The Most Annoying Infestation
Something was scritching and scratching in the kitchen. Rainbow could hear it. The third time she'd heard it in just a couple days.
It was official: something had infested her house.
She tossed her half-eaten bag of carrot chips to the floor and hopped up off her couch. So much for relaxing. Instead, she'd go give Twilight a piece of her mind.
Rainbow didn't waste any time. Wasting time wasn't her style. She was almost running by the time she passed through the doorway, and she sprang into flight as soon as she was outside. Twilight's castle wasn't far, and the crystalline monstrosity on the edge of town was impossible to miss.
Twilight was usually so good with magic. Why had her pest-control spell stopped working? It wasn't like Rainbow got many rats or anything. A sky house was a good defense against that ... but it wasn't a perfect defense. Had Twilight just pretended to cast the spell and now was just the first time something got all the way up to Rainbow's house? Why couldn't Twilight just do what she said she was going to do?
Fluttershy might have seemed like a more obvious choice for pest control, but Rainbow had seen Fluttershy's pest control methods. If the way she handled the bats at Sweet Apple Acres was any indication, she'd probably end up setting a part of Rainbow's house aside as a nature preserve. Rainbow would destroy her house and build a new one – cloud architecture is pretty easy – before she'd allow herself to give up part of her home to some dumb critters.
She landed right on the balcony of Twilight's private chambers near the top of the castle. Rainbow wasn't the type to bother flying all the way down to the base and then having to climb all those infernal stairs just to get back up here. “Twilight!” she yelled out as soon as she settled down. “Twilight, where are you?”
A confused and sleepy sounding bleat came from inside.
Assuming that meant 'Come inside, Rainbow Dash', she trotted in through the open glass doors, which led to Twilight's bedroom.
“Hur... Rainbow? Whaa...?” Twilight was in her opulently big bed, sitting propped up with a forehoof while she rubbed one of her eyes.
That gave Rainbow a bit of pause. “Hey, why are you sleeping? It's like three in the afternoon. That's my thing.”
Twilight shook her head violently, which seemed to clear her thinking a bit. “Oh, you know. All-night study sessions have to be paid for sooner or later.” She stared at Rainbow for a moment. “So... what's the big problem?”
“The big problem is that your anti-pest spell on my house doesn't even work!”
“Don't be ridiculous. I learned that spell when I was only six years old, and it's never failed yet.”
Rainbow stomped a hoof down on the crystal floor. “Well, it failed now! What are you going to do about it?”
With an elaborate sigh, Twilight rose up out of her bed. She hopped down onto the floor and then stretched her back for a very long time. “I'm going to fly over to your house and show you that the spell is still in place and working perfectly, of course.”
Whatever, close enough. As long as she was coming, it would work. Twilight would find out just how much her spell wasn't working when they arrived. Rainbow led her friend back out to the balcony and prepared for takeoff.
Twilight stretched her wings out. “At least this time, I don't have to take the balloon.”
They took flight, Rainbow leading the way to her house since Twilight might not know where the slowly drifting thing was at the moment.
The moment they set down on Rainbow's fluffy front porch, Twilight's horn glowed for a brief moment. “Uh-huh,” Twilight said. “The spell's still in place and working perfectly.”
“No it isn't!” Rainbow insisted.
“Rainbow, trust me. I can see the magic lines as easily as I can see you, and they're perfect. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there.”
Rainbow groaned. “No! You've got to believe me. My house is totally infested.”
Twilight was silent for a long moment, looking at Rainbow as if Rainbow were the pest. But eventually, she shrugged. “Alright, Rainbow. I'm going to trust you enough to go in and take a look, but this had better not be some kind of prank.”
That would have to be good enough. Rainbow led Twilight inside, then stopped and listened.
“Um, Rainbow?”
“Ssh!” Rainbow put a hoof over Twilight's mouth. “Just be quiet and listen. I'm sure we'll hear it soon.”
After a few more moments, Twilight shoved Rainbow's hoof away. “I need my sleep, okay? I'm not going to stand around here all day waiting to hear some rats that can't be here because of my spell and doubly can't be here because rats can't fly.”
No! She had to stay and see. She just had to. Rainbow glanced all around the room, looking for some evidence of her pests. Her eyes caught the bag of chips she'd left by the couch, and that gave her an idea. “I know! Come on!” She ran off toward the kitchen without any further explanation.
