Spike, Vinnie and Ernie leaned forward expectantly.

“The core of the tree is totally untouched,” he beamed. He received five blank stares so he explained further. “The core is a little knot of self-perpetuating magical energy. It’s the part of the tree that marries the natural properties of the thing with elfin magic. It’s what keeps the tree alive even while you gut it.”

“So that means?” Pinkie motioned for him to continue.

“It means that the tree’s still alive,” he announced with a smile. “If you do some superficial repairs to the flooring and walls and stuff, the tree should grow over the repairs and be good as new within about three months.”

A chorus of cheers erupted.

“Oh, Chubsiewubsie, you’re so smart!” Pinkie exclaimed as she picked him up and planted a kiss on his cheek.

“Whoa!” the other four members of the group exclaimed in unison.

“What is this?” Spike asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Pinkie giggled. “We’re in love or whatever, no big deal.”

Four mugs hit the ground with the sound of shattering porcelain. Twilight and Spike leaned on one another to keep from fainting from shock. Vinnie and Ernie rushed to Chubby’s side and began patting him on the back.

“Wait, explain this to me,” Twilight interrupted. “You’re dating an elf? That elf?”

“Of course!” Pinkie responded.

“Why!?”

“Why wouldn’t I? It doesn’t matter that he’s an elf and that I’m a pony, if that’s what’s bothering you. We have a lot in common, and we make each other happy,” Pinkie explained with a roll of her eyes. “So what if it’s a little weird? All love should be a little weird. And as long as we do love each other what else matters?”

Further questions died on Twilight’s lips. She had no response to Pinkie’s logic.

“Well I think it’s great,” Spike finally said happily. He walked over and reached a claw out to Chubby. “If Pinkie says you’re a good guy, that’s enough for me.”

Chubby shook the claw gratefully. “Thank you, Spike. I’ll do my best to live up to that!”

Twilight sighed. “If you’re sure about this, Pinkie, then okay, you’ve got my support.”

Pinkie rushed to her friend’s side and threw her arms around her in a tight hug.

“Thank you, Twilight, I was so nervous about what you might say,” she sobbed.

Twilight stroked her back gently and let her cry our her worries. She could tell that the worry over what she would think of this latest development had been weighing heavily on Pinkie Pie for days now. While she had been pretty angry at first that Pinkie had befriended the elves, she’d been too tired to argue against Pinkie’s protests of “It just makes Pinkie Sense!”

“Well, Chubs, I guess this is it,” Ernie sighed.

“What is?”

“It’s time to go.”

Chubby and Pinkie went stiff.

“W-what?” Chubby managed to ask. His face was white as a sheet.

“Ain’t no tree to quarrel over anymore,” Ernie explained as he turned his back on the group. “It’s time to break camp and move on to the next theater.”

“B-but… But I can’t!” Chubby protested.

“Eh?” Ernie lifted an eyebrow at Chubby over his shoulder. “I don’t follow.”

“I can’t leave! Not without Pinkie!”

“Damn right you can’t!” Ernie shouted at the top of his lungs. He spun on his heels and got right into Chubby’s face. “What’d I tell you that first day we met her?”

“You told me to take care of her,” he whispered. “Said she was made of gold.”

“That order stands,” Ernie explained. His face softened into a grandfatherly smile. “This whole thing about the tree was about finding a place to belong. Well, you found yours, and it’s here, with Pinkie Pie. I was talking about it with Vin a bit ago, and we both agreed. It’s time for me and him to venture forth and find our own place to belong, wherever that may be.”

He showed a little more teeth as he widened his grin and gave a wink. “I may not be a conqueror anymore, but it might be fun to be an adventurer for a while.”

Ernie turned and walked away, grabbing Vinnie by the shoulder as he went. He dragged the younger elf a few paces before turning them both and snapping a sharp salute that Vinnie and Chubby mimicked quickly out of reflex.

“This stands as your last order,” Ernie commanded. “You stay with that girl and you try not to screw it up too bad. Make her happy with everything in you. You mess this up, you better fall on your sword, soldier, because you won’t like what I’ll do to you.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Chubby sounded off.

“Dismissed, bard. Enjoy your retirement.”

The two elves relaxed their salute and walked off into the night without another word.

Chubby held his salute until his two oldest friends were fully enveloped by the night and well out of sight. Once he dropped from attention his eyes began to water. Pinkie lifted him gently in her arms and hugged him tight.

“It’s okay,” she soothed. “They’ll be back someday, and probably sooner than you’d think.”

Chubby let the silent tears fall into his girlfriend’s mane. “Your Pinkie Sense?”

