A Bunch of A-Holes

Twilight Sparkle stared at her brilliant pink friend, “You saw them too?  I don’t know what happened.  I was just teleporting out to the edge of the Everfree, so I could get a better view of the stars, but something went wrong.  I was stuck inside this cramped, dark space, and there was a stallion shouting for a light.  And when I light my horn, I saw a rodent!  I tried to teleport away, but a Timberwolf tore open the roof and tried to eat me!  I did a quick flashbang and teleported out of there.  I could have DIED!”

Pinkie grabbed Twilight by the shoulders, “Calm down!  It wasn’t a Timberwolf.  It looked a lot bigger.  And it was smiling, with these really cool looking serrated teeth!”

The small dragon in the room shot Pinkie a glare, “How is that helping?”

“Well, it didn’t look like it was trying to eat the three ponies it was with.  It looked like more of a pet, or something.”

“It TRIED to EAT ME!”

“So?  I tried to eat you once too.  But your mane tasted like shampoo, so I stopped,” she shrugged, “He probably will too.”

“Not helping!”

The door burst open, and a blue blur shot in, tumbling to a stop against the wall, upside down, “Twilight, Spike!  Oh, Hi Pinkie.  Twi, we’ve got some incoming ponies.  They’re dressed really weird, and nopony recognizes the emblem on their clothes.  They’ve got a…”

Twilight joined in, “A Raccoon and a Timberwolf.”

“Exactly.  How did you know?”

“The Timberwolf tried to eat me.  How far out are they?”

“I saw them crossing the welcome sign.  Ponies are starting to panic.  Do you want me to grab Fluttershy and AJ?”

“Wait.  Maybe Pinkie’s right.  They might not be trying to hurt anypony, like Zecora.”

“Ok, but whatever plan you want to use, now would be the time to tell us.  They’re heading this way.”

“Spike!  Grab the Timberwolves plan, the Rodent swarm plan, and the Zecora Plan, revision two.”

The dragon darted off, dropping to all fours for the speed boost as he scrambled around, collecting the scrolls Twilight had requested.  Hopefully, something could be quickly worked up from all three, in order to reduce the possible damage.

As the scrolls hit the table in front of the purple Alicorn, the door reverberated with a low bellow, “I AM GROOT.”  Twilight stared at the door, “What?”

Another voice, lower, more natural sounding, pushed through the door, “Groot, I don’t think this tree is a sophont.”

“English, Rocket.”

“I don’t think this tree can talk.  Even if it is made of crystal.”

“Of course not.  It’s a tree.  It has a door, and windows in it.  Look, I’m going to knock.”

The door rang with the impact of a hoof on it, and Twilight shuddered, but quickly pulled herself together, “It’s open.  Come in.”

The door creaked open, and a light brown Pegasus in a crimson coat stepped in, wiping his booted hooves on the entry rug, “Sorry about the mess,” he looked up at the four creatures in front of him, “Okay, I recognize you, and you,” he pointed at Twilight and Pinkie, “You I don’t recognize, but you have wings, so that’s something new.  And you, what are you?”  Rainbow Dash and Spike stared at the Pegasus, who moved on quickly and without pause, “So, we’re here to overthrow…”

“Murder.”

“…Right, sorry, Murder, a dictator named Thanos.  You lovely ladies wouldn’t be able to help us, would you?”

Four jaws dropped at the sudden admission that the group was explicitly there to Murder.  Something that hadn’t been seen in Ponyville for over a hundred years, and Equestria as a whole for thirty.  It never came up outside stories of how horrible things were before they were born.  Now, these ponies were just casually talking about it like they did it normally.

“M…M…Murder?”

“Yeah, Drax here,” the Pegasus pointed over his shoulder at the towering Earth Stallion filling the entire doorway with his broad frame, “Is gonna get revenge on that multi-chinned purple lunatic.  Chop his throat out most likely.”

The Earth Stallion nodded, “I will slit his throat with his own teeth, and disembowel him with his own spine.  Then I will choke him with his bloody intestines until he dies from it, and burn the corpse.  I will then grind it into paste and use it to paint noble symbols on my family’s graves.”