Twilight followed, albeit much more slowly. “Did you catch it?” she asked.
“No, but...” Rainbow rummaged around inside her pantry. “Aha!” She pulled out a box of Apple Jacks breakfast cereal.
Twilight raised one eyebrow. “Your house has been infested by Apple family product placement?”
“No, look!” Rainbow used a wingtip to point at the lower corner of the box. It had been chewed clean through, and some of the cereal was threatening to fall out through the hole.
Twilight took a close look. “Huh.” She looked at it some more. “Well, I guess you do have some kind of infestation. If you do, it must be something magic resistant.” She grimaced. “And that's not a good sign.”
Rainbow cringed at the thought of what kind of strange creatures might have invaded her house. Wasn't Ponyville's monster invasion problem bad enough without some strange magic-resistant pests invading her own home? “Well, how do we get rid of them? Come on!”
“Well, there is one other spell I know for getting rid of pests. It works in a much less elegant way, you see. It causes high-amplitude ultrasonic sound waves set up in a cascading harmonic dissonance as an area deterrent.”
Rainbow stared blankly at her.
“It drives them out with loud sounds they can hear but you can't.”
“Oh.” That did sound like a good idea. “Okay! Go for it!”
Twilight's horn lit up again. “Okay, here it goes...”
Rainbow thought she might have heard a tiny little high-pitched whine ... maybe. It was so quiet she couldn't be sure she wasn’t just imagining it. It did seem to grow a little louder when Twilight's horn flared brighter, but she might have just been imagining that, too.
Something clanged and clattered under the sink. Then a loud squeaking sound and a thud.
“There!” Rainbow shouted, pointing at where the noises came from.
The two of them stared at the little cloud-built cabinet under the sink, watching it intently.
In a splash of cloud, something dark and way too big jumped out of there. Shrieking the whole way, it darted across the kitchen and shot into Rainbow's living room.
“You can let go of me now, Rainbow.”
Rainbow peeled herself away from Twilight, struggling to maintain her bearing. “Okay, sure. Just wanted to make sure you were safe and all.” She glanced away, doing her best to look nonchalant while still keeping an eye on where that thing had gone. “That was some rat, huh?”
“I don't think it was a rat,” Twilight said, her horn still glowing. “Come on, let's go track it down.”
Suppressing a shudder at the thought of confronting that thing again, Rainbow followed Twilight into the living room.
Where was it? Rainbow couldn't see the thing at all. Had it run out the front door? Even if it had, there was nowhere it could go. Unless it could fly, it would be stuck on her front porch. Not a pleasant thought. Maybe she should have gotten Fluttershy to come catch it for her. Watching the area around her warily, Rainbow flew up into the middle of the room, safely away from the floor.
That thing had been all dark and furry, and easily as big as a dog. And it was somehow resistant to magic, so it was probably some kind of evil monster from the Everfree Forest. Rainbow did not want that thing getting anywhere near her until she knew exactly what it was ... and she probably didn't want it near her even after that!
“It must be around here somewhere,” Twilight said. “I'll just increase the power a little...” Her horn glowed even brighter.
The thing dashed out again, popping out from behind the couch. It squealed and ran in circles in the middle of the room, screeching like a banshee the whole time. Rainbow flew a little higher to get away from it ... but then it took off too! It jumped into the air on bat wings, circling crazily up toward Rainbow.
“Twilight!” Rainbow was about ready to punch a hole through her own walls to get out of there.
“Wait,” Twilight replied, barely audible over the thing's screeching, “I think that might be a...” She stopped her spell, and the glow in her horn died away.
The thing's squealing died away with it, though it still circled around Rainbow menacingly ... until Twilight took a step closer. Then it darted behind Rainbow, keeping her in between itself and Twilight.
Rainbow froze, still hovering in midair. She could feel it there. “It's ... behind me, isn't it?”
“Relax. I think it's a...” Twilight craned her neck to the side to get a glimpse of it around Rainbow. “Yep, definitely. It's a bat pony colt.”
Rainbow steeled her nerve and glanced behind her. There it was, flying in place right behind her. Its – no, his – slitted eyes were huge and reddish pink. His coat and big, tufted ears were dark grey, and his mane a lighter grey ... and he looked back at her with a fanged grimace of terror. Rainbow blinked at the young pony. “Oh.” It was just a pony. A scary kind of pony, sure, but still a pony, and a young one at that. He was probably perfectly safe.
