Alpha and Omega

Author: Cuttincows

Prologue

It was a warm, mild summer day in Ponyville. The birds lolled lazily in the branches of the trees, and there was hardly a cloud in the sky for the Pegasi to clean up. Due to the calm of the day, Twilight Sparkle had taken her studies out onto the balcony of her hollowed tree home. Digging out a beaten blue and gold bound book, Twilight settled into learning yet another powerful spell. This particular spell, an immense incantation which was supposed to create a potent illusion of a full sized dragon, but the dragons Twilight had made so far were no bigger than Spike. Sighing lightly, she flipped the yellowed pages back to the beginning of the spell to prepare for another attempt.

“Heya there, Twilight! What’re you doing out here?” A loud, eager voice exclaimed, causing Twilight to drop her book over the railing. Reaching over the railing and snaring the spell book with her magic, Twilight spotted Pinkie Pie smiling earnestly from the ground below.

“Well, I was TRYING to study, before somepony rudely interrupted me.” Twilight shouted down, biting back the sarcasm from her voice.

“Whoever that pony is, she must have left, ‘cuz I can’t see her.” Pinkie Pie shouted back up, “But that doesn’t matter. Something WAY more fun than studying happening!”

“Whatever it is, it’ll have to wait. I have a lot of studying to do, and I can’t be distracted. The timing of this spell is very delicate, so if you’ll excuse me for a moment...” Twilight trailed off, turning towards the door to the inside, bringing her books with her.

“But you can’t study now, silly. If you don’t see them now, they’ll be gone. Poof!” Pinkie raised her hoofs to show how exactly they’d disappear. Twilight turned back to the balcony, dropping her books back down on her makeshift desk.

“Who’ll be gone?” Twilight asked, her interest suddenly sparked.

“Duh, only the most awesomely awesome ponies ever!” Pinkie exclaimed, sweeping her hooves in a wide gesture, falling back onto her flank.

“Uh, could you be a little more specific?” Twilight asked with a sigh.

“Well, you know, those famous ponies! Those ones that everypony’s always talking about!” Pinkie replied with a mouthful of dirt.

“Still not helping”

“I think she’s meanin’ those actors for the big movie that’s got Rainbow up in a tizzy about”. Stated Applejack, who had heard the conversation passing by, and couldn’t help but join in.

“Oh, you mean the movie for those Daring Do books that Rainbow’s been reading recently?” Said Twilight, happy to see Applejack, “One and the same, sugar cube.”

“Yeah, and she rushed off to the Everfree forest lickety split as soon as she heard they needed some extra fillies and colts!” Pinkie interjected as Applejack helped her up, nearly knocking herself over again with her eagerness. Twilight pondered this for a moment.

“Why didn’t she ask us if she wanted to go?”

“Well, she wanted to get the part of Daring Do, and apparently didn’t have any time to waste”. Pinkie said, with an exaggerated roll of the eyes.

“Hey, why don’t we all head down there and see if we can help?” Applejack stated inquisitively. “Also, shouldn’t that part be filled already?”

“Well,” Twilight pondered that for a moment, “Maybe they need somepony as a stunt double!”

“Hey! Maybe they need help with other stuff!” Pinkie Pie said happily, “Like cakes, and parties, and balloons, and confetti, and”

“Slow down there sugar cube, they’re busy ponies, and don’t have time for all your partying.” Applejack said, protectively placing a hoof over Pinkie Pie’s mouth.

“Hey, she might have a point, Applejack.” Twilight declared, putting away her books back on her shelves. “They may need some ponies as extras, and to work the lights, and so on!”

“In that case, what’re we waiting for!” Applejack remarked.

“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie added. “That’s totally what we need to do! Err, what AJ she said!” Pinkie smiles.

“Uh, yeah, Sugar cube...” Applejack grins, “Then let’s go!” With that final statement, Applejack leaped up onto Twilight’s low balcony, and pulled her from her books.

“Wait, Applejack! What if I need to study?”

“Well, ain’t it too late for that now?”

"Well, alright, I guess that I could always figure out this spell later." Twilight said, defeated.
Pinkie jumped all of the way up to the balcony, knocking over the pile of books in her wake, and began pushing Twilight through the library to the front door. "Awesome! Now we can go there and work together on parties and lights and all the other fun stuff they do to make movies like I actually have no idea what they do there, and it's my job to know all fun stuff!" She continued to chat on in this manner as she pulled Twilight out the door, and began dragging her down the street.

"Wait a minute, sugarcube, do you have any idea where you're going?"
Pinkie let go of Twilight, letting her flop unceremoniously onto the ground. "I have no idea!"

After asking around for several minutes, the three ponies were told by Mr. Cake that there was a stallion from the movie near the town square. They arrived there just in time to see quite the large crowd forming, obscuring whoever or whatever was in the center. out of the corner of her eye, Twilight spotted Rarity on the edge of the crowd, futility attempting to force her way through the crowd without spoiling her mane.

"Hello? Excuse me? Lady coming through." she said, poking at the mass of bodies, to no avail.

"Rarity, what are you doing here?" Twilight asked, trotting over to her.

"What am I here for? I'm here to see Prancy Clops!"

"And, who exactly is that?"

"He's only the most famous movie star in all of Equestria!" Rarity said with a longing look on her face.
Applejack shook her head, on the verge of facehoofing. "Yer not interested in him, are you?"

"Well, he does look quite dashing in his role as the villain in the Mare-Do-Well series, with quite the interesting personality."
Twilight still looked skeptical. "That could just be acting, couldn't it?"
Pinkie Pie, who had been silent until then, decided to speak up. "Yeah, he could be like that meanie face, Prince Blueblood!"

