"TWILIGHT!!!" A frantic Pinkie Pie pounded relentlessly on the smooth, worn wood of the Golden Oaks Library's front door.
"Pinkie it's three in the morning," The exhausted purple alicorn groaned as she unlocked the door.
"EXACTLY!!!" The cotton candy mare shouted.
"Pinkie, stop yelling... It's three in the morning."
"You already said that Forgetty Forgetterson. What I really want is for you to tell me why your experimenting on Gummy with your coco loco magic!!!" The energetic and somewhat paranoid mare waved an accusatory hoof in her tired friend's face.
"Coco loco. experiments. Middle of the night. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!!!" Twilight lost it as her calm visage crumbled into an angry scowl.
"Geez Twi. No need to yell so loud. You're gonna wake the whole town. Anyhoo, I was just wondering if you'd seen Gummy is all. He went missing sometime between nine last night and two this morning."
"No Pinkie I haven't seen Gummy," Twilight growled through clenched teeth before slamming the door in her fellow Element's face, and storming back up to her bedroom to get some early morning reading done.
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Twilight strolled down the dirt path towards the Ponyville Town Square. Spike waddled along beside her, burdened like a pack animal with quills, ink, parchment, and various other miscellaneous items that the powerful alicorn refused to carry for herself.
As they approached their destination, the pair finally began to take notice of the thick crowd that milled about, overturning carts and carriages as they passed by.
"What's everypony doing out here?" The puzzled mare asked nopony in particular, "Spike, is it some kind of traditional Ponyville holiday that somepony forgot to tell me about?"
"That was one time. I thought Derpy made up the Ponyville Muffin Festival." The little dragon grumbled. Ignoring him, Twilight approached the Cutie Mark Crusaders who were zealously participating in whatever the towns ponies were up to.
"Do you girls know what everypony's doing out here?" She questioned the three.
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS GATOR FINDERS!!!!" They shouted in unison.
"Crikey!" Sweetie Belle added, as if that one word explained everything.
"Gator finders? So Gummy really is missing. I honestly thought I had dreamt that up." The Princess said aloud.
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, AND WILL NOW RESUME THEIR QUEST FOR CUTIE MARKS!!!" The trio shouted in response.
"Crikey," Sweetie Belle added.
"Cutie Mark Crusaders need to learn how to talk quietly," An ever so cranky Spike growled, as the fillies raced away. As he watched them pursue their elusive, yet painfully obvious destinies, he recognized a familiar pink form walking towards him. Pinkie Pie was walking. She stopped every couple yards to half-heartedly call out her missing pet's name.
"Any news girls?" She asked the Crusaders as they sped past her. After a few shouted words and the ever-present 'crikey' from Sweetie Belle, it was clear that Pinkie was losing hope as her mane partially deflated and her tail dragged in the dirt.
"Pinkie! Come over here!" Shouted Twilight, "I may just have a solution."
"Great! Let's just hope it's not like that one time with the fruit bats, or that other time with the paras-MMPH!!!" Pinkie rambled until a purple hoof silenced her. Her mane and tail began to get back their usual bounce as Twilight explained her plan.
"I'm going to need something with Gummy's DNA on it if this is going to work," no sooner did she say this, then Pinkie produced the toothless gator's dental floss, "Perfect!" She wrapped the floss in her pink aura as she activated a complex tracking spell that she had, just recently, perfected. Her horn pulsed once, twice, and then began a steady rhythm of pulsations accompanied by a low beeping sound.
Twilight, and a crowd of towns ponies marched around Ponyville for a couple of hours before the tonality and frequency of the pulses and beeps increased dramatically. The group found themselves meandering erratically along the steep slopes of Ghastly Gorge. As the pulses reached their peak, Twilight extinguished the magic from her horn, and began poking around the sparse shrubbery that decorated the lip of the gorge.
"He's over here somewhere, but magic will only get us so far." She informed the crowd of ponies that surrounded her.
"You heard the mare! Get movin'!" Rainbow barked as she began an aerial search for the missing reptile. Within minutes the crowd had checked every nook and cranny of the small clearing they had initially gathered in, and began to spread out. Fluttershy had gathered a sizable group of woodland creatures from the nearby Everfree, and enlisted their help in the search.
"GUMMY?!" Pinkie Pie shouted at a petrified iguana, "IMPOSTER!!! Well two can play at that game..." The Earth pony mare growled menacingly, as she pulled a fake mustache out of her tail and smacked it onto her muzzle. "Two can play..."
"You found an alligator? Is it him? Oh, you don't know... Okay." Everypony turned towards Fluttershy as the yellow pegasus finished her conversation with a couple of otters. "Ozzy and Bernadette found an alligator, but they aren't sure if it's Gummy." She explained.
"Well what're we waiting for?!" Rainbow called over her shoulder as she took flight in pursuit of her furry guides. The pair led them to a smooth sandy stretch of the river that carved the gorge. Rising from the bushes that adorned the river bank, a peculiar mound made of dried weeds, mud, and twigs could be seen. Curled up next to it: Gummy. Pinkie Pie sprang into action.
"Don't ever ever EVER do that again!!!" She cradled the walleyed gator in her fuzzy pink hooves. Wrestling himself from her vice-like grasp, the pet in question crawled over to the mound and began removing a layer of dirt from its base.
"Pinkie," Fluttershy began "Are you sure Gummy's a 'he'?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" The mare asked, raising her left eyebrow.
"Because, that's a nesting mound." The pegasus mare responded. "It's a nest where female alligators lay their eggs, and monitor the temperature of the delicate young inside by adding and removing layers of dirt."
"Like cupcakes?" Pinkie inquired.
"I-I suppose maybe?"
"Well why didn't you say so? This is great! Now I get to have lots of Gummies." Pinkie squealed enthusiastically, "I suppose I shouldn't call her 'Gummy' anymore. It is a boy name... How about Gumbelina! Ooh we could call her Gummy for short!"
"Isn't that the same as if you never changed it?" Rainbow mumbled.
"Are you even listening? Of course not! It's a nickname now." The logic-defying mare explained, as if it were only common sense. With that she bounced up to the mound and began to count the eggs inside.
"Pinkie where did those thermal imaging goggles come from?" Elated by the knowledge that the mound contained a perfect dozen of healthy eggs, Pinkie ignored Twilight's question and began the difficult work of transporting the clutch without altering the temperature inside the mound.
%%%%
"Eat your cupcakes Gumberto!" Pinkie scolded the tiniest of Gummy's babies. A smile spread across her face as thirteen gators munched on her latest batch of sugary confections. Fluttershy had told her that it wasn't healthy, but her scaly family loved their sweets. "We're gonna need a bigger pond." She mused and quickly fell into a fit of giggles, "Hehe, a much bigger pond!"
Author's Note
Probably the lamest story ever, but I wrote it because I can. It's short, but I don't plan on lengthening it because it's just an idea I needed out of my head.