She allowed herself to relax a little and settled down to the floor. The colt came down with her, still keeping her exactly between him and Twilight.
“Hi,” Twilight said, trying to walk around Rainbow and look at him, “I'm Princess Twilight Sparkle. Don't be afraid.”
But the little guy was scared. As Twilight circled around Rainbow, he also circled, staying as hidden as he could and cowering behind Rainbow.
As he came around the front of Rainbow, she began to feel a little sorry for him. She glared at Twilight over her shoulder. “Hey, cut it out. He's scared of you.”
Twilight stopped moving, and so did the colt. “So that's why my pest-control spell wasn't keeping your 'pest' out. It's specifically designed not to target any type of ponies.”
“Why was he running around so crazy-like if your spells don't affect him?”
“The pest-control spell doesn't affect him. The ultrasonic spell, though, that definitely would affect a bat pony. Bat ponies have a much wider hearing range than we do, and he would have been easily able to hear that sound.” She paused for a moment. “Sorry, little one. I didn't mean to hurt you.”
Rainbow looked down at the little colt again. He was in a pitiable state, his fur and mane matted and staring wide-eyed at the two of them as he trembled in place.
“We'll have to get him back to his parents,” Twilight said in that voice that meant she was talking to herself, not to anyone else. Then she moved a little closer. “What's your name, little bat pony?”
He visibly jumped, cringing away at hearing Twilight's voice.
“Easy there, kid.” Rainbow bent down to get closer to his level – he didn't cringe away from her. “Just tell Twilight what your name is.”
“Will she make the bad noise?” he asked in a tiny, squeaking voice.
Rainbow rose back up, grinning and holding a hoof over her chest. “I promise I won't let her make the bad noise any more.”
Twilight made an audible scoff of offense, but she didn't say anything.
“Go on, kid. What's your name?” Rainbow prodded him with a hoof, which he tolerated with surprisingly little fear.
“Thundernight Moonglade Kerfluffle Fangling.”
Rainbow's eyes went wide. Wow, that was really a mouthful.
“Got it,” Twilight said. “Okay, I'll go hunt for his family. You stay here and keep an eye on him. He seems to like you a lot better anyway.”
“What?” Rainbow shouted in protest. “Twilight! I don't know how to deal with kids!”
“The bad purple pony's going to hunt my family?” the colt squealed, also in protest.
Rainbow grabbed him and held him close. “No, no. She's not hunting them. It's just a figure of speech. She's going to go find them so we can take you back to them.”
Twilight smiled back at them. “See, you're great with him. And it should only be for a little while. It can't be too hard to find a pair of bat ponies who are desperately looking for their son.” She darted out the door and took flight, leaving Rainbow alone with the colt.
“Don't want to go back to Mommy and Daddy.”
“Why not?”
Now that Twilight was gone, the colt began to show a little bit of emotion besides raw fear. He cringed into the most woebegone look of self-pity she had ever seen. “They said I can't have any bat treats for a whole week!”
Rainbow kept herself from laughing, just barely. “Wow, what did you do to deserve that?”
“They think I stole Mommy's secret stash of bat treats. But I didn't! It was my sister! But they didn't believe me, and they said I couldn't have any for a whole week, and it's so unfair, so I ran away.”
“Wow, that's harsh, uh...” Rainbow struggled to remember, but after a moment, she gave it up as a lost cause. “What was your name again?”
“Thundernight Moonglade Kerfluffle Fangling.”
Rainbow stared at him, blinking. She still couldn't remember all of it. “I'm just going to call you Batty, okay?” When he didn't respond, she continued, “Well, Batty, that is a really bum deal you got, but don't you think you might be overreacting a little by running away?”
“A whole week!” he insisted.
“Okay, okay.” Rainbow shook her head, but couldn't help but feel a little glimmer of admiration for the kid. After all, she was a fan of extreme reactions. “So, I guess we've got a little time before Twilight comes back...”
“She's coming back?” The little bat pony squeaked in terror. A long, never-ending, ear-bleeding squeal.
“Shush, shush, shush!” Rainbow held her hoof over the kid's mouth. “Jeez, don't do that! I won't let her touch you, or make bad sounds, or do anything, okay?”