“No,” she explained. “I just know a lot about friendship.”

Spike and Twilight watched in silence as their friends comforted one another.

“They’re cute together, right?” Spike stated.

“Yeah, guess they are,” Twilight muttered. She looked down at Spike appraisingly. “It’s still weird, though.”

“Like Pinkie said,” Spike countered, “love should be weird. But maybe that’s just my perspective talking.”

“How do you mean?” she asked. Spike could be surprisingly deep when he wanted to, and she could tell from the tone of his voice that he was about to get into something heavy.

“Well…” Spike sighed. “Call me romantically hopeless, but I like the idea of the weird outsider getting the girl. I like to believe that a strong enough love can get over superficial things like species or size or appearance... I mean if things can work out for them, maybe they could work out for a dragon who’s only ever known the life of a pony…”

Twilight blinked. “I think you meant to call yourself a hopeless romantic,” she corrected.

“I know what I said,” he replied.

Twilight stared at her lifelong friend, the first true friend she’d ever made, and mulled his words over. It was certainly something to think about.

“So what’re you guys going to do?” Pinkie asked suddenly.

Twilight’s attention snapped back to the couple. Chubby was now sitting on top of Pinkie’s head, the both of them wearing huge toothy grins.

“Well, Rarity left us a key under her mat for emergencies,” Twilight thought out loud. “So I guess we can stay in the Carousel Boutique for a day or two while we get repairs arranged. She probably won’t mind that we used her guest room once we explain what happened. You did say if we put up a frame the tree will naturally regrow to its former condition, correct?”

Chubby nodded. “The enchantments looked strong to me. Unless something weird happens, it should be good as new with a nice new skeleton to grow over.”

“Fascinating,” Twilight nodded. “Pinkie Pie said you were some kind of ancient scholar. I’d love to pick your brain some time.”

“Any time,” Chubby answered. He looked down and met Pinkie’s eyes. “You know where to find me.”

“Hm, yes. Well I guess we can stay at Rarity’s until that’s sorted. Then I don’t know. Maybe we could spend a few weeks in Canterlot?”

She looked at Spike for approval and received a nod in affirmative.

“None of my letters to Celestia and Luna have gotten any responses, so things might be busy there. But honestly, whatever is going on in Canterlot,” she swept an arm over the burnt husk of her home, “it can’t be a bigger mess than this.”

Pinkie laughed that strange laugh like she knew something she didn’t want to say and bid the pair farewell.

“If you need something, come by Sugarcube Corner. We’re not going anywhere.”

Twilight and Spike waved as the couple pranced off into the night, positively radiating the happiness of their newly forged love.

“He’s a lucky guy,” Spike smiled.

Twilight sighed wearily as her stomach gurgled angrily.

“Shut up and take me to dinner, Spike.”

“Well what do you want to eat? We could go get some hayburgers, or pizza or maybe some…“ Twilight’s phrasing caught up with Spike’s brain. “Wait, do you mean ‘take you to dinner’ take you to dinner? Or ‘take you to dinner’ get something to eat?”

Twilight frowned. “Do you want to buy me dinner or not!?”

Spike ran full tilt into the ruined tree and began digging through the ashes for his wallet.

Twilight smiled brightly. “Better not blow this, Spike. I’m going to give you a real chance here.”

“You say something, Twi!?” he asked.

“I said I’ll meet you at the pasta place!” she shouted happily. “Don’t make me wait long!”

She turned and started down the street with a hobble.

“Wait, I found it! I found it!” he called as he chased her into the night. “Don’t walk so fast, Twilight! I got short legs!”

Author's Note

Bet you thought this was about humans. Little did you know it was stupider than you ever could have dreamed.

If you're reading this that means you probably made it to the end. Let me go ahead and say thanks for reading.

A little on the development of this story: Originally this was just going to be a short gag story about cookie elves attacking the treehouse. As I started carving up this turkey, the backstory developed a bit more, and the elves became real characters. This was not my intention. Hell, I barely even cared about the names of the elves from the outset. The only elves I knew the names of were Ernie and J.J., because they were in the old commercials. I refused to keep typing J.J. because that I didn't want to have to keep putting those periods at the end of the J's, so I named him Vinnie. And Ernie became a malapropism spewing old general instead of a chuckling Papa Smurf clone. Chubby came about because I vaguely remembered a fat elf, but when I Googled "Keebler Elf Wiki Names" I took a hard look at my life and decided to make him an original-ish character.

And I sure as hell didn't intend for this to evolve into a love story. But here we are. The characters just wanted to fall in love as I wrote them.

Again thanks for reading. Hope you liked it. Now go read some Hemingway or something.