Teen Titans: Enmity in Equestria!

by CrossOverLord

Rating: everyone
Tags: Comedy, Big Macintosh, Adventure, Teen Titans, Crossover, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Human
Length: 67210

The Teen Titans receive an offer they can’t refuse: Save a beautiful world from an unknown threat and, in return, be reunited with an old friend.

The Teen Titans receive an offer they can’t refuse: Save a beautiful world from an unknown threat and, in return, be reunited with an old friend.
As they uncover the many layers of of the darkness they fight, it becomes clear that they won’t be enough, and this peaceful world needs to grow its own warriors.

Published 2020-11-22 00:20:00 UTC
Last updated 2020-11-22 00:20:00 UTC

Chapter 1 - A MISSION FROM GOD?

“Microsoft!”

“Sony!”

“Microsoft!”

“Sony!”

“Microsoft!”

“Sony!”

For the octillionth or so time, Robin pinched the bridge of his nose and wondered. He wondered if he should have stayed in his room to watch the newest episode of the latest TV series to catch his ever-discerning eyes. After all, he did finally get the option to soundproof his room at the flip of a switch. Sure, in his line of work, that could prove dangerous, disastrous even, but it would only be for about an hour and if his teammates really needed him, they could always either use the buzzer right next to his door or their Titan's communicators. Plus, he wouldn't have to hear Beast Boy and Cyborg go at it again over which console company was better in the kitchen… and not even once mention Nintendo, the undisputed king of the industry.

But, though Robin had finally scraped enough together to shell out for kitting his room out with all that high-tech sound insulation, he didn’t have enough green to get his room a massive plasma screen-computer hybrid with all the audio and visual specs the one in the living room did. He probably could have gotten Cyborg to set him up, but he didn’t feel like bothering him since Cyborg was almost always busy with some other project that took precedence. Besides, Robin joked, his cybernetically enhanced compatriot probably would have used that opportunity to bug him more than the NSA was doing for all the times Robin had done things in secret that came back to bite the team like an atom bomb with teeth. Particularly, preeminently, and predominantly, of course the whole Red-X Fiasco.

After the kind of dirty, rotten, clandestine junk Robin had pulled, he wouldn’t blame him.

Robin couldn’t blame him.

So, for the octillionth or so time, Robin’s resolve returned and he decided to continue to brave the noisy, annoying wilderness of the living room instead of retreating into his own personal batcave.

There were still about ten minutes left on the clock before the new episode aired, and the last one, which he was watching a rerun of now, was very hit and miss. So, he decided to whip out his old, vintage, walkman. His intent was to let some Japanese heavy metal he had gotten into ever since all that Trouble in Tokyo carry him through those final ten minutes to the promised land of awesome he had a reasonable hope tonight’s episode would be while simultaneously drowning out Beast Boy’s and Cyborg’s dumb console warrior rhetoric in a beautiful language he barely understood and tasty riffs faster than even Mas and Menos, Kid Flash, and regular Flash combined.

Though he had managed to put his headphones on, he didn’t even get to press play when he noticed Larry’s fat, chibi mug was now taking up the entire screen.

“Hiya, boy wonder!”

With an undignified shriek, Robin’s feet pushed him up and over the couch, and he landed on the ground behind the couch in a heap, head first.

“Ow,” he groaned out, rubbing his aching cranium.

Through the pain, he could make out mechanical footfalls and the steps of much lighter feet coming from the kitchen.

“Robin! What’s wrong!?” Cyborg shouted as he and Beast Boy rushed towards him.

“Please don’t tell me Darkseid’s Apokoliptian horde finally decided to stop working through Intergang and just invade earth outright! I don’t think my booty can take another stomping by Stompa!” Beast Boy shouted afterwards in a panic.

As they got to within a few feet, however, Robin finally pulled himself together enough to backflip himself back into a standing position… though Cyborg and Beast Boy did have to prop him up after he lost his footing due to dizziness from his fall he hadn't gotten totally rid of.

“What’s the deal?” Cyborg asked.

Robin shook his head clear.

“Please don’t tell me you saw Stompa leading a bunch of parademons on an all out assault on the city on the evening news!” Beast Boy pleaded.

“No. Worse,” Robin said, prying himself loose of his friends’ grip.

“Worse than booty stompin’ Stompa!?” Beast Boy said, shivering at the thought.

“Much worse.”

Beast Boy’s eyes widened in horror and he slunk to a fetal position on the ground before grabbing a hold of his bountiful butt and kissing it goodbye. “Oh, booty! I’m sorry I didn’t get to use you one last time!”

“Don’t look so glum, chum,” Beast Boy heard a very familiar disembodied voice say before a massive boil ripped through the part of his jumpsuit that covered his derriere and formed into a miniature version of the head of a very familiar looking fifth-dimensional imp. “Larry’s here!”

Suffice to say, Beast Boy leapt higher into the air than he ever did in his base form and shrieked a shriek far more girly than had before ever escaped his lips. When he landed on the couch, he shut his eyes to spare himself any more knowledge of the horror upon his rear and furiously spanked the affected part of his tookus like it was on fire. When he had worn himself out, his breathing heavy and shallow, Beast Boy took a peek at his posterior and wiped away the ocean of sweat that had formed on his brow.

Sure, his butt was aching almost half as much as whenever Stompa stomped it into the asphalt, but at least that nightmare fueling boil was--

“Weeeeeeeeee!”

Suddenly, the boil appeared from Beast Boy’s booty again, but this time, popped off of it before slowly falling to the ground and growing into Larry’s chubby little chibi Robin-esque body.

“Larry!?” Cyborg shouted, looking to Robin for confirmation at what both his mechanical eye and normal human eye were seeing.

“Unfortunately,” said Robin with a nod, not taking his eyes from his magical doppleganger.

“Dude!” Beast Boy shouted, holding his booty and scooching as far away from Larry on the couch as he could. “Why’d you have to go and pop out of my booty!?”

The little fifth-dimensional imp tapped his magic index finger against his regular index finger nervously. “Well, I wanted to pop out of your forehead, but just like last time, I guess I sort of got a little… uhm… lost,” Larry said before rubbing the back of his head and chuckling even more nervously.

“Dude! How does that even begin to--I mean my booty’s nowhere near my--” Beast Boy rambled incoherently for a few moments, his brain failing to cough up the words he needed for this situation before he finally just gave up and slapped himself in the head to alleviate the raging migraine he was getting before he said, in a defeated tone, “Uhhh… dude…” and slunk back into the couch.

“Why are you here?” Robin asked coldly, cutting to the chase like a well thrown birdarang through kevlar.

Flinching from the power of Robin’s rendition of his former mentor’s famous glare, Larry anxiously twiddled his thumbs and began whistling what all three titans recognized as the classic 60's song, ‘Do You Believe in Magic?’

When several more moments passed without an answer, Robin leaned on the couch and stuck his head as close as he could to Larry without having to balance on the tips of his toes. “Larry… why are you here? I thought we agreed after the last time that you’d never enter our dimension ever again.”

Larry stopped his whistling and found everywhere except Robin’s domino-masked face extremely fascinating. “Uhm… would you believe me if I said I had my fingers crossed and said ‘except in case of emergencies' under my breath when you made me swear that?”

Robin couldn’t hold back his grimace anymore… or his rage. He reached out and grabbed Larry by the collar of his costume with both of his hands. “So, you lied to me!?”

“No, no, no, no, no! I didn’t lie to you! Honest!” Larry spouted off rapid fire, holding his hands up and moving them in a gesture intended to placate the boy wonder. “I just... uhhh… added an extra super special awesome condition… that I… didn’t… tell you… about… Hehehe.”

In Larry’s mind, Robin’s eyes burst into flame at that and ebon smoke poured forth from his mouth when he said, “Keep talking.”

His head having completely retreated into the depths of his costume like a turtle’s head into its shell, Larry said, his voice muffled by his outfit, “I think that should wait until Starfire and Raven are here. It sort of involves them too.”

Robin turned his attention to Cyborg, who nodded and said, “Got it,” before pulling out his Titan’s communicator from a compartment in his leg.

Robin then heard a poofing sound from in front of him and his arms felt as though they weren’t carrying anything anymore. His eyes confirmed this was true when he looked back at his hands and found they were empty of Larry’s collar and the fifth-dimensional imp himself. He turned his entire body around when he heard the poofing sound again to find that Larry had rematerialized on Cyborg’s shoulder and watched as Larry snatched the communicator out of Cyborg’s mighty mechanical grip as though it were the easiest thing in the world.

“Hey! Give that back!” Cyborg shouted, trying in vain to catch Larry, who kept hovering just out of his grasp.

“Fret not, my half-artificial friend! Allow me to summon the rest of your stalwart team!”

Larry’s magic finger started glowing and he touched the center of the communicator with it.

Two poofing sounds reached the ears of Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Robin, and their three pairs of eyes beheld two porcelain bathtubs appear in the center of the living room several feet away from the back of the couch. In each, much to their mutual horror, they saw the silhouette of a girl rinsing out her hair beneath the showerhead before the water suddenly stopped dropping due to the tubes no longer being connected to any of their attendant pipes.

The silhouette with the longer hair said, “Most strange.”

The silhouette with the shorter hair said, “I swear, if this is another one of Beast Boy’s stupid pranks, I’ll start calling him Garfield aga--”

“Raven!?” the silhouette with the longer hair shouted, facing the other girl at whom she most certainly got much too good of a look at given how the tubs were positioned in relation to each other.

“Starfire!?” the silhouette with the shorter hair shouted, facing the other girl at whom she also most certainly got a much too anatomical look at due to the placement of the tubs.

The ensuing twin shrieks were loud enough to temporarily render Robin, Beast Boy, and Larry deaf and temporarily scramble Cyborg’s auditory systems.

“What in X’Hal’s great name are you doing in my bathroom without clothing!?” Starfire shouted, covering herself up as best she could without a towel.

Raven, also covering herself up as best she could sans a towel, said, “Your bathroom!? This is my--” She stopped mid-sentence, however, as she looked around her new surroundings. “Wait! We’re not in either of our bathrooms! We’re in the living room!”

“The living room!? But that means… that means…”

For three solid seconds, Starfire and Raven stood there in their respective tubs in complete, utter, deafening silence. Then, ever tentatively, they grabbed ahold of their individual shower curtains and hesitantly pulled them away enough that they could peek their heads over without exposing the rest of them. They found, much to their mounting terror, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Robin, and Larry, oddly enough, with their eyes closed and looking away with their hands clasped firmly on their ears.

Starfire and Raven’s subsequent second mutual shriek could have split the atoms of the strongest Promethium armor let alone the ears of the boys, which it also did to the point where Cyborg’s electronic eye started going all haywire along with his auditory systems.

“Larry! Dude! Do something!” Beast Boy yelled over the clamour.

“I’m trying! I’m trying!” Indeed, Larry was trying. His magic finger was raised up and glowing, but with the screaming reaching into the higher octaves, he found his focus slipping and didn’t want to risk making a mistake that could very well make an already bad situation all the worse.

“Well stop trying and do it! My CPU can’t handle much more!” Cyborg yelled.

“Larry! What Cy said! Now!” Robin yelled.

Spurred onwards by the words of his idol/three dimensional self, Larry found enough of a reservoir of will to, in fact, do something. With a poof, a giant, hollow, metallic, plaid (or tartan if you’re weird and from Europe), semi-spherical dome appeared in the air above Starfire and Raven and landed around them, blocking them from sight as well as sound,

Breathing heavily and wiping his face clean of the sweat it had built up, Beast Boy said, “Phew! Glad that’s over! For a second there, I thought my ears were gonna burn off and I was gonna need sign language lessons like Jericho.”

“Uhhh… BB? Jericho’s mute, not deaf,” Cyborg said, running a quick diagnostic of his systems.

“What!? No way! Then why does he know sign language, then!?”

“Mute people have to learn sign language too if they want to communicate effectively,” Cyborg replied, not bothering to look up from the readout built into his arm.

“Huh. No foolin’?”

“Nope.” Having made sure that everything was running optimally, Cyborg closed the readout.

Robin, who was still massaging his ears, said, “Okay… not what I had in mind, but I suppose now you can think clearly enough to fix things permanently, right?”

Larry, who had just finished massaging his own ears as well as screwing his head off so he could better shake out all of the decibels that had built up in his ear canals before screwing his head back on again, saluted his idol and said, “You betcha, Mr. Robin, sir!”

Robin raised a brow. “What!? Speak up! I can’t hear you!” he yelled.

Larry covered up his own mouth with a foot. “Whoops! Looks like I’m gonna have to fix that too.” His magic finger glowed twice: once to fix Robin’s ears and twice to conjure forth a megaphone that he pointed at his idol before yelling out, right into his ear, “Can you hear me now!?”

Massaging his ears yet again, Robin said, “Crystal… I think.”

“Goodie!” Larry then faced the dome. He grabbed a hold of his left glove and stretched it out until it covered his left arm completely and did the same with his right glove and arm. Then, as he put his game face on and twiddled his fingers, the gloves snapped back into their normal position. He rose his magic index finger and it glowed once more.

With a poof, the dome disappeared, revealing Raven and Starfire standing, sans their bathtubs, completely fine and fully clothed. Their hair was even dry and properly shampooed and conditioned with the fanciest and overpricediest french stuff.

However, something was visibly, and evidently, off.

“This does not seem correct,” Starfire said, pulling Raven’s cape, which she was wearing along with the rest of the witch’s clothes, up to her face and inspecting it.

“No. It doesn’t.” Raven said, grimacing as she realized she was in Starfire’s garb: go-go boots, short mini-skirt, midriff-exposing crop top, metal collar with a green gem set into the center, and metal wristbands very much included, to her rising annoyance. However, as her eyes and hands burned with dark magic and her feet left the ground as she hovered in the air, the thing that annoyed her about the outfit she now wore was something else. “Purple is most definitely NOT my color!”

With great celerity, Raven took off towards Larry, intent on making his face as black and blue as her usual get-up, the potential consequences of doing so having been rendered inconsequential in her mind.

In a panicked yelp, Larry hid under Robin’s cape and raised his magic finger again. In a flash, Raven got her normal clothes back and Starfire got hers back, right as Raven was about to hurl a dark magic comrpised claw at the poor fifth-dimensional imp.

“Raven! Stop!” Robin yelled, putting up his hands up as though he were keeping Raven’s wrath at bay. “Your and Starfire’s clothes are fine now!”

Raven dispelled the magic she had gathered and looked at herself to find out that, yes, she was in fact back in her own clothes. She glanced back at Starfire to find the Tamaranean was back in her own clothes as well and jumping for joy as was her nature. “Glorious!” Starfire proclaimed.

Raven turned back and said, “Fine.” Her feet touched back on solid ground. “Now, why is he here? I thought he agreed to never enter into our dimension again after the Johnny Rancid fiasco.”

“He--” Robin took a moment to sigh. “--had his fingers crossed, apparently.” He stepped to the side so that his cape was no longer covering Larry up and turned to him. “Alright, Larry. The gang’s all here. Get to talking. NOW.”

Larry nodded and floated back up into the air. “Alrighty then, heroines and heroes! Turn your attention now to the television screen! Up, up, and away!”

Larry then hurled himself at breakneck speed back into the television screen. The screen then suddenly switched from the recap of the last episode that was playing at the beginning of the newest episode of Robin’s new favorite series right as the narrator said, ‘Previously on The New Adventures of Batman and Robin.’ In the recap’s stead, an old timey movie countdown sequence, in black and white no less, started off from the number eight.

The assembled founding five of the Teen Titans quickly took their respective places on the couch just as the counter reached two and the screen faded to black for a few moments.

After those moments were done, a very familiar logo started playing, belonging to a film financing/distribution/production company usually involving a roaring lion trapped within a gold circle inlaid with the latin words, ‘ARS GRATIA ARTIS’ and the words ‘Trade’ to the left of the circle, ‘Mark’ to the right of the circle, and ‘Metro Goldwyn Mayer’ above the circle. Only, instead of a roaring lion trapped within the circle, a meowing Larry in a lion suit was trapped within the circle, the original latin words were replaced with, ‘ARS GRATIA LARRY,’ and the words ‘Metro Goldwyn Mayer’ were replaced with ‘Larryo Larrywyn Larryer.’

After that logo was done, the screen faded to black for another few moments before another very familiar logo for a film financing/distribution/production company started playing. This one however, usually involved a nondescript, ghostly-looking boy casting a fishing line into a lake from his perch atop a crescent moon that turned into the ‘D’ for the title, ‘Dreamworks: SKG™.” Of course, this time, the boy was a nondescript, ghostly version of Larry and the crescent moon turned out to be the first ‘L’ for the title, “Larryworks: LLL™.”

The third logo, of course, followed the same pattern. The difference this time, however, was that the logo was usually of a striking brown haired woman in a toga standing tall atop a series of steps and holding a torch high into the air that the camera zoomed out from as the words, ‘Columbia’ appeared up top and the words, ‘a Sony Company,’ appeared at the bottom. Of course, the beautiful woman was replaced by the far more hideous form of Larry in a toga and carrying up the torch that the camera zoomed out from as the words, ‘Larryumbia’ appeared at the top and the words, ‘a Larry Company’ appeared at the bottom.

While Beast Boy had been amused by this at first, it was starting to grate on even him, which was saying something considering he was, well, Beast Boy. “Uhhh! Dude! We get it already! Where’s the fast forward button and the remote when you need them!?” he said, as he furiously began checking in-between the couch cushions to see if he could find the remote to press said fast forward button.

“Ooops. Hehe. Sorry,” the toga clad Larry said before pulling out a remote from inside his toga. “Here. Allow, moi.”

With a press of the fast forward button on the remote, the remaining logo lampoons sped by so fast that even the more astute of The Titans could only get vague ideas as to which company they originally belonged to.

After a few more moments, the screen returned to its normal pace as the words, ‘AND NOW: OUR FEATURE PRESENTATION’ flashed into place.

“Finally!” Beast Boy sighed.

The screen then suddenly transitioned to Larry in a five-star general’s ceremonial outfit on a stage with a giant American flag plastered on the wall right behind him. “Friends! Romans! Adolescent adventurers with powers and abilities far above the normal run of mortal men! Lend me your ears!”

“We’re listening. Intently,” Robin said.

Larry nodded and continued. A massive map stand waddled (literally) into frame from stage left and stopped next to him. On the map stand was an almost as massive picture of Larry’s head, winking. “As a quick refresher just in case any of you forgot, I, Nosyarg Kcid--also known as Larry--hail from the fifth dimension (though I now reside in dimension 4 and 9/8ths).” He punctuated his point by hitting the picture of himself with a large, ornate riding crop he pulled out of his pocket, causing the picture to go, “Oww! Hey! What's the big idea, jerkface!?”

When he took his crop off of the picture, the picture grew grew two arms to massage its head and two legs and jumped off the stage, looking mighty angry at Larry right as another picture walked on from stage left and took its place upon the map stand. This one had several vignettes.

The first, at the top, depicted Larry standing tall upon a mountain top with his magic index finger raised high like a sword and with a horned viking helmet atop his head, while what looked like a fifth-dimensional imp version of Batgirl lay prone on her stomach and grabbed a hold of Larry’s legs with a frown on her face.

The second depicted a bulked up Larry in the stereotypical circus strongman outfit holding up a steel I-beam with the word ‘MULTIVERSE’ riveted into it and bending it like a pretzel.

The third depicted Larry, in outdoorsman attire and with binoculars, looking into a mystic portal that seemed to depict Robin’s first fight with one of Slade’s Slade-shaped robots.

The fourth depicted Larry emerging from a shrieking Robin’s (whose arm was in a cast) forehead during his first visit to the Titans’ universe.

The fifth, at the bottom, depicted Johnny Rancid laughing victoriously as he rode off into the night, Robin’s blown up R-cycle and his bruised, battered, and unconscious body, far behind him.

“With the aid of my handy, dandy, magic finger, I bent the rules of the multiverse so that I could peer into other universes, where I first discovered my idol-to-be, Robin, and decided to enter into his shard of reality to pep him up after Johnny Rancid laid him low and broke his arm,” Larry said, punctuating his point by slapping his crop once against each particular vignette in the picture--hurting each of them and getting them all to bemoan to his name--as his speech referred to the events they showcased.

This picture also grew arms and legs and massaged its head and jumped off the stage as the next picture ran in from stage left and took its place. This one depicted Johnny Rancid in the eviler-looking form he took after acquiring some of Larry’s reality warping power, riding through the sky on his much more evil-looking (and cooler-looking) motorcycle through Jump City while Larry looked on worriedly with his broken magic finger.

“Things didn’t exactly go as planned. Hehehe,” he said, not slapping the picture with his crop this time and chuckling nervously with a big, fake grin plastered from ear to ear.

“Yeah. Hehehe,” Raven deadpanned while crossing her arms over her chest.

Larry sweated profusely as the picture ran off the stage like it was being chased by some horrible monster (which Raven could certainly qualify as when she so whimsied) and the next one stepped onto the map stand. The mood of said latest picture was far more upbeat than the one before, as it showed Larry and Robin standing triumphantly atop Johnny Rancid’s awesome, transformed motorcycle, which was parked right on Mr. Rancid’s lame, unconscious body.

“But (with the aid of yours truly of course), Robin was able to save the day like he always does and teach that no-good Full Throttle reject what happens when you mess with the boy wonder’s town thanks to the ole’ one-two, buckle my shoe! Hiyah!” Larry said, before shadow boxing so poorly that his lame attempt at martial arts mimicry ended with him tripping flat on his face, much to Beast Boy's laughter.

Grumbling something about a ‘jolly green jerkface,’ Larry picked himself back up and dusted off a veritable mountain of dirt from his uniform as the next picture took the place of the previous one. The newest one was a picture of Larry and Robin shaking hands like pals.

With renewed vigor, Larry smacked his crop against this latest picture for emphasis, getting a far more subdued response out of it that went, in a brooklyn accent no less, “That all you got, leprechaun!? Come on! My Grandie hits harder than you!”

Promptly ignoring the insult, Larry then said, “And, at the end of it all, Robin and I agreed that I was never to come back to this universe ever again under any circumstances whatsoever because it was sorta, kinda, my fault that Johnny Rancid went all speed demon and almost gained control of Jump City and probably the world.”

Larry then pulled out a large magnifying glass from his other pocket and placed it over the back of the cape he wore in the picture. The gigantic lenses made it clear that Larry was holding one of his hands back over the cape… as well as crossing all his fingers there with one another in such a mashed up way that they barely resembled fingers at all and looked more like a bundled up ball of yarn.

“But, as I told Robin earlier, I sorta, kinda, had my fingers crossed and muttered a teeny, tiny little condition under my breath that I didn’t tell him about. A… catch, if you will,” Larry went on, the sweat and fake grin returning with a vengeance.

“If you do not mind my asking, what was this ‘catch' you speak of, exactly?” Starfire asked.

“Yeah, Larry. Enlighten us,” Robin said, eyes narrowing to pinpricks.

His sweat and false smile grew for a couple of seconds before he smacked his crop against the next picture, which didn't even flinch. Impressive. This one depicted Larry lying on a recliner and reading some comic book the Titans had never heard of entitled ‘Kingdom Come: Issue #1’ by some company they also never heard of though some of the figures on the cover were immediately familiar to them. Next to him, on a small stand, was a big, red, old-school, rotary-dial telephone with the Titans’ emblem drawn on it with crayon and covered by a large, glass case. Attached to said glass case, via loads of duct tape, was a note that read, ‘BREAK ONLY IN CASE OF EMERGENCIES!’

“It’s simple, really. I secretly promised not to enter your universe except in the case of a serious emergency or emergencies, plural. Yay!” Larry flew into the air in a circle for a moment before landing back down only to see the bemused faces of the Titans.

“Yeah. You sound REALLY serious,” Raven said.

“Giddier than Beast Boy when I fixed up his moped after that cow-stealing, alien tofu mess is more like it,” said Cyborg.

“Hey! Don’t judge me! You know how long I wanted that thing for!?” Beast Boy said.

“You still didn’t have to turn into a dog and slobber all over me as I was about to finish,” Cyborg replied.

Beast Boy opened his mouth to retort, but with a dismissive gesture of his hand, he decided not to open that potential can of worms any further in front of a booty-boil-emerging trickster like Larry and shut it at the last minute.

“Why does your tone sound most joyous?” Starfire asked the fifth-dimensional imp. “Should you not be speaking with the utmost of urgency?”

“Nope! Because I know my best buddy Robin and the rest of his team can handle it! Yay!”

“Handle what, exactly?” Robin asked.

The subsequent picture took the place of the antecedent one. This one, like one of the ones before, depicted multiple vignettes, though unlike that one, was fortunate in that Larry didn't smack it the mug with his riding crop, which made the picture sigh in relief and say, “Oh, thank goodness.”

The first vignette was of Larry sitting in his recliner with a remote in hand watching a television screen that depicted the Titans’ first fight with Cinderblock in Jump City Supermax Prison.

The second was also of him watching the TV, though this time, it showed the Titans all snoozing peacefully around the living room couch and Larry had a bored expression on his face.

The third was, likewise, also of Larry sitting in his recliner and watching TV. This time, however, he was actually pressing a button on his remote, which seemed to have changed the channel from the Teen Titans’ living room to what looked like the living room of Titans East all the way in Steel City, where Bumblebee, Speedy, Aqualad, and Mas and Menos were likewise all spread over their couch and sleeping like newborn babes. Larry looked more steamed in this picture than bored.

The fourth was of Larry watching what looked like the planet Earth with the same expression as in the third one, his remote held high and pressing a button.

The fifth was of Larry looking surprised as he looked upon an entirely new planet on the screen that couldn’t possibly have been planet Earth since all the continents and oceans were all wrong.

The sixth was of Larry hugging his television set something fierce with a trio of hearts emanating from either side of his head.

“As I think I’ve mentioned before, I stumbled upon you guys by accident, sort of like how you discover a really awesome show by channel surfing randomly one day when you’re really, really bored. However, while I think you guys are great, sometimes when you aren’t doing anything interesting, I ‘change the channel,’ if you will, to some other team on your planet. And when they aren’t doing anything interesting, I change the tube to some other version of planet Earth. And when those other versions of planet Earth don’t have anything interesting happening on them… well… I usually just decided to wait for you guys to do something cool again since I never watched any worlds that weren't versions of Earth before. But then, one day, I accidentally pressed the wrong button and stumbled upon--” Larry stopped for a moment to sprout a pair of cherub wings, hover in place, and clasp his hands together before bringing them up to his chin. A dreamy look came upon his face as hearts spilled forth from his ears and rose up into the air. “--that world. That beautiful, beautiful world.”

Several moments of awkward silence passed. The Titans looked at one another, some of them shrugging, before Robin turned back to Larry and asked, “Okay… what world?”

Larry tsked and rolled his eyes. “Uh, the world I’m going to send you all to save? Duh! That’s the emergency! Yay!”

“Ummm… come again, please?” Starfire asked.

“You wanna run that by us one more time?” Cyborg asked.

“It’s just like I said. That beautiful, beautiful world I found out about is about to go through bad times, and I just know you guys are perfect for turning that trouble to rubble, because when there’s trouble, I know who to call! The Teen Titans!” Larry threw his arms up into the air and jumped up into the air before suddenly freezing (literally) in place. From out of nowhere, a bunch of fireworks shot up above him and exploded. The pyrotechnic gases left over spelled out, ‘Teen Titans’ in bold, golden letters. “So, what do you say? Wanna add another world saved to the proverbial notches on your metaphorical belts… even if four out of five of you literally do wear belts?”

The wide eyed expressions of the Titans didn’t exactly lift Larry up with hope. In fact, it fettered him with doubt and he promptly became unfrozen (again, literally) and plopped down onto the stage, face first. Larry lifted his face up after several moments and asked, “So… the resounding silence means you’ll help… right?”

“Well…” Robin said while rubbing his chin. “While the offer IS tempting--”

“Tempting!? Robin, are you out of your little bird lovin’ gourd!?” Cyborg yelled, grabbing Robin by the collar and bringing him up to his face. “In case you forgot, we’ve sort of been having our hands full with a certain Apokolips-loving proxy group called INTERGANG that wants to take over the world for a guy almost as much bad news as Trigon!”

“To be fair to my father, I don’t think he’s as smart or ambitious enough to find and solve the anti-life equation and take over the universe like Darkseid is,” Raven said.

“Cyborg, calm down. You didn’t even let me finish. If you did, I would have said that we have too many issues to deal with here that take priority,” Robin responded.

“But that’s the beauty of it!” Larry said, his head emerging from one of the pockets on Robin’s utility belt, freaking Cyborg out enough that he dropped Robin out of surprised fright. “With my magic finger, I’ll bend time and make it so that you’ll only be gone from this world for a minute! The fifth-dimensional authorities won’t like it (and will probably punish me even more than they did the last time I was here), but if it’ll help to get you guys to save that beautiful, beautiful world I found and get back here to kick New God butt, I’ll do it! Just say the word!”

“Really?” Robin asked from his now upside down, sprawled out position on the couch.

“E’yup!” Larry said in an uncharacteristically deep and southern accent.

Robin started rubbing his chin. “Well… that does change the equation quite a bit--”

“Robin! Is all the blood going to your brain!?” Cyborg asked, waving his arms about furiously.

“Actually, not really. I have been an acrobat for most of my life, remember?”

“Do the words ‘fifth-dimensional authorities’ mean anything to you!? If we agree to this and they catch Larry, we’re culpable! And I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like being punished by a bunch of crazy dudes with even crazier magical powers like Larry… no offense, little man.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Larry said, jumping out of Robin’s utility belt and flying up to Cyborg’s face. “They won’t do anything to you guys. They’ll just think I pressured you into doing what I wanted at the end of a magic finger and probably give me a millennia in solitary in a black hole. They won’t touch you. In fact, they won’t even undo all the good you do on that beautiful, beautiful world because I sent you there, just like they didn’t take away yours or Jump City’s memories of me after the Johnny Rancid thing. They’re such non-interventionists, they won’t even intervene to fix the damage done by interventionists when they intervene. They’re weird like that.”

“Are you… certain of this?” Starfire asked.

Larry nodded. “Believe me, after the kind of trouble I got into last time, I studied the fifth-dimensional laws on the books for this sort of thing inside and out… and sometimes outside and in, but that was only on Tuesdays.”

“And you’re… really willing to risk a full thousand years just lying in a black hole, doing nothing, for this world we’re talking about?” Raven asked, raising a brow.

“That beautiful, beautiful world,” Larry said, nodding again.

“Right. That beautiful, beautiful world,” Raven said, eyes rolling.

“Yes. Without question.” Larry suddenly sported a black and white tux, a fedora on his head, a pair of shades in his hand. Putting the sunglasses on, he said, “Because I’m on a mission from God,” with a serious deadpan expression and voice more serious and deadpan than the titans had ever recalled him being before such that they wondered if he was in fact being serious and deadpan and wasn’t just making another one of his pop culture references.

As quickly as it had appeared, his expression and voice shifted to normal as he said, “And, in case there are still any doubts, I’m also willing to sweeten the pot even more by giving Beast Boy over there (and the rest of you, to a lesser extent) a--” Larry did a quick twirl, and turned back to where he was facing before and stopped, now clad in a cheap two dollar suit so many game show hosts wore with a mic in hand. Also just like a game show host, he boldly proclaimed, “FABULOUS PRIZE!”

Beast Boy, who was one of The Titans still on the fence about going through with Larry’s plan, felt his eyes light up and his ears perk up. “A fabulous prize!? For me!?”

“MOSTLY FOR YOU!” Larry said, still with his game show host voice.

“Dude! Sweet!” Beast Boy said, jumping to his feet from the couch and rubbing his hands together enthusiastically. “What’ll I win!?”

Larry pointed at another Larry in a punk rock outfit sitting at a drumset. “MAESTRO! DRUM ROLL, PLEASE!” he said.

The other Larry did as he was told, creating the stereotypical drum roll sound with his sticks.

Larry flew up to Beast Boy and wrapped one of his arms around him. “FOR YOU, MY DEAR BOY, YOUR PRIZE SHALL BE BETTER THAN ANY OF YOUR EARTHLY POSSESSIONS! EVEN YOUR MOPED!”

“Even my Tidwell? No way!” Beast Boy said, crossing his arms over his chest disbelievingly.

“WAY, DEAR BOY! VERY MUCH WAY! FOR I WILL (PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT)--” Larry paused for dramatic effect for a few moments before pointing Beast Boy to a purple curtain on the opposite side of the living room. “RETURN TERRA’S MEMORIES OF YOU!” The curtain parted to reveal a heart-shaped box/vanity mirror almost identical to the one Beast Boy had fashioned for Terra so long ago, except this one was Valentine’s Day pink and labeled, ‘Terra’s Memories.’

For one of the few moments in his life, Beast Boy remained dead silent. In contrast, the other four Titans’ gasps could have been heard all the way across the country in Gotham or Metropolis.