The colt looked up at her for a moment, his eyes way bigger and way cuter than they had any right being. Eventually, he nodded.
She released his mouth, bracing herself for another scream, but it didn't come. Instead, he jumped forward and hugged her chest. “Blue Mommy is best mommy!”
Rainbow shoved him away and jumped back, her wings flaring out. “Woah woah woah. I am not your mom.”
He deflated, slumping down and staring at the cloudy floor. His leathery wings hung limply at his sides.
Immediately feeling like the most heartless pony who ever lived, Rainbow stepped back up to him and patted him on the back. “It's okay. I still like you and all, just take it a bit slower with the whole 'mom' thing, okay?” Internally, she kicked herself. Why did she have to be so bad at saying this kind of stuff? Maybe she really should have gone for Fluttershy. Fluttershy would have known what to do and what to say to make the kid feel good again. What would Fluttershy do? Rainbow thought about it for a moment. “So... you hungry?”
He looked up at her and his eyes lit up – literally, they seemed to flash at her as they reflected her skylight. “You have bat treats?”
“Um... no.” Rainbow winced at what that word did to the little colt. Why did this have to be so hard? “But I do have some cereal and stuff.”
Smiling a little again, but not as broadly as before, he ran off toward the kitchen, then looked back at her to see if she was following.
“Yeah.” She shook her head. “You already know where the food is, don't you? Come on, let's show you the right way to open a cereal box.”
Once there, she poured him a bowl of cereal and set it on the table. He watched everything she did with a wide-eyed curiosity.
“You can sit down. Just let me get the milk out.” Rainbow headed over to the side of the kitchen and reached inside her little snow cloud, rummaging around in it with her hoof. No, no, that wasn't it, not that either ... and that, what was that doing in there? Finally, she found the carton and pulled it out.
When she opened it, she gave it a sniff. She didn't use it very often herself, after all. Yeah ... it didn't smell fresh, and there was some slight odor to it. She wouldn't want to drink it. But it was probably fine for cereal. Probably.
The colt was still watching her from the middle of the room. He hadn't moved at all.
Rainbow poured some milk into the bowl as well and nudged it over in front of one of the fluffy cloud chairs. “Come on, kid. Take a seat.”
Still eying her cautiously, he hopped up to the seat, which was quite a leap for his little body. Once there, he could stand on his hind legs, brace his front hooves against the compressed-cloud tabletop, and just barely reach the bowl. He sniffed at it. “Doesn't smell like bat treats.”
“It isn't bat treats.” It was a struggle to hold her exasperation inside. “It's cereal.”
“What's 'cereal'?”
“It's...” She wasn't sure how to explain it. Twilight would know how to explain it. She memorized dictionaries for fun. “Um, it's ... that.” She pointed at the bowl.
“Oh.”
Neither of them moved.
“Well, eat it.”
He looked up at her, then back down at the bowl.
This was going to be the end of her, she was sure. Here she was, trying to be nice to the little thing, and what was he doing, just staring at things? “Eat it already! What's your problem?”
“It's not bat treats,” he repeated.
“So what? Eat it anyway.”
Looking back up at her with eyes way too innocent for what he was doing, he said, “I don't like it.”
Rainbow felt like screaming and running in a circle after her own tail, but she forced herself to keep calm. He was just a dumb kid, and all dumb kids act like that. “How do you know you don't like it if you haven't tried it?”
“Smells funny, not like bat treats.”
“Eat it! Right now!”
He shook his head. “Don't wanna.”
Rainbow stalked up to him, and the scowl on her face must have gotten through to him, judging by the way he shrank back. She loomed over him, even with him on the chair. “So help me Goddess, you are going to at least try one bite after I put all that effort into making it.” It hadn't really been that much effort, but it was the principle of the thing now.
The little colt was intimidated now, and he sank his head down to the bowl, then lapped up some of the milk and cereal like a dog. Belatedly, Rainbow realized she hadn't provided him with a spoon. Did she even have any clean spoons?
It didn't matter. As soon as Batty tasted that first bite, his face lit up. After a moment's hesitation, he buried his muzzle in it, scattering little pieces of sugary cereal all over the place as he madly devoured the contents of the bowl.
Rainbow watched, wide-eyed and from a safe distance.
In just a few moments, he was done and licking his lips with a strangely long, thin tongue. “Thank you, Blue Mommy! That was yummy!”
“I am not your mom,” Rainbow grumbled under her breath. She looked at the table, which was strewn with cereal pieces and splattered with milk. Okay, no biggie. Cloud furniture cleans off easy. The colt's face was also covered in the stuff. One piece of cereal was stuck to his fur just above his eye. She sighed, then said aloud, “I guess we'd better get you cleaned up.”
Smiling, he bounded toward her. “Yay! Bath time!”
“Not bath time.” She stopped him with a hoof before he could smear his dirty face on her coat and force her to take a shower too. When the colt deflated a little, she added, “I don't have a bath. They don't work in cloud houses – no way to keep the water from draining down through the cloud. I do have a shower, though.”
“Show-er?”
Rainbow slowly rubbed a hoof down her face. This was going to be a long day, wasn't it? “Come on, kid. I'll show you.” She led him around to the back of the house, where she'd put in a nice little shower stall.
It was just a little nook in her bathroom wall, one with a warm summer rain cloud above it. “Okay, get in,” she told him.
He didn't seem to understand why he was going in there, but he trusted her enough to do as she said.
Flitting up a little higher, Rainbow gave the warm rain cloud a good kick, letting it loose.
A deluge of nice warm rainwater came down, instantly soaking him. Whinnying loudly, he bolted out of the shower stall and almost made it out of the bathroom entirely before Rainbow zipped over and caught him with her superior speed.
Of course, catching the soaking-wet colt meant that she was also wet. It just wasn't her day.
By the time she managed to get him clean enough that his parents wouldn't call her neglectful when they arrived, she was soaking wet as well. She'd had to get right into the shower with him in order to soap him up, which seemed to be a concept entirely foreign to him. He still eyed the Mane-n-Tail shampoo warily as Rainbow led him over to the dryer.
She didn't even bother warning him as she kicked the special cluster of desert wind clouds built into the wall. She figured she'd have to run and catch him anyway when they started spewing out hot, dry air, so why bother explaining it?
He didn't run, though. Instead, he flared out his leathery little wings, bared his fangs, and leaned into the drying gale, apparently fearless and ready to take on anything.
They were soon warm and dry, so she shut the cloud down with another swift kick. “Feel better?” she asked.
He grinned back at her, his fangs poking out of the corners of his mouth a little.
“So...” Rainbow tapped a hoof on the floor a little. “I guess Twilight hasn't found your parents yet. What do little bat ponies do for fun, anyway?”
Batty instantly darted off back toward her living room, disappearing around the corner of the bathroom door.
“Great,” Rainbow muttered, “he's run off again.”
A moment later, though, his face popped back in the doorway. He stared at her like she was the stupidest pony who ever lived. “You're supposed to chase me.”
Rainbow grinned for a moment, then took off after him.
* * *
“There, her house is up on that cloud.” Twilight pointed up at Rainbow's cloud-borne home.
The colt's parents nodded. The stallion was tall and lanky, very dark grey with a purplish mane. The mother was much smaller, much lighter-colored, with a dark bluish mane. “Well, let's go,” the mare said.
Twilight flew up to Rainbow's front porch, leading the two bat ponies along behind her. She felt a little bad about dumping the responsibility of taking care of the colt on Rainbow, but it hadn't taken that long to find his parents, and however much Rainbow might not like it, it looked like things were about to work out just fine.
When they set down on the landing, Twilight heard a sound she didn't expect. Giggling and laughter echoed through the house, along with the tromp of hooves and the flapping of wings. She heard Rainbow shout something, and then a little high-pitched squeal that must have come from the colt.
Twilight glanced at the colt's parents, then looked in through the window with them.
Rainbow darted past, zig-zagging around her couch before zooming off into the kitchen. “You can't get me!” she shouted, laughing. The bat pony colt was hot on her tail, leaping across the fluffy furniture and actually punching straight through the cloud wall into the kitchen. Rainbow squealed when that happened. “Hey! That's cheating!”
“Got you!” The little colt darted out of the kitchen and abruptly jumped to the side, just in time to dodge a rainbow-colored blur.
Twilight looked back to the two bat pony parents, biting her lip for a moment. “Um ... this may sound a little weird, but... Maybe we should give them a little more time together?”
The mare smiled, and her husband nodded.
Author's Note
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