Twilight started sputtering as Rainbow covered her ears and curled away, and the Pegasus started talking again, “Now, can you help us?  We’re sort of limited in time, like less than an hour.  So a little speed would be appreciated.”

“Uh, Peter, we have a problem,” the raccoon held up a device with numbers on it, and a golden orb, “The timer just beeped.  We’re not being forced home.  I think we’re…”

“What?  We can’t be stuck here.  The guy said we had five hours per person.”

“Five hours per person, or five person-hours?  The difference is very important.”

“Uh…Person-hours he said.  Why?”

The raccoon leapt onto the Pegasus’ neck and started throttling him, “BECAUSE THE SHIP COUNTS AS A PERSON FOR PURPOSES OF TIMING!”  He took a deep breath, “THAT MEANS WE HAD FORTY FUCKING MINUTES!  NOT FIVE HOURS!”

“It took us that long to crash.”  We were still in the ship.  Why didn’t we go back then?”

The raccoon scowled, “BECAUSE IT WENT WITHOUT US!”

The Pegasus turned around, ignoring the gawking ponies as he grabbed the Raccoon, “Can we get back?”

For a few moments there was blessed silence, then the raccoon muttered, “See if you can get utilities hooked up to Milano.  We’ll be here a while.”

The timberwolf stuck it’s head in and opened it’s toothy maw, “I am Groot.”

“Really?  You tore out the coolant lines in the floor when you saved m…Oh Fuck.”

An explosion as loud as the original impact shook the library.  “Well, there goes Milano.  Again,” he turned to the purple Unicorn, “You wouldn’t happen to know of a room or five for rent?  Cheap?  All our Units got blown up.”

“Certainly.  I believe Applejack has some rooms open, and Fluttershy probably has a couple extra rooms for your animals,” Twilight looked over the group.  A Pegasus, a Unicorn, and an Earth Pony, with a raccoon and a timberwolf.  She wasn’t sure how Fluttershy would handle the wolf, but the raccoon, she had a pen for the other six that stayed with her, “Fluttershy might be a little nervous about your timber-wolf, so I’m going to put a muzzle on it, so it doesn’t try to eat her.”

“I am Groot?”

“Yes, Groot, she thinks you’ll try to eat her friend.”

“Groot?”

“I know you’re strictly self-sustaining, but they don’t.”

The muzzle floated around the confused timberwolf’s snout, “I am Groot?”

“Just…Just play along.  It seems to placate them,” The raccoon seemed to understand the wolf, though it spoke Equestrian clearly.

“Wait, is that raccoon intelligent?”

The green Unicorn leapt onto the raccoon, pinning it to the ground as it started reaching for something, “Rocket, let it go!”

The Pegasus stepped between the pile and Twilight, “Don’t call him that.  He doesn’t like it.  In fact, he tried to kill Drax, there, for calling him an animal.”

“What?  But it is.”

“Miss, Rocket is a highly advanced, custom engineered psychopath.  Drax is a highly trained warrior, from a race of warriors.  Gamora is an assassin, trained from the time Thanos kidnapped her and killed her family.  Groot is, well, Groot.  And I am Peter Quill.”

“Who?”  The response to his point, from an owl, seemed to trigger some sort of automatic response, such that he didn’t even notice that he was replying to an owl.

“Peter Quill.  Star-lord.”

“Who?”

“Star-lord, man.  Legendary outlaw.”

“Who?”

“Owlowicious, knock it off.”

“Who.”

“I am Groot.”

“Who.”

The raccoon cupped his paws over his head, “Make them stop!”

“GROOT, SIT!”

“Owlowicious, go clean the basement.”

“IamGroot.”  The timberwolf sat down on the floor as the owl flew off down the stairs.

“Can you point us to Fluttershy first, so we can drop Groot off somewhere safe?”

Twilight sighed, “Rainbow, take them to Fluttershy.  I’m going to get Princess Celestia and try to figure out what’s going on.”

The Unicorn stood up, carefully keeping an eye on the raccoon, “Come on, Rocket.  Don’t kill the helpful fantasy creature.  She’s just ignorant.”

They left, the raccoon still keeping a wary eye on Twilight until the door closed.