“What do you mean ‘Terra’s memories?’ She’s been petrified beneath the city for almost a year now,” Raven said, recovering far more quickly than the others.

“OH REALLY?” Larry said, flying up to her, his game show host voice still being maintained. “AND WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CHECKED UP ON HER? A MONTH? TWO?”

Raven opened her mouth and was about to retort, when she stopped halfway as her eyes widened in realization. Instead of merely saying the number of months it had been since she had last visited Terra’s trapped form, she said, “Three months. A couple of days before Beast Boy started seeing Terra everywhere and went--”

“Let’s go,” Beast Boy interrupted.

The other pairs of eyes of the Titans fell on Beast Boy, who said, “Look, I know I didn’t tell you guys, and I’m sorry about that, but that girl I saw a couple of months back and thought was Terra even though you guys all said I was crazy? She really was Terra,” Beast Boy hung his head low. “Even if she didn’t want to remember it.”

The others gasped again, except Raven, though her expression did grow even more shocked along with theirs.

“But you said--” Robin began.

“I know what I said!” Beast Boy yelled, bringing his head back up. “But I lied, okay. I lied to make you guys feel better. I lied to make me feel better. But now, we’ve got a chance, the best chance I’ve ever heard, to bring Terra back. So what are we still doing standing around here? Let’s go!”

The quiet that followed was so great, one could have heard the pitter patter of ants, even if the Tower was so well defended by this point in their superheroic escapades that not even insects so small could have entered without getting fried. Larry was practically cascading with sweat as his head alternated between Beast Boy staring down the other Titans with a fierce glare he rarely put on on one side and the other Titans still looking as though a quantum bomb had just gone off in their faces on the other. Much as when he had made his agreement with Robin never to return to this universe, Larry had his fingers crossed behind his back. Though, this time, he did so with both hands (and several extra pairs he conjured up just in case) and in the hope that The Titans would agree to his plan.

Then, Cyborg decided to be the first to break the stillness. “I’m in this thing with you, BB.” He walked over to Beast Boy and placed a reassuring metal hand on his shoulder. “I may not have been as close to her as you were, but dang it if the little lady wasn’t my friend, and a dang good one to boot.”

“I as well am ‘in this thing with you,’ Beast Boy,” said Starfire, before hovering over to Beast Boy and placing a reassuring hand of her own on his shoulder. “For Terra was also a most fine friend of mine ‘to boot'.”

Beast Boy’s expression softened at their support and he smiled faintly. Looking between them, he said, “Thanks guys. That means the world to me.”

He turned his attention from the two and to the duo who hadn’t yet come over to his side. For a moment or two, he alternated between Raven and Robin before his eyes settled on the boy wonder. “Come on, Robin. We got tof--”

“I’m in,” Raven interrupted, much to everyone’s surprise, Beast Boy’s especially.

In fact, so shocked was he, that he stuck his index fingers in both his ears, pulled out a bunch of built up wax, and cupped one of his ears before sticking it out as close to her as he could. “I’m sorry, but did I just hear you say you’re--”

“Yes. You did,” Raven interjected, walking towards Beast Boy, Starfire, and Cyborg. “Is that a problem?”

“What? No, no, no, no, no!” Beast Boy said, holding his hands up and waving them about defensively. “That’s great! Terrific! Neato! Cool beans! SupercalifragilisticexpialiAWESOME, even! It’s just, well, I thought you still wouldn’t like the deal, is all.”

“What’s not to like? We spend X amount of time saving another world for one minute of time on our world and get a good friend of ours back while Larry’s the one who takes the fall if the higher powers that be catch wind and things go south. Sounds like a bargain if you ask me.” Raven stopped in front of Beast Boy, put her arms over her chest, and looked into his eyes. “Just promise me that you’ll tell her to please not betray us again, and I promise I won’t tell her your real name--” she smiled cheekily. “--Garfield.”

Beast Boy was speechless. In fact, he didn’t know what to say at all. In fact, so tumultuous was his mind, that his face started displaying many different and conflicting emotions at rapid fire pace before it settled on a thousand yard stare with drool mindlessly dripping from his wide open maw.

Starfire brought her hands up to her mouth to contain her worry.

Cyborg, on the other hand, knocked on Beast Boy’s head with the bottom of his fist. “I think you broke him, Raven.”

After the tenth or so knock, Beast Boy’s brain seemed to have completed its reboot, as he quickly leaned forward (conveniently avoiding Cyborg’s falling fist) and wrapped Raven up in a big hug that couldn’t be matched even if he had transformed into a polar bear. Tears welling up and carrying her a couple feet off the ground, he said, “Thank you, Raven. Thank you so, so, so much. I appreciate this a lot. I really do. I know you took Terra turning super hard, so just… thank you for working through that for me. For her. ”

“No... problem... Beast... Boy…” she gasped out. Still struggling for precious breathing gas, Raven said, “Now… could you… please… let go? Haven’t… found a… spell… that makes it... so that I... don’t have to... breathe... yet.”

Gently, Beast Boy put her back down and let go. Ever bashful, he rubbed the back of his head. “Hehe. Sorry.”

After Raven nodded her acceptance of his apology, Beast Boy turned his attention back to Robin. “So… Robin... how’s about hoppin’ aboard this love fest express? You know you want to.”

Robin chuckled and walked over in leader mode. “You’re right. Our mission is now twofold: save this world Larry keeps going on about--”

“That beautiful, beautiful world,” Larry interjected.

“--and save Terra.” Robin stopped in front of Beast Boy and bumped him in the shoulder. “I’m in… Romeo.”

Beast Boy grinned widely at that, as though the wider he smiled the more likely everyone would focus on it rather than his furiously blushing cheeks. It backfired spectacularly, of course, and only served to draw even more attention to them.

Luckily, though, a certain fifth-dimensional imp soon became so ecstatic that his game show host clothes literally jumped off of him to (fortunately) reveal his normal outfit underneath.

“Yay! Yippie! Wahoo!” Larry shouted before he flew around the room doing victory laps like his chibi self was on fire before stopping and raising his now glowing (again) magic finger. “Good luck and Godspeed, Titans!” he said, saluting them as his five star general outfit magically reappeared back on him.

“Larry, wait!” Robin yelled out, looking worried along with the rest of the team. “Aren't you going to give us a bit to prep?”

“Why? You’ll have everything you’ll need to get things done! More even! See ya!” Larry said, waving them goodbye with his magic-finger-possessing hand.

“Larry, what do you mean by--”

Before Robin could finish, the glow on Larry's finger flashed so bright that he and other Titans had to look away, covering their eyes and groaning out in sudden discomfort.

For a few seconds, their world became white…

Chapter 2 - PROBLEMS IN PARADISE?

Hustling and bustling.

The island city of Manehattan was always busy with the stomping hooves and spinning wheels of ponies and their carriages, whether day or night, rain or shine, peace or the latest apocalypse to nearly befall their fragile, equine nation of Equestria. Being the economic and cultural hub of the Equestrian East Coast with enough of both bits and appeal to have given Canterlot a shiner or two since its founding had that effect on the local populace.

But, as her eyes adjusted to the midday iteration of her former mentor’s sun as she and her friends exited the cavernous and exceedingly dimly lit theatre, Twilight Sparkle could not help but take notice of something she found extremely odd, even for The Big Orange.

To her left and to her right, the traffic on the road was as congested with carriages as her nose was with snot after that ‘noodle incident’ last Hearth’s Warming, and even more clamorous than the various musical numbers of the play they just saw.

“Huh. Well ain’t that the oddest thing,” Applejack said to Twilight’s right, voicing the thought Twilight suspected was on all her friends’ minds.

“I know, right!?” Pinkie sounded from the right of Applejack. “Manehattan’s always go, go, go, so how come now it’s all slow, slow, slow? We weren’t watching ‘Rats’ for that long… unless…” Pinkie Pie put a hoof to her jaw and looked like she did whenever she was in deep thought (or whatever counted as ‘deep thought’ for her) before gasping loud enough to be heard in the Crystal Empire and grabbing Applejack by her shoulders and shaking her like a madmare. “Quick! AJ! What time does your watch have!?”

After Applejack’s eyes stopped spinning and realigned, she shook her head clear and looked nonplussed. “Uhhh… Pinkie Pie hun… I don’t carry no watch with me. Never have and probably never will. ‘Sides--” Applejack firmly pushed Pinkie away from her with both forehooves before pointing to a clock mounted high on the wall to the group’s right. “That clock there says 12:00 P.M. We’ve only been inside for about an hour and a half.”

Pinkie Pie’s eyes darted over to the clock, and when they spotted the minute hand ticking off to 12:01, she wiped away the sweat that had been pooling on her brow like a lake of salty water and threw it behind her, much to the dismay of Rarity, who would have freaked out and fainted if Twilight hadn’t conjured up a barrier to shield her beautiful mane from harm. “Whew! That’s a relief! For a second or two there, I thought we had fallen into a time warp to a thousand years in the future! Or the past! In fact--” Her thoughtful posture and countenance returned. “Just how old IS Manehattan anyways?”

Twilight and her other friends save Fluttershy and Pinkie groaned in annoyance and face-hoofed.

Twilight was compelled to ask Pinkie why in the world she would think they had fallen into a timewarp of all things, but then she had remembered all that recent business with Starlight and figured Pinkie Pie’s already overactive imagination was going into overdrive after she had relayed what had happened to her friends.

As Twilight made a mental note never to go into as much detail as she had done when filling Pinkie in on stuff ever again, she saw Rainbow Dash take to hovering a few feet in the air and slowly make her way to the street.

“Rainbow, wherever are you going?” Rarity asked after the cyan pegasus.

“Relax, Rares, I’m just gonna ask somepony what the big deal is,” the rainbow-maned athlete called back with a dismissive wave of her hoof.

*****

Rainbow Dash continued on to a carriage painted with the solid yellow and black and white checkerboard pattern of a taxi-cab. She asked one of the pair of massive earth stallions yoked to the carriage, big enough to probably go hoof to hoof with Big Mac, “Hey, buddy! Why the hold up?”

“Haven’t ya heard? They’re having the inaugural game at the new hoofball stadium at 1:00 PM today. What was it called again?”

“Star Field, Butch,” the other stallion attached to the cab said.

“Yeah, that’s right, Biff. Star Field. Yup. Half the ponies in town are headin’ there now. I’ve been going up and down these streets for years, and I ain’t never seen traffic this bad, even during rush hours.”

“A hoofball game!? New stadium!?” Rainbow Dash asked, eyes widening before narrowing in suspicion. “You’re not pulling my leg, are ya?”

“The only thing I pull is taxi-cabs, miss. Well, that and the odd shipment of hay, oats, or both, but that’s a side gig, dig?”

Rainbow Dash looked confused. “Uhhh… dig what?”

The other stallion, Biff, coughed into his hoof and said something that Rainbow wouldn’t have caught if she hadn’t spent years trying to decipher Pinkie’s celeritous speech. Something that sounded like, ‘Dumb Tourist.’

Chuckling nervously, probably because he caught what his buddy had said, Butch panickingly spouted, “The Manehattan Oranges and The Las Pegasus Lakers are playin’!”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes, which had narrowed upon Biff, widened again at that. “What!? The Oranges and Lakers are gonna throw down!?”

“Yup. And, if all the sports reporters’ gabbin’ got any weight behind it, it’s gonna be an even bigger hoof-biter than the last Super Bowl!”

At that, Rainbow Dash let out a very Pinkie Pie-esque gasp that the party pony in question would have smiled at.

Butch nodded. “Yep. So, now you understand why the roads are all at sixes and--”

*****

With quicker acceleration than Butch had ever seen of anypony, the rainbow-maned pegasus he was talking to jetted away to a group of mares standing outside the entrance to Mareway Theatre. From the looks of how excited her movements were, he probably would have been able to pick up the conversation, if the racket of who knew how many blocks of unmoving carriages hadn’t drowned it out.

While Butch was disappointed he couldn’t hear whatever it was they were saying, it was probably for the best. After all, he was far more disappointed in his buddy, and he’d hate for the mares to listen in on his own conversation he was about to have with him.

“Biff, did you get hit in the head while I wasn’t looking!? What were you thinkin’!? You could have blown our cover!”

“Blown it? Me? You’re the dummy who gave her my real name!”

“Oh yeah? Well that’s only cause you gave her my real name first, dummy!”

“That’s not how I remembered it. And better to be a dummy than a chowderhead who forgets that we’re supposed to be playin’ typical Manehattanites like we’s used to be and that we ain’t supposed to be all nice, courteous, and wimpy like, especially not to the ponies we’re shadowing!”

Butch’s hoof met his forehead and slowly traversed the length of his muzzle. “Biff buddy, you read RD’s files. That mare looked like she was fixin’ to clobber ya. Now tell me, what good would all that attention that would come down on us if you two went at it with words or, even worse, hooves, bring to our cover?”

Biff opened his big mouth, but before he could get a word in, he closed it back up and tilted his head to the side, looking as though he were trying to think (a monumental task for him, of which Butch was sure).

Finally, after several moments Butch found to be annoying, Biff’s head tilted right back up and the look on his face hardened to normal. “You still acted like a wimp.”

Butch’s hoof met his face again.

*****

“Guys, guys, guys! You’ll never believe what I just found out!” Rainbow Dash proclaimed at the top of her lungs after dashing back to her friends with her trademarked swiftness™.

“Oh, oh, oh!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing as she raised a forehoof high into the air. “Is it that Sapphire Shores AND the true Princess of Pop, The Artist formerly known as Countess Coloratura but now just known as Rara, both met at the Manehattan train station earlier today and decided to throw an impromptu charity concert for sick puppies, kitties, and baby alligators while they’re waiting for their late train to arrive and that’s why Manehattan’s all stop, stop, stop instead of all clop, clop, clop!?”

“Better!” Rainbow Dash said, mentally patting herself on the back of the head for catching that. Well… most of that. “They’re throwing the first hoofball game at this new stadium called Star Field at 1:00 today and it’s between the Oranges and Lakers!”

At this, Applejack’s ears perked up. “A hoofball game!? New stadium!? The Oranges and Lakers!?”

“I know, right!? That’s almost the exact same reaction I had! And, get this: apparently, if all the sports reporters’ gabbin’ has any weight behind it, today’s game is set to be an even bigger hoof biter than the last Super Bowl!”

At this, Applejack let out a very Pinkie-Pie-esque gasp that the party pony would have smiled at, and did, because she was right there. She turned to Twilight and asked, “Twi, can we go!? Pretty please, huh!?” with a Pinkie-Pie-esque bounce that the party pony smiled even wider at.

Twilight raised a skeptical brow. “Uhhh... why? How’s a hoofball game going to help us figure out why the map sent all of us here so we can get back home quicker? And why are you of all pony’s acting so… animated? You’ve never been this interested in sports!”

Rainbow Dash fixed Twilight with a skeptical brow of her own. “Oh, yeah? Well how was hoofing it all the way down to Mareway from our hotel room on the other side of town to catch some posey play going to help us figure out what’s wrong with this town? Well… more wrong than usual.” She glanced back at Biff, who apparently was in a heated discussion with Butch. She hoped the latter was grilling the former for being such a colossal clod.

Applejack crashed to the floor mid bounce and grabbed hold of Twilight’s leg. “It was so bad Twi. SOOO bad. I’m desperate! I’ll take anything with even a smidge of action and awesome in it to take my mind off that cheesy play! Anything!”

“Rainbow Dash! Applejack! How dare you two!? That play was one of the most beautiful, heartwarming testaments to pony thespian propensity my eyes have ever dared to witness! Certainly not--” She made the air quotes gesture with her hooves. “--posey. OR cheesy.”

Rainbow and AJ rolled their eyes with a synchronicity the casual onlooker would most certainly think was practiced (and which Pinkie Pie suspected truly was).

“Why, you’re right as daylight, Rarity, hun.” Applejack said.

“It was corny,” Rainbow Dash said with an assured grin.

“And campier than half the bad guys we’ve had to wrassle with.” Ignoring Rarity’s shocked gasp, Applejack focussed her full attention back to Twilight. “So can we go, huh, Twilight!? Pretty please, pretty please, pretty please!? I’ll be your friend!”

Twilight looked at Applejack in bemusement. “But you’re already my--”

She was interrupted by AJ and RD both choosing to let out sighs of exasperation in perfect stereo (Pinkie Pie now being over 60% percent sure that they had practiced being so in sync for ocassions such as this).

“Oh Sweet Celestia and for the love of Faust!” Rainbow Dash proclaimed. “What do we have to do to make you see the golden opportunity that just dropped into our laps!?”

“While I ain’t one to blaspheme like Rainbow, she’s got a mighty fine point. I mean, think about it, Twi! Yeah, this turn of events is like Heaven with a capital ‘H’ for a couple of rough and tumble types like me and Rainbow, but what if, maybe, this here hoofball game is why the map brought us here yesterday?”

“What? That’s crazy,” Twilight said with a disbelieving look.

“Is it really?” Rainbow asked. “I mean, the map called me and Pinkie all the way across the ocean to Griffonstone just to get the ball rolling a little on getting griffonkind to give a care about each other, and I thought we were gonna fix that problem entirely in twenty-two minutes flat when we finally got there!”

Pinkie Pie shivered. “I still have nightmares about Arimaspi’s skeleton.”

“And the map sent me and Rarity here to The Big Orange to help Coco Pommel throw a play to help revive some long lost sense of community.” Applejack shrugged her shoulders. “So, why couldn’t the reason all of us are here have something to do with the game?”

“Yeah!” Rainbow agreed before flying all up into Twilight’s grille. “Plus, don’t you think it’s a little weird how we walked all over this island yesterday and didn’t find any clue as to why we’re here, but today, traffic’s gone crazy for miles because of some hoofball game none of us heard about until just now, yet it's such a big deal that the local rags can’t stop talking about how awesome it’s gonna be?”

“Oh… ummm… well… I knew about it,” Fluttershy said. When all the other pairs of eyes in the group fell on her, she hid behind her mane out of habit and said, “Uhhh… yesterday, while me and Rainbow were flying around looking for why the map told us to come here, I accidentally flew face first into this big banner that talked about it, this thrown away piece of newspaper with an article talking about it flew into my face, and I overheard a couple of ponies chewing bubblegum and talking about it outside of a saltlick I passed by… before they accidentally spit the gum into--”

“--your face?” Pinkie Pie interjected.

“No. My, uhm… hair.”

Rarity’s eyes widened in realization. “So THAT’S why you spent so long in the bathroom after we all gave up for the night!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back it up!” Rainbow Dash said before hovering her face close enough to Fluttershy’s that she could see the beads of nervous sweat form on the timid mare’s forehead. “You knew all about this and you didn’t tell us? Why in the big wide world didn’t you tell us!? I’d mortgage my house just to get tickets for the PEANUT GALLERY to a game like this, and I don’t even know what a mortgage is! I just know it’s one of the most frightening things a pony can go through! Even more frightening than being a blank flank for your entire life!”

With nowhere else to back up to, since Rainbow Dash had made her step back into the wall opposite the clock AJ had shown Pinkie, Fluttershy anxiously said, “Well, uhhh… I tried to tell you all, but you were arguing so loudly about whether to go see ‘Rats’ today or visit Lady Friendship and, well, none of you… asked?”

Groaning over Fluttershy’s nervous chuckle, Rainbow Dash’s hoof met her face. After making sure that the sting was lingering alright, Rainbow Dash hovered back around and faced Twilight. “Anyways, can we go, Twilight!? Please, please, please, please, pretty please with gridiron on top!?”

“What about clothing iron? Or pig iron? Oh, oh, oh! What about--!?”

Before Pinkie could finish, a celeritous hoof from Rainbow Dash plugged up her mouth and muffled her speech beyond anypony’s ability to recognize (except for probably Pinkie herself). Looking back at Twilight, Rainbow asked, “So, how about it, Twi? Wanna make it up to me and AJ for dragging us here to see that corny play?”

As Rarity grumbled under her breath something that vaguely sounded like ‘cantankerous tomboy twits,’ and Pinkie Pie continued her (now thankfully unintelligible) rambling, Twilight sighed. “Well... much as I don’t like admitting it… I can’t really argue with your pretty solid logic about it likely being where the map says we have to go. It really does make a lot of sense.”

“But Twilight, dear!” Rarity said. “We can’t go to watch all those ruffians rambunctiously roughhousing! If we do, we’ll miss ‘Home on the Bayou’ at 12:30!”

“Sorry, Rarity. But this is the best lead we've gotten so far, and I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get back to Ponyville to make sure Spike hasn’t tried eating his room… again.”

Rarity’s lower lip rose to a pout and covered up her upper lip and her eyes began to water. “But… Twilight!” she whined.

Fortunately, before Rarity could cause a scene even over how especially uproarious Manehattan was being thanks to all the traffic, Applejack quickly trotted over to her and patted her on the shoulder. “Awww… cheer up, Rares. The hoofball game won’t be so bad. Dare I say, it’ll probably even be a little--” a sly smirk creeped onto the apple farmer’s face. “--glamorous.”

“Glamorous? Glamorous!? How can something so uncivil, so unrefined, so uncouth as hoofball possibly be glamorous!?”

“Rarity, dude, you’re acting like you’ve never been to a big sporting event before,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Rainbow Dash! You take that back! I am a Lady, and am most certainly not a du--” Rarity stopped midsentence and narrowed her eyes in suspicion upon Rainbow. “Wait… what are you getting at?”

“Hello! Press boxes much!? Front row seats!?” Rainbow said, throwing her forelegs up in the air in frustration.

“Rainbow’s right, Rares. Anypony who’s anypony in Manehattan is either gonna be plumped down in a press box or a front row seat to a game as big as this happening in their neck of the woods. Politicians. Big business ponies. Fashion designers. Fashion models. Performance artists. Bigwigs of all sorts’ll be there! The kind of ponies I know you’d like to jibber jabber your mouth off with till the rooster crows!”

Rainbow Dash’s hooves touched back down on the ground on the opposite side of Rarity from Applejack. She leaned in and whispered into the fashionista’s ear, “Maybe you’ll even find an eligible bachelor to sweep you off your hooves. Wink, wink.”

Rainbow Dash was barely able to pull her head back to a more natural position when Rarity jumped into the air and landed into a tall, proud posture. “Girls, whatever are we standing around here for!? To Star Field!”

With that, she reared up, whinnied in a primal way that the rest of the group knew she’d find most unladylike were she in her right state of mind, and took off at a gallop none of them knew beforehoof that she was capable of down the sidewalk before disappearing from sight upon turning left into a corner.

“Whoa, nelly! What’d you say that got her so gung-ho, RD?”

Rainbow Dash breathed onto a forehoof and nonchalantly rubbed it against her chest like a boss. “Eh. I just gave her a little motivational talk. Nothing too major.” She looked down from her hoof and looked back at where Rarity had last been seen. “So… how many bits you wanna bet she won’t realize she doesn’t know where she’s going and won’t be back for another minute? I’m putting down ten.”

“Then put me down for ten, too. ‘Cept, I’m betting she won’t be back for two minutes instead of one,” Applejack replied.

“I bet a hundred bits she’ll be back in a couple of seconds after I’m done with this sentence!” Pinkie Pie said.

Rainbow and AJ smirked deviously at their party pony friend and rubbed their hooves together most maliciously. In unison (raising Pinkie’s certainty that they had practiced such timing into the 70% regime), they said, “You’re on, Pink--”

However, before they could finish, Rarity peeked her head back over the corner she had turned to and grinned sheepishly. “Uhm… I don’t suppose any of you can point me to the proper direction of Star Field, can you?”

Before Rainbow or Applejack could grok the gravity of what had just happened, they heard Pinkie mock, in a sing-song voice no less, “Someponies owe me money...”

Grumbling, Applejack took off her hat and pulled out a sack of bits from within, while Rainbow just pulled out her own little money bag from her mane. Doing their best to ignore Pinkie’s grating giggling, and Twilight’s too when she decided to join in, they reached into their poor mare’s prada and plucked out the required coinage.

*****

“Wowee! That sure is a bushel full of ponies!” Applejack shouted.

Her five friends, standing side by side with her at one of the ends of one of the entry/exit hallways at the top of a section of the stands, had to agree. They had been to many a ginormous gathering before, the largest being a tossup between The Friendship Games and Twilight’s coronation as Princess. But this? There must have been a hundred thousand ponies crowding Star Field, easy! Half the population of Manehattan! This not only blew all those other occasions out of the water, it did so with Vinyl Scratch’s acoustic system, and as any Ponyville native would agree, THAT was a compliment.

Speaking of sound, the idle chatter of the crowd of tens of thousands of ponies added up to such a bothersome, booming roar that Applejack’s five friends could barely hear her even though she had said what she had in her loudest outdoor voice.

“Oh, I most certainly concur!” Rarity yelled back.

“Yeah! You know the fire marshall’s gotta be real busy right about now!” Rainbow Dash yelled.

“Not half as busy as we’re gonna be trying to find some seats to sink into!” AJ yelled.

Indeed. The joint was packed like a can of what griffons liked to call sardines, or to use a pony/herbivore friendly term, packed like a can of spinach. Nowhere they looked could they see anything other than a moving, colorful, kaleidoscopic array of ponyfolk chatting up a storm without the game having even started yet.

The level and combination of sheer sight and sound soon disoriented and frightened Fluttershy to the point where the cowardly mare hid behind Rarity and her sequined jersey. The canary pegasus closed her eyes, trying to think of anything more calming than being in such a chaotic, crazy place.

She quickly settled on thinking about the last hour. She thought of how, after Rarity had stormed off only to return and ask where the stadium was, they got the directions to it from some ponies on the street, only to have to hoof it back to their hotel once the fashionista realized she wasn’t dressed for the occasion. She thought of how, after they had reluctantly gone back, Rarity had spent the next fifteen minutes arguing with Applejack and Rainbow Dash about what to wear, before she eventually compromised with them on the bedazzled jersey she then hastily put together before doing her hair up in a ponytail to look properly recreational. And she thought of how they all had to gallop to make it to the ticket booth in time, only to find out they had all left their money back at the hotel and all the tickets had long been sold out... the stallion manning the booth letting them all in free of charge, though, once he saw that Twilight was a princess.

Yes. Fluttershy found the stadium to be so scary that all the aforementioned stress of the past hour was a soothing melody to her in comparison.

Things didn’t get any easier on her when she heard somepony shout, “Sweet Celestia! Is that a princess, mommy!?”

She reopened her eyes and looked up to find that a gaggle of ponies -- half stallions and colts with fancy hats, and the other half mares and fillies with upperclass bonnets (though they were all clad in jerseys) -- had somehow surrounded Twilight and were accosting her, enthusiastically asking her question after question over her protests.

“What’s it like being an alicorn!?”

“Do you have any servants!? Mine are kind of lame!”

“Can you sign my flank!?”

Fluttershy looked on in horror as the gaggle, apparently not happy by Twilight’s hurried responses, then proceeded to grab her and drag her off to parts unknown.

“Somepony! Anypony! HEEELLLPPP!” Twilight cried out.

“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash shouted, already hovering in place and preparing to take off after her before Applejack placed a hoof on her shoulder that brought her back down.

“Don’t sweat yourself, Dash! I got her! Here!” She took off her stetson, revealing the bundled lariat of rope she always kept on her person for emergency rodeo contests and just plain emergencies like this. “Just get back and hold onto my hat a sec! I’ll get Twi back in the next!”

With a determined grimace--and feeling way more exhilaration in the single moment it took her to do so than the hour and a half of watching Rats--Applejack bit down on the lasso and focussed on the quickly moving gaggle and her captive friend. Then, using her teeth and her head to twirl it high in the air around herself, she made her move and hurled the lasso right where she wanted it to go, right over Twilight’s horn. Then, with all her might, she heaved and reeled her back in like she was trying to stop a rampaging steer.

She succeeded, of course, but a little more than she was bargaining for. See, she'd figured with the way the gaggle of ponies was moving that they would cling on with great strength once she tugged. Far greater strength than they ultimately ended up holding onto her with. So, when she pulled her back, it ended up being with such unintended force that Twilight knocked into her, the both of them knocked into Rainbow Dash, the three of them into Fluttershy, the four of them into Pinkie Pie, and the five of them into Rarity.

To make things worse, the six of them then found themselves quite uncontrollably and quite painfully tumbling down the remainder of the very hard, very abrasive, very owie set of concrete stadium steps they were on to the bottom of the stands like a big, technicolor, pony snowball. They only came to a stop when they finally impacted against the small wall meant to keep ponies from easily falling into the actual playing field, hard enough that Applejack, who had somehow had the grave misfortune of being at the bottom of the snowball once it hit bottom, felt it crack against her back. Or maybe that was just her back cracking.

In any event, with her brain still rattling inside her skull, and her eyes seeing apples colored like gold and silver stars, the sounds from the stadium rightly didn’t seem nearly as bothersome to her ears as before and she figured her friends would agree.

So that was something at least.

Now, if her friends could have only kindly gotten off her and let her see daylight again, that would have been an even sweeter turn of events. Such was the state of their pain, however, that all they could do was give voice to it by muttering ow, owie, ouch, ouchie, and my leg! over and again, much like how all Applejack could do was repeat my everything! in response to her pain.

As the seconds ticked by and the agony departed enough, however, Rainbow Dash who had the (relative) fortune of ending up on top of the snowball by the time it stopped was the first to break this pattern by saying, “Applejack! Can you hear me!? Wherever you are down there!?”

After several more seconds of recovery, Applejack managed to gather herself long enough to say, “Clear and loud!”

“Isn’t… isn’t that supposed to be the other way around?”

“I say can’t rightly, Dash Rainbow! I say can’t rightly!”

She heard Rainbow Dash groan more in frustration than pain by her reckoning, and what sounded like Dash smacking her hooves against her face, which probably wasn’t healthy considering the enmority of the tumble they had taken. “Look, point is, I think you should have just let me grab Twi and scoot. Would have turned out way less--”

“Unbelievably, impossibly, nonsensically excruciating, darling?” Rarity chimed in from just beneath Dash, her pained voice muffled from her mouth being jammed against Pinkie’s hoof.

“Yeah… that. I mean, I know that play made you jumpy for excitement... but AJ… I don’t know about you, but even for me, this is way too exciting! And not in the good way like racing, or flying, or a race where you fly! More like in a way that's--”

“Unbelievably, impossibly, nonsensically excruciating, darling?” Rarity chimed in again.

“Yeah… that…”

Applejack grimaced and said, “Sorry! I’m sorry, girls! I jumped the crossbow! I pulled too hard! I shouldn’t had did that, but I did and I’m all sorts of broken up about it! More ways than one it feels like!”

“Ow!” Twilight suddenly screamed from beneath Rarity. “Rarity! Your sequins are digging into my head! Ow, ow, ow!”

“SOMEPONY MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE JUST MAKE IT STTTOOOPPP!” Pinkie Pie suddenly yelled from beneath Fluttershy who was beneath Twilight.

“Alright, alright already!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Just… let me… stretch out… my wings! Gahhh!”

After a few moments of painful flexing, Rainbow Dash managed to get her wings flapping again without too much trouble and slowly helped everyone else up and onto their hooves, even Fluttershy who had been knocked out, but who had suddenly found reason to crawl back to consciousness when Rainbow Dash told her a fib wherein an innocent pigeon had been caught up with them during the fall and needed her help to be nursed back to health.

After a few more moments of them each making sure they could all at least see straight again, Twilight said, “You know girls, I think we should all just head back to the hotel and sit this game out. Cutiemark Map or no, honestly, I don’t think we’re in any kind of shape to be out and about after what just happened.”

A chorus of accord rang out from most everypony, even Rainbow Dash. The only one that kept silent was Applejack. Even as banged up as she was, AJ wasn’t too keen on the sentiment like the others. They had just gotten there after an hour of stress AND an hour and a half watching Rats before that. So what if they had a little trip down some not soft stairs? They could still stand and walk--mostly--and all they’d have to do to wash out the bad taste of that awful, foul play from their memories was sit and watch the game for a couple more hours ‘fore the Oranges sent the Lakers packin’ back to Californeigh! They could do that, easy! Especially since all they’d be doing back at the hotel room was sit around anywho!

She was about to give voice to her opposition, when she then managed to catch wind of a conversation she found to be very interesting. Not because of the subject matter--or not just--but because of who they sounded like.

“--kidding me!? The Manehattan Oranges are going to mop the floor with the Lakers sure as the sun’s set, child!” a voice stunningly familiar to Applejack said in a frustrated tone.

“Nuh uh, Pops!” a familiar filly’s voice retorted, a distinct Manehattan accent evident in her voice. “The Los Pegasus Lakers have had a nearly perfect season this year! Combine that with their new coach and ain’t no way they can lose!”

“Is that… Uncle Orange and... Babs?” Applejack thought as she looked past her friends that were to her left to find not just the aforementioned stallion and his daughter seated down, but Auntie Orange with them too!

“Babs, dear, why are you even rooting for them!? They represent this very city, your very home, just like your father does!” Auntie Orange said. “To compound matters, your father and I literally have the word Orange in our names! Why are you so adamantly against the team that bears that name!?”

“Gee, ma, I dunno! Maybe cuz it’s just one big coinkydink my parents’ names just happen to have Orange in it, maybe!?” she rolled her eyes. “‘Sides, you’re dodging the question! How can your precious Manehattan Oranges stand up to the Los Pegasus Lakers’ almost perfect win-loss record!? I know you and Pops have to keep up appearances and propriety and all that bunkum by rootin’ for the Oranges in public, but how do you expect them to win against these kinds of stats!? I mean, seriously!”

As Uncle and Auntie Orange babbled on and on trying to pony up an answer, Twilight asked Applejack if she agreed with leaving and the rest of her friends looked at Applejack with pleading expectation, confirming beyond the shadow of a doubt that they hadn’t heard or seen what she had. Quickly coming up with her one most sure fire way to stay at the stadium, Applejack ignored her friends, stepped past them, and said to her family, “Well, well, well! Fancy meetin’ y’all here!”

“Applejack!?” the Oranges all said in stereo as they turned to face her.

“Hey, long time no see, cuz!” Babs said, waving.

“Indeed! It has been too long, my dear!” Uncle Orange said in a very uppercrust east coast accent.

“Much, much too long!” Auntie Orange said, in the same very uppercrust east coast accent, getting up and moving past her husband to embrace Applejack in that peculiar spine crushing hug all earthponies that dealt with fruit seemed to have that normally Applejack would have been able to tough out but that she could then only grimace through as it crushed her due to the circumstances. “Whatever brings you here today, dearest niece!?”

“Oh, you know,” she gasped out, “happened to ride into the neighborhood on Element o’Harmony business the night before yesterday, heard about the big game today, and decided to just... drop on by!” Applejack heard Pinkie Pie booing and saying something about that pun being bad and on the nose even by her standards. But truth be told, being honest as her element, Applejack didn’t intend for any word play and any that could be found was coincidental, so she rightfully ignored Pinkie and asked, “But enough gabbin’ ‘bout little old me! What about you? Y’all!? How’s it been and how come y’all are here?”

“Oh, well, you see--” Auntie Orange began.

“Orange blossom, look!” Uncle Orange interrupted with a start, pointing somewhere behind Applejack. “A princess! We have a princess in our midst!”

Auntie Orange looked where her husband was pointing and promptly gasped at the sight of Twilight, letting Applejack unceremoniously slip out of her hooves and hit the ground with an, “Ow!” before she and her husband jumped to the ground and genuflected before Twilight.

“Please see fit to pardon us, your majesty!” Auntie Orange said.

“Indeed!” said Uncle Orange. “If we had noticed your presence sooner, we would have bowed the moment you arrived!”

“And rolled out the red carpet!”

“Jeeves! Jives! Chives!” Uncle Orange called back to the three big, burley, tuxedo and sunglasses clad earth stallions sitting to the right of Babs. “Fetch the stadium manager and see to it that he brings down the red carpet so that it could be rolled out for her majesty’s honor!”

“On it, boss,” the three said with voices so deep and powerful Applejack had difficulty getting back up with how the local area seemed to shake. Then, quite literally, the three of them leapt out of their seats, onto the same set of stairs Applejack and her friends were on, only higher, and sprinted up to parts unknown.

As the ponyville mares all shook their shock of seeing ponies jump so high and land so gracefully out of their heads, Twilight looked to AJ’s family and said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but while I do appreciate the gesture, it’s… really not necessary. The whole redcarpet thing. And the bowing.”

“Oh, but it is proper protocol, princess!” Uncle Orange said. “It is quite literally Equestrian law that we must at these kinds of sporting events!”

“But, I wasn’t even planning on attending until--”

“In fact--” Auntie Orange cut her off before turning her head back at Babs, “Babs, get down on the ground and genuflect before Princess Twilight, now!”

“Ma! What’re you talkin’ ‘bout!? She just said we didn't need to--”

“Barbara Anne Seed, do not dare to take that tone with me in front of royalty! Now get down on the ground and bow right this instant!”

“But--” both Babs and Twilight said in unison.

“Do it or you are grounded for a month young lady!” Auntie Orange growled out so loud that the manes of everypony within a hundred foot radius was blown upwards and backwards, the sequins on Rarity’s jersey cracking and then crumbling off to the ground, making her shriek in abject horror, though, mercifully, not half as loud.

“Fine! Alright already, alright already!” Babs huffed, face flush with anger as she got out of her seat and bowed before Twilight, muttering incoherently under her breath.

Twilight shared a glance with Applejack that the farmpony reckoned was asking a question she reckoned she knew. Nodding, she mouthed the words, “Yeah. Very strict folk, generally speaking,” before turning back to her genuflecting family and saying, “Now hold on now, what’re y’all doing acting so formal like? Twilight here ain’t here in no official capacity or nuthin’ like that! Why, she just heard about the game not an hour and a half ago and just wanted to mosey on down out of the blue and enjoy it, same as anypony!”

“Well, actually, we were all just about to leave and--”

Applejack did her best Applebloom impression, her big, sad, watery, puppy dog eyes and pouting lips asking the question of “Pwease, Twiwight? Pwetty pwease can we stay?” for her without a single uttered syllable or consonant.

Twilight stared Applejack down without amusement and did not budge. Even after ten whole seconds, she remained resolute against Applejack’s attempt to convince her.

So, realizing she wasn’t gonna get nowhere by her lonesome, Applejack turned to Rainbow and said, “Rainbow! Hoof it here and help me use the puppy dog routine on Twilight now, girl!”

“Eh, I dunno, Applejack,” Rainbow Dash said, massaging her head. “Much as I really would like to stay and see the game, I’ve learnt over the years that it ain’t a good idea to skip out on rest ASAP after a fall like--”

“Do it and I’ll give you three free barrels next cider season.”

Rainbow’s eyes immediately lit up and in a dash of speed, she was at Applejack’s side, trying to guilt Twilight using the puppy dog look right on with her.

Twilight, however, remained not amused. In fact, her frown only seemed to deepen, and for several tense moments Applejack thought she had lost this game of influence.

That was, until Twilight raised a brow and asked, “You know, if you’re gonna pay someone to help you stay, shouldn’t you be offering me extra cider next cider season?”

Applejack was surprised. Both because it sounded like Twilight was willing to stay if she promised her some cider and because Applejack honestly hadn’t thought about that there angle of attack before. So, raising a brow of her own, while still maintaining her puppy dog face, Applejack asked, “Well… how much ya want?”

“Only one free barrel should suffice. I mean, I like the stuff, but I’m nowhere near as crazy about it as Rainbow here. Now, if you had persimmon-pear cider, that’d be a different story, but--”

“Deal!” Applejack said, shaking her hoof like a madmare, hard enough to lift her seven feet into the air and hard enough to pick up dust when she slammed her back down.

“Wahoo!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Free cider for me and Twi!”

“Hurray,” Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and even Fluttershy said with an utter lack of enthusiasm.

With a flash of her horn, Twilight managed to teleport just outside Applejack’s grip and after stopping her eyes from rolling to and fro in their sockets, held up a hoof and said, “I have one more condition that must be met, however.”

“What is it?” Applejack asked. “Name it, Twi, and I swear I’ll give it even if it’s a whole copse of apple trees you want moved to your palace!”

“And I’ll help! So long as I get paid in cider, that is!” Rainbow said.

Rarity clicked her tongue and said, “Applejack, for the last time, Rats wasn’t THAT atrocious! Point of fact, it wasn't atrocious, at all! You just have poor theatrical taste, is all! That is no reason to overreact with such… such… theatricality!”

“Coming from little miss drama queen who literally calls a chipped hoof, 'THE. WORST. POSSIBLE. THING!' that’s a laugh,” Applehack said with a glare before brightening back up as she turned back to Twilight. “So,what else you want, Twi?”

“Nothing more from you, but I would like your Aunt and Uncle to promise me something.”

At this, Auntie and Uncle Orange looked up from the ground with quizzical expressions before nodding in deferrence.

“Whatever you desire, your majesty,” Auntie Orange said.

“Name it and we shall accommodate posthaste, princess,” Uncle Orange said.

Twilight nodded and said, “Firstly, no red carpets. No fanfare. No anything of any kind to signify that I’m here and that I’m royalty, please. I’ve already been identified and... accosted by one group of ponies here at the stadium today, and I don’t want to deal with any more.”

“But--” began Auntie and Uncle Orange.

“No buts,” Twilight interrupted. “Since you two seem very up to date on protocol, then you no doubt know that a decree from a princess overrides any law on decorum, so, I am decreeing that you are not to give me any special, royal treatment. No red carpets. Fanfare. None of that.” Her look changed from one of great severity, and a warm smile spread across her face. “You’re the family of one of my best friends, after all, and I’d hate to have my rank get in the way of getting to know you all better.”

“Well… it is highly unorthodox…” Uncle Orange said, tapping his chin in thought.

“But then again, so is a princess just popping into an event like this out of left field…” Auntie Orange said.

“Then it is settled then, my dear,” Uncle Orange said to this wife before getting up and shaking hooves with Twilight. “Greetings and good day to you, your grace.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Now there you go being all formal like and everything again after all that, Unc.”

“Yeah, dude! Just call her Twilight, or even Twi! I mean, like she said, you’re AJ’s family! That definitely gives you first name basis points.” Rainbow Dash said.

“I have never been on a first name basis with a princess before,” Auntie Orange said, she and Babs getting up and she herself shaking her own hoof with Twilight’s.

“Well welcome to the club, Auntie!” Applejack beamed.

“Believe you me, Mrs. Orange, with a princess as accessibly plain Jane as Twilight here, it is not a very difficult club to be granted access to,” said Rarity.

“Thanks, Rarity,” Twilight sarcastically said, rolling her eyes. “Always good to know I can count on you downplaying my social skills.”

“Oh, any time, darling,” Rarity replied, completely serious and without even a hint of the sarcasm dripping from Twilight’s voice.

“Boss, where do you want it put down?”

Everypony’s head swiveled a little up the stairs at the trio of booming, earth shaking voices, seeing Jeeves, Jives, and Chives standing there, each carrying a part of a very large, very luxurious, and very heavy looking red carpet, the stallions all visibly sweating and straining against the bulk atop their backs.

Uncle Orange shook his head and waved them off. “No, no. Sorry my good fellows, but Princess Twi--errr--Twilight here said she does not desire the royal treatment. She has decreed it so.”

“Awww…”they all said, crestfallen and looking like disappointed colts rather than the kind of stallions that looked like they could hold their own against Big Mac in a hoof wrestling competition at the very least.

“But we never get to break out the red carpet!” said Jeeves.

“Or play the royal fanfare on our bugles!” said Jives.

“Plus, we just lugged this thing like half a mile! Through very uneven and treacherous terrian, I might add!” said Chives.

“Sorry, boys, but looks like you’re gonna have to put it back so soon after busting it out! But look on the bright side: while you’re at it, you can pick me up a samich and soda to go with it, chop-chop!” Babs said, snapping her hooves to emphasize the chop-chop bit.

“Now wait just a minute there, Babs,” said Applejack, narrowing her eyes at the filly. “Where have your manners done gone off and ran to, missy?”

“She is right, Babs,” said Auntie Orange. “You forgot to say please.”

Babs sighed. “Fine. Chop-chop, get me a samich and soda, PLEASE, chop-chop, while you're putting the red carpet back where you found it, chop-chop,” she said with a self-assured grin while continuing to emphasize the chop-chop bits by snapping her hooves. She looked at her mother and Applejack. “There, that betta?”

Auntie Orange and Applejack sighed.

“I suppose so,” said the former.

“Yeah, I guess,” said the latter.

As Jeeves, Jives, and Chives grumbled and turned back to put the red carpet back wherever they'd found it--and get Babs the sandwich and soda she was so adamant to get--Applejack introduced her Auntie and Uncle to her friends. Names were exchanged. Hooves were shaken. Applejack snickered at her Aunt and Uncle cringing backwards in fright at Pinkie Pie’s overbearing cheeriness and enthusiastic motormouthing. Soon they were all seated, Uncle Orange to the far left on the seat directly next to the steps as he had been, Auntie Orange to his right, Babs to her right, Applejack to her right (taking Jeeves’ old seat), Twilight to her right (taking Jives’ old seat), Rarity to her right (taking Chives’ old seat), Pinkie Pie to her right, Fluttershy to her right, and finally Rainbow Dash to her right. As Applejack and her friends sighed in appreciation at just how comfy the plush seating was and how much of a relief it was to sit on something so velvety soft after the fall they had taken, she looked up just in time to catch Jeeves, Jives, and Chives perform a triple backflip into the three seats immediately next to Rainbow and then toss over Babs' sandwich and soda, who scarfed her food and drink down in ten seconds like a little piglet, much to the chagrin of her mother, and then proceeded to argue with her father again over who was set to win the upcoming game, much to his chagrin.

As Applejack chuckled at the sight, she recalled a question she had been meaning to ask the moment her Uncle had called upon the trio of earth stallions to roll out the red carpet. “Hey, Unc?”

“Yes, dear niece?” he said, mid-quarrel.

“So… Jeeves? Jives? Chives? What’s their deal? Are they like some new super servants, or butlers, or what have you ya got?”

Babs snickered with barely controlled mirth at this.

Auntie Orange cried, “Applejack! The presumptive nerve of such a question! Spoken aloud, no less! I would have you know that these good fellows are most certainly NOT butlers or servants!”

“Well, not just,” Babs added with a cheeky grin that disappeared into a look of meek terror as Auntie Orange glared dangerously at her.

“What! It was just an honest question!” Applejack said, putting her hooves up defensively, genuinely confused as to what exactly she had said to warrant the ire of her Aunt. “I mean, y’all never had them workin’ for y’all when I was staying with y’all and I can’t remember the last time y’all went out as a family and had the help tag along, so I was just curious is all! Nothin’ to get upset about, really!”

Auntie Orange looked at her again and opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Uncle Orange put a hoof on her shoulder and beat her to the draw, saying, “Do forgive your Aunt’s slip in manners, Applejack. It is just that ever since they have been under our employ, ponies have asked that exact same question, or else expressed sentiments like it, with such frequency that it has become quite bothersome for her to handle and has caused great emotional distress to Jeeves, Jives, and Chives.”

“It’s true,” the trio boomed, as emotionally devoid and monotone as ever. “Everytime somepony asks that question, our feelings hurt, and we cry inside.”

Babs rolled her eyes and said, “Pee-shaw! You’d have to have feelings in the first place for them to hurt!”

For her little quip, Babs’ mom grabbed hold of one of her ears and tugged like it was the handle to a very heavy, very sturdy, very troublesome door.

“Ah! Ma! Stop! Please! Ah!” Babs yelled, crying a little and flailing her hooves about in abject agony.

“You should have thought about that before being rude to the nice stallions protecting us, dear!” her mother said with comparative calm.

“Protecting?” Applejack asked, feeling empathetic to Babs’ plight since Grannie Smith and others in authority over her had often had to discipline her much the same way when she was out of line, but ultimately deciding against doing anything about it since it wasn’t her place and Babs kind of had it coming considering her bratty behavior. “Now wait just a Manehattan minute now! Are y’all saying these guys, these ones right here, are your bodyguards or something?”

“Why yes. That is precisely what we are saying.” said Uncle Orange.

Applejack’s curiosity was through the roof and into outer space now. In all the years she had known her Aunt and Uncle and all the time she had spent under their care, she had never known them to ever have hired bodyguards. Quite the contrary. She remembered them explicitly saying they had no need or want of any despite their station. Something about how being the biggest name in the Orange harvesting and product making biz already separated them from their humble fruit pony roots enough and how throwing in personal security would just make their transition into aloof, unapproachable, uppercrust folk too scared to shake hooves and rub shoulders with the common ponies for fear of catching a cold or something complete and thusly making family reunions needlessly awkward. Well, more than they already were.

So, what changed?

“‘Xcuse me if this little fall I took recently is makin’ me recall wrong--”

“Applejack, my dear, you took a recent fall!?” Uncle Orange said.

“Strong enough to affect your recollection of things!?” Auntie Orange said, finally ceasing her pulling of her daughter’s ear.

“That ain’t healthy, cuz! Believe me. I would know with all the zany stunts I’ve pulled and tried toughing out. Ain’t no shame in seeing a doc or just getting some rest now!” Babs said, rubbing her ear. “I mean, with how many times my ma's smacked me upside my head just today, I’m probably gonna sleep like a log the moment I get home!”

“Do you hear that, Applejack, darling?” Rarity asked, leaning at the edge of her seat to get a good look at her. “There is no shame in just going back to the hotel room, calling it a day, and catching some shuteye.”

Applejack looked at Rarity and found her, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy looking back at her with sad, expectant, pleading eyes. For their part, Twilight and Rainbow didn’t join them, but she could tell from their expressions that they wanted to join them and only didn’t because of their promise to AJ.

Annoyed by all this, Applejack coughed and said, “I’ll have you all know that I feel just fine, thank you. Right as plain! Right! As! Plain!”

At this, everypony around her raised their brow and looked at each other uncertainly.

“Applejack, darling,” Rarity hesitated, “do you not mean right as rain?”

“Daffodils.” Having settled matters as to her mental wellbeing with that single utterance, in her mind anyways, Applejack turned away from her friends and back to her family. “So anywho, how come y’all bought yerselves bodyguards of all things? When I was bunkin’ with y’all, ya said didn’t want none, so why have some now?”

While Auntie and Uncle Orange were still visibly concerned for Applejack, Babs quickly shook her own off her face and beamed with pride as she replied, “Simple, cuz. It’s cuz he can’t get rid of them! It’s like, law or somethin' that the Mayor of Manehattan has to have bodyguards lookin’ out for him and his family 24/7!”

“The Mayor!?” Applejack and all her friends yelled in unison, even Fluttershy now leaning at the edge of her seat to look at Uncle Orange with the rest of them.

“Yepperooni!” Babs said before jumping roughly into her mother’s lap hard enough to cause her to yelp in sudden pain and nuzzling her father’s shoulder. “You gals are lookin’ at the Big Orange’s latest, biggest, Big Cheese! Newly minted circa just two odd weeks ago and already serving the city with all the integral integrity folks could ask for!”

“Please Babs, you flatter me far too much,” Uncle Orange said, nuzzling her back. “As you said, it has barely been half a month since I came into office! Still far too soon to make such bold assertions!”

“Soon enough to have already locked up three beak-brained ne’er-do-wells for attempted bribery of a public official!” Auntie Orange said, nuzzling her husband on the cheek.

At this, Applejack and her friends all gasped, or in Pinkie Pie’s case, said, “Le gasp!”

“What!? Attempted bribery!?” Applejack asked.

“Of a public official!?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Why, such a thing is unheard of! Simply... unheard of!” Rarity said.

“I’ll say!” Twilight said. “Especially since this is new news to me! I mean, it’s been centuries, maybe even in excess of a millennium since something like that has gone on in this country, and yet this is the first time I’ve heard about something so… so momentous happening in this city! Me! Somepony who reads practically every morning edition of every newspaper in Equestria cover to cover in two hours, tops!”

“Ah yes, well, I suppose it would have been difficult for you to be made aware since according with what Applejack said, you all only arrived here the night before yesterday and the incident in question happened just last night. Plus, Princess Celestia did convince every newspaper in Manehattan not to publish the story until the official investigation had concluded, so, there is that too.”

At this, Applejack and her friends all gasped again, or in Pinkie’s case, said, “Le gasp deux fois!”

“Princess Celestia!?” Twilight asked.

“Why yes. After the incident and ensuring the bribers were taken into custody, I contacted her via telegram immediately and appraised her of the situation. Not a minute later, she teleported directly into my office, asked me to recount events, and asked me to convince the media, who I had already spoken to prior to her, not to run the story until the ministry of security could verify everything. When I told her that was beyond my authority as mayor and my pull with the press, she then teleported into the offices of every major editor in chief in the city and told them what not to do, and they did not.”

“And from what we heard, the presses were running hot and ready to go and the princess managed to just stop them from printing like there was no tomorrow!” Babs added. “Almost made me feel bad for them being honest! I mean, yeah, I can count on one hoof the number of rags in this town that didn’t run nasty attack ads and bit pieces on my Pops here when he was runnin’, but it just gotsta sting not being able to run an emergency morning edition at the last minute with a headline like, “Three Beak-Brained Stooges Attempt To Bribe Mayor of Manehattan w/10,000 Bits, Pocket Lint, and A Half Chewed Gumball!” I mean, that’s the story of a lifetime if what you gals said about that kind of thing not happening in so long is true!”

Applejack's eyes widened. “Wait… do you mean to tell me that the public official they tried to bribe was your dad, Babs!?”

“That is precisely what she is saying,” Auntie Orange said.

Yet again, Applejack and her friends gasped aloud, or in Pinkie’s case, said, “Le gasp trois fois!”

“I know, I know,” Uncle Orange said, massaging his aching cranium. “The nerve! The shear, unmitigated GALL of those wretched fellows! And on the night right before the big inaugural game of this stadium of all nights! As though I were not stressed enough!”

“Aww… there, there, sweet Tangerine! Do relax, please!” Auntie Orange said, hugging and affectionately patting her husband on the head. “Do not let those beak-brained buffoons rob you of your peace as they tried to rob you of your integrity! We must not let them claim any modicum of victory in the slightest, should we dear?”

Uncle Orange sighed in his wife’s loving embrace and said, “No dear. We should not. It would neither be wise nor prudent, easy a train of thought as it is to slip into.”

As Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy went, “Awww!” at the loving display, Applejack felt a hoof tapping her shoulder and turned to see Twilight with a brow raised.

“Applejack,” she whispered, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That my Aunt and Uncle are cute together?” Applejack whispered back, raising an eyebrow of her own. “Well, yeah, but I don’t see what that’s gotta do with--”

“No, not that!” Twilight loudly whispered. “I mean, yeah, it’s true. They’re adorable, don’t get me wrong, but I was talking about why the cutiemap brought us to Manehattan in the first place.”

It took Applejack a little bit to put two and two together, but when she did, her eyes widened and she said, “Wait, you think what happened with my Unc might have something to do with whatever friendship problem we’re supposed to fix?”

“As of right now, it’s certainly looking like the most plausible option. I mean, think about it! Think back to what you said outside the theater! What are the odds that we arrive in Manehattan at around the same time the recently elected mayor, your Uncle of all ponies, fends off and reports an attempted bribery, the first such attempt on an equestrian official in hundreds of years!? An attempt that Princess Celestia herself comes down from Canterlot to deal with and do damage control on! What are the odds on the day after, we just happen to hear news about a big game for a brand new stadium, go there, and just happen to meet your Uncle and his family and learn all this from them? I mean, yeah, we haven’t had the cutiemap for long, but if there’s anything I’ve picked up from it over the months, it’s that coincidences don’t tend to be things wherever it wants us to go whenever it wants us to go there.” Twilight sighed and rubbed her head as though it were still smarting from their tumble earlier. “Even if sometimes you REALLY wish they were.”

Applejack tapped her chin with her hoof, considering Twilight’s words for a bit, trying to find any fault in them she could, but ultimately coming up empty. It was true. Undeniably true that at the time and place the cutiemark lead them to, events never were the product of chance, but in some way always, ALWAYS lead back to whatever the underlying issue was it wanted them to get to the bottom of. And, out of all such events, what had transpired with her Uncle and the circumstances that lead Applejack and her friends to discovering this were the biggest she ever did see. One big, giant, neon sign. A colossal clue you’d have to be plumb dumb not to see, and that Applejack chided herself for not seeing until Twilight had brought it up.

Sighing and massaging her head, Applejack said, “Ya know somethin’, Twi, just for once when we’re on these little adventures, I wish I could just kick my hooves up and not have to worry ‘bout nuthin’.”

Twilight sighed. “You and me both, AJ. You and me both.”

“And I wish you didn’t turn out to be right on the bit so much.”

“I repeat my previous statement.”

Applejack looked back at her family, wondering exactly what line of inquiry she should pursue next to confirm Twilight's and her own growing suspicion. After a little bit spent coming up empty on anything more concrete, she decided on settling on something she'd been curious about since she had first heard it. A phrase that her aunt and cousin had repeated thrice between them.

“Uhhh… hey, Babs? Auntie? Uhhhmmm… what exactly is a, or do y'all mean by, beak-brain?”

“Yeah. I've kind of been wondering about that myself, come to think of it,” added Twilight.

Curiously, Uncle Orange went wide-eyed immediately after Twilight finished talking. As Applejack wondered why exactly that was, he then abruptly turned to his wife and daughter and hurriedly said, “Oh, will you look at the clock! I do believe it's time for me to make the inaugural speech and that means you two have to come with and stand behind me as I do just like at rehearsal last afternoon! Mayoral hoofball traditions and all that!”

“Really?” Auntie Orange asked, confused. “Should not there have been an announcement concerning such news?”

“There was! Just now!” Uncle Orange said, a little too quickly and looking a little too shooken by his wife's answer. “You... uhhh... must not have heard it over all the commotion about us!”

“You sure, Pops?” Babs asked. “I mean, we were all there yesterday. Think my ears are still ringin' from that super primo, super loud speaker system this joint's got.” She massaged her ears with a pained expression.

“Yes! Sure as Sponish Sweet!” Uncle Orange responded, more than a little heated in exasperation before he grabbed her and held her in the pit of the foreleg he had grabbed her with like one might with a stuffed teddy bear. He then pulled on one of his wife's forelegs with his free foreleg and said, “Now on your hooves with you! Let us away!”

“But dear!” Auntie Orange said, resisting his surprisingly substantial efforts to get her up and off her seat.

“But Pops!” Babs said, trying to get out from his legpit.

“But Unc!” Applejack said, finally deciding it was high time to break her silence. “Hold yer hamlin's just a sec, now! Auntie wasn't done answerin' yet!”

“Plus, I'm fairly certain you just must have misheard, because I didn't hear any annoucement either, and believe me, if I can hear you all over all this background noise, I can certainly hear a brand new, state of the art PA system,” said Twilight.

“The princess is right, boss. We didn't hear nuthin' neither,” Jeeves, Jives, and Chives boomed so loudly that the rest of Applejack's friends were knocked out of the conversations they were having with each other, jumped back in their seats in surprised fright for a moment, and finally noticed what was going on.

“See, Pops! Told ya!” Babs said with a smug smirk, taking a break from trying to break free before continuing her escape attempt as she said, “And here ya were sweatin' o.j.! Betchya feelin' all kinds of silly now!”

“No, sweet child, I most certainly do not, for you, your mother, the good princess, and our good protectors are most certainly mistaken! For I did most certainly hear the colossal crackle of the intercom system turning on and announcing that our presence is required on the field, posthaste!” With one final, mighty tug, Uncle Orange finally pried his wife out of her seat and plopped her onto his back before turning around promptly, leaping onto the steps, and taking off like one of the quarterbacks on either of the two teams playing soon woud once the whistle started blaring. An analogy made all the more apt since Babs' coat color sorta did make her look like a somewhat oversized, furry hoofball along with the way her dad was keeping her under his legpit as he ran. “Jeeves, Jives, Chives! We are going!” he called back.

“But boss, we checked our watches and it's still five minutes too earl--”

“Do it or there shall be no mini-golfing this weekend!”

“Okay.”

Without any further hint of protest, Jeeves, Jives, and Chives leapt out of their seats, landed behind their employer, and apparent mini-golf provider, and took off after him.

“Girls, whatever just happened?” asked Rarity as Applejack's family and their bodyguards made it halfway up.

“Beats me,” said Pinkie Pie as she and Fluttershy shrugged.

“Not so sure myself,” said Twilight, raising a brow before her horn glowed magenta. “But I intend to find out.”

Realizing that Twilight was probably fixin' to teleport, likely in front of her Uncle and his protectors to cut them off, or else use a levitation spell to reel him in, Applejack quickly put a hoof on her horn and quickly shouted, “Twi, wait! Let me get to the bottom of this!”

Twilight fixed her with a quizzical look. “You sure? I mean, he wasn't exactly straightforward before.”

“Positive. Unc's my unc. Plus, I'm fairly certain that he was actin' like he did cuz you, a princess, was here. You saw how he got when you noticed you the first time.”

“Hmmm… that does make a lot of sense… princesses do tend to have that effect on municipal politicians… Took forever to get Mayor Mare to just calm down and take a deep breath whenever I stopped by city hall after the coronation,” Twilight said, tapping her hoof and looking thoughtful. “Alright then. If you really think you can get him to talk, go ahead.”

“Thank ya kindly.”

With that, Applejack jumped to the steps and took off after her kin at full gallop.

*****

Rainbow Dash watched Applejack give chase to the mayor, his wife, his daughter, and his guards and looked between them and Twilight a couple of times before asking her alicorn friend, “So, are we gonna get an explanation or--?”

*****

Applejack had to hoof it to her uncle. He may have been an older gentlestallion in his mid-thirties, but he certainly was an apple at heart even if his special talent did wind up involving pretty much the exact opposite fruit. Certainly was one of Grannie Smith's boys if he could cross the thousands of feet it took to make it to the player's tunnel for the home team quick as he did carrying a full grown mare on his back and holding a filly with one of his legs, forcing him to carry out his run on a single foreleg. Truly, she hadn't been exaggerating all too hard when she had thought to herself how he had taken off like a quarterback back at the stands. He had played college ball, after all.

By comparison, she had only ever played elementary school ball. And by the way she was huffing and puffing, it showed. Even with years of apple farmwork and years of cardio training after never quite living down Dash outshining her at the Running of the Leaves. The only thing all that was able to do was pick up a modicum of slack and let her just barely keep pace.

When her uncle finally stopped at the end of the player's tunnel, Applejack was happier than Grannie after finding her dentures whenever she lost them. Thing was, though, she was in one of those runs where it'd take more energy to stop than to just keep on chugging along. Energy she didn't have.

“Gang way!”

She'd expected every pony to hop to the side and just let her run out of steam somewhere out on the field. What she couldn't anticipate, however, was being tackled to the ground by a wall of muscle named Jeeves, Jives, and Chives.

“Ow,” was all she could utter, muffled both by the rapid return of the unbelievably, impossibly, nonsensically excruciating pain--as Rarity had put it--and from the fact that she was under a tuxedo'ed mountain of equine muscle some two-odd tons in weight that could have obscured her simple statement even if projected via megaphone.

“Hey! Now whatchyou boys go and do that for!?” Babs shouted loudly enough that she could hear, meaning it must have been way louder than it seemed from Applejack's present location.

“Indeed!” shouted Auntie Orange at similar volume. “She is family, not some filthy, break-brained assailant! Remove yourselves from her person at once!”

“Hehehe. Sorry,” they said as they got off of Applejack gingerly as they could and stood back up. “Force of habit.” They nervously rubbed the back of their heads.

All sorts of woozy like, seeing apple-shaped stars for the second time that day, Applejack said, “It sweat don't. Instinct were on actin' y'all job your doin' and. Things me I've fall heavier 'sides applebuckin' on.”

Auntie Orange sighed in frustration, looked down at her husband, and said, “See what your brash actions have wrought, Tangerine? Because of you, your own niece is beside herself with cranial calamity to the point where she is spewing word salad again after having already suffered such a thing not fifteen minutes prior!”

“And from the look of those cracks where she's layin', this time's gotta be worse than the last!” Babs added, pointing a hoof somewhere beneath Applejack.

Applejack looked there to find that Babs was right. Jeeves, Jives, and Chives had dog-piled onto her so hard that not only did she find herself in a depression formed into the concrete with spider-web like cracks criss-crossing and radiating out from the center, but one so deep she could see the still pristine, unrusted steel re-barb beneath. She could say only one thing after realizing that. “Right wow Babs you were!”

“Oh, this is simply dreadful! A disaster! Just plain awful! An absolute, unmitigated catastrophe! THE! WORST! POSSIBLE! THING!” Uncle Orange bemoaned. “This is not what I wanted! Not at all!”

“And what, pray tell, did you want, dear?” Auntie Orange asked, legs crossing over her chest.

“To get us as far away from Applejack, Twilight, and their friends as equinely possible before you and/or our daughter said something foalish we would all come to regret, espeicially me, sooner rather than later!”

“What? Pops, that can't be right. I mean, I say things all the time we all, especially you, come to regret later! Don't you remember the campaign trail?”

“Shhh! Not another word from you, Barbara Anne!”

“But--”

“You shall be grounded if you persist! I mean it!”

Babs gasped, but otherwise stilled her tongue, the shock on her face telling Applejack all she needed to know just how weird and atypical such a threatening tone and ultimatum from him was.

“Wait now...” began Auntie Orange.

“Manderina...” Uncle Orange warned with a low growl.

“Is this--all… this--because of the questio--”

“Manderina!” Uncle Orange said again, but in an overt, spittle filled growl this time.

“It is! It is because of that, isn't it!?” Auntie Orange said, almost sounding triumphant in her epiphany.