"My word, nopony could be nearly as rude, inconsiderate, and generally, as you put it, a meanie face, yours Blueblood was. I'm sure he'd be quite the gentlepony, if. I. Could. Just. See him." Rarity began hopping up and down in an effort to catch a glimpse of the actor pony.

As Pinkie began to answer, a voice rose up over the crowd, "Make way for Prancy Clops!" as the crowd parted like a horde of parasprites at the sound of Pinkie Pie's polka. This left the five friends in the direct path of a light brown stallion, with a recently well groomed coat, toting a pair of designer sunglasses on the top of his head. Oddly enough, a similar pair of sunglasses also resided on his flank as his cutie mark.

He took one look at the four ponies standing in his way, and made no move to go around them, dispute there being plenty of room to spare. "Excuse me, but I'm a bit busy with actor duties and stuff. So, if you'll please get out of my way..."
Rarity was too shocked to speak, so Twilight decided to be the one to respond. "I'm sorry, I can tell that you must be extraordinarily busy, but I heard that you are the pony to talk to about helping out with the cinema production."

"The cinewha?"
Twilight, fighting back the strong urge to facehoof, simplified the statement. "The movie. We want to help with the movie."

"Oh, why didn't you say so? That's what I'm here for, to get some more stage hooves for the movie."
Shouldn't a big, strong stallion like you be helping out carrying gear, and have a weaker pony do the recruiting?" Rarity asked in a moderately accusatory tone.

“Uh, no, of course not. I’m too busy doing whatever that fancy word was for ‘picking up assistants’.” He emphasized the last words with hoof quotes.

“Could you just please tell us where to go to look for an intellectual pony who will understand our request for a civil job interview conversation?” Prancy stared blankly at Rarity, appearing to have fried a large percentage of his few remaining brain cells attempting to comprehend the several words in the sentence that exceeded six letters.

“Where did the movie company set up?” Twilight said, shortening and simplifying the sentence as much as she could.
Sudden recognition dawned on Prancy Clops’ face. “Oh, yeah. We’re about a five minute gallop from that Zebra Mezora’s hut.”

“Zecora.”

“Yeah, dat filly.”
This time, Twilight had to forcibly keep her hoof away from her face. “We should be going now. We’ve also got people to see, things to do!” As she said this, her hair began to fray along the edges, and her ear gave the slightest of twitches.

“He’s not like I thought he’d be like at all!” Rarity moaned as she and Twilight were dragged towards the Everfree Forest.

"Wow, Rarity, you really have the worst luck with stallions!" Pinkie said, as chipper as ever. "I mean, there was Blueblood, and you thought that he would be great and stuffs, but he was more like a Prince Meanyblood!"
After several minutes, Twilight, although still frazzled by her slight anxiety attack, was feeling better enough to walk without being dragged by Pinkie. Rarity, on the other hoof, had rigged up her sofa with wheels so that she could lament and transport herself with her telekinesis at the same time. This did nothing to help the general mood of her friends, however.

"Why, oh why must the stallions of my dreams never be kind or caring? This is the worst. Thing. Ever!" Rarity cried out for the upteenth time.
Twilight ignored Rarity's wailing, mostly due to the fact that the effect of her grief wears off after the first twenty minutes.

"I thought you dealt with Blueblood pretty well, Rarity!" Pinkie Pie said, not put down by Rarity's pessimism.

"I think I would prefer to have a way to deal with stallions without having a restraining order from half of Canterlot, thank you very much."

"I'm sorry that you seem to have stallion troubles," Twilight said, "but while you're done lamenting enough to speak, could you try to keep an eye out for some sign of the film studio? We're getting close to Zecora's, so it has to be around here somewhere." Rarity took a look around, stepping off of her wheeled sofa. Sure enough, there was the bright blue poison joke plant that had caused them so much trouble a while back.

"There's tire tracks here, so the studio should be right, around," Twilight was cut off mid sentence by the appearence of Fluttershy from between a few trees. "Oh, hey there Fluttershy. " Twilight said, moderately suprised by her friend's sudden appearance. "What are you doing here?"

Fluttershy shrank back slightly into her pink hair. "I'm sorry if I scared you. I heard from Rainbow Dash that you were heading over to see what was going on with this movie. I'd like to tag along, if you don't mind."

"Of course yah can tag along, Flutters." Applejack said, glad to finally have somebody to talk to besides Twilight's anxious ramblings, Pinkie Pie being, well, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity complaining.

"Wait a minute," Twilight. said, slightly concerned. "Where's Rainbow Dash?"

"I thought she was with you."

"She's already there!" Pinkie butted in, raising her hoof like a schoo lfoal wildly in the air.

"And, how did you know that?"

"My left hoof got all itchy! That means that Dashie's all excited!" Twilight sighed. She knew by now to not even try to figure out how Pinkie sense works. Pinkie bounded forward into the forest, almost disappearing from view.

"Hey! Now I'm getting all excited!" Pinkie shouted back over her shoulder.

"And what Pinkie sense does that mean?" Twilight said back to her.

"It means I'm getting excited, silly! And, wow, am I excited! Everypony take a look at this!" The exclamation points were almost audible in her voice. As Pinkie said this, a clearing broke into view through the tree line.

"Well," Rarity said, stepping off of her sofa, glancing around at the sheer volume of tents and makeshift structures laid out in front of them "I think we'd better start looking for the recruitment tent while there's still light."