Though her brain still hadn't quite settled yet, Applejack was still more than cognizant of the conversation taking place before her to have hit her limit and be more than fed up. “It I've had, alright! Mystery enough with the! Going somepony 'round just me would what tell just these please parts is!?”

Uncle Orange sighed and slammed a hoof against his head. “Babs, would you please be a dear and help your cousin back to her senses?”

“On it, Pops!” Babs said, saluting rather seriously for a little filly. “Just as soon as you let me go.”

“Oh, quite right. Sorry.”

“And on that note, I take it then that you no longer have any objections to me getting off this ride, as it were?” asked Auntie Orange.

Uncle Orange sighed again. “No, I suppose not, dear.”

“Splendid.”

As Auntie Orange jumped off his back and dusted herself off, Uncle Orange let his daughter go and she quickly scurried over to Applejack and pulled forth from her tail a vial of what the farmpony likened to multicolored colored dirt in appearance with a salt shaker top at the end of it.

“Here,” Babs said, twisting the top so that the particulate motes inside were no more sealed from the outside world. “Get a whiff of this.”

Applejack did as she was instructed, sniffing the dirt like it was freshly plucked flora from any of the flower sisters' gardens. Immediate was her regret. As a barn were how wide her eyes got. And great was her voice as she threw her head back and shouted, “Wooooooooo Nelly that smells!”

As her family plus their protestors all massaged their ears at Applejack's volume, Auntie Orange said, “Well, at least her words are clear to the ears again.”

“And how!” agreed Uncle Orange.

“And loud! Definitely don't forget loud!” said Babs.

Her face contorting and twitching every which way and that, Applejack, clutching her nose, said, considerably more softly if still very much not using her polite vocal levels, “'Course I'm loud! Y'all'd be too if you sniffed—whatever it was Babs here just had me go and sniff!” Applejack shivered in disgust. “Whatchya even got in that there vial anywho, Babs!? Dried mud from Foggybottom Bog!?”

“Nope.”

“Hayseed Swamp!?”

“Nope. Matter of fact, it's not dried mud at all. It's smelling salt. Awesome, right? Got you thinkin' good again real good!”

“Smelling salt?” Applejack raised a brow. “Now why would you of all ponies be carrying around smelling salt of all things?”

“Don't ask, Applejack,” Auntie Orange said, sighing irritably. “It's a very long, very annoying tale.”

“Ughhh. I'll say,” Applejack said, now groaning in her disgust at the smelling salts. “Must be some yarn of irksomeness to get ya to break your fancy, schmancy rule against contractions.”

“Can attest,” beamed Babs.

“As can I,” said Uncle Orange.

“Interestin',” Applejack said, standing back up, shaking off the concrete fragments and dust best she could as she went. “But if you don't mind, feel like attestin' to what's gottin' in you instead? Figure that's bushels more pertinent since it's sorta, kinda why we're all down here in the first place.”

“Oh, well, uhhh...” began Uncle Orange, again growing very sweaty, pulling on his shirt collar like it was much too tight, getting shifty eyed, and generally looking like he was fixin' to bolt someplace else again. “You see...”

If the smelling salt hadn't hefted her consciousness back to normal already, A.J.'s auntie's enraged huff most certainly would've.

“Tangerine, not this again!” she let out another such huff before rubbing her temples and saying, “The word beak-brain is an insult directed directly at griffonkind, Applejack! It is a racial slur!”

Applejack done just about fell back onto the ground, such was how that buggy sized hailstone of truth had floored her, physically and mentally wobbling like a sapling in a twister. “Ra-ra-racial slur!?” she managed to stutter out after several seconds of fightin' to maintain her stability.

“Manderina!” Uncle Orange shouted in disbelieving hysteria.

“There. It is done,” Auntie Orange said, sticking her nose up at her husband. “At least now some of us can get to the crux of the matter and stop playing dodge ball because of their odd take on it.”

“My take is odd!?” Uncle Orange shouted, pointing at himself hard with a hoof prior to pointing that same hoof hard in his wife's and Babs' directions. “You and our daughter's take is the one completely out of line with equestrian political orthodoxy! If anything, the view you two share is odd!”

“Nuh uh, Pops! Because we think just like ordinary, everyday ponies on the street in this town!” Babs replied.

“You know, the very same ponies you promised to fight for? The ones you promised to prioritize over any other, special interest, held only by a select few? The ones that elected you, dear? If anything, operating under this far more accurate bell-weather, YOU stand in the minority, and WE with the majority.” Auntie Orange then pulled Babs over to her and lovingly patted her on the head. “Is that not right, Babs dear?”

“You betchya, Moms!” Babs' smile at the praise and affection of her mother could have lit up even Sombra's darkness, no Crystal Heart required.

Her grin didn't last long, however, before she, her mother, and her father all descended into a verbal spat as cantankerous as it was indecipherable to Applejack's ears, a disheartening cacophony so without relent, without mercy, and without harmony that Applejack felt as though a direct attack had been attempted against her very soul. This was no exaggeration, no fancy purple illustration on her imagination's part, poetic as it indeed was after a certain fashion. It truly did feel like that fundamental immaterial and irreducible part of her being from which her apportioned, particularly acute virtue geysered forth from, was being trampled underhoof by some great, invasive host. As though her self and her element of harmony were screaming in a pain deeper than all that she had experienced up till that point that day, gripping them in steel talons and squeezing for all they were worth. And they were worth no pittance indeed.

She tried to battle it, naturally, and gave it as much effort as she had ever struggled against anything prior in her life. But most unlike the bulk of before, powering through the anguish here availed not, and though significantly slower than last time, she never the less dropped again to the ground, curling into a very Fluttershy-esque ball, fore-hooves wrapped around her as though she were cold and trying to warm herself.

Praise be, it was a brief thing, harrowing as it was, and only a quarter of a minute later, Applejack felt the spiritual agony subside. Upon the ring of tinnitus that had settled in her ears likewise going away afterwards, in an even shorter time frame, she even managed to catch the tail-end of something Babs must have been saying while she had been back on the floor.

“--break out the smelling salts again.”

Applejack's eyes widened promptly and in no time she was standing up again, shoutin', “Nope! No need! I'm fine! Really! Don't! Please!”

Auntie Orange chuckled grimly. “Yes. The merest mention of those odorous crystals being used on a pony again tends to have that effect. Nearly as effective as the stuff itself, I can attest.”

“As can I,” Uncle Orange said with a sigh. “But as intriguing a tale as that would be, would you mind being the one attesting, Applejack dear? Particularly concerning what all that screaming and falling down business just now was about?”

“I… I was screamin'?”

“Oh yes. Absolutely raucously. As though you had stomped on ten tacks, even!” Uncle Orange stepped closer and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Are you certain you are not still all at sixes and sevens from all of the hits you have accrued today?”

Applejack opened her mouth, intending to dispute him, wanting to dispute him, but being unable. After all, if things were all good and well with her, then why did she drop to the ground and apparently scream so loud… yet fail to recall doing so? After a few moments, she shook her head. “If I am, I ain't so sure it's cuz any bumps I've been takin' to the noggin. Least not this time.”

“If that is so, then whatever could be the cause?”

“Hazardin' a guess?” Applejack gently pushed his hoof aside and alternated between looking at him, Babs, and Auntie. “Y'all three.”

“Say what now?” asked Babs.

“I beg your pardon?” asked Auntie Orange.

“Y'all heard me loud and clear.” Her look softened and became sadder. “I mean, y'all're kin! Ya shouldn't be fightin' like… like that… over who gets the last slice of zap-apple pie at the dinner table let alone something so… so… I don't even know!” She threw her hooves up in exasperation. “But I do know that ya shouldn't let it get to ya so strong-like. Of all the ponies in the family, I thought y'all two--” she pointed at her aunt and uncle, “would get that.”

Uncle and Auntie Orange gasped and looked hurt, each clutching their chest with a hoof, much to the questioning brows of their daughter and their guards.

“Applejack...” began Auntie Orange softly.

“Of course we understand,” Uncle Orange said with an empathetic look before fixin' his wife with a nonplussed look. “Or at least some of us do.”

“Not helpin', Unc,” Applejack said, narrowing her eyes upon him.

“I'll say,” Babs said, sitting on her haunches and crossing her fore-legs over her chest.

Uncle Orange sighed and slapped himself thrice in the face. “I know, I know. Forgive me, Applejack. But you must understand: causing grief to befall you or anypony else is precisely what I did not wish, and thus, what I was looking to avoid by running away. The issue of griffon sojourners in the country is one with… very strong views on either side of it and is prone to very strong arguments erupting over it. I wanted to spare you and your friends such headache… at least in a venue intended to be festive and far more full of good cheer.”

Auntie Orange harrumphed, sitting on her haunches and crossing her fore-legs over her chest. Rolling her eyes, she said, “More like wanted to spare a princess who was Celestia's own personal student from relaying to her majesty just how unpopular her policy is being received on the streets these days and any ensuing, potentially negative repercussions to your administration.”

“What of it, hmmm?” he said, snapping his neck towards his wife fast enough that if Applejack didn't know no better, she'd wonder if he was actually a pegasus. “Why can I not have the two motivate me at once, Manderina?”

“I am not saying both cannot be the reason for your running off, dear, but after all we went through getting you elected, do not stand there and fib in saying the former factor is anywhere near the motivator that your political career is.”

“Gah!” Uncle Orange threw his hat on the ground, reared up on his hind hooves, and pulled at his hair with his fore-hooves. “SEE what I have been forced to endure!? I've had better luck hiding from your grandmother in the orchard when knocking homers into the house's windows playing baseball with your father! Do you KNOW how thoroughly she knows her way around Sweet Apple Acres!? Especially when you're in trouble!?”

At this, Applejack and Babs both groaned and huffed out, “Yeah.”

“The thing is, though,” Uncle Orange continued, “I was in the wrong then! I'm pony enough to admit it now, and was even so at the time! But these two! It wasn't enough to hear their erroneous opinions day in and out for the past two years, but from the day I announced my candidacy, they still couldn't refrain from haranguing me! From poking and prodding at me! And for what!? Being right when they're so clearly wrong!? At least I caused my mother very real, very unneccesary, tangible property damage to warrant her wrath!”

“Oh, here we go...” Babs sighed, rolling her eyes.

Again, Applejack's family descended into an argument that, for whatever reason, was so great that she felt soul searing stress. This time, however, she did not let it get to the point it had earlier, and was quick to break it up by yelling out, “QUIET!” so intensely that even their big, burly bodyguards leapt back in a fright. Two of them, Jeeves and Jives by her reckoning, even jumped into the fore-legs of Chives who, while strong, struggled to hold the two with the force they had unintentionally struck him with and inevitably teetered to the ground with his comrades lying atop him in an undignified heap.

“Ow,” the bodyguards uttered.

“Ow is right. Cuz if y'all three's charges don't shape up, that's exactly what they'll be hootin' and hollerin' when I'm pinching them by the ear!” Applejack yelled, shaking a hoof in righteous indignation.

The bodyguards, despite the many years of experience between the lot, all backed up to one of the walls and held onto each other, screaming like ponies much too little and girly for their bulk. Her family fared little better, though terrified as they clearly were, they did at least hold their ground and remain silent.

Applejack, did not hold her tongue however. Would not. Not for longer than she deemed crucial for her words to sink in. “Now then: please. Use your indoor voices, would ya kindly?”

It wasn't a question, but a command. One that her family, angry as they had just been, seemed quite eager to acquiesce to. Smart.

“Applejack… are those… tears in your eyes?” Auntie Orange asked.

Applejack lifted a questioning brow, but when she did, she felt that distinct wetness in her eyes, which then widened in surprise. “I... I guess they are,” she said in astonishment, having not remembered crying anymore than the screaming when she fell to the ground after the first soul wrenching argument.

Without any word uttered, Uncle Orange closed the distance rapidly and wrapped Applejack in a big ole hug and began crying himself.

“I am so sorry, Applejack. So, so sorry for forcing you to relive those awful, dreadful memories again. Please, you must believe me! It was not my intent! It was not my intent!”

Auntie Orange gasped, covered her muzzle with both fore-hooves, and quickly joined her husband in hugging Applejack. “Nor my own! Please forgive my impertinence!”

Applejack sniffled and, despite all that happened, hugged her Aunt and Uncle back.

Understandably confused, Babs scratched her head with the side of her hoof and asked, “Uhhh…. did I miss somethin' here?”

She looked to the bodyguards, scratching their own heads and shrugging.

Sighing, Applejack said, “Long story, Babs. Long story. Let's just say it has to do with why I stayed with y'all for a spell all them years ago and leave it at that.”

Babs' head tilted over to one side, raised a brow, and puffed up her lower lip in thought. While she was obviously still unsure of what Applejack meant, soon, she trotted over and joined her parents in their hugging.

It was nice. Soothing. Nostalgic, even, for the farm mare. For a few moments, Applejack had even forgotten where and when she was and why she was there and pictured herself as she had been when she was a filly and her surrounding, extended family as if they were her immediate family as it was. In the before time. Before the dark times, so long ago, so far removed from the present yet still ever present in their reverberations.

It was funny. Family was funny. One moment, everything's roses and you're having yourself a blast reconnecting after a spell. The next, they get into a heated argument over a subject and somehow manage to hurt you. The one after that, everypony makes up and tries to make things peachy keen again. Why couldn't it all be peachy keen? Why did they have to fight? Why couldn't they be this much in harmony, instead of out of it, all the time?

Why did the announcer have to cut the moment much too short?

“Attention sports-fans! There are only five minutes left till showtime! Repeat! Five minutes left till showtime! Repeat! Five minutes left till showtime! Please be seated now and prepare for a word from our mayor followed swiftly by the national anthem! That is all! Thank you and good day!”

Uncle Orange sighed and mumbled a groan that went, “Duty calls. And for once, I wish I did not have to answer.”

“On that, we are in accord, dearest Tangerine,” Auntie Orange said, sighing and mumbling and groaning herself.

“Ditto,” said Babs before looking up at Applejack and saying, “Look AJ, I just wanna say that, yeah, my Moms and me's arguing with Pops about griffonfolk can get pretty hectic. Crazy. Off the wall bonkers! But ya know what? No matter how chaotic it gets, at the end of the day, we hug, say we're sorry for letting things spiral outta control, and promise to do better next time. And we do! It used to be, like, seven times a day, but now, it's more like once every couple of days! And we hardly even yell! Just stare each other down SUPER passive aggressively like you when you learned I was bullying applebloom and her friends!”

Applejack chuckled at the same time she snorted at that. “So, I take it I just caught y'all on a bad day?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Babs shrugged, before looking at her dad with nonpluss. “Pops' overreacting just cuz Twilight's here didn't help either.”

“Babs!” Applejack and Auntie Orange chided.

“No, no, no,” Uncle Orange said, waving away their concern with a hoof and pinching the bridge of his nose with the other. “She is… correct. For once, anyways.”

Babs was obviously unamused by the barb he had thrown there at the end, but the unamusement her mother and Applejack showed her kept her quiet and with a sigh, she relented and appeared acquiescent. Smart.

“Applejack, I am sorry that this familial reunion of sorts has taken the twists and turns it has. It is my solemn promise to make amends to you and your friends for the duration of your stay.”

“And to stallion up and discuss the griffon question, dear?” Auntie Orange asked, gently resting a hoof on his shoulder.

A silent nod was Uncle Orange's response, followed swiftly by, “Yes, dear. After all, I suppose it is rather... pertinent to the attempted bribery crises. But on the very stringent condition that you and our daughter BEHAVE yourselves.” He let go of Applejack and pointed very strongly at his wife and then at his daughter. “NO racial slurs. You may make your disdain known and even felt, but NO. RACIAL. SLURS. Do you comprehend the words flying from my muzzle?”

“I do believe so, yes,” Auntie Orange said with a slim smile

When Babs looked hesitant, a quick bonk to the head by her mother caused her quickly to reconsider dragging her hooves. Beaming much too wide to be wholly sincere, she then said, “Sounds like braytish to me!”

After Applejack and everypony, Babs and the guards VERY much included, were done laughing out loud at that, the farm mare looked to her uncle and said, “Thank ya kindly, unc. I'll hold ya to it.” She then looked at her Aunt and cousin with noticeably less warmth and added, “ALL y'all, to it.”

“Thank you for your acceptance, dear niece,” Uncle Orange said, nodding. “But I will admit, though I intend to make good regardless, might you humor an old stallion and just… refrain from telling your friends about the griffon question or why I ran off or other, related things till after the game, please? Returning to our seats will be awkward enough as it is after my flight, and I would at least like one major part of today to transpire sans tumult. Especially since, by all accounts, the game is going to practically be a slice of the superbowl at home.”

Applejack clicked her tongue and sucked her teeth at that. “Unc, I can't make no guarantees now. Best I can do is do my best, but my friends can be mighty inquisitive. Can't promise they can't get me to slip—element of honesty and all, ya know?—or find out by getting one of y'all to slip.”

“That is fine. Your best is all I can ask for, Applejack. And if it does come up despite everything—” Uncle Orange walked over to his top hat, patted the dust off, put it back on his head, and then shrugged. “C'est la vie, as I have been told the Prench are fond of saying.”

Applejack snickered and shook her head in amusement. Her father's brother though he be, whenever he brought up the fancy, schmancy foreign speak she barely got the gist of like that, it reminded her of just how smart he really was by Apple standards. Prissy, preppy, and a bit too complainy by her family's precedent, true. But smart.

“I hear ya, unc. I hear ya.”

Uncle Orange walked back to join his immediate kin in giving Applejack one final hug, he and they then letting her go and stepping back a bit.

He tipped his hat.

She tipped her hat back.

Auntie and Babs waved.

She waved back.

After a mutual exchange of, 'See ya soon!' from everypony, Uncle Orange, Auntie Orange, and Babs then about faced and walked out of the tunnel and onto the field, Jeeves, Jives, and Chives following silently close behind.

For her part, Applejack remained in place, continuing to wave even a little bit after they were outta sight.

It was a few more moments before her smile faded to a frown.

A few more moments later before her waving ceased altogether.

A few more moments later before she turned around and sighed, her hoof-falls feelin' almost as heavy and achy as her heart in light of what she'd learned and experienced in that there tunnel as she trotted back to her friends upstairs.

*****

“Did you learn anything, Applejack?” Twilight asked.

Plopping back down in her seat and reacquainting herself with the soft comfort of the plush, Applejack closed her eyes, tilted her head to one side, and scratched the side of it. “Yeah. Reckon I did.”

Though Applejack knew her friends were expecting her to continue, she nevertheless stalled as long as she could by remaining silent so that she could properly enjoy sitting on the seat without no trouble.

Least, till Rainbow finally spoke up.

“Okay… feel like sharing with the rest of the class here, AJ?”

Applejack sighed, wondering exactly how she was gonna sail through such a treacherous straight. It didn't take her long, however, before she settled on her element being the best policy. “No, I don't think I will. Not till the game's over, anywho.” She opened her eyes and looked right. “And for the record, could y'all please not ask muh kin 'bout it till then either? I know y'all are super curious and what-not, but believe you me, it'd be best to just drop it for now and bring it up later.”

Her friends, naturally, looked quite resistant and hesitant in their own ways, especially Twilight and Rainbow. Of course, that was where the brunt of the push back charged from.

“Applejack! You can't withhold potentially critical information from us like that!” Twilight complained.

“Yeah! I mean, do you WANT us to have to deal with the extra problems not knowing now is probably gonna cause? It's like you've never been out on an adventure before!” Rainbow Dash said.

“Well then, it's a good thing ya know I have, and since I have, I feel I can rightly say that it ain't gonna do no harm to wait a couple more hours or however long it'll take for the game to be over, so could y'all please just humor me just this once!?” Applejack's eyes widened not long after the eyes of her friends widened at how loud she'd been and quickly tried to make amends by asking, far quieter, face appearing far more pleading, “Please?”

As expected, a stare off of sorts ensued between her and them, the intensity between her and Twilight and Rainbow obviously being the greatest. Eventually, though, all their looks softened, even those whose looks were pretty austere to start, and both Twilight and Rainbow looked at each other before focusing back on Applejack and saying, “Alright.”

“Don't know why you're being so secretive and… loud--” said Rainbow.

“But if you think it's best, then I—we—trust your judgment,” said Twilight before looking at everypony save AJ and RD. “Right, girls?”

“But of course, darling,” said Rarity.

Fluttershy silently nodded as was her custom.

“I dunno...” Pinkie Pie began, tapping her chin and looking off to the side. “After Twilight explained everything after you left, I am feeling mighty inquisitive. Can't promise I won't try getting you or your family to slip, especially since part of me thinks the answer might be kind of funny. Element of laughter and all, ya know?”

“Pinkie!” Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity all shouted at once.

“Okay, okay!” Pinkie shouted back, hooves up defensively and pushing horizontally against the air like she just didn't care. “I promise I won't say anything about anything, okay? Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in me eye! Pinkie promise!” she said, performing the requisite motions of said promise flawlessy, as was her custom.

Comical as it was to see a flusterer like Pinkie become a flustee so fast, Applejack hid the true extent of her mirth, smiling slightly and simply as she said, “Thanks, girls. I appreciate it. I really do.”

With the desire to pry any deeper into just what Applejack and her family had discussed vanishing speedily into the aether along with the suspicions they might have had, her friends elected to quickly change subjects to other, less potentially problem inducing, matters she had heard them conversing about as she'd made her way back down to their row. Small talk really, but the good kind. And that was fine by her. More than fine. It was enough to almost make her forget the horrible, awful, ugly truth she had just learned about her Aunt, cuz, and truly, Manehattan. She always figured there was somethin' 'bout the town that never sat quite right with her, something beyond it being a big city that just naturally clashed with her rural, farmpony ways and sensibilities. But she had never in a million years dreamed it was… what it was. She didn't know the disagreement between her and the city was THAT bad. She didn't know the disagreement between her Aunt and cuz on one side and her Unc on the other was… THAT bad. And THAT was the most terrifying thing. Applejack had been in and been witness to a number of arguments in her day. The non-physical, immaterial part of her being had even been subjected to intense manipulation before, Discord and the Canterlot Castle Maze, having her cutiemark switched when Twilight was trying to figure out that old spell that ascended her to alicornhood, and Starlight stealing her cutiemark standing out most prominently to her. But never like back in the tunnel. Never like somepony was directly attacking her soul and element. Or doing so, so fiercely.

How exactly would she go about explainin' that one to her friends? And, maybe more importantly, exactly what kind of friendship problem did that portend?

Soon enough though, she was brought out of these and all other thoughts, along with probably everyone else in Starfield, when the stadium’s PA system crackled to life again with such suddenness and such an echo that it drowned out the din of the crowd in such a way that everypony winced back from the pain it induced in their ears. Applejack wondered why it seemed so much more overbearing than back in the player's tunnel, and eventually settled on chalking it up to the fat that she wasn't surrounded by dozens of feet of concrete no more and that there actually were speakers around her now, and plenty of them to boot.

“Attention sports-fans, please turn your attention to the center of the field now and listen to a word from Manehattan's very own, Mayor Orange!”

After she and her friends massaged out the pain in their ears, Applejack took the announcer's suggestion to heart. She looked smack dab in the center of the field to find her Unc, Auntie, and Babs before a podium on a wooden stage that must have been quickly set up since the last time she looked that way, as she hadn't noticed it during her conversation with them all in the tunnel. Their guards stood on the grass below and in front of the stage.

Uncle Orange soon ascended the three short steps of the podium and, tapping a forehoof gingerly upon the mic there to make sure it was working properly, he muttered out, “Testing, testing, one, two, three…”

When he seemed satisfied that the mic would adequately carry his voice through the PA system, he then coughed into a hoof to clear his throat before commencing his speech.

“Citizens of Manehattan! It is with the highest honor and greatest joy that I welcome you all to the beginnings of a most historic day! Not merely in the history of the tremendous sport of hoofball, but the history of our big, beautiful, beloved orange of a city! A day where--”

With all the prior warning and all the sudden fury of a thunderbolt, the stage erupted in a shower of wood, dirt and grass so big and forceful that Uncle Orange, Auntie Orange, Babs, and their guards were lifted off their hooves and hurled forward halfway between their prior spots in the middle of the field to where Applejack and her friends were. Needless to say, she and they very quickly looked every which way they could, trying to figure out what was happening, all their eyes glued to the field. Soon, Applejack's own eyes settled on her family and their protectors, who lay sprawled out on the turf, hardly moving, their groans of pain lost in all the delayed shrieks of terror going off in the stadium around her.

From the upper corner of her eyes, she caught movement, and looked at the bottom of the big smoke cloud billowing up hundreds of feet into the air, right where the stage had been moments ago, to see a shadow moving through it, growing ever lighter and more defined as it drew closer.

When it was finally free from the obscuring particulates in the air, and she got her first good look at it, Applejack gasped, and her friends were not far behind her in doing so themselves.

Or, in Pinkie’s case, saying, “Le gasp fois quatre!”

Chapter 3 - STARFIELD STRIFE!

For a few seconds, their world became white…

And then, just as quickly as the albion overload had arrived… it abated.

The pain however, still lingered, the five of them finding themselves rubbing their eyes to get some much needed relief. Or, in Cyborg’s case, technically an artificial ocular sensory input device that merely resembled an eye made of red glass and another artificial ocular sensory input device that actually resembled an actual eye because it bothered going the facsimile route.

“Ahhh! Dude! Ughhhh! Hy head right now makes me think that tofu I had for dinner is about to make a second appearance through my ears!”

“Don’t, BB. It looked bad enough the first time,” Cyborg said as his artificial eyes had completed their reboot and diagnostic and had just come back fully online. “Also, you stuff tofu in your head? That explains a bunch.”

As the pain in his eyes lowered compared to the wound Cyborg had inflicted upon his pride, Beast Boy angrily threw his hands down, pointed at Cyborg, and said, “Oh yeah!? Well, at least my brain doesn’t run on Windows 1 point--” Before Beast Boy got the chance to finish that sentence, though--and likely got either a firm verbal castigation or physical thrashing at Cyborg’s hand since he hated it whenever Beast Boy even mentioned that dreaded OS, let alone insulted him by comparing him to such dreck--he stopped. His jaw hung open and his voice trailed off. “Uhhh…”

Cyborg shared confused glances with the rest of the team, who had also recovered from the light at this point, before he walked over to Beast Boy and waved a mechanical hand in front of his face. “Hello? Earth to BB? Yoo-hoo.” He then tapped a fist against Beast Boy’s head like one might a coconut. “Anybody home?”

“Beast Boy, what is it? What’s wrong,” Robin asked, snapping his fingers in front of the green teen’s face.

“Th--th--th-th--that! That… thing over there!” Beast Boy eventually managed to stammer out before, zombie like, raising an arm and pointing ahead of himself.

The other Titans, out of occupational habit, quickly turned around and took a battle ready stance, Raven’s hands and eyes glowing with black magic, Starfire's hands and eyes alight with bright green stellar energy, Robin a staff in one hand and a birdarang in the other, and Cyborg with his right arm turned into a sonic cannon.

However, rather than finding some big, bad, beast or some supervillain or some combination of the two, the rest of the team found nothing save one of the long glass windows that ran along the side of the living room where it had always been, the skyline of Jump City just beyond.

Wait…

No…

Something was… off…

Not about the window. Like they had surmised, it was indeed where it had always been. However… it no longer seemed to show the skyline of Jump City, the very same city they had all met in and sworn to defend along with the rest of the world so many years ago.

No… instead… it seemed to show what, after a second glance, appeared to be the skyline of a completely different city they did not recognize, obscured by what appeared to be some large, dark green statue resting on a pedestal that in turn rested on an island in the middle of this other city’s harbor.

After a third glance, the other four titans realized, much to their mounting, wide-eyed-as-possible shock, that this statue wasn’t of a human woman clad in a toga with a tablet clutched in the left arm, a torch held high in the right, and seven pointed rays shooting forth from the crown upon its head, as the most famous giant dark green statue they were all aware of, was. Rather, while the statue they were looking at retained most of the features of the famed Statue of Liberty intact… there was a key, noticeable difference that only served to make it similar to, but not the same, as Ellis Island’s most famous landmark.

Namely, that the subject in the statue they now looked at was not a human woman. Rather, it looked to be some sort of… horse like creature with four hooves, a quadrupedal looking stance, ears much too large and placed much higher than on a human’s head, and eyes much too big for a human’s head. Or even a horse's head, for that matter.

The fact that the horse like creature was smiling whereas the human woman in the statue of liberty was grim faced registered only after the four had realized that they had all pressed their faces up against the window and that Beast Boy had joined them in the activity.

“Guys…” Beast Boy muttered, his mouth still hanging wide open.

“Yeah, BB?” Cyborg asked.

“I don’t think we’re in Jump City anymore.”

“Or Kansas,” Raven absentmindedly muttered.

“Or even our own Earth,” Starfire absentmindedly muttered.

“Man, we’d be lucky if the weird, bug-eyed, mutant horsey things that probably rule this crazy, topsy turvy world even call it earth… or don’t eat humans for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and midnight snacks only on Tuesdays!” Cyborg panicked.

“What!? That’s crazy! We don’t know that!” Beast Boy said, raising his head away from the glass and giving Cyborg a look. “We don’t even know that weird, bug-eyed, mutant horsey thingies that like to eat people are the dominant species on this planet! For all we know, the people here just have really, really, REALLY freaky taste for architecture!”

“Or a really, really, REALLY freaky taste for people cuz those horsey things have taken over the planet and eat humans like I eat my Granny Cyborg’s triple meat spaghetti!”

Beast Boy ran over to Cyborg, picked him up by his neck, looked him dead in the eyes, and said, “Don’t… even… joke... about that.”

Indeed. Beast Boy was still recovering from the horrible, carnivorous spectacle he had borne witness to the last time he had accidentally walked in on Cyborg devouring his Granny’s triple meat abomination to all things vegetarian.

The carnage…

The screams…

The mental scars…

They would never, truly leave him… even after the day he was laid into the earth.

Before Beast Boy could try and slap his cybernetic compatriot out of his new obsession with freaky horsey things that ate people, though, he noticed Robin run towards the double doors that lead back out into the hallway. He called out, “Hey, Rob! Where ya’ goin’!?”

“To the roof!” Robin said before making a sudden stop and turning towards the rest of the team. “I… I… I have to be sure.” He then got close enough that the automatic sensor recognized that he wanted to get past and opened the doors. With the same pace as before, he then ran in, his footfalls sounding as though they were hitting the floor hard before the doors slid closed and muted them to the senses of the other four.

Silence reigned in the living room for several moments before, surprisingly, Raven was the first to speak up. “I... think I’m following him,” she said before hovering towards the doors herself.

“I think much the same,” Starfire said before hovering off after Raven and Robin.

After the doors slid closed behind the daughter of Trigon and the former princess of Tamaran, Beast Boy stood there, afraid of whether he should remain within the interior of the tower by himself or follow everyone else to the rooftop. As much as he hated to admit it, Cyborg’s fantasy actually seemed all too plausible to him, and being chomped on by a bunch of mutant horsey thingies was absolutely NOT his idea of a fun way to pass the evening.

“Ahem.”

Beast Boy blanched when he realized that he was not, in fact, the only one still left in the living room, and that he was still holding Cyborg by his neck above the ground, who looked very much miffed that Beast Boy was still doing so.

“BB?”

“Yeah… Cy?” Beast Boy nervously asked.

“Have you been working out?”

“Uhhh… no… why?” Beast Boy asked, now more confused than nervous.

“Because how in the world are you carrying me when I weigh as much as I do and you can barely lift the remote to change the channel on your best day?”

Beast Boy tilted his head to the side, his lower lip covering his upper lip as he thought about the question, before he finally looked Cyborg in the eye with an even more confused expression than before. “You know… I don’t know.”

It was then that Beast Boy’s arms finally gave out and Cyborg fell forward onto him, the weight of his mechanical body causing Beast Boy’s legs to buckle under him and sending him crashing in a heap on his back on the ground.

“Uuuuggghhh…” Beast Boy groaned out in pain.

A lot of pain.

A LOT… of pain.

*****

Robin threw open the door to the roof of Titan’s Tower, and sprinted over to the edge of the building there, hoping against hope that he and his team were still in Jump City despite what he had just seen below, barely noticing Raven and Starfire’s cries to wait up as they followed close behind him.

After a few seconds of gazing at the alien skyline, however, Robin hung his head, realizing that no amount of wishful thinking was going to change the simple fact spread out clearly before him: Larry had indeed transported not only them, but the entirety of Titans Tower to that ‘beautiful, beautiful world’ he wouldn’t shut up about, specifically the harbor--or maybe A harbor--of whatever strange, new city they were all in now.

Larry’s final comment about the Titans having everything they’d need to get the job done before that white flash shocked their senses suddenly made all too much sense. It was about the only thing that did to Robin at the moment, as the tall skyscraper he was looking at, with what looked to be a giant, golden bust of a horse’s head resting atop it certainly wasn’t helping things by lending credence to both Beast Boy’s and Cyborg’s theories.

“Well… Larry certainly wasn’t kidding…” Raven said.

“No. He most certainly was not,” Starfire replied.

The three didn’t bother to turn their heads around when they heard the door swing open again and the footfalls of Beast Boy and Cyborg sounding before the two stopped next to them and took in the sights as well.

“See! What’d I tell you!?” Cyborg yelled pointing at the skyscraper with the massive, golden, horse head bust. “Those weird, bug-eyed, mutant horsey things that like to eat people have taken over the planet and have now begun building things in their image like that bust over there--” Cyborg then pointed at the green statue from before “--or that statue of liberty knock off over there!”

“Again, you don’t know that!” Beast Boy yelled back, rather forcefully. “For all we know, the dudes here are just eccentric builders with horses on the mind!”

“Oh yeah!?” Cyborg yelled before swiveling his mechanical head back and forth across the skyline before his eyes fell upon the crown area of the statue of liberty knock-off and he smirked. “Then why do I see a bunch of a weird, bug-eyed, mutant horsey things giving us looks from all the way at that statue of liberty knock-off?”

“What!? No way! You’re lying!”

“Nope,” Cyborg said, bringing up his right arm and tapping buttons until a holographic display of what his artificial eye was picking up came up, the other four Titans crowding around him to see. “I’m telling the truth.”

Much to the others’ shock… Cyborg was! Through the holographic projection, they saw a zoomed in image of the crown area of the giant green statue, an area that, much like in the Statue of Liberty, was meant to give tourists a bird's eye view of the Manhattan skyline with their own eyes or, for a modest fee of some pocket change, via one of the many tower viewers permanently mounted within the crown area.

Only, completely unlike the Statue of Liberty, rather than the crown area being filled with human visitors of all shapes, sizes, and colors… it was filled with equines of all shapes, sizes, and colors, some even with wings on their sides or a horn on their head that matched the general description of the equally equine statue they were in to a ‘T.’

Equines that were all staring in the direction of Titan's Tower with shocked, horrified looks on their faces just as bad as the looks on the other four Titans’ faces, the equines manning the tower viewers seeming to look right at the Titans with even worse expressions… except for one mint green coated equine with a horn on its head who seemed to actually be waving at them and whose face had slowly formed into a wide, creepy grin that sent shivers down even Cyborg’s artificial spine, and he had been taking his discovery rather well due to the joy he felt at proving Beast Boy wrong up till that point.

“Cyborg…” Beast Boy said, barely above a whisper, his eyes not daring to look away from the mint green, horned equine.

“Yeah, BB?” Cyborg said, gulping, his eyes also frozen in place.

“I think you might be right. I’m sorry. So, so, SO... sorry,”

“It’s okay, BB. I wish I wasn’t. After looking at that… thing... staring right into my soul, I REALLY wish I wasn’t...”

“Robin… I have… the heebie jeebies. Even more so than when the chrysalis eater revealed her true nature to me! Hold me!” Starfire said before sweeping Robin off his feet in a massive bear hug that made his spine--and himself--cry out in utter agony and despair.

“That… smile…” Raven said, also barely above a whisper. “It reminds me of those worn by some insane eldritch abominations I’ve read about in my tomes…”

“Not helping things, Raven!”Cyborg shouted as he and Beast Boy held onto each other for dear life.

“Quick, dude! Change the channel! Change the channel!” Beast Boy yelled out.

Quickly, if a bit frantically, Cyborg pressed another series of buttons and the hologram disappeared. He then looked away from the giant green statue’s crown and began shivering, holding himself like he had just gotten out of the arctic. “Man… I really hope the tower’s defenses can hold them back if these freaks decide to go all George A. Romero on us.”

“Dude! Quit it!” Beast Boy yelled out, still holding onto Cyborg for dear life. “I’m whigged out enough as it--”

Before Beast Boy could finish, however, a sound, sort of like a big ‘pop’ filled the air, coming from some distant corner of town. All five of the Titans’ heads turned towards where they had heard the ‘pop’ and it wasn’t long before a great big column of smoke arose higher than even the tallest of the strange new city’s skyscrapers. It also wasn’t long before what sounded like, however muted by distance, confused screaming reached their ears.

This unexpected occurrence pushed aside their uncertainty and fear for a moment, and Starfire asked, “What could that have been?”

Robin stared at the still rising tower of dust, the muffled screams still assailing his ears as something else he recalled Larry had said also began to make far more sense in their present situation. “I don’t know, Star. But I do know this: we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”

“Whatever do you mean, Robin?” Starfire asked.

Robin turned around and headed for the door down to the living room. “I mean, it’s time to gear up and load up into the T-Ship, team! We’re going to do a little aerial reconnaissance, and, if necessary, intervene in whatever’s going down.”

“You sure about this, Rob? For all we know, the mutant horseys could be luring us to their feeding grounds!” Cyborg said.

“I told you to stop scaring--” Beast Boy began.

“Or, for all we know, these weird horse things are the beings Larry sent us to protect and aren’t anywhere near as bad as that. T-Ship. Now,” Robin said before opening the door and letting it shut close behind him. As he walked down the steps, despite how sure he had sounded, the doubts started creeping up, the image of that mint green… thing making even he, the former apprentice of The Bat feel like his body temperature had dropped a dozen or so degrees fahrenheit.

But, that ‘pop’ sound, which was probably an explosion by the cloud of smoke that followed, and the screams? It couldn’t have been a coincidence. Larry had said he’d put them in the thick of things right before things started going down for this world, and an event like that happening not five minutes after he and the rest of the Titans realized they were no longer on their proverbial home turf? The doubts evaporated away at the notion as his feet blurred him down the stairs.

In their place, new doubts arose, primarily concerning how he and the rest of his team would be able to discern friend from foe… especially if they couldn’t speak the language of the native good guys, and how any of the native good guys would be able to tell, either way, that he and the rest of the Titans were only here to help.

He REALLY found himself hoping that Raven knew some decent telepathy spells, otherwise… he REALLY didn’t want to have to deal with the awkwardness that could arise if Starfire had to… acquire the language and then act as translator.

He really, REALLY didn’t want to have to deal with the awkwardness that would open them all up to…

*****

Fluttershy was having a bad day.

A REALLY bad day.

It was not enough for destiny's invisible hoof, it seemed, to guide her into leaving the reticent tranquility of her snug little cottage early two evenings ago for an impromptu cutiemap quest with her friends to the bombastic turbulence of the single largest, most populous, and--to her at least--most frightening city in Equestria.

It was not enough that the trip from the moment they’d arrived at the hotel in the dead of night two nights ago to them walking out of the theater today had been just as dreadfully stressful and frightening as she had envisioned on the train ride over with spit, gum, and spitted out gum finding its way to sticking on her fur more than the worst day of middle school ponies had been so careless and Applejack and Rarity going crazy over a play that, while an okay production, was not worthy of the extreme derision or extreme praise they respectively heaped upon it.

It was not even enough for destiny, it seemed, to then lead her and her friends to a sports stadium crowded with literally the single greatest concentration of cacophonous, obnoxious Manehattanites she had ever seen, 100,000 of them, literally half the city’s entire population, where she and her friends then ended up somehow rolling down a flight of stairs and being forced to stay only because Applejack found some family members she hadn’t seen in a while and wanted to hang out with them.

No.

Destiny, it seems, wanted to just keep ratcheting up the level of fray Fluttershy’s nerves were being forced to endure by literally dropping something that made Fluttershy all the more nervous, all the more scared, out from the sky, right as Applejack’s Uncle was beginning to make his speech.

Or rather, someone.

Not somepony, but someone.

A big, bipedal bovine tetrapod with big bulking biceps and other assorted upper body muscles bigger around than coconuts and no doubt capable of easily crushing them and other, far more durable or fragile things and with legs that, while not nearly as impressive as the tree trunks for arms it seemed to have were still longer, wider, and and stronger looking than the legs of anypony she had ever seen.

A minotaur.

A minotaur bull of ebon fur clad in a red toga with a wreath of golden metal leaves adorning his twin and vertically horned head and a purple cape flowing in the wind behind him as he strode with a confident and commanding gait towards the six ponies lying on the turf before him.

It was only when he put the microphone that Mayor Orange had been using moments earlier up to his lips that Fluttershy had realized that he had been holding it in his hand at all, the device’s long cable dragging behind him as he said, in an accent she could not place--so thick she could carve it out with a spoon, “As the good mayor was just about to mutter: A day where the Orange Administration pays dearly for its grave inequity!”

Fluttershy jumped out of her seat at the first word out of his mouth and hid behind it and then hid behind her mane as he continued to speak, such was the frightening power behind his booming, baritone voice amplified even further by the stadium’s extensive PA system. It was only when he had finished speaking that she conjured courage enough to dare and peak over her seat and look at him again, and even then she was clutching the headrest hard enough that it would have broken were it not made of stern stuff and she shook like a foal’s rattle.

“Oh yes, citizens of Manehattan, I do not misspeak! Doubtlessly you have not yet heard since the misdeed in question transpired but a night ago and was hushed up such that your press was made to zip their lips until such a time, undoubtedly, that the wrongfully accused were tried, sentenced, and carted off to the dungeons of distant Canterlot!”

The minotaur chuckled, and once more did Fluttershy duck to hide behind her seat and mane, for such was how much more intimidating she found the monster below to be when he laughed than merely when he spoke, which itself spoke volumes. For their part, the mood of the crowd also shifted, but away from panic and more towards uncertainty, confused murmurs sweeping through it rather than terrified screams. Even her friends now looked more unsure than scared. Oh, how Fluttershy envied them. How she wished she could say the same for herself.

“And, knowing the character of equinity as I do, you lot might not have cared!” the minotaur continued. “Likely, the bulk of you still shall not! Well, I would have you know that there are those who do! Those who will not let three innocent toms go to prison while their accuser bears all the guilt, mayor or not! Pony or not! Those who demand justice! Those who have hired me to right but one of the abounding, grievous wrongs perpetrated by ponykind against griffonkind in this city, by gifting your little mayor the exact same punishment he would see meted out to the blameless!”

By this point, the minotaur was only twenty feet away from Applejack’s family and their bodyguards, and stopped. Crossing his immense arms over his chest, he looked down from the crowd at them and said, “Mayor Tangerine Orange, I am taking you into custody and placing you under arrest till such a time as Gus Griswald, Gino Glenberg, and Garin Galip are released from their imprisonment! Now get up, dust yourself off, and say your goodbyes to your family! Resist, and I will renege this most merciful offer of the modicum of dignity you refused to give to those three toms, grab you by the neck like a rebellious foal, and grant you no last words to your family!”

Like the crowd had all around her at certain points as he talked, so too had Fluttershy gasped as the minotaur rendered the situation and his intentions clear for all to see. Such as things were, she could only look on in silence as the scene below grew even more terrifying. Jeeves, Jives, and Chives had finally recovered from being flung as far and as hard as they had and had gotten up to rush the minotaur like they were linebackers and the bull had the ball, but as they were just about to enter tackling distance, the minotaur simply threw out the flattened palm of his hand out towards them with such speed and strength that a sonic boom sounded throughout the stadium and the resulting focussed shockwave of air struck the bodyguards with enough force to stop them in their tracks, lift them up off their hooves, and send them back crashing against the stadium wall, right beneath where Fluttershy and her friends were.

A hush fell upon the stadium, in which Fluttershy, mouth agape in wordless horror, concluded from the lack of agonized groans she was hearing, that the impact had knocked Jeeves, Jives, and Chives out cold.

Then, the shrieks from the crowd came again. First at full force, then at even fuller force, only now genuine panic was present too, masses of pegasi taking themselves and as much of their family and friends as they could carry with them into the air to flee whereas the remaining hapless earthponies and unicorns and other sundry flightless races that called Manehattan home were stuck practically stampeding for the nearest exit.

Fluttershy had half a mind to join them. When she looked back over to her friends in the vain hope that they felt the same way and would give the okay, however, she noticed that they had opted to remain where they were, glued to their seats with looks ranging from horror, to more moderate yet still immense surprise, and even to curiosity if the way Rainbow Dash had her lips curled and head tilted to the side was proper indication.

Applejack, however, looked less like she was taken aback and more like she wanted to take the minotaur out back behind the barn and kick him in the face, her wrathful gaze so palpable and razor focussed that Fluttershy would have broken down crying were the farmpony not her friend and were she the object of her ire.

“HEY YOU!” Applejack yelled out, drawing the minotaur’s attention to her before continuing with, “YEAH! YOU! GIANT FELLER IN THE TACKY TOGA GETUP! Y’ALL BEST KEEP YOUR BIG GRUBBY MITTS OFF MUH KIN IF YA KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FER YA, YA HEAR!”

She then got out of her seat, leapt the protective railing keeping ponies from entering onto the field and did just that, landing with a brief thud before taking off towards her family like she was competing in this year’s running of the leaves, Rainbow Dash, fittingly enough, following after her and, soon enough, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity.

But not Fluttershy.

Oh no.

She stayed put right where she was, not wishing to step a single foot closer to the bull than she had to. She rationalized her cowardice not as cowardice, but as merely being with her friends in spirit, which she figured was way more sensical and ultimately more useful since, really, what exactly was she supposed to do if, say, a fight broke out? Fluttershy was weak, the most milquetoast of all the elements, and everypony knew it.

The minotaur, meanwhile, was a monolith of muscle that, as her friends galloped closer towards--giving her a more proper frame of reference and sense of scale--she realized was an entire foot taller than Iron Will! Plus, he was strong and fast enough that the mere act of pushing against the air with his PALM sent three fully grown and atypically big and strong and trained stallions halfways across an entire hoofball field into a wall hard enough to render them unconscious! While she didn’t know what precisely constituted as average for minotaurkind, Fluttershy obviously just couldn’t compare. She doubted anypony, and she meant any pony, could compare. Even her friends.

Regardless, in all honesty, she was liable only to be a hindrance, to get in the way. And so, she remained, muttering prayers quieter than mouse squeaks to almighty Faust that things could be decided diplomatically, because if not, well, Flutershy didn’t know if she could stomach looking at what would happen then.

In a few moments, Applejack and the others made it to the nearly unconscious forms of the Oranges and slid to a stop, and for a few, tenser moments more, both sides stood in a silent stare off before the minotaur lifted up a brow and asked, “And who, dare I ask, are you to dare to speak to me in such a manner?” without using the microphone.

“Mayor Orange’s niece!” Applejack boldly declared. “Applejack!”

“And her friends!” Rainbow Dash proudly proclaimed.

“Including one Princess Twilight Sparkle, as in one of the rulers of this great nation, you obtuse brute!” Rarity said, pointing at Twilight.

The minotaur leaned forward in Twilight’s direction, as though appraising her truly for the first time, and his eyes widened, his tone marveling as he said, “Do mine eyes deceive me, or are they cheated by some expertly casted spell?”

“Nope!” Pinkie Pie beamed, hoof wrapping around Twilight’s barrel and pulling her in close for a one-legged hug as she said, “Your peepers are working just fine! Twilight here really is a bonafide Princess of the land! I mean can’t ya tell! She’s got the horn, the wings, the bigmongous brain! Everything! Well, except the crown and the regalia, but she never puts that stuff on when she’s just out on the town, ya know?”

“Your majesty!” the minotaur exclaimed, immediately taking a polite bow. “Forgive me for my lack of proprietary! Were I aware of your attendance, I would have brought a gift befitting someone of your station!”

“Uhmmm… thank… you?” Twilight said hesitantly, giving voice not just to her own surprise but Fluttershy's too and, unquestionably, the surprise of the rest of their friends as well. “Forgive me for asking, but, does that mean we could maybe… talk about this without you foalnapping the mayor?”

Immediately, the minotaur stood ramrod straight again and cleared his throat and said, “Regrettably, your majesty, I am afraid that is a request to which I cannot acquiesce.”

“Can’t or won’t, ya big ape?” Applejack asked with a brushfire’s worth of heat.

“Both, you apple picking peasant,” the minotaur replied comparitively cooly, sticking his nose up at her like Canterlot nobles tended to whenever she visited the city.

As the farmpony audibly fumed, sounding like she was prepping to jump at him, Twilight stepped between her and the minotaur and said, “Okay everyone, calm down now and stop with the put downs, okay? Mean words aren’t going to to get us anywhere and are only going to get everypony angry. Even me.”

“Your majesty, I beg for your pardon, yet I fret I would anger you even if my words and the words of your friends here dripped with honey instead of venom, for I cannot abide leaving this stadium without bringing the Mayor in tow back to my clientele. My respect for those of regal stature is great, but my yearning to always complete a contract with the loftiest of flying colors is greater. Please, step aside and tell your friends to follow you, Princess Twilight. I wish no ill-will, but make no mistake, if you insist, it SHALL befall you all.”

“Pfffttt! Get a load of this joker!” Rainbow Dash said, as not intimidated by that as Fluttershy was intimiated by that. In a mocking voice and tone, she said, “If you get in my way, I’m gonna beat all of you up! I mean, seriously! Was that really supposed to be like, a threat, or something? At US of all ponies?”

“Not a threat, a guarantee.”

Rainbow Dash waved his response to the side with her hoof. “Or what, our money back? Please, dude. We’ve brought down WAY bigger bad guys than you, and way tougher and meaner looking ones to! We’d have you on the ground hog-tied and crying uncle in ten seconds flat!”

“Firstly, I am not a bad guy,” the minotaur said, air quoting with his fingers. “I am merely performing a job. Though, considering the ghastliness of whom I have been hired to spirit away, today, I am also performing a public service in doing so. Secondly, in regards to your last sentence, I simply must ask: really now?”

With celerity Fluttershy could only describe as preternatural, the minotaur closed the distance between him and Rainbow and pressed his face down angrily against hers.

“Is that a fact?”

“Eeep!” Fluttershy cried out as she dipped her head save for her eyes beneath her seat and as the rest of her friends cried out similarly and jumped back in a fright.

All of her friends save for Rainbow, that was, the mare not even flinching at the display of speed or at being in such proximity to something that towered over her so greatly and looked so much more powerful than her. Pressing her face back against his, she said, calmly and clearly, without a hint of a frightened crack to her voice, “Ten. Seconds. FLAT.”

Luckily, before things could escalate any further, Twilight’s horn glowed magenta, and a field of magic the exact same color enveloped Rainbow Dash and pulled her back towards the others.

“Rainbow Dash! Are you CRAZY!?” Twilight shouted. “Don’t antagonize him! Everything was going fine before! I had things under control!”

“What!? No you didn--”

Rainbow Dash was prevented from finishing her sentence by Twilight telekinetically grabbing hold of her lips and pinching them shut.

“Rainbow, shhh!” Twilight said with her nose held high, ignoring the muffled yet still quite audible disagreement coming from Rainbow before turning back to the minotaur and saying, “We were having a civil discussion, am I right?”

“A discussion to be sure, but civil? I protest such a notion, at least where your friends here are concerned. The company you keep have proven themselves very rude, Princess Twilight.”

“Hey! What about me?” Pinkie asked, Fluttershy practically hearing her eyes go wide with hurt and start to water. “Was I rude?”

The minotaur stroked his chin in thought. “Come to think of it, I do not recall you hurling any insult at me.” He shrugged. “I suppose I was mistaken where you were concerned. The apple picker, rainbow maned, and marshmallow looking ones definitely did, however!”

“Marshmallow! Why I never!” Rarity gasped.

“Oh yeah! I’m not a big meanie pants like half my friends!” Pinkie Pie proclaimed triumphantly as she threw a triumphant hoof in the air with triumph.

“Pinkie!” Applejack, Rainbow, and Rarity exclaimed all at once.

“Sorry girls, but ya know, it is kinda, sorta true if you kinda, sorta, stop and think about it. I mean, all of you kind of did come out the gate calling him names while he didn’t, so, yeah.” Pinkie shrugged.

“What!? But he called us names too!” Applejack yelled.

“After you took the first strike, if you willl recall,” the minotaur said, pointing his index finger up as though he were schooling a particularly rambunctious child.

“You stay out of this!” Applejack said, painting a hoof at him.

“To what end? It sort of concerns me.”

“It kinda does, dontchya think, A.J.?” Pinkie Pie said.

The minotaur chucked as Applejack, Rainbow, and Rarity glared at Pinkie like they were trying to shoot magical beams at her from her eyes, and said, “Glad to see one of you aside from the princess here has a well head resting upon their shoulders.”

The irony stung so much, Fluttershy winced.

Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow in the meanwhile looked at the minotaur like he had just told them the grass was blue, the sky green, and that Pinkie Pie, PINKIE PIE, was okie, dokie, lokie in the noggin. All three of them, including Rainbow Dash, who at that moment was filled with enough righteous indignation to finally overpower Twilight’s magic, shouted, “WHAT!?” loud enough that ponies still in flight--figuratively and literally--from the stadium stopped what they were doing for five whole seconds to look at what was happening in the field before resuming to run away.

Pinkie Pie for her part seemed practically unfazed despite being at ground zero of such a scream, which had proven powerful enough that Twilight, who was right next to her, had to brush her mane back into its usual place. So unfazed was the party pony that she put her hoof to her chest at the minotaur’s words and said, “Awww! I’m touched! Thank you, Mr. Minotaur! Here.” She put her hoof out to him. “Put her there, pal!”

“With gusto!”

The minotaur grabbed hold of her hoof and the two shook their respective appendages most amicably. Twilight and him then proceed to do the same.

“Pinkie Pie! Twilight!” Applejack exclaimed. “Please stop playing nice with my uncle’s wannabe kidnapper!”

“Yeah!” Rainbow agreed.

“I concur!” Rarity agreed.

“Why? He’s proving to be pretty cordial,” Twilight said.

“Yeah. All things considered, he’s pretty chivalrous and nice for a kidnapper.”

“You lavish me with too much praise, Princess Twilight and Pinkie,” the minotaur said with a noble bow and a warm smile.

“I’ll say!” Applejack interjected. “Cuz at the end of the day, yer willin’ to put on a big production about rippin' an innocent stallion away from his wife and daughter! And fer what!? Money!?”

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash said.

“Hmmmph. My. How chivalrous of you, indeed!” Rarity added, sticking her nose up at him.

The minotaur placed his fists on his hips and said, “I understand you are upset. After all, who in their right mind would not upon learning their uncle, one of their own kin, was an evil trickster, let alone the evilest and trickiest in your nation going back far longer than anypony save for the two sisters could recall? But make no mistake about it: your uncle is as I say, and if the equestrian justice system will not see fit to punish him accordingly for the evil trick he attempted to perform, then my clientele will hold on to him until it does. Once I deliver him to them, of course.”

The resolve in Applejack’s voice made the fur on Fluttershy’s back stand on end as she shouted, “YOU AIN’T TAKIN’ HIM NOWHERE, YA HERE!? NOWHERE!”

“Yes, I… heard,” the minotaur said, casually clearing out the noise from his ears with his pinkies. “And before you stated it so outright, I gathered the sentiment quite clearly. Be that as it may, he is going with I whether you like it or not, and there is not anything you or your compatriots can do to even really contest this little factoid. Not even Princess Twilight or Pinkie. So, please, stand aside. I will only repeat myself once more.”

“That a threat, big guy!?” Applejack yelled, pushing her grille up against his.

“No. It is a guarantee, as I already firmly explained to your rainbow maned friend,” the minotaur said simply and fearlessly.

Twilight once more resorted to her magic and pulled Applejack back before saying, “Okay, you need to stop, okay! Just… stop!” Looking at the minotaur, she said, “Now, I understand that you’re presusambly on a very tight schedule and that there’s A BUNCH of things going on here that we’re not entirely, one-hundred percent sure of which are contributing a good chunk to the hostility some of us have for you, so--” she sighed, “could you please repeat for the class what this is all about to clear the air of any confusion? Can you extend that courtesy? To us? To me? Please?”

Things were quiet for a moment, or as quiet as they could be considering there were still a couple ten-thousand ponies trying to bail from the stadium. The minotaur alternated between scratching his chin and the side of his head and the top of his head in thought with the mic he still held, and for a moment looked so super serious to Fluttershy that she ducked down again and curled into a ball, so sure by that look alone that he was about to attack them.

Then, right at the moment she was confident he was about to strike, he said, “Very well. But only because I am so loathe of ambiguity on a contract like this, and NOT because you are royalty. Though, I suppose it does help. Anywho…” The minotaur cleared his throat with a cough and went on to say, “Last night, at around 10:00 pm, just as the mayor’s office was to close up shop for the evening, three toms--that is three full-grown, male griffons for those of your friends uncultured in words or just plain cognitively disinclined--managed to catch Mr. Orange here and meet with him. The toms were Gus Griswald, Gino Glenberg, and Garin Galip. They were the heads of an alliance of community and business organizers of griffonkind in the city known as The Griffonian League, and they made inquiry concerning the status of the licensing and permit requests for a new business they were attempting to build. Things began amicably enough, until the mayor said that the requests had been deliberately withheld from the city council and would absolutely be rejected outright if it ever did meet their eyes for consideration. That was, unless, the fine toms hoofed over a million bits to have Mayor Orange expedite the process and convince the council to approve. When they refused, he called his guards and the police to lock them away by lying through his teeth and saying they tried to bribe him.”

Fluttershy’s friends all gasped aloud at this. All of them. Even Pinkie Pie, who must have been stunned indeed to not do anything particularly, well, Pinkie Pie, the revelation was so shocking. Fluttershy herself had likewise mirrored them, curiosity annulling her fear enough to glance back over her seat to catch the minotaur shaking his head sadly from side to side.

“I know, I know. My reaction was much the same when first I did hear it. Though the nations of europony are renown for their governmental incompetence compared to equestria, in all my travels amongst them, I have never before heard of them being so outright malicious to those within their own borders. It fills a heart with great sorrow.”

“But… but… why!?” Applejack asked before turning around to look at the barely conscious forms of her uncle and his family behind her, her shaking voice devoid of her prior wrath and certainly. “That don’t make no sense! He said... he said... I’ve known my unc my whole life! He’s not the kind of pony to do what yer accusin’ him of! He just… he just ain’t. He AIN’T!” The fiery conviction in her words having returned, she turned around and looked back at the minotaur. “Plus, he’s already rich! Louded! Swimmin’ in bits! Literally! When I was young, I asked if he could fill up his swimmin’ pool with bits to see if I really could swim through coins like this one comic strip I used to read, and he did! He absolutely, one hundred percent did fill it up! To burstin’, even! A million bits is chump change compared to that! Chump change!”

“Oh it most absolutely is, darling!” Rarity agred. “I should know! My Manehattan boutique required me to scrounge up that many bits, and it is but a mere clothing shop hardly larger than my own home and workplace back in Ponyville! In the cheapest district in this city I could find it in! But Mayor Orange is as close to landed gentry as one could be being nouveau riche!”

“Yeah! This town was literally built by and named after his wife's family!” Rainbow Dash added. “If he really was asking for a bribe, why such a low payout, huh? Did you ever stop to think about that before strutting over here like you own the place?”

The minotaur shrugged. “Mayhaps he is more dastardly than you all suspect. Mayhaps his wealth and that of his wife's is not what it once was. Mayhaps, some combination thereof. Regardless, far too much time have I spent in idle, if interesting chit-chat. Step aside and do not interfere in this matter. This your final, fair warning. Justice waits for no one, after all. Not a mayor, or even a princess and her friends.”

The minotaur walked around Twilight and the others towards Mayor Orange just as the stallion had finally managed to get to his hooves, put his still reeling wife and child on his back, and attempted to limp away as fast as he could from the bull. Twilight, however, teleported in front of the minotaur and held out her hoof as though to halt him, her voice laced with all the regal authority she could muster as she said, “Stop! As princess of friendship, you have my word that whoever’s responsible for the alleged crime will be discovered and prosecuted to the full extent of equestria law regardless of and even if you and your clients are right!”

“And I shall hold you to that promise. The mayor, though, shall still reside in a prison until the toms are released from theirs,” he said, casually walking around her, eyes never leaving the retreating form of Mayor Orange and his family.

“Where do you think you are hobbling off to, mayor? There is nowhere you can hide from truth’s inexorable advan--”

Suddenly, a lasso wrapped around the minotaur’s neck, and Fluttershy’s eyes followed the length of rope back to Applejack just as she tugged with her teeth and the rest of herself hard enough that the minotaur was pulled off of his feet and fell, back first, onto the ground.

“Oh no,” Fluttershy squeaked.

“Applejack!” Twilight scolded. “What did you do!?”

Applejack spat out her rope and said, “You told him to stop, didn’t you? And ‘sides, I already told him that he ain’t touchin’ muh family!”

“But you didn’t have to outright attack him like that!”

“Attack him!? Girl, all I did was lasso him to the dirt! You’re actin’ like I kicked him in the face, though the way things were headed, you were probably fixin’ to blast him with a spell!”

“What!? No I wasn’t! I was only planning on talking him down because I had things under control!”

“No you didn’t!” Applejack and Rainbow Dash said.

As her friends continued to argue, Fluttershy caught movement at the edge of her vision and looked back at the minotaur just in time to catch him unwrapping the lasso from his neck and holding it up to his face, a stern expression plastered over it.

That was it. It had to be. The undeniable moment where things officially went south. The demarcation line betwixt failed diplomacy and all out fighting breaking out. Surely, the minotaur would be in a rage! Surely he would attack and fall upon them with a ferocity such as equestria had not seen in millenia! Surely he would--

--slowly get back up, calmly dust himself off, turn back around to regard her friend, and cooly state, “Ah. I see you have some skill in the art of the lariat.”

Fluttershy blinked. Once to make sure she still had eyes. Twice to make sure she still had eyelids. And thrice to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. Her friends also regarded the minotaur with owlicious blinks, their argument thankfully falling by the wayside in light of this development.

Looking between her friends and the minotaur, Twilight asked, her voice bearing a slight hope that things could be resolved peacably, the same hope that dared to burn in Fluttershy’s heart as well, “So… you’re not mad, then?”

The minotaur threw his head up and let out a hearty chuckle that echoed across the stadium even more than it would have were the stadium not as utterly empty as it now was. He brought his head back down and tossed Applejack back her rope with one hand while wiping aside a mirthful tear, and said, “Mad? Ha! Hardly! Your friend’s sudden display of adeptness with the lariat has handed me the perfect excuse to display my own ability on the matter and see how favorably it compares to her own!”

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow, as did her friends, wondering exactly how he was going to do that when he didn't appear to have any rope on his person and had hoofed over the only rope that could be seen back to its owner.

But then, in a motion so swift and so sudden that not even Rainbow Dash had reacted until it was gone and the damage done, they were given an answer. The bull hurled the microphone in his hand at Applejack, the device wrapping about her neck so tautly that she choked out, tugged her toward him with one arm, let go of the mic’s cable, and, when she drew near enough, clotheslined her into the turf with his other arm hard enough that she formed a crater roughly the size of her body.

“Hmmm…” the minotaur said, stroking his chin as he looked down at Applejack, her face frozen in abject shock, as if she was sleeping with her eyes open. “It would appear my ability stacks up most nicely to hers.” He looked back up at the others. “What say you?” he asked slyly.

Nopony said anything at first, for though the gravity of what had transpired pried their jaws open as far as they could, words had failed them. Even Pinkie Pie, brimming with cheery verbosity as she was during the darkest of times, was too astonished to even attempt to try and brighten up the mood.

Given how not well her friends were dealing with things, it went without saying that it was all Fluttershy could do to force herself to keep looking. Even then, she managed this not because she was brave, or even because she was so concerned about Applejack’s limp, unmoving body, though she certainly was and knew from experience from treating injured animals and Rainbow Dash when her sundry stunts went awry growing up that she’d need a trip to the hospital, stat.

Rather, she managed because of the implications. Of what it meant. The message of what the minotaur had just managed to do to one of them, one of the toughest of their number, Applejack, with such ease and blase the farmpony might as well have been made of graham crackers for all the good it had availed her.

If the minotaur could do what he had to Applejack, what chance did most of them really have?

Especially now?

Now that there was quite clearly no going back?

“I say you’re gonna pay for that, buddy! And my hooves are gonna collect!” Rainbow Dash shouted suddenly, slicing apart the cimmerian silence, rearing up, and then taking to the air with a flap of her wings.

The minotaur chuckled in disbelief and asked, “And how precisely do you plan to so avenge your apple-picking peasant of a compatriot, being as frail as you so evidently are?”

“Just watch me if you can, big guy!”

“Dash, wait!” Twilight cried out.

Fluttershy immediately dipped down behind her seat again, but this time hit the deck and became as flat as could be. Her instinctual move was justified soon after when she heard a sonic boom sound throughout the stadium followed swiftly by another one. Fluttershy heard and felt the top half of her seat screech and bend from the impact of something big and heavy and felt herself pelted by the ensuing shower of metal, fabric, cotton, and concrete fragments as the big and heavy something went on to crash into and stop at the row of seats directly behind and above her seat. It had come so close to striking her that she no longer felt the presence of a tuft of hair she was pretty sure had been on her back just prior.

If she had been just a little higher…

“Had enough!?”

Fluttershy opened her eyes and looked up to see Dash hovering above her and looking at something in front of her. Something that wasn’t Fluttershy. Something that Fluttershy realized must have been the exact same something that had almost hit her. Something that Fluttershy soon discovered the identity of when she looked where Dash was looking.

The minotaur.

“Oh… oh my…” she muttered out.

He was looking down at her, right into her eyes, half laying, half sitting in the him shaped, him sized crater where a half dozen of the seats from the row behind her had been before he had flattened or sent them flying off the bolts that grounded them with his crash. His expression, thankfully, was not one of ire, but what Fluttershy could only describe as curious indifference. An idea further evidenced when he raised one of his furrowed brows and tilted his head to the side. Fluttershy herself lay completely motionless, trying to remain as still as she possibly could on the slim chance that the minotaur’s eyesight was based on motion, her breath hitched in her throat as she then tried her best to either will herself invisible or teleport in the very, very real chance she was tragically mistaken.

It didn’t work.

At all.

Good thing was, before Fluttershy’s mental fortitude could break down to the point she burst out into tears, Rainbow Dash, fittingly enough, came to her rescue as she had done so many times--unintentionally or not, unwanted or not--before in her life, shouting to the minotaur, “Hey, I’m talkin’ to ya right now, mister! What? Did I floor ya so hard when I kicked ya in the face that you can’t even speak right!? I mean, not that you could anyways with that hokey accent of yours, but still!”

The minotaur looked up, up, and away from Fluttershy and at Dash and his brow furrowed in anger as he replied, “I heard, rainbow one. I was merely preoccupied thinking on an altogether different matter, for despite your braggadocio, you succeeded only in flooring me in so far as knocking me to the floor, but have not successfully floored me in so far as bringing me harm enough to actually keep me on the floor.”

The minotaur stood up and dusted himself off.

As he did, Fluttershy looked up at Rainbow to catch her crossing her forelegs over her chest and rolling her eyes. “Yeah, right. And I’m the Empress of Roam, pal. If you wanted to save your dignity from being shellacked by an evidently frail looking pony, then maybe you shouldn’t have messed with one of my friends, you stupid, dumb--”

Dash was silenced when the minotaur threw his palm forward again at what Fluttershy could now see, hear, and feel for certain was a hypersonic velocity being so close. When the excess wind stopped pushing her mane over and against her face, Fluttershy looked back up to find Dash gone and heard her yelling as she no doubt tumbled uncontrollably in the air.

When Fluttershy looked back down, she noticed the minotaur’s gaze was back on her and once more inadvertently locked eyes with him, only this time his visage was exceedingly serious.

Despite this, curiously, there was no malice in his voice, and neither was it raised in any threatening manner as he said to her, “Do not involve yourself, and I shall have no quarrel with thee. Your friends shall be fine. Roughed up, but fine. If you decide, however, to actually help them, you shall also be roughed up, loathe as I am to smack down such a delicate thing as you so clearly are. Understood?”

Fluttershy didn’t have the time to agree or disagree before the minotaur leapt into the air back towards the field, the resulting rush of air again blowing her mane into and over her face. As she got her hair back into position, though, she couldn’t help but imagine that if he had stayed a little longer, she would've been shaking her head up and down like Pinkie whenever she tried coffee to placate him. The thought of it, of being so cowed by the mere presence of that, well, cow, was enough to cause her no modicum of disgust and add on quite a bit to her duress.

Yet, of course, Fluttershy once more bargained with herself, trying to latch onto any excuse she could for her passive inaction and decision to remain as hidden as possible while her friends officially engaged in a brawl they would certainly have an uphill struggle in.

Again, she asked herself, 'What'? What could she, Fluttershy, possibly do against a minotaur so mighty? One that had already flattened Applejack, had shrugged off a kick from Dash--IN THE FACE--hard enough to send him careening over nearly half the hoofball field and cause a crater in the stands, and by the way things were going was probably set to give even Twilight, TWILIGHT, some serious trouble? She had no animal friends whose strength she could call upon, and even if she did, she wouldn’t sick them on him for fear that they’d get hurt because their strength wouldn’t be enough. She herself was of course, herself, and barely fit to fight a foal, unfit to fight a mare around her age and body type, and completely unfit to fight a minotaur like Iron Will, let alone one who seemed to be a super minotaur even compared to his own kind. And she doubted that the stare, lauded and loathed a technique as it was, would work here, as it depended on the confidence and will she possessed--which was meager indeed--the confidence and will a target possessed--which the minotaur had in spades---and, most crucially of all, a target’s own internal guilt--which the minotaur had none of or at least very little of since he seemed to think his cause was a noble and righteous one. Besides, the stare worked best on beasts, not sapient persons like minotaurs or ponies or what have you. Even the one dragon it had worked on was a hair's breadth away from resisting its effects and had only failed because deep down, he knew what he was doing was wrong.

So, in light of all these unfortunate, but undeniable facts, Fluttershy elected once more to sit this one out and let her friends do their best which they so clearly would be unable to if she was with them to drag them down. She made herself as flat as she could again, closed her eyes, and covered her ears with her hooves.

But then, as she was about to loudly hum a merry little tune to herself to protect her fragile conscience--and probably consciousness--from the sounds of her friends’ panicked and pained shrieks about to fly, she heard him. She just had to hear… him.

Mayor Orange.

“Somepony… anypony… help… please!”

And then, she just had to hear him grunt in severe agony, get up from where she was, and look down into the stadium just in time to see him keel over onto the turf, his unconscious wife and daughter falling from his back.

“Somepony… please…” the mayor groaned out, trying his absolute best, but unable to get up again, his attempts inevitably ending with him back at square one.

As he flipped onto his back, panting heavily from the strain, Fluttershy looked farther into the field to find Rainbow Dash held a coupe of feet above Twilight in the alicorn’s magic, the two engaged in what sounded like a very heated conversation after the latter had probably had to catch the former after the minotaur's attack. Or maybe Twilight had to restrain Rainbow from charging in again. Maybe both. What was certain, aside from all the yelling of course, was that Rarity and Pinkie didn’t look too happy as they looked on, the fashionista noticeably irritated while the party pony was desperately trying to get their attention and pointing at something in the sky. Fluttershy didn’t have to look there to know it was the minotaur about to crash down near them, the big shadow growing ever larger in front of them kind of giving it away.

Instead, she looked back at Mayor Orange, gasping for breath like so many fish out of water she had seen. So many she had tended to, no matter the personal expenditure on her part, by doing her absolute best to lead them back to safety. The mayor may not have been an animal, he may not have been blameless if what the minotaur had said was true, but just as those fish had been, he was in desperate need. Him and his family. Of someone to show them some basic equine decency. Mercy. Kindness.

And, Fluttershy, above all else, above being a caretaker of animals, above being meek and soft spoken and generally inactive and non-assertive in her ways, and above even the protests warring with her in her mind and her soul at that moment as she recalled the minotaur’s terse ultimatum, was the Element of Kindness.

If she wouldn’t go down there to help the Oranges, who would? Who could, given her friends were soon to be heavily preoccupied elsewhere?

The struggle within herself reached a boiling point where her eyes watered and she closed them.

By the time the bull landed, however, she had made up her mind.

Her eyes reopened, belying a resolve most atypical for the soft mare.

She knew what she had to do.

*****

“DUCK AND COVER!”

Busy and loud as she and Rainbow had been in their squabbling, Twilight Sparkle had not yet fully heard and/or registered what Pinkie Pie had been trying to say. That was, until the party pony’s voice had raised to such octaves that Twilight’s ears felt blistered like the three words had been blasted into her ear drums by a barn sized megaphone--something she was honestly surprised Pinkie had not pulled out of the aether to get their attention.

What she was surprised by, however, was being lifted off her hooves and sent skipping off the ground like a stone hurled into a pond or lake, only with far less grace and far more muttering of, “OW! OOH! AAH! OUCH! STOP! PLEASE! WAH!”

When her momentum was finally spent, thanks in no small part to the fact that she hit the base of the goal post in the direction she was flung--which the back of her head and the rest of her body managed to endure well enough thanks in no small part to the fact the base was padded as was standard hoofball regulation--she brought her face away from the turf and looked ahead to find the minotaur standing tall and proudly in a crater one foot deep, ten wide, and right between where she and the others had just been and where Applejack was.

Realizing what must've happened, she forwent focussing her gaze on the minotaur and instead tried to find out where Applejack had been blown away to. She found her back nearly to the wall opposite from where Twilight herself was, towards where they had been seated when this whole mess began, and let out a sigh of relief when she didn’t seem to be hurt--or at least, no more than she already was. However, after continung to look at Applejack to make absolutely sure, she noticed for the first time a far more curious sight: Fluttershy fluttering down from the stands to Mayor Orange’s side and doing her best to lift him and his family onto her back.

Twilight’s brain skipped a beat for a second prior to realizing what the normally cowardly pegasus was attempting to do, and she decided then and there that she would do her absolute best to keep the minotaur from noticing and attempt to stop him. Via force. For as much as she still searched for a diplomatic solution, as much as her heart yearned for peace in all things, what the bull had done was near tantamount to an act of war in her book, and if he sought war so badly, she was more than happy to oblige him. Applejack would think less of her if she wasn’t.

Formulating an exact plan of attack, Twilight then looked around to find out where Rarity, Pinkie, and Rainbow were at, and found the first two on the turf behind her, nearly having hit the stadium wall there, but otherwise not looking too much worse for wear, the two managing to get back on their hooves by the time she laid eyes upon them. She didn’t find out exactly where Rainbow had been sent to, but wherever it was, it certainly didn’t stop the pegasus from breaking the sound barrier as she charged at the minotaur again.

Twilight barely managed to follow her trajectory as she beelined for the bull with her forehooves extended toward him. This time, however, the minotaur would not be taken off guard so easily, and just before Dash struck true, he actually not only managed to sidestep her, but blasted her away with one of those air shoves he seemed so fond of using. Dash managed to right herself more quickly than last time and tried hitting him again, but yet again, he dodged and tagged her with an air shove. This pattern repeated itself so many times that even a self admitted nerd who loved to keep track of such things like Twilight honestly stopped caring to count as she had quickly become just as frustrated as Rainbow, which seemed to have an inverse effect on the minotaur’s jollity, as he kept smiling and laughing heartily like a foal playing keep away with his pet dog as she grew more and more annoyed.

A silver lining of Dash being so brash and never knowing when to quit, however, was that the bull was distracted, giving Twilight ample time to turn around to dash towards and converse with Pinkie and Rarity. Or rather, simply Rarity, since as Twilight made her way, she saw that Pinkie was nowhere to be seen. Naturally, this made her ask the fashionista more than a little irritably when she got to her, “Rarity, what happened to Pinkie!?”

“I… I don’t know, darling,” Rarity replied, getting some dirt and grass out of her jersey. “One moment I looked away to get something out that had been stuck in my eye, and the next she just… vanished!”

“Just vanished!? What do you mean just vanished!? She was an integral part of my--” Twilight stopped herself and slapped herself in the face. After all, it wasn’t Rarity’s fault for Pinkie’s sudden disappearance, so taking out her frustrations on her by yelling wouldn’t do anypony any good. Besides, while Pinkie would have made Twilight’s job a whole lot easier, it could still be executed well… higher up as the difficulty would now be stacked. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Just… nevermind. Look, I want you to help Fluttershy evacuate the Oranges as far away from here and get them as safe as possible! I’m gonna help Dash keep him busy and from noticing what’s going on, got it!?”

Not waiting for a reply, Twilight turned back around and flew as close to the minotaur and Dash as she dared, her mind analyzing the pattern of their movements before uncovering the most opportune moment for her to strike. Just as the bull was about to dodge another of Rainbow’s furious blows, Twilight’s horn glowed and the minotaur was enveloped in a telekinetic field that threw off his balance and sunk him a full foot into the turf. Normally this wouldn’t even be considered an inconvenience, but in this instance it kept him right in the center of Rainbow’s flight path just long enough to permit the pegasus to plant both her forehooves right on his forehead. With a sonic boom, the bull was lifted out of the turf and sent crashing back first into one of the stadium’s sidewalls, becoming embedded in it.

Twilight was about to further pile on the pain with a horn blast she was charging the moment Dash had finally hit paydirt, but then out of nowhere a cacophonous sound like thunder exploded out and a mini-deluge of what looked to be cake batter sprinkled with sprinkles rushed forwards and covered the minotaur before quickly drying and hardening like some sort of super fast acting cement.

Twilight traced back along the batter’s trajectory to then leap back in a fright, for she realized that it had been fired from a familiar party cannon belonging to a particular pink pony that now stood behind said cannon… right next to Twilight.

“Hiya, Twi!” Pinkie greeted, waving as the princess recovered her breath. “What’d I miss?”

“P-P-PINKIE!” Twilight shouted in shock. “Who--What--When--Where--Why--How--”

“In no particular order: Saturday, March 15, 2 PR This Year of our Lord; trade secret; I’m a pony, silly; I had to go back to my room at Sugar Cube Corner to grab my party cannon and the right cake mix; Starfield Stadium, P.O. Box 365626, Manehatten, New Cork Province, Equestria, Amareica, Planet Equis; Your bestest friend Pinkie Pie, of course!”

As Twilight stuttered and sputtered at Pinkie’s trademark rapid fire response, trying to make sense of it in light of the mental strain caused by her vanishing and reappearing act, her mind actually managed the amazing feat of latching onto something the party pony had said. Something that made Twilight’s crazed expression switch to one of a genuine, un-crazed, curiosity as she asked, “Wait… did you just say that you went all the way to Ponyville and back in just a couple minutes… just to grab your party cannon?”

“Yeppers!”

“But… but… why!? Why didn’t you just, you know, grab it from the aether where you usually keep and/or pull things out from! Wouldn’t that have been way more convenient than traveling hundreds of miles and having to lug around a two-ton cannon on the return trip!?”

“Uhmmm, like, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m a pony. Ponies just can’t pull out party cannons out of thin air whenever they want to, silly Twilie,” Pinkie said, patting Twilight on the head like one might a naive child who still hadn’t quite grasped how the world really worked and why a house made out of pizza and ice cream was all sorts of impossible.

The irony was not lost on Twilight. “But… but… you pull things out of thin air all the--” Twilight continued to stammer out and jerk her head every which way she could, as if doing so would somehow unravel the mystery of, and that was, Pinkie Pie. Remembering how that line of inquiry ended up the first time and all subsequent times, however, she thought better of it and called it quits before her mind had truly spiraled into that bottomless rabbithole of insanity again. Utilizing the special technique she had jotted down in her brain for this exact circumstance, she breathed in and out. Once. Twice. Thrice. And many more times after. Careful not to hyperventilate, as that would only make her panic attack flare up again. When she had finally calmed down enough that she was certain she’d be able to speak properly again, Twilight sighed and said, “Nevermind. Whatever. It’s fine. I’m fine. Better than fine, actually, since you wound up doing exactly what I was set to ask you anyways before you ran off.”

“Really now?” Pinkie Pie said, massaging her chin with a hoof. “And here I thought you were gonna ask me to bust out a red sheet and a fancy, high class sponish aristocrat outfit.”

Twilight raised a brow and opened her mouth to ask why on equis she would think that, but shook her head at the last moment and stopped her curiosity from accidentally leading her down that foalish path of trying to figure out Pinkie again. Instead, she said, “You know what, it doesn’t matter, Pinkie, because it all worked out beautifully in the end.”

“I’ll say!” Rainbow Dash replied before flying down to the turf at Twilight’s right. “That was a three step combo and a half if I ever saw one! I mean, get a load of the big guy over there! For all his freaky super-strength, he can’t bust out no matter how hard he tries!”

As Twilight faced forward to re-regard the minotaur, she concurred. Despite doing his absolute best by all verbal and visual accounts, the bull just couldn’t break out of the cake batter no matter how hard he squirmed, and could only wiggle his hooves, hands, and his head a tiny bit since they had gotten off relatively light compared to the rest of him.

As he spoke again, Twilight found herself regretting that wasn't the case, specifically wishing that enough batter had struck his lips to keep his absurdly loud mouth shut. “Appearances can be deceptive rainbow-one! Mark my words, I shall be free, and when I am, we shall resume our little--” The minotaur suddenly stopped, sounding more than a little exhausted before resuming with, “--our little… our little--” The minotaur huffed tiredly again, before this time straining himself to the point where he yelled out in pain and sweat pooled on his brow before finally relenting in his attempts at freedom and relaxing for a bit before asking, “Alright, several questions are coming to the forefront of my mind right now. Chief among them being: what is this infernal material about me and what is it made of!? I mean, seriously! SERIOUSLY! In all my travels, never before have I encountered something so… so… uhhh!”

“Like I told Twi here just now: trade secret! Like a master magician, a boss baroness of baking never reveals her secrets!” Pinkie beamed.

“Wait… do you mean to tell me that his confounded, constraining substance has something to do with… the culinary arts of all things!?”

“Boy does it, pal,” Rainbow spoke up. “That stuff you’re covered in is cake batter!”

“Cake… batter!?”

“A huh,” Pinkie piped in. “But not just any boring old cake batter, the cake batter to an ultra super duper special awesome super top secret super prank super cake I’ve been working on and perfecting since I was a filly for a baker’s dozen years, a half a normal boring dozen months, a quarter regular dozen weeks, a quarter quarter typical dozen days, three hours, five minutes, and six seconds! Seven seconds! Eight seconds! Nine sec--”

“Okay Pinkie, I think he gets the whole time spent working on it point. Move it along now,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes in sync with Rainbow rolling her own.

“Oh, right. Sorry. Ahem!” Pinkie Pie coughed into a hoof and resumed where she left off. “Anywho, my current recipe for the cake batter calls for a heaping helping of one of many special, crazy ingredients, one of them being gak.”

The minotaur raised an eyebrow. “Gak?”

“Yeppers!”

“What is… gak?”

“Gak be whack.”

A small silence ensued, in which the minotaur looked expectantly, waiting for Pinkie to go on. Twilight honestly felt bad for the bull, for Pinkie’s total and utter non-explanation was the exact same one she had given Twilight when she had asked about it. In fact, Twilight had also been stuck to a wall after Pinkie had blindsided her with the batter fired from her canon as well.

Deciding to be exceedingly gracious and abounding in mercy in saving the poor guy the trouble she had experienced, Twilight sighed and said, “Gak is a magical meta-material known for being a super-strong, super-stretchy adhesive highly coveted for the plethora of heavy industrial and technological applications it could used in and because it is exceedingly rare since the conditions of great cold required to manufacture it in suitable quantities seldomly occur in nature and are difficult to artificially induce.”

Twilight took herself a deep breath, doing her best to forget the unpleasant memories of the sleepless nights spent scouring nearly every library, government archive, and business archive she could after Pinkie’s gak attack to finally find that teeny, tiny little blurb of a footnote of a reference to it in a scientific white paper from three decades ago that was so long windedly academic, it almost put even an intellect like her to sleep. “The point is, when it’s allowed to harden, it’s strong enough to support hundreds of thousands of tons of weight in just the amount you’re covered in, meaning that until I gather up enough power to cast a cryomancy spell powerful enough to replicate the conditions it was forged in, you’re stuck, Mister. Sorry, but you’re not going to foalnap anypony!”

“Really?” the minotaur asked, confusion departing from his face to be replaced with his typical determination. “Am I now?”

“Yes!” Twilight said, stomping a forehoof against the ground. “See, I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but while we three here have been keeping your attention, two more of my friends have taken Mayor Orange and his family out of this stadium and somewhere safe! Someplace even I don’t know!”

“Really?” The minotaur looked to his right where the Oranges had last been before Rarity and Fluttershy had managed to take them away in all the commotion. “Have they now?”

Twilight was going to respond immediately, but there was something… off. Something about the way he had said what he just had made the hair on her neck stand up and she could feel the rumblings of goose-bumps forming on her forehead. She glanced at Pinkie and Rainbow and found they looked similarly uneasy at the minotaur’s sudden change in mood.

“Y-y-yes,” Twilight began hesitantly before steeling herself and saying, with returned confidence, “By the power invested in me as a princess of equestria, I am placing you under arrest for attempted foalnapping, conspiracy to foalnap, and assault! You and your employers are just going to have to deal with the fact that you failed!”

“Really?” the minotaur said, locking his steely gaze with Twilight’s own. “Have I now?”

“Yeah, you have! And if I were you, I’d quit gabbin’, because anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law!” Rainbow said before whispering to Twilight, “Psst, that’s how it goes, right?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Yes, Rainbow,” she whispered back.

“Aw yeah! Something I learned in college was actually useful for a change!” Rainbow beamed, raising and bringing her hoof down in victory.

“College you say?” the minotaur raised a brow. “In my country that is something we are taught in, how do you say in equestrian parlance, elementary school. Your nation’s academic standards must be lax indeed if you learned something so basic in college of all things. That, or you are merely an oafish lummox. Personally, I prefer the latter hypothesis.”

The minotaur stuck his nose up at Dash, causing her to gnash her teeth and seethe as she said, “Hey! Talk to me that way again and this oafish lummox is gonna smack you upside your head… again!”

“Dash, please don’t let him get under your fur so easily,” Twilight pleaded, patting her friend gently on the shoulder as she could, yet still more than ready to hold onto her with said hoof as well as her magic if she attempted anything rash. “He’s just trying to antagonize you because he knows that he’s been reduced to trying to hurt us with words instead of his brawn. Just take a deep breath, let it slide, and you’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, Dashie!” Pinkie piped up. “Besides, you passed college, didn’t you? I mean, a C- across the board is still technically passing marks!”

“Pinkie!” Dash screamed. “Don’t tell him my grades!”

“Why not?” Pinkie Pie shrugged, looking honestly taken aback. “They were pretty good, all things considered. They were almost as good as mine!”

Rainbow groaned as her hoof met her face, and when the minotaur began to chuckle, Twilight joined her.

“Hahahahaha! Truly, you do have a firm head on your shoulder, Pinkie Pie. Firmer than your rainbow friend! You are a great pony indeed!” The jollity in his mein and voice gradually faded away as he then said, “Which is why it truly does pain me to do what I must. But first: a quick query for you, rainbow one, if you truly are not a dunce as you claim. Answer me this: how is it that cold air is formed when one purses their lips like so,” his lips smacked together as though he were about to blow out a candle, “and exhales?”

Twilight wondered what new angle of attack the minotaur was trying at, but wound up blanking at the possibilities.

“Ha! That’s easy! Kindergarten stuff!” Dash boasted, “Pressure!”

The minotaur gave a scholarly nod and said, “Very good, rainbow one. You are correct. Most corect.” An impish and utterly malicious grin spread across his face. “Here is your gold star for the assignment!”

He took a deep breath. Not just any deep breath, Twilight noted, but one that displaced so much air it was as though an elder dragon was gathering up as much oxygen as he could right before breathing out--

Twilight’s eyes opened up in epiphany, and as quickly as she could, she projected a barrier around her and her friends, making it as strong as she could to withstand the withering fire she thought was set to buffet it. Fortunately, it was not fire that the minotaur breathed out towards them, but simply a hypervelocity stream of compressed air. Unfortunately, this still ended up being just as bad. Worse, even, for as the minotaur had so obviously hinted at, she realized, the air-stream must have been compressed by his lungs and lips to the point it was super-chilled, air deflected from the barrier freezing the turf around them to ice in mere moments. The absolute worst part about the minotaur’s evident super-breath, though, had to have been that the kinetic energy it struck Twilight’s bubble with was immense, greater than any dragon’s fire-breath she had ever been forced to endure. It was honestly all she could do to maintain the barrier, the strain causing her to yell out in great pain. As the seconds ticked by, she realized much to her mounting horror that the fact that the minotaur’s lung capacity just would not let up was truly the worst part about this ability of his she had newly discovered. So afraid of failing to match his might with her own was she that, in tandem with the magically induced migraine she was giving herself, her brain was far too addled to come up with a way out of this situation.

That was, until her friends came to her, and their own, proverbial rescue.

“Twi! Teleport us out of here!” Rainbow freaked out.

“Yesterday!” Pinkie Pie added, easily as freaked out.

“You’re right! Why didn’t I think of--”

“Just do it!” Rainbow and Pinkie yelled in stereo.

“Okay!” Twilight’s horn glowed brightly with her magic. Blindingly bright. So bright that it honestly started to sting, the sensation almost as bad as both trying to hold the shield up long enough to keep the hyper fast, hyper cold air at bay and teleport three fully grown ponies elsewhere and far enough away. “Gahhhhh!”

No matter. For as with many a great magical feat, Twilight eventually managed to pull it off. With far more brute force, exertion, and exhaustion then she was generally accustomed to or would have willed, but in the end, the deed was done all the same. Twilight and her friends warped away from danger, warping back to the safest and nearest place she could think given the strenuous circumstances on her mind and magic. This wound up being back at the wreckage of their seats in the stands, which normally would have been alright, but wasn’t this time as she had teleported them there upside down, five feet above their seats. They were lucky that the cushions were intact enough to cushion their heads.

But in that brief moment of disorientation as they got back up, their luck had run out. Faster than they could react, the minotaur was upon them, landing before them with such force that they bounced into the air just as high as they'd been after the teleport. The bull then grabbed Rainbow and Pinkie by their heads, muttered out a quick apology that went, “Forgive me, Pinkie,” slammed their heads together like a couple coconuts, and threw Rainbow to the side roughly--enough to rip off a quintet of seats she crashed into from their hinges--whereas he gingerly placed Pinkie to the ground next to him.

After the top of her head landed on the unforgiving concrete with no cushion to cushion it this time, Twilight looked up from her spot there on the ground, laying on her back, to find the minotaur now staring down at her.

“But… but… how!? The gak in the batter! It was holding you fine! You should still be trapped! How did you manage to--”

She received her answer when the minotaur blew down at her, remembering in the brief moment before her mind, like the rest of her, was frozen solid that the minotaur’s super-breath seemed to have been cold enough to have frozen everything around her barrier.

Cold enough to forge gak in, and thusly weaken it, even.

Cold enough to turn her into a pony-cicle in a tenth of a second flat.

*****

Fluttershy couldn’t remember the last time she had galloped so swiftly. Not because she had never ran so fast before. Far from it. With the changes Twilight had ushered into her life since that fateful trip to Ponyville two odd years ago, Fluttershy had found herself running this fast far more frequently than she liked. Rather, the reason she couldn’t remember, aside from the fear and added tiredness of carrying Mayor Orange on her back, was because it was honestly such a long time ago since their adventures had required this much exercise of her exceeding lack of physicality that it kept slipping her mind no matter how hard she tried thinking about it to take her mind off the stress of the present adventure. After she tripped over from the added weight and belly flopped onto the pavement for the fourth time in the five minutes it had been since she and Rarity had left the stadium, though, she could honestly say that at the moment, she wished now more than ever that she had spent the interim time between now and the Tirek Incident having accepted Dash’s offer of training her to get into shape. It may not have made her a better fighter, but at the very least, it could have given her the strength to fly herself and the mayor to safety or AT LEAST prevented her from falling down with him on her back so frequently.

“Fluttershy are you alright, darling!?” Rarity asked from behind her, also for the fourth time in five minutes since the stadium was behind them, as she skidded to a stop next to her while carrying Auntie Orange and Babs on her back.

Fluttershy attempted to get back onto her hooves, say she was fine as certainly as she could, and resume running just as she had every time before. But she couldn’t. It wasn't that her mind didn’t desperately want her to keep on chugging along, but her body just wouldn’t, couldn’t, allow her to. No matter how hard she pushed, no matter how hard her muscles labored, the best she could do was wiggle around a little. From bitter experience, Fluttershy knew that she’d need a long trip to Aloe and Lotus’ spa later to even stand and walk again without her legs feeling like cardboard jelly.

“I… I…” Fluttershy tried once more to lift herself up, giving everything she could muster, even flapping her wings for what good that was likely to do, redoubling her efforts so hard she gave herself a headache made all the more splitting by aggravating her soreness from the tumble down the steps earlier. And for her effort, yet again, she failed, falling to the ground, the headache being her only consolation along with what felt like her wings popping out of place, the sharp, smarting pain of which made her yelp out and finally concede defeat as she cried and cried out, “No! It’s too much! He’s too heavy! I’m too tired! I’m not strong enough! I… I think my wings are out of their sockets! I need help! I--”

Fluttershy blinked and in that instant, Rarity was at her side, kneeling down next to her, a comforting hoof on her head. “It’s alright, darling,” she began as a mother would for her child that had scraped a knee, “you needn’t exert yourself into a hospital bed. You’ve gone well and above the call of duty, and I would gladly take such burden off your shoulders. Figuratively and literally.”

Fluttershy sniffled and muttered a quiet, “Thank you.”

She had such good friends. As many issues as she could take up with them at times, their track record of being there for her when it counted was near blemishless, about as perfect a thing as things could be in this world. Like a newborn puppy, or kitty, or foal. She wished she could carry the mayor and do so many other things on her own to be sure, but she wasn’t Rainbow Dash. She wasn’t one to deny her own inability and stubbornly hold out even past the point where it was rendered so obvious a kid could see.

“Are you good to walk now, Darling?” Rarity asked, the mayor now firmly resting on her back with the rest of his family.

Fluttershy tested her joints now that the only load they had to bear was herself. Slowly rising up, she said, “Yeah I think so,” and took a few tentative, yet still successful, paces forward.

“Splendid to see.” Rarity smiled, but then her smile wavered. “But being honest, by the look of things, you don't have much coal in the steam engine, so to speak.”

Fluttershy's legs at that moment decided it would be the absolute best possible time to wobble such that she both almost fell down as she took her next step and fully proved Rarity's point. “No… no. I don't. I'm… I'm sorry.”

“Hush now. There's nothing to be sorry about. We're just going to have to find the nearest possible building and hunker down till such a time as it's safe to exit.”

“Are you sure? Shouldn't we still try to put as much distance between us and him as we can?”

“Darling, have you SEEN the celerity with which that braggadocious brute moves?”

“No, I didn't see any vegetables on him. But I don't see what that has to do with--”

“Celerity, dear, not celery. It's a fancy synonym for speed.”

“Oh.”

“Oh is right, darling. There isn't a single place the two of us could reach in time that'd be far enough! So rather than play to the strength of his speediness, let's pay to however strong his perception is, which I am willing to say with utmost confidence mustn’t be all too great considering the two of us were able to give him the slip from right under his nose,” Rarity said, finishing with a wink.

Fluttershy nodded at Rarity's reasoning. It was solid and would likewise make for a solid plan. Sure, it was really the only plan they had or could conceive of that made even slight sense, but that was hardly a significant enough detraction.

And it just might have worked, too.

Had the two not been in the open still, visible enough that any pegasi in the sky could have picked them out from the crowdless, empty sidewalk they were on.

That, or a leaping super-minotaur that must have seen them during one of his giant jumps and that must have made it so that when he landed on his latest jump, it was quite close to where they were standing. Close enough to send them careening off their hooves into the side of a nearby dumpster they had been standing next to hard enough that it turned over, the two of them plus the Oranges now technically on top since it was a vertical flip the side they hit endured, along with a sizable dent from the bodies of the five ponies being flung so hard. Hard enough that Fluttershy's popped wings were actually put back in their teleological alignment, the resultant pain making her so numb that she was in even less of a position than Rarity herself--who was likewise thrown for a manehatan sized loop--to defend the fashionista once the minotaur trodded towards them, stopped, and grabbed Rarity by her throat.

“You are an annoyance, vain-one.” He promptly tossed her over his shoulder, Rarity letting out quite the shriek despite being winded before being cut-off abruptly upon her splashing down into a nearby pond. “And you,” the minotaur's hand wrapped about Fluttershy's neck, “are a disappointment.”

Fluttershy felt him lift her up, and closed her eyes, anticipating the worst, to be flung away like discarded trash like Rarity. Instead though, he just held her there for a while as her hind legs dangled and kicked and her wings flapped uselessly before, with the index and center fingers of his free hand, he opened up both her eyelids and held them open as he stared at her with a look that spake less of anger and more of melancholy, like a father would his daughter when she acted out.

“Why did you do what you did, soft-one? Hmmm? Why did you forego my forewarning and toss caution to be scattered away to the four winds so callously, hmmm? Tell me. Go ahead. I. Am. WAITING.”

Fluttershy didn't quite know what to say to that, and still wouldn't even if she weren't agony addled and her windpipe wasn't caught in the grip of a massive minotaur. Ever fretful of what he'd do if she remained silent, however, she was quick to blurt out the first thought to arrive to her mind. “I… I don't know.”

Immediate was her regret.

“You do not know!?” the minotaur blasted into her face such that her hair billowed in the not insignificant breeze his voice made. “Render pardon unto me for finding that unlikely. A sheep does not suddenly morph into a lion sans due reason. So, what is that reason? Why would you deny my clemency, something reserved for so very few and meted out to fewer still?”

“I… I...” Flutershy tried to remember, she tried so desperately to remember, doubtless as she was that he'd still be so wroth with her. Again, between the physical and mental strain, she came up empty. That was, until she heard the mayor groan out in his own world of pain he was in, and then suddenly, her memories all came flooding unstoppably back to her, along with that same quiet yet confident conviction that had started her on the path that lead to this moment. “Because… because I felt I… had to show clemency… to Mayor Orange. I'm… the element of kindness, after all. If I see someone hurting… really… truly… hurting… I can't just sit back and do… nothing. I… I had to help him. It's… it's sort of been my job for the last couple years,” she choked out.

“I… see...” The minotaur's eyes narrowed and he let go of her eyelids. “Would you further say that it would go against your nature not to help, not to show kindness to a pony in such dire need?”

“I… yes...”

“Even one that for all you honestly know could very well sit on the side of the deceiver?”

“Y-y-yes.”

The minotaur's glare intensified and he huffed visible and semi-scalding steam through his nostrils into her face, making her close her eyes and look away, once more expecting something horrible to happen to her.

Instead, much to her relief and surprise, mostly the latter, she felt the minotaur pat her comfortably on the head.

“You are indeed a dear heart with a sweet heart, soft-one, and your intentions are likewise as pure as the first snowfall of the winter season.”

Fluttershy opened her eyes and regarded the minotaur quizzically. “Do… do you meant that?”

“Of course. Every bit as much as I meant I would loath to bring harm to such a delicate creature as yourself.” His look hardened. “Which is why it pains me to say that I still have a little more harm to deliver you unto, for decent and innocent as you are, in this instance, I regret to inform you that you are in the corner that is against justice, and justice is mine to serve this day.” The minotaur raised the thumb of his free hand. “Do not fret, though. My clemency still abounds, and I shall ensure the pressure my thumb shall exert upon thine forehead shall render thee unconscious quickly with minimal pain. I am told it should only compare to a--what is the right braytish phrase--oh yes! A booster shot! It should only feel as awful as a simple booster shot.”

The minotaur's thumb drew close to Fluttershy, and her breath hitched. This was it for sure this time, she thought. The bull had said so himself. There was no way out of his. She wasn't strong, speedy, or smart enough, and the minotaur had already proven himself superior to the likes of Applejack and Rarity and must have done the same if he was standing where he was to the likes of Rainbow, Pinkie, and Twilight. She would be the last element to fall. It was all over. It ended with her. And then, the minotaur would grab the mayor and leap off with him to wherever it was his mysterious 'employers' willed him to be and be subject to their mercy, their clemency.

Or more likely, their lack thereof.

And it'd be her fault. It was all her fault. She wasn't tall enough to rise to this great of an occasion. Not even her friends were considering how quickly and effortlessly he had dispatched them. And who was? Who could possibly even contest the minotaur? Who could conceivably challenge his overwhelming might? Who in equestria or equis or elsewhere could possibly best him in battl--

“Hey! Big, bad, and ugly! Pick on somebody your own size, why dontchya!”

The new voice that had said that had done so from above Fluttershy and to her left, which is precisely where her head turned when she heard it, her eyes catching from their corners the minotaur's head turning to regard the voice at the source as well, though of course from his perspective he had to turn his head to the right. What she saw she couldn't quite make out, as given its position in the air it more than partially blotted out the noonday sun. But from what little she could identify, it was BIG. Not full grown, adult dragon sized, and not quite train-car sized, but certainly close in dimensions to the latter. And likewise as a train-car, what she saw was a thing of metal, though not riveted or bolted or welded by what she could tell, but smooth and sleek and blemish-less as a newly forged sword blade, head of an arrow, or tip of a spear. Even the paint, overwhelmingly crimson red with some lines of silver and black here and there was utterly seamless, sans an unevenly spilt splotch anywhere. She noticed movement on top of the unidentified hovering object, and noticed for the first time five black domes made of some sort of glass or some other glass-like material as they seemed to slide into and disappear into the object itself. Then, five figures leapt out of the object, one from each of the areas where each of the domes had been, and higher into the sky, so much so that Fluttershy could just barely make out their silhouettes, where with the object, she at least had been able to spot some more detail.

But that all changed soon enough once the five figures landed just a few feet away, Fluttershy's eyes soaking up so much more detail that she could only do two things in response.

Gasp and drop her jaw nearly to the floor.

Chapter 4 - STARFIELD SMACKDOWN!

For a long, awkward moment after Robin and the other titans landed on the ground next to the minotaur and winged horsey it held in its grip, its free thumb mere inches away from her head, the two sides just stood there, staring at one another. The titans with rather austere, fiery looks. The minotaur and winged horsey with rather stunned, surprised looks. The former's was the more subdued of the two with just his eyes nearly bulging out of their socket. The latter, though, took the cake in how over the top her reaction was, her eyes not just about bulging out of their sockets, but her jaw so extended it looked more than painful enough for Robin to keep wincing the longer he looked at it.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get that reaction a lot wherever we go,” Beast Boy said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “That question I just asked still stands, though: why don't you try fighting someone that can actually fight back, huh?”

“Or somefive?” Cyborg asked, rocking his fists together.

Inwardly, Robin smiled. He was glad to have such strong supporting evidence that the two members of the team that had previously been the most disturbed by the appearance of the horseys and skeptical of their moral and ethical alignment seemed to have really put that aside and come around in concluding as he and the others had that the horseys were, in all likelihood, both not that bad and probably who they were here to help, weird as a blizzard in SoCal in mid-july as they still looked. Amazing what a brief fly over this city and seeing the strange equines go about their daily lives in a not all too disimilar fashion to humans could do to an opinion or two or three or four or even five.

Rather that verbally respond to the queries levied his way, the minotaur looked at the winged horsey, who looked back at him. Then, the two of them looked back at the Titans. Then back at each other. Then the titans. Then each other.

This continued for three more times before Robin slapped his face, having had more than enough, and said, “Look, we just saw swarms of tens of thousands of horses fleeing the stadium on the flight over and saw you about to knock out the one you're holding. I'd hazard that it's a safe guess you're the one responsible, so stop what you're doing, let her go, and surrender now before things have to get… loud.”

Robin had expected the minotaur's mien to become angered at this, but instead, he seemed to grow ever more confused and tilted his head to the side, asking, “What ARE you strange lot? WHO are you?” He turned his head back to the winged horsey. “Do you know them? Are they friends of yours from some odd and previously undiscovered race of talking, sapient monkeys?”

The winged horsey shook her head from side to side like a swivel.

Beast Boy bristled at the insinuation and, pointing an accusatory finger at the minotaur, said, “Hey! We are NOT monkeys, dude!”

“Well, not all of us. Just Beast Boy,” Raven said.

Cyborg erupted into uproarious laughter at that, Starfire placing her fingers daintily to her lips to suppress a far quieter, but no less joyous snicker. Beast Boy now fumed to the point that steam was coming out of his ears.

“Hey!”

“Well then, whatever you lot are,” the minotaur coughed into a fist, “know ye this: I do believe we all are caught in some grave misunderstanding.”

“Really now?” Raven asked.

“So you are not the one responsible for all of the mayhem and pandemonium we witnessed on our journey?” Starfire asked.

“Oh no. I most certainly am,” the minotaur said with more than a little pride. “But, it was not without due cause. Permit me, if you will, to elaborate.”

The minotaur then proceeded to do precisely that, explaining something to the effect of being hired by a mysterious bunch of employers to kidnap the mayor of the city, Mayor Orange, in retaliation for supposedly framing and supposedly wrongfully imprisoning three supposedly innocent business toms--what they apparently called male griffons around these parts--and about some local monarch, a princess 'Twilight Sparkle'--a name that made Beast Boy and Cyborg LOL uncontrollably till Raven slapped them upside their heads with a wave of dark magic--and her friends trying, and failing, to stop him from meeting out 'justice'. Apparently the pony that the minotuar was holding, a pegasus to be specific--for during the minotaur's recollection, the Titans had learned the official nomenclature of the strange, colorful equines about them, including the 'tribe' specific names--was one of the princess' friends and the three unconscious 'earthponies' laying on the dumpster were Mayor Orange, his wife, and his kid daughter.

“…and then I was about to press my thumb against the soft-one's forehead just enough to render her unconscious, but before I could, you lot showed up and, well, now here we are.”

“Interesting,” Robin said.

Stifling a yawn, probably not because the explanation was dry in any sense, but most likely because it had gone on far too long for his famously short attention span, Beast Boy said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Real page turner. So when are we gonna toss him behind bars already?”

“I beg your pardon?” the minotaur said, clutching his chest with his freehand. “I take offense to that underlying notion!”

“Which one?” asked Raven.

“Yeah. That your so called 'righteous cause' ain't so righteous?” asked Cyborg.

“Or the idea that we can hack it in the 'tossing you behind bars' department?” asked Beast Boy.

The minotaur stroked his chin and tilted his head and looked off elsewhere in deep thought for a few moments. “Come to think of it,” he regarded the Titans again, a wide goofy grin spanning from ear to ear, “I suppose both!”

As the bull bellowed out in laughter, Robin looked at the rest of the team and silently signaled to them with several covert hand gestures to huddle into a circle to discuss tactics more privately. It took a little longer for certain members—read: Beast Boy--to get what Robin was doing since he never did quite master the difference between the 'huddle up' gestures and the 'let's go out for pizza' ones. But since thinking about food so strongly as to abandon a mission so casually wasn't Robin's style--and because everyone moved around to huddle into a circle--Beast Boy was quick enough on the uptake for Robin's liking for once and soon joined them.

“So what's the game plan, fearless leader?” Beast Boy asked.

“Please tell me we get to make him eat them fighting words,” Cyborg said.

“And wipe that smug look right off his long face,” Beast Boy added.

“Under normal circumstances, I'd say yes without any strings attached and let everyone go nuts. Thing is, this guy has four potential hostages in close proximity and is already holding one. We can't afford the probable collateral of an all out assault from the get go until they're out of the picture.”

“Makes sense,” Cyborg said, nodding.

“Eh, I guess.” Beast Boy looked away from the team to re-regard the minotaur, still laughing up a storm, and then looked back to his friends. “Plus, we wouldn't wanna rough him up too badly. Between you guys and me, he doesn't look so tough. I mean, he looks practically like the minotaur's back home. Rob himself could probably karate chop him down on his own!” he said with a goofy, toothy grin.

“That's where you'd be wrong, Beast Boy,” Raven said.

Immediately, Beast Boy's smile faltered and he and the rest of the team focused attention on her.

“Ummm… okay… care to share with the rest of the class, Rae?” Beast Boy asked, more than a little nervous, Robin thought, as Raven's analysis and conclusions when sizing up threats tended to be spot on and the way her tone sounded didn't portend well, either.

“Well, I may not know what the average power differential between local minotaurs and the ones we encountered on Themiscyra is, but I know for certain that the ones back on our world aren't supposed to be filled with the kind and degree of magic that this guy is.”

Robin perked up at this and asked, “What kind of kind and degree are we talking here?”

“Earth magic. Enough that if it could be put into a big light-bulb, it'd illuminate the whole city and surrounding area for miles for ten minutes straight.” Raven pinched the bridge of her nose and massaged her eyes like she had been up all night looking at a bright computer system in the dark. “It's… honestly very overbearing.”

“Just like the dude himself. Go figure,” Cyborg said with a shrug.

“Yeah,” Beast Boy chuckled, now shivering from how nervous he was. “Go figure.”

“Anything we can't handle?” Robin asked.

“Assuming the worst and that he can use a lot of it all at once, no. Not if we blitz him fast enough. Wouldn’t like our chances in a war of attrition, though.”

“How come?” Beast Boy asked.

“Because he keeps drawing earth magic into himself continuously.”

“So… what? He's like some walking, talking, blowharding battery for earth magic or something?” Beast Boy asked.

“Eh, I'd say he's more like an open system capacitor. Kind of like a solar panel, or photosynthetic plant, or a kryptonian. Just with a sorta hocus pocus instead of sunlight,” Cyborg said.

“Oh. Right. Sorry. Always get those two confused.” Beast Boy scratched his brow.

“Any points of highest concentration?” Robin asked.

“Yeah. At his hooves.”

Robin looked at the ground, rubbing his chin in thought.

As he did, a light-bulb must have gone off in Beast Boy's head, for as though he had just had a big eureka moment, he asked, “Wait… you guys don't think he's absorbing earth magic through his feet, do you?”

“Yes, Beast Boy. It'd kind of obvious that's what we'd all suspect,” Raven replied, Robin noting her trying to hold in her natural snark and not really succeeding in the endeavor.

“It does seem to be the most likely conclusion,” Starfire said.

“Then it's settled then,” Robin proclaimed, slamming a fist into his palm. “We have a plan of attack!”

“We do?” Beast Boy blinked owlishly.

“Yes. Raven, I want you to see about manipulating this guy's emotions so that he keeps laughing like he just got hit in the face by a smilex bomb.”

“That's actually what I've been doing since you told us to huddle up.”

Robin and the others opened their mouths to utter their own unique protest at this surprising admission, but Raven cut them off at the pass.

“Before you ask, I wasn't stupid about it. I knew what I was doing and followed proper protocol when against an unknown entity to the letter. I probed the edge of his mind to see if he had any mental powers or defenses of his own. He doesn't seem to have the first but the second he's got in spades. However, they only seemed to be tailored towards direct mind reading and control and were significantly less sturdy against empathy. He was already jolly to the point of ignoring us and you all know how much easier emotional manipulation is if the subject is already experiencing the emotion you're looking for. Even more so when they don't know you can do it and are using it against them. I saw a good opportunity, I took it, and because of it we've had more than enough time to plot. Let's just kindly move on, okay? His laughing is starting to get grating.”

Robin and the others looked at each other, trying to see if any one had any real objections now that Raven had defended her decision so iron-tightly. All they found were naught but shrugs.

“Right. Good initiative, Raven,” Robin said before coughing into a fist. “Anyways, back to the plan.” He pointed at Beast Boy. “Beast Boy.”

“Yeah?”

“I want you to transform into some animal that's fast and difficult to detect, crawl into the hand the guy's using to hold the pegasus and then morph into something large and tough enough to pry his grip wide open. Then I want you to grab the pegasus and get back here.”

“And while that is transpiring?” Starfire asked.

“You and Cyborg are going to tackle Mr. Minotaur into the ground and make sure to get him into a hold where his feet absolutely DO NOT touch the ground, understood?”

“Affirmative.” Starfire nodded.

“Yep,” said Cyborg before cracking his mechanical knuckles. “Can't wait to see if he's all talk or really can match muscles with the best of them. Namely, me.”

“Be careful. With Raven on the team, it may have been a piece of cake testing his mental fortitude, but testing to see how good his physical fortitude is could still run into lots of problems if you start with maximum strength.”

“We hear ya, man.”

“Yes. We promise to only exert enough force to stop one of those delightful little volkswagen beetles speeding down the road at the school zone speeds to begin with,” Starfire said.

“Good.” Robbin nodded. “That's exactly the level of strength I was about to suggest.”

“And what about me? What's my part in all this?” Raven asked.

“You're gonna reel in the Mayor and his family and, in case Star and Cy didn't go hard enough on him and he tosses them off, are going to blast him hard enough to send him back into the stadium, because at that point we'll know for sure he's a big threat and need somewhere big, wide, and relatively empty to keep him contained. Though, we are going to have to make sure Princess Sparkle--”

Boy Boy and Cyborg sniggered up a tempest.

“--and her other friends are evacuated to really focus fire on him.”

“Understood,” Raven said, nodding.

“Good. And lastly, I'm going to throw a couple of smoke bombs to conceal our maneuvers. Now, on the count of 'break', we execute. Three… two… one… break!”

With clockwork precision machined into them by years of practice and experience, Robin and the team made their move. As he had said he would, he tossed two smoke bombs, one at the team's feet and the other at the minotaur's. Beast Boy transformed into a tiger-beetle, the fastest of all insects that creeped upon the earth, scurried along the ground, fluttered his wings into the open space of the hand the bull was using to hold the pegasus, transformed into a sasquatch to get him to open it and let the pegasus go, grabbed her in one of his arms before she hit the ground, and leapt back to Robin's side. Raven used her magic to levitate the dumpster and the Orange family atop it next to her. And, before the minotaur could react to all of these near simultaneous events, Starfire and Cyborg flew and sprinted into him respectively, knocking him onto his back on the ground with both of them restraining him in a hold where his hooves were very much elevated from the ground.

It had all gone down without a hitch, and for a little bit, Robin thought Plan A was all they really needed to discuss in hindsight since it was working so well.

Complications arose, however, as they were want to do in the field of superheroing. Though at least the point of failure had already been foreseen to be exactly where it wound up being.

As it turned out, the minotaur was strong indeed. VERY strong. Strong enough, Robin noted, that only a second after Starfire and Cyborg had brought him to the ground, he had almost succeeded in breaking free and tossing them off, and though they had rallied quickly and re-consolidated their grip, Robin could tell between their grit teeth, straining muscles, and pained expressions that they were only just able to hold him.

“Yeah… okay… this cat is DEFINITELY stronger than the ones from Donna's old stomping grounds!” Cyborg said.

“By a--owww--considerable margin!” Starfire agreed.

“I am… not certain what you… mean by all that… but for what it is worth… you monkeys… are likewise… mightier… than I had… initially… surmised!” the minotaur said.

“We ain't monkeys, man! We're humans!” Cyborg said.

“Mostly!” Starfire added.

“And I am no cat, I am a minotaur!”

Suddenly, the force the minotaur was exerting to escape seemed to increase, and Starfire and Cyborg's grip began to slip, much to their own and the rest of the team's mounting horror.

“And strong as the both of you are… I am stronger… still!”

If the way he was overpowering the two physical powerhouses of the team at the same time was any indication, indeed he was. Maybe not by much, but enough to matter.

Eh. Oh well. Plan B it was, then.

“Raven! You're up!” Robin cried.

“On it!”

Just as the minotaur had finally managed to knock Starfire and Cyborg off him, Raven unleashed a blast of dark magic that sent him precisely where Robin wanted him to go, crashing through the outer, upper walls of the stadium and creating a dust cloud--as he presumably crashed down into the field--that made the prior dust cloud they had seen rising from the stadium look like a lowly hedge compared to a mighty oak.

Next to Robin, Beast Boy put down the pegasus, transformed back to normal, and whistled. “Whew! Nice shootin', Tex!”

“It may have looked good, but it was only about as powerful as a haymaker from Cy or Star,” Raven said.

“Man, you make that sound so small. Just a haymaker from me or Star,” Cyborg said, rolling his eyes as he and Starfire got up and dusted themselves off.

“That's because in this case at least, it was small. It won't keep him down long.” Robin turned to regard the frightened pegasus and knelt down to her level. Making sure to keep his tone as gentle and understanding as he could, he asked her, “Hey there. Are you alright?”

She didn't respond at first, choosing instead to remain silent and stare blankly ahead with mouth far agape. Understandable. He and the other titans had to have looked pretty out-there by native standards, and that was before factoring in that all the superpowers and skill they had just displayed seemed to at the least be able to highly contest the very same foe that had so easily trounced her and her friends if the minotaur's recollection rung true. Were he her, he'd probably do much the same. He just hoped that she was still able to properly understand him.

“It's okay if you don't feel like talking. Me and my friends can be a lot to handle for people who've never seen us in action before. I just want you to know that you and the Mayor and his family are safe now and that we're going to make sure the rest of your friends are too and haul this clown away in chains. We're here to help, not harm.”

Something he had said must have broken through to her petrified consciousness, for her eyes lit up with life, her mouth closed, and she spoke in a voice so small it could honestly count as microscopic--beyond the capacity to be picked up by any normal, untrained human ear, “Thank… you.”

And then, she let out a faint gasp and feinted.

“Well… she was quite the conversationalist,” Raven said.

“Coming from you? Ha! That's a gas!” Beast Boy said.

“Oh, the poor thing,” Starfire said, clutching her heart.

“Little lady must have had her brain overload or somethin',” said Cyborg.

Robin sighed and nodded and petted the pony sadly. “Yeah. Must've had a bad day. A REALLY bad day.” He glanced over at the Mayor and his family and then towards the stadium where the mysterious Princess Sparkle and the rest of her friends were now certainly lying in heaps. “All of them have.” Robin grabbed a hold of and cradled the pegasus in one of his arms and pointed at Beast Boy with his freehand. “Beast Boy! Gather up the mayor and his family! We're gonna put them and the pegasus in the cargo-hold and fly around the stadium until we see the princess and the rest of her friends and put them in too.”

“And while you two are doing this, I suppose the rest of us shall re-engage the minotaur?” Starfire asked.

“Yes. Once we're done, I'll set the T-ship to return to Titan's Tower and drop off the ponies there for their safety and we'll join the fight.” With a press of a hidden button on his glove, Robin opened the cargo-hold of the T-ship and then pulled out a grappling-gun. “Now: Titans, Go!”

With nods all around, the team split to their assigned tasks. Raven and Starfire flew to the stadium with Cyborg sprinting close behind. Beast Boy morphed into a pterodactyl and scooped up the mayor and his family in his claws and dropped them off in the cargo-hold before flying back over his cockpit seat, turning back to normal, and plopping down back into it. Robin fired his line, zipped up into the cargo-hold, secured the pegasus, climbed on top of the T-ship, leapt into his cockpit seat, and piloted it after the others, that trademark unwavering determination and focus abounding in his glare.

*****

The moment she and Starfire crested over the outer stadium wall and in sight of the field, Raven found herself forced to have to slap aside a chunk of rock with her magic hard enough to dustify it. Just as she had suspected, the minotaur was up and at 'em again. By her guess, not long after making the substantially larger crater she saw in the turf as he landed, he had gotten up, carved out the substantially smaller crater she saw next to where he now stood with his hands as he scooped up enough earth, and had been waiting patiently to ambush the first titan he saw. That or, if he was smart, the weakest. Maybe some combination of the two.

Regardless, after that cheeky little stunt, Raven was set on making him pay for that, especially now that it was known for certain that he could take a hit or two or several.

“I'm gonna press him!” Raven said before smacking aside another chunk of rock casted at her. “Gather up as much energy as you can for a follow up--” Raven swerved around another chunk of rock. “--attack after you see me resurface, okay!?”

“Affirmative!” Starfire said, nodding.

Raven nodded back and then, not wasting another second, surrounded herself in her soul-self and dive bombed straight for the minotaur. She took no small hint of satisfaction in how comical his surprise was in the brief moment before impact as well as his pain in the brief moments after as she slammed him deep into the ground at hypersonic speed through the turf and earth, through the reinforced concrete bed that held up the turf and earth, through the basement of the stadium beneath that, and through a good hundred feet of bedrock below that before their momentum halted enough that Raven thought there really wasn't much more damage mileage she could get with this one attack and decided to turn tail--in this case rather literally considering the form of the raven about her--the way she came and let Starfire take a crack at it.

Which she did, in spades. The moment Raven came out of the rather large hole she had dug with the minotaur filling in for the part of drill-bit and her the role of motor, she barely had enough time to bob to the left to avoid the two beach-ball sized rondures of verdant green energy Starfire overhead chucked down as hard as she could, creating a sizable sonic boom, into the hole.

Raven hovered to a stop next to Starfire and dispelled her soul-self. Regarding her, she said, more than a little cheekily, “Cutting it a little close back there, weren't we Star?”

“I had every confidence in your ability to dodge out of the way in time,” Starfire beamed a bit too widely even for her and chuckled and rubbed the back of her head in a way that didn't exactly exude the confidence she claimed to have.

“Just give me a little more wiggle room next time, would--”

Raven's final word was lost over the sound of the energy spheres finally detonating. It wasn't a terribly terrific noise, akin more to thunder five miles distant than booming in one's face, but still was it noticeably loud and still did it cause the earth below to tremble and shake with significance.

“Woo! Did someone just bring down a skyscraper a block away?”

Raven turned and peered down towards Cyborg just then jumping over the railing into the field proper.

“If she did, it'd be several hundred feet under our feet.”

Cyborg whistled, stepping up to the hole and and looking down it. “Think that finally made him take a nap?”

“Cy, behave. You know not to bid fate to come like that.”

“I know, I know. Chill, Rae,” Cyborg said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Just having a little fun. No harm in that, is there?”

As if answering him directly, fate at that moment chose to shut trap its jaws, and from the ground exactly behind Cyborg, the minotaur sprouted up and shut trap its arms around his chest and squeezed tightly enough that even from as high off the ground as she was, Raven could hear his chassis creak.

“Ahhhhh!”

“Now that was quite the withering assault!” the minotaur jubilantly chuckled. “Especially those energy balls after the dark-one took the form of a shadowy, ethereal crow! It might have left quite the welt on my noggin if I did not tunnel out of the bulk of the blast radius in time! Hahaha!”

Needless to say, Raven and Starfire had been trying to get a good bead on him to hurl a torrent of darkbolts and starbolts his way the moment he grabbed Cyborg. But due to the way the minotaur was constantly and subtly juking himself and Cyborg around and how he was using him as a human shield, neither could get a clear enough lock they were sure wouldn't hit their guy instead.

“Unhand our friend at once, villain!” Starfire shouted, hands awash with power Raven could tell she so wished to unleash but could not.

“Again with the insinuation that I am in the wrong! I have known you lot not ten whole minutes and already you vex me more with your claims than the princess and her friends ever did!”

“I suppose that's because we can hit back a lot harder! That phenomenon’s been known to mess with people who think they're in the right when really it's the other way around!” Raven shouted. “Now hold still, would you!? You're making it way harder than it has to be to target you!”

“Well that is certainly the idea,” chuckled the minotaur. “After all, if you two are too busy slinging energy at me, however will I be able to ask and get answers to some very pertinent questions that have been plaguing me. Such as, what else can you lot do? The powers and the power of the powers you've displayed thus far are… amazing! Simply incredible! Fighting you lot is proving challenge akin to what I imagine fighting myself to be like! Exhilarating! Exhilarating beyond measure!”

“That is for US to know!” Starfire shouted.

“And for YOU to learn only when we draw from our bag of tricks when you least expect it to smack you senseless! Like… so!”

It was at that moment that the three large, previously underground water-pipes Raven had been covertly telekinetically unfastening and getting into position since the minotaur had last talked jutted out from the ground behind him and into his back. Though the pipes bent and shattered from the impact and though both the bull and Cyborg were sent flying forward with the former landing on the latter as the two skid along the turf, it left the bull's back wide open long enough for Raven and Starfire to get in a couple of well placed bolts to carefully get him off Cyborg. And once he was flipping haplessly in the air as a result, a sitting duck was an apt descriptor of what he had become. In the next moment, lit up like The Fourth of July and Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve combined was more accurate. Raven and Starfire went crazy, went ham as Cyborg and Beast Boy might say, and didn't stop firing until they were sure the minotaur was unconscious this time, which as the smoke settled and Raven looked down the olympic swimming pool sized crater he was now lying at the bottom-center of, he seemed to be.

There was, however, only one way to know for sure.

And Raven made sure she wasn't the one to discover that fact first.

“I'm not going down there to check.”

As Starfire and Cyborg looked at her, silently asking if she was serious as they both obviously felt they were within the same realm of tiredness as she was, Raven held their silent plea at bay by raising a hand and saying, “I may be the team's single biggest cannon, but I'm a glass cannon. You guys might have comparatively smaller cannons, but those are housed within the armor of main battle tanks or battleships or whatever analogy gets the point across you'd prefer. It doesn't make sense for me of all people to go and check, no matter how exhausted we all are.”

Cyborg and Starfire opened their mouths to argue, but Raven figured that was just reflexive and that before either could even utter a single sound in protest, they'd come to their senses and understand the wisdom in her words. She was right and without saying anything at all, they merely shook their heads and then looked uncertainly at one another.

“Best of the two out of the three?” Starfire asked, raising her hands as though she wished to play rock, paper, scissors.

Shrugging, Cyborg said, “Eh, why not? Take a lot less time than playing thumb war with you.”

Indeed it would and indeed it did, much to Cyborg's grimace conveyed chagrin, as he was the one who quickly lost out. But, true to his nature, Cyborg sucked it up, shook his head, and only grumbled a little bit as he quickly jogged to the edge of the crater and leapt down next to the minotaur and proceeded to kneel to examine him.

“Anything?” Raven asked.

“According to my scanners, and just my plain intuition based on his breathing and pulse rate since I don't really know what the biology of his run of minotaur is like, it's Dr. Cyborg's extremely informed and scientific diagnosis that big man here's out like Grannie Cyborg the day after Thanksgiving.” Cyborg stood up and raised a thumb at his teammates. “Good work, ladies. I'm a little… irate I got used as a hostage and didn't manage to help y'all blast him till the cows came home, but still, A+ material, girls.”

“After the sweat we put into it, it better be,” Raven said, wiping away a pool of the stuff sticking to her brow.

“Are you certain of your conclusion, Cyborg?” Starfire asked.

“Yeah, pretty much.” He waved her over. “Come on down and see for yourself if you're so worried. Two of us are probably gonna have to connive some way of restraining him anywho.”

After some hesitance, she obliged him, flew down next to him, and did her own inspection.

For her part, Raven was satisfied with what Cyborg said and elected to stay where she was, remembering for the first time in the couple minutes it had been since the team broke off that Robin and Beast Boy had their own assignment. One she decidded to check in on to see how it fared.

Now that her focus wasn't razor sharpened on battling the big bad, she could hear the roar of the T-ship's engines clear as day and looked to see it flying low over the field--only about ten feet off it--with Robin inside whereas Beast Boy was exactly on the field in the form of a cheetah. Raven looked ahead and found what--or rather who--they were moving towards: a lone, orange furred, normal horsey--pony--with a trio of apples adorning each flank just lying out on the field for some reason. When Beast Boy reached the pony, he shifted into a kangaroo, grabbing it in such a way that Raven was able to see its face more clearly and determine it was a mare. Then, he leapt into the back of the open cargo-hold, depositing the mare there before leaping back out and assuming the form of a cheetah again, continuing the hunt for the princess and her friends and anyone else needing help as a consequence of the minotaur's sudden, uninvited crash of the stadium's grand opening.

Pressing the micro-communicator in her ear, Raven asked, “How goes the easter egg hunting?”

“From the looks of things,” came Robin's voice, “we got everyone. Or at least, everyone within the bounds of the stadium.”

“Why the hesitation?” Raven asked.

“Because we have a couple extra and yet I'm fairly certain we're still down a pony. But we still can't find her anywhere despite all our other success. We'll keep looking for a few minutes, though, before expanding the search.”

Raven nodded. “Speaking of success, our fight with the minotaur was resounding. Turns out all it took was me and Star blasting away at him like he was Godzilla. Cy didn't even get a single hit in. In fact, he was used as a human shield by the minotaur at one point. He's still super salty about it.”

“I can imagine,” Robin said, Raven knowing for a fact that although his voice remained dry and monotone as it was want to do when he was in work mode, he was smiling like she was on the other end. “He wasn't too banged up then, I take it?”

“Just his pride was. But for the rest of him, yeah, he's fine. From what I can see,” Raven turned away from the T-ship and Beast Boy back to her other friends down in the crater with the minotaur, “he and Star are wrapping around the remnants of three big underground water-pipes I used earlier on the minotaur to restrain him. Doesn't seem like Cy's sweating all too hard.”

“Good. Since everything seems so locked down on your end, care to lend me and Beast Boy a hand?”

“I was just about to suggest the same thing.”

And so, Raven flew to help them find the mysterious missing member of Princess Twilight Sparkle's friends. However, even with her help, once again they quickly came up empty. Deciding to call it quits where the stadium proper was concerned, they soon regrouped with Cyborg and Starfire, who by this point had extracted themselves and the minotaur from the crater and had been seeking and applying new things to surround the bull in to make it that much more difficult for him to escape.

“And with this last lamppost, that should about do it,” Cyborg said, dusting his hands off after he and Starfire had finished bending said lamppost around the bull, he and her crossing their arms over their chests and smiling at their accomplishment.

“A job well done. Most well done,” said Starfire.

“I'll say,” Raven added, flying down next to her friends.

“Yeah,” Beast Boy said, having run up to them as a roadrunner before morphing back to normal. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say you two should quit your day jobs and make bank becoming pro metal sculptors. I mean, if it worked for the guy that convinced Chicago that shiny, reflective, big bean they got was a work of art worth their time, effort, and money, then it's gotta work double for this giant metal cocoon thingy you guys got here.”

“Don't remind me,” Raven said, rolling her eyes. How that guy got away with that and yet lacked the foresight to know people would just call his 'masterpiece' the big bean despite it being so obvious just never sat right with her.

Soon, the T-ship landed on the turf next to them, and Robin opened and leapt out of his cockpit right next to the minotaur's head. Crouching down to give his own, quick examination, Robin nodded satisfactorily and quickly stood back up.

“Good work, team. Textbook, even.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, what'd you expect? 'Ponyland's' villains to be something we couldn't handle pretty routinely?” Beast Boy said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Weren't you whigging out about those same ponies being brain sucking aliens just a few minutes ago at the tower?” Raven asked.

“Well, yeah, but that was then when we didn't know nuthin' and cuz the little guys honestly look more than a little creepy. But now we know a whole lot more about them and the guy that was giving them so much trouble and it's all honestly nothing much to write home about. I mean, if this was the 'big, terrible danger' Larry was so concerned about, we should be whisked back home any moment now, right Larry my dude?”

Beast Boy smiled widely and looked around, waiting for the aforementioned chibi imp to appear, say they were all finished, and send them back on their merry way home. He didn't come, just as Raven had expected, and all Beast Boy wound up doing was making himself look foolish, also just like Raven expected.

“One: don't mess with fate like that. That's the second time someone's done it today and we all know by now that it never ends well,” began Raven. “Two: since Larry or any other imp very clearly isn't coming to end this little misadventure now, this minotaur guy isn't the real, underlying threat we've been sent to help deal with. At most, I'd guess he's just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Whatever he is, and whatever's going on, I suppose we'll find out once we take everyone back to the tower for some questioning,” Robin said. “Until then, though, we still have to--”

“Be bested by us in battle should you choose to resist, foul cretins!”

At that, all the titans looked back and up towards the sky, for there, from on high, the presumed owner of the voice was descending. No one knew which of the two aprroaching alicorns the voice belonged to at first--the tall white one with the ethereal, tricolor mane and sun on either flank or the shorter dark blue one with the ethereal lighter blue mane and crescent moon upon a splotched backdrop of black. But after they both landed ten feet away from the team, it was soon made quickly apparent.

“Unhoof Princess Sparkle and her friends at once, fiends!” loudly proclaimed the smaller, dark blue one in the exact same voice that had spoken before.

“And explain yourselves, or face the wrath of the full force of the equestrian crown upon you!” said the white alicorn.

*****

“The crown?” thought Robin. He looked at the two alicorns a little closer and sure enough, adorning each of their heads was a crown and they also wore various other regalia one would consider royal. So, they were monarchs indeed, and by the sound of it, pretty important too. More so than Princes Sparkle, even?

“Okay... first off: who am I speaking to, exactly?” Robin asked nonchalantly, calmly stepping in front of the rest of the team--between them and the alicorns.

“We shall be asking the questions here in this round of the parlay, ape!” the dark blue one said, pointing an accusing hoof at him. “And how DARE you show the gaul to play so coy with us!” The dark blue alicorn tsked. “Not knowing who WE of all ponies are! Honestly! The intellect of villainy over the centuries must have deteriorated far indeed if you feel us so foolish as to dignify such a question with an answer!”

“But I honestly don't know who you two are,” Robin said as honestly as he could. He gestured to his team behind him. “WE honestly don't know who you two are.”

“Yeah, I don't know if y'all need glasses or contacts or whatever, but we ain't exactly from the house next door,” Cyborg said.

“Or the one down the street,” said Beast Boy.

“More like a completely different world,” Raven said.

“One that is very far away indeed. As in, not even in the same universe,” said Starfire.

“What!?” the dark blue one shouted. “That is preposterous! Ridiculous! Absolutely absurd! Why, I take back what I said and instead say the villainous mind has gotten quite the deal more creative since my day to craft such elaborate, fanciful, and downright improbable fantasy, believe it themselves, and expect others to as well!”

The white alicorn sighed and hung her head. “No, no. It's... actually quite probable.”

“Sister!” the dark blue alicorn said, utterly flabbergasted. “Do not tell me you actually believe those… those… wait… what precisely are they?”

“Therein lies my chief point as to why I believe them. They are not any known sapient race on this planet and they say they are not even of this planet. I suppose their race's name is even, human, is it not?”

“It is,” Robin nodded.

“Though I am a member of an extraterrestrial race that merely strongly resemble humans known as tamaranians,” Starfire said.

“But she's weird,” Raven said. “And also the exception to the rule. Most of us are indeed human even if not… normal humans.”

“But… but...” stammered the dark-blue one, “how could this be? The only known parallel universe with humans that has been confirmed is the one Princess Sparkle stepped into via that mirr--oh.” She stopped suddenly, her eyes widening in realization. “Right. I had forgotten. Forgive me.” She nodded solemnly and took a step backward, the white-one taking a step forward.

“This may sound like an odd question, but did any of you arrive to this world by way of walking into a statue of a rearing up horse belonging to a school known as, 'Canterlot High'?”

Out of all the crazy, outlandish things Robin had heard thus far that day, the white-alicorn's question was certainly up there. He briefly glanced back at his team and saw they were universally in agreement with his take on things without needing to say anything.

“Uhmmm… no… I can't say that we did. We got here a different way.” Robin stopped for a moment to place a fist under his chin in thought. “Though now that I think of it, our method may actually be considered a little… stranger.”

“Perhaps it is best if we… start over. I have a strong feeling we got off on the wrong hoof with our antagonism,” the white-one said. She pointed a hoof to herself. “I am Princess Celestia, highest and sovereign ruler of these lands, the pony nation of Equestria.”

“And I am Princess Luna, co-highest and co-sovereign ruler of these lands, the pony nation of Equestria,” the dark-blue one said, pointing to herself. “And sister to Princess Celestia.”

Robin nodded. So the monarchy in charge of the whole country was really a diarchy. He could dig it. Even if having two monarchs sharing executive authority was weird and probably lead to many a bureaucratic nightmare, sort of like countries that had both a president AND prime minister calling the shots from the top. In any event, it probably was a good sign that neither seemed to be the 'evil queen' type to loathe having to share power. “I'm Robin,” he said, pointing to himself before pointing to his team individually and then saying their names. “And that's Cyborg, Beast Boy, Starfire, and Raven. Together, we're a superhero group from our world called the Teen Titans.”

With that, Robin proceeded to explain the gist of the situation. Overall, it was very similar to the rundown he gave the minotaur, though of course, he was at more liberty to go into more detail this time. He still couldn't tell the two everything, and if he did outright fib, the biggest thing he fibbed about was Larry and the full picture of his powers and his nature and relationship to the Titans, explaining him as an 'eccentric pal' of theirs with spacey-wacey, timey-wimey abilities--Beast Boy's words, not his--that liked to traverse the multiverse, saw ahead in this world's future, and determined the best course of action to prevent the bad times he saw on the horizon was to take the team and their base and move it here to help the good guys already here. But aside from that whole can of worms, Robin was as honest and forthcoming as he was with the other titans--numerous instances of secrecy and paranoia he had learned from and learned to absolutely not replicate notwithstanding.

During the elaboration, though, his old detective instincts, honed and refined by years of tutelage under The Dark Knight and solo work and leading his own superteam couldn't help but kick in. Thusly, he could not help but take special note of the two rulers and their reactions to everything. For the most part, they were as to be expected. A little better than he expected, even, all across the board. The picture perfect portrait of two princesses stoically taking in a lot of information at once and a lot of very interesting information at that without any outward display of emotion, extreme or subdued, at all. Robin could certainly say this about them: he wouldn't want to play a game of Yugi-Oh! or chicken with either. But be that as it may for the bulk of things, Robin still managed to parse out three instances where the neutral facade on their faces faltered and they just couldn't maintain playing at being expressionless statues.

The first was when Robin explained the basics of the minotaur's powers and how they seemed to work and the same for the Titans themselves. They both seemed taken aback by this. Understandable. The minotaur, he and his friends, and what they could all do was pretty weird.

The second was when Robin tapped danced around the minefield of an issue that was the whole Larry conundrum. They both seemed downright off-put and more than a little… annoyed at this for some reason. Again, completely understandable. Larry was very, very, VERY weird and just as much irksome.

The third time, however, was by far the most… intriguing one to Robin. It was when he was explaining the minotaur's motivation and thusly had to get into the whole finger pointing debacle with the mayor and others accusing the three toms of wrongdoing and locking them up on one side, and the minotaur and his mysterious 'employers' and likely the three toms as well accusing the mayor of wrongdoing and saying he should be locked up on the other side. Princess Luna was surprised, confused, and most prominently of all, angry. VERY angry. Definitely far greater than a woman--mare--of her station should have shown in this situation. For her part, Princess Celestia didn't seem angry at any point, but she more than made up for it by looking significantly more surprised and confused initially and then displaying a different emotion than wrath entirely and the most distinct emotion by far, disappointment, just as much as Princess Luna's irateness.

As Robin's elaboration drew to a close, his gut told him to remember Princess Celestia's reaction especially, as it was likely to be very relevant in the near to mid-future.

“That was… quite eye-opening, I would say,” Princess Celestia said.

“Yes. That is certainly… an acceptable means to describe it,” said Princess Luna.

“Well, I for one am glad that you five strike me as perfectly reasonable and restrained individuals. Heroes, no less!”

“Indeed,” Princess Luna said. “When we first saw thee, we deliberated for quite the embarrassing span of time whether to strike at thee immediately from the shadows or announce ourselves and give you the chance to speak.”

“Sadly, I fear it was a courtesy we were a hair's breadth away from not extending,” Princess Celestia said with a sad smile. She bowed her head sorrowfully and said, “Please, forgive us.”

“Yes,” Princess Luna said, mimicking her sister. “Please.”

“It's alright, really,” Robin said, placing his hands up. “Believe me, at this point, we've instigated enough misunderstanding fights ourselves that we would have talked you two down without attacking back and anyone having to get hurt anyways.”

Princess Luna seemed to bristle at the implication, however unintentional on Robin's part, that even with the twin advantages of the element of surprise and the first blow working against them that the Titans would still be able to recover and rally enough to dialogue with her and her sister and deescalate things. So much so she said, “With what we had in the works, mayhaps not.” After a look from her sister, though, Princess Luna sighed, eased up, and said, “Still, in any event, we are most glad conflict, especially senseless conflict, did not have to erupt.”

“As are we, Princess,” Robin said, gesturing to the rest of the team to nod, which they gladly did, and then nodding himself.

“So,” Princess Celestia started with a sigh, “I take it then you intend to take Mayor Orange, his family, Princess Sparkle, her friends, and those two completely unconnected, no-way-affiliated-with-anything stallions you found to that base of operations of yours you mentioned, this--Titan's Tower, was it?--to get medical attention, correct?”

“Yes,” Robin said simply, no way belying that he found the way she'd said something just then a little… odd. “It's kinda the only place with the requisite facilities we know of, so, by default, it's kinda the closest and best one too. Unless, of course, either of you two Princesses have any good suggestions.”

“We know of quite a few places, actually,” Princess Luna began.

“But they would only have the benefits of proximity and familiarity,” Princess Celestia continued. “I can certainly say without a shadow of a doubt that if Titan's Tower is even halfway as astounding as you five and this--” she pointed at the T-ship. “T-ship, was it?” After Robin nodded, she finished by saying, “--then it should have the most advanced and effective hospital on the surface of equis.”

“Thank you, your majesties,” Robin said, bowing. “We hope it's to your expectations, especially since it sounds like you two would like to accompany us there, correct?”

“If you would have us,” they said in stereo.

“It would be our honor to host you. As well as any military and/or law enforcement personnel you'd wish to have as your escort.” Robin scratched the back of his head. “I should warn you though that however big it looks, it's actually quite cramped on the inside and only gets more so if there are too many people. You can go nuts on the outside, especially the island the tower actually sits on, but inside, I wouldn't recommend you bring in more than, say, 72 at most.”

“So roughly five squads and a half, then,” Princess Luna muttered, tapping her chin with a hoof in thought. “Thank you. That is quite generous and should more than suffice.”

“What of the minotaur, though, if you do not mind me asking?” Princess Celestia queried. “Are you bringing him to Titan's Tower as well? If so, I would highly advise against it.”

“As would I,” agreed Princess Luna. “The consequences of a breakout would prove disastrous.”

“After seeing him in action, I would tend to agree, princesses. However, in addition to being an above world-class hospital, Titan's Tower is also a state of the art holding facility and jailhouse designed to house a couple dozen supervillains of this guy's caliber at any one time. In fact, it's far more suited and geared towards that task and purpose than being a hospital.”

“So if you're really sure the tower's medical tech is way better than anything y'all got--” Cyborg began.

“Then you may rest assured that its containment technology is even more in advance of this world's technology for that given function,” Starfire finished.

“I know you're concerned about the safety of your subjects and fellow princess, but at this point, housing them and the minotaur in the same place really is the smartest play,” Robin added. “But since at the end of the day, they're your subjects, where they go seek medical attention should be left in your hands--hooves. What I'm not going to budge on is the minotaur staying with us, because believe me, we really are the best place to keep him with the least likelihood of him getting out.”

Robin didn't like having to sound so blunt and forceful to the two monarchs since they honestly seemed alright, but he wasn't sure of a subtler method of getting them to get it and he really did want them to get it.

After some hushed whispers and quiet deliberation amongst themselves, though, the princesses seemed willing to acquiesce.

Princess Celestia daintily and gracefully coughed into a hoof and said, “After some… spirited discussion, my sister and I both agree that your original proposal is--”

“Exceedingly preposterous.”

Robin's eyes and those of everyone else immediately turned towards the exposed head of the minotaur in his metallic cocoon to find him awake and with his nose turned up.

“For it presumes that I would permit this to occur without contest and success in said contest,” the minotaur continued. After chuckling at the various looks he was receiving, he then said, “Like… so.”

Then he took what by all accounts, including Robin's own, looked like a completely normal, regular, in no way atypical, breath.

And then… he exhaled.

And that was where things went crazy, quick.

And went south, swiftly.

In the brief but intense moments Robin spent airborne after having been blown back like everyone else, he deduced that the minotaur must have had some sort of as of yet unseen super-breath power that if the below arctic chill he felt wafting on his skin was any indication could also likely double as a kind of freeze breath. The reason it hadn't been displayed until now was obvious: Raven and Starfire had lucked out and knocked him out before he even had the time to bust it out--and being perfectly honest, in Robin's experience, the true utility of any breath power, no matter how powerful, tended to lay in one using it when your opponent didn't know you had it and/or using it when they least expected and preferably at the most opportune moment where it'd do the most damage. Having four out of seven of your enemies less than five feet in front of you, the fifth enemy less than ten, and the sixth and seventh less than fifteen certainly counted as such a moment.

But despite all this, despite being so understandably taken off guard, Robin still kicked himself all the same for not catching onto the minotaur's play earlier with all the telegraphing he'd done in hindsight. He was the team leader, the boy wonder of a tactical detective, the smartest cookie in the jar for that sort of thing, and yet like everyone else, he felt he had allowed himself to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book far too easily without much of anything to show for it.

Nothing but losses to show for it.

For as it turned out, the super-breath the minotaur exhaled was truly more of a freeze-breath in this instance than even Robin had initially suspected. Raven and Beast Boy had been frozen solid into icy statues of themselves, utterly immobile. Starfire and Cyborg managed to escape the same cold fate thanks to their resistance to chilling temperatures on account of tamaranians possessing weird, alien biology that permitted them to survive unaided in a vacuum for an extended period of time and Cyborg's parts being second to none in terms of quality. Yet still were they knocked away and knocked off their guard long enough for the minotaur to flex his way out of his impromptu metal cocoon prison with a sound like thousands of soda cans crumpling at once, rush them, and deliver an uppercut to each of their chins so devastating that the both of them were sent back-flipping into the horizon farther and faster than Robin could reasonably be expected to track even if he wasn't tumbling along the turf and screeching to a rather painful halt at the time.

All that left Robin with was himself. Wondrous, but still ultimately human boy up against two tons of titan tearing terror.

It was a ridiculous prospect, Robin knew. He had just recovered from the breath attack and taken a fighting stance. The minotaur in the meanwhile could have been upon him several times over now with his speed to the point he could have hit him as he was crashing on the ground.

But he hadn't.

Instead, after dispatching with the team's muscle as he had, the minotaur just stood there, fists on hips, cape billowing in some unseen breeze as he smiled widely and oddly heroically. “Come now, there's no need for any more violence. Not like you could mete and dispense much, what with your team being out of commission and you being… well… by your lonesome.”

So, the minotaur agreed indeed that Robin's chances in a fight were slim and just wanted to talk and undoubtedly gloat while he was at it. Presumptuous, but an accurate presumption in this case. Robin's guard did not waver, though, as he recalled something important and said, “But I'm not by my lonesome, technically. The other titans might be down, but I still have the royal sisters on my side.”

“He is right,” Princess Luna said, walking up to Robin's left.

“He does,” Princess Celestia said, walking up to Robin's right.

“Your majesties,” the minotaur said, bowing politely. “Forgive me ever so greatly for my latest job causing such a fracas as to garner your attention AND intervention. You must understand that it was not my intent.” The minotaur then performed a prompt about face and leisurely strolled toward the T-ship. “Just as you must understand that it is not my intent to come across as rude now, but as much fun as I have had conversing and clashing today, I am on the clock and have spent far too much of that clock's time NOT extracting the mayor. So, I shall do so and be running off then.” He waved goodbye to them. “Toodles, as they say in your country.”

Not three steps closer to the T-ship had the minotaur taken before Princess Luna cocked her head to the side and asked, “Is… is he just… ignoring us!?” in absolute disbelief.

“It would appear so,” Princess Celestia said with a glare.

“But… but why, sister!? Why would he do that to US of all ponies when we have ample opportunity to strike no less!?”

“Same reason he's ignoring me too,” Robin said. “Because he knows, or at least thinks he knows, you're not a threat to him. Not really.”

“What, what, what!?” Luna shouted, turning to him. “But… but… we are the two sisters! Raisers and lowerers of the sun and moon! Two of the most powerful spellcasters in all the nation! Rulers defacto and dejure of the land with centuries of wisdom and experience and skill behind u--”

“And yet not only is he so confident he could best us in battle, but trivially so at that,” Princess Celestia interjected.

“And he wouldn't be entirely wrong on that front, either,” Robin said. “He's already proven himself capable of demolishing Princess Sparkle and her friends and the rest of my team. Compared to that, we just don't stack up. Not enough to even tickle him, in his mind.” Covertly, Robin keyed in a particular sequence using the various buttons in his gloves. “But that's where he went too far with his assumptions, and where we're going to make him pay for his hubris. In FULL.”

The minotaur finally made it to the cargo-hold and threw a fist back, no doubt casually expecting to pierce through the ramp and pry it open just as easily as when he got out of his metallic cocoon. Despite himself, Robin couldn't help but smile widely at the look of surprise on the bull's face as a barrier of staticy blue energy activated the moment his hit would have struck true, the metal beneath completely unharmed. Robin also couldn't help but snicker inwardly at the looks the two princesses were throwing him, and explained, “Like them? Those are the T-ship's brand new energy shields, installed courtesy of another group of more cosmic, space-faring heroes called, The Omega Men. I activated them just now.”

“Energy shields?” Princess Celestia asked, astonished. “You mean like a force-field small but powerful enough to run off a power supply on-board your vehicle and envelop it to protect it from attacks on command?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes went wide with wonderment. “Oh me oh my oh me. How… how--”

“Novel,” Princess Luna finished for her.

“Yep,” Robin agreed. “Kind of hoping that between the novelty and the fact that it's pretty heavy duty to the point where it took a full minute of the whole team pounding away at it to lower it that it'll take our friend here long enough to bust through for us to talk shop and draft a blueprint for his downfall. And on that front, I feel I have to ask,” he took a couple steps forward and then about faced to regard them, “do either of you know a thing, anything at all, about this guy?”

“Nothing for certain,” Princess Celestia said as the minotaur followed up with his second punch against the T-ship's energy shields. “Only rumors and hearsay. You must understand: Equestria does not have any offensive intelligence gathering capability. We do not go into other countries to collect information on their folk, you see.”

“In my line of work, rumors and hearsay can't be easily discounted since a lot of times they're treasure troves of information more valuable than the official, verified yarns people weave, so please, tell me any scraps and parcels you know. It could be crucial in ways you're not aware.”

The princesses looked at each other as if trying to find any objection to Robin's request in the other's face. Finding none, they both nodded and turned back to him.

“We believe him to be one of the demifysikos,” Princess Celestia said.

Robin raises a brow. “Demifysikos? What's that?”

“In his native minotauran, it would translate into braytish as something like 'semi-natural',” Princess Luna answered. “It is a term dubbed by minotaurs to refer to those exceedingly rare of their number than can use magic extensively, for though minotaurs are a race that all typically possess horns, they by and large have no command over magic the way unicorns and alicorns do, and point of fact, generally have about as much command as earthponies do.”

“Yet unlike most unicorns and alicorns, the magic of a demifysikos tends to be… exceeding in its power,” Princess Celestia said. “But thankfully, by that same turn, it also tends to be rather limited in its variety and utility in a way unicorn and alicorn magic typically isn't. Demifysikos magic is thus more akin to a pony's special talent magic in that regard.”

“Right… special talent magic… gotcha,” Robin said, hoping he sounded convincing as he rubbed his chin in thought. “So, for example, a demifysiko could be alarmingly adroit in, say, fire magic and very few if any would be able to challenge him in it, but ask the same guy to transmute lead into gold and suddenly he's about as useful as I'd be at that task.”

“That would be correct,” the princesses said in stereo before nodding in stereo.

“And one more thing,” Princess Celestia said. “They also typically tend to have a source of magical power external to themselves and a very severe weakness a clever opponent in the know could easily exploit for great gain. Often times, this weakness is being disconnected from that external source of their power.”

Now THAT got Robin's attention, even over the frustrated cries of wrath of the minotaur now going absolutely ham on the energy shields, still to absolutely no avail. He remembered Raven's words about how the minotaur seemed to be siphoning off earth magic from the ground into himself to power his abilities and how the magic seemed to be most concentrated in his hooves. But by that same token, he also remembered how poorly the test of the initial hypothesis--that it was through his hooves' connection with the earth that he drew power--went. For even though Starfire and Cyborg had kept his hooves off the ground for well over half a minute, he still managed to out-muscle them and break free.

Something was missing. Something wasn't quite adding up despite so many pieces of this picture puzzle having fallen into place. He did a little bit more thinking, about how this all seemed very reminiscent of the ancient tales of greek heroes and villains, suspecting the answer must have lied somewhere on that train of cognition since everything seemed to gel so well with that. Eventually, his mind wandered to a particular of the legendary accounts, one of the fabled 12 Labors of a certain Hercules, or Herakles as he was not known in latin, but the original greek.

On a hunch, he asked, “I don't suppose either of you stumbled on his name, by chance, did you?”

Princess Luna huffed. “'Twould have been difficulty beyond compare not to since apparently he is quite fond of boasting of and heaping praise upon it.” She rolled her eyes.

“Antaeus. That is his name,” Princess Celestia said.

It clicked. Suddenly, in some great, glorious, cacophonous epiphany, it all clicked, and Robin's eyes went the widest they had on this whole caper. “Say that name again, please.”

“Antaeus,” Princess Luna hesitantly said on account of the wild look Robin must've been sporting. “His name is Antaeus.”

So, he hadn't misheard and merely filled in the blanks his mind wanted to fill. Good. That was... good! The best news he'd heard all day, even!

“Thought that's what I heard,” Robin said, grinning slightly. “Because that means I've got a sure fire way to win.”

“You do?” the princesses asked in stereo.

“Yes. But it's going to have to require some mutual trust and cooperation or else it could backfire in a big way.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Princess Celestia said, uncertain.

“It doesn't have to be. Not if we get the execution down pat. Regardless, it really is the safest option.”

“As well as the only option, I presume?” Princess Luna asked.

“Pretty much, yeah.” Robin gestured for them to get closer so they could huddle up. They obliged and he said, “Now here's the plan,” and then explained his plan to them. All in all, he'd say they handled it rather well, though of course they took issue with the grand assumption that the whole plot's success or failure hinged on. Still, they agreed it was overall much better than anything they had devised and ultimately decided to go along with it. All Robin had to do now was ensure his bit went off flawlessly to perfectly set up the princesses for their parts, which shouldn't have been too hard since, after all, Robin was a master manipulator of unguarded egos.

“Alright then, Princesses, time to break!”

With that, they left their huddle and Robin turned around and slowly approached the minotaur, getting to within a half dozen feet of him before asking, “Excuse me, Mr. Minotaur, sir?”

Huffing and puffing from his attempts to break through the energy shields now, the minotaur gave a few more half-hearted punches before wiping away the sweat dripping from his brow and matting down the fur there and facing him. “Y-y-yes, errr… Robin, was it?”

Robin nodded.

“Bully. Joyous to see something I do go right for a change in recent history after the confounded set back that trying to get past this force-field surrounding this infernal contraption of yours has proven to be.” He wiped some sweat tumbling from his nose. “Speaking of, would it be too much to ask you to deactivate said field so that I may finally grab the mayor and be off, mayhaps?”

“Not a chance,” Robin replied, smile unfaltering.

The minotaur sighed. “I suppose watching me literally beat my head against the wall here is too good a comedy.” He began stretching out his arms a little. “Plus, being honest, at this point I dare say I have already invested too much of my time and energy not to rise to the challenge gloriously and dismantle your accursed field all on my own might. Merely having you lower it would be a smidge too anticlimactic and ultimately unrewarding, me thinks.”

“Speaking of rewards,” Robin said before reaching for his utility belt and pulling a familiar metallic disk from it with his 'R' emblem painted in the center, “here, I wanted you to have this. You deserve it.”

“Ummm… thank… you?” the minotaur said, taking it with one hand and scratching his head, confuddled, with the other. “If you do not mind my asking… what, precisely, is this little discus you have given me here and to what end have you given it?”

“Like I said, it's a reward. More specifically, a trophy, a keepsake for you to bring home to commemorate your astounding victory over The Teen Titans this day, oh most noble one,” Robin said with a bow and fanciful flourish of his cape.

“He is lathering it on a little thick there, would not you agree, sister?” Princess Luna whispered, unaware that Robin could still very much hear her with how attuned his sense of sound was.

“Hey, if it works, it works,” Princess Celestia replied, Robin practically feeling her shrug.

Robin's smile widened for a sec before returning to as it had been prior as he lifted his head back up towards the minotaur and answered the second half of his query. “I wanted you to have it as a token of respect. See, it's not everyday that someone we face manages to trash us like you did, and on those rare occasions, I've made it sort of a team tradition to give such a worthy foe something, a little gift, to remember us by.”

“Oh… well… thank you very much for your hospitality, Robin,” the minotaur said before bowing slightly. “It is nice to know that you monkey human things can be such good sports to your adversaries.”

“We're not monkeys,” Robin said, struggling to not break character for a moment but mentally managing to rally at the last moment. “Anywho,” Robin began, turning around and slowly walking away, “I'll just leave you back to your work and watch forlornly at a minimum safe distance of fifty or more feet since, you know, there's absolutely NOTHING I or the royal sisters could do to even contest you and all.”

“Oh… yes, well… good luck with that!” the minotaur called as Robin went away, waving as he did.

“And good luck to you too, mister!” Robin said back, also waving before putting both hands behind his head and whistling jauntily to the tune of the classic war jingle, Bombs Away. He soon made it back to the two princesses and turned back around to watch the minotaur more closely inspect his 'present' with his eyes, nose, ears, and even his tongue weirdly enough.

Eventually though, he seemed satisfied and put the disk in one of his toga's pockets and resumed bashing his fists fruitlessly against the T-ship's energy shields. Six punches in, he said to himself, no doubt low enough that he thought Robin couldn't hear, “You know, what an amicable fellow that Robin is. I certainly do not wish to cross paths with him and those other 'Teen Titans' when this is all over as foes. They seem like such straightforward folk.”

All Robin could do was chuckle lightly to himself and think to himself about how deceiving looks could be. When his amusement had plateaued, he looked to his left and then to his right at either princess, stopped whistling, looked forward again, and muttered out, “Tick. Tick. Boom.”

Immediately after muttering the last consonant, two rapid ticks sounded from the minotaur's pocket, startling him out of his shield smashing routine, but before he could do much else, the R-disc in his pocket detonated with a boom. And not the smaller boom associated with the typical explosive R-disc either, but a BIG boom that was the product of the specialty R-disc he had handed the minotaur, one that worked off the same principle as Speedy's quantum arrow by drawing energy briefly from the quantum realm for maximum devastation in a deceptively small package. Robin hadn't exactly gotten all the bugs worked out yet, especially since he was just reverse engineering Speedy's tech by mimicry without Cyborg's more specialized tech expertise to help, but he had managed to get enough explosive power to equal the same amount of energy found in three max strength uppercuts from either Starfire or Cyborg. A bad day for anyone on the receiving end to be sure. Granted, since it wasn't a shaped charge, the explosion was omni-directional--as was typical of explosions--meaning only half of the energy, 1.5 Starfire/Cyborg uppercuts worth, could ever actually hit the minotaur. But that was alright in this case since the true purpose of the quantum R-disc wasn't to even really hurt him in any real sense.

It was to launch him high enough into the air, far, FAR away from the earth below.

“Now! You're up, princesses!”

With stunning celerity and perfect synchronicity, Princess Celestia's and Luna's horns glew gold and dark blue respectively, and around the minotaur, two telekinetic fields of magic the same color formed, pushing him aloft further and further than he would have gone just from the explosion alone.

“Do either of you sense the earth magic leaving his body, yet!?” Robin yelled.

“Nnnnn… no!” Princess Celestia strained through her teeth, sweat practically pouring from her brow from the amount of magic she was pouring into the spell.

“Nnnnn… not… yet!” Princess Luna shouted, in much the same boat.

Robin was a little disappointed, though only just. He figured Antaeus' power had a fairly reasonable, meaning longer than three second, timer to it before it left him. Otherwise he would have lost it every time he leapt into the air or was knocked into it by an opponent, like now. He just hoped the time limit wasn't something crazy like half a minute or a full minute. According to legend, the Antaeus of his world would lose his power a moderate ten seconds after being away from the earth, and since the parallels were already so striking, he was banking on that consistency of similarity extending to the power countdown for this Antaues. In about five seconds, he'd know for sure.

Antaeus, however, had another plan. One that did not involve him floating idly by, helpless in the air. About four seconds in, he started pulling out every trick in the book, everything he could do, to help gravity along in pushing him back down to terra firma. He thunder-clapped with his palms, he used the non-freeze version of his super-breath, and of course he air-shoved with his hands and feet. While the fact he was spinning uncontrollably thanks to the explosion and the way the two sisters were applying their magic certainly made things considerably more difficult for him, by second six, it looked obvious Antaeus would touchdown right before second ten ticked by despite the princesses looking like they were gonna keel over from their efforts.

But that was also okay, or at least, Robin had a strong hope it would be. For ever since the quantum R-disc went off, Robin had been manning something most peculiar he had been wondering about ever since seeing it before the princesses had enlightened him.

A cannon.

Pinkie's party cannon.

According to them, as the name would imply, it belonged to one Pinkie Pie, the pink pony Robin and Beast Boy had found and placed into the T-ship and one of Princess Sparkle's friends and fellow element of harmony. The last they had heard of the cannon had been in a very strong worded letter from Princess Sparkle detailing how Pinkie had, in some hair brained prank of hers, tested out a special cake batter of hers using some super-adhesive called Gak on her one day out of the blue.

How she had gathered so much of the stuff when even an ounce of it was highly difficult to make and highly coveted by even those most in the know was beyond the princesses, but given that Pinkie had bothered to bust it out at all and the context clues of the battlefield, the three had all come to the same deduction. One wherein Pinkie must have used the Gak batter at some point during the elements' bout with Antaeus and stuck him to one of the walls where, because Gak was apparently just that tough, he couldn't break out with his super-strength and had to use the freeze-breath variant of his super-breath to bust out--since apparently extreme cold was both the only thing that could really forge and sunder Gak--and then proceed to wreck the elements from there.

While the princesses had also warned Robin that Pinkie and things associated with her had an innate tendency to be, in their words, completely random and unpredictable, and that he shouldn't rely on the cannon as a safety net because of this, from the sound of things, for whatever reason, Robin figured that Pinkie seemed to be quite consistent with her fascination and affinity for Gak and wouldn't have a cannon of the stuff just fire streamers or balloons or whatever when he pulled the det-cord. Plus, he was kind of out of alternatives since he could only throw so many explosive R-discs at a time and even if they all struck the minotaur at once before he hit the dirt, he doubted they'd juggle him long enough.

And so, with a faith in a device he had never used crafted by someone he had never really met loaded with something he knew very little about, Robin fired the cannon, aiming for Antaeus' center of mass.

And his faith was soon rewarded.

With astonishing speed, speed that just shouldn't have been possible for cake batter of all things, the green ooze shot forth from the barrel and struck Antaeus right in his back at a roughly 45° angle roughly at the nine second mark. Though because of this, about half of the energy was dumped into moving him sideways, the remaining half devoted to keeping him up was enough. More than enough, adding an extra two seconds to his fall.

And so, when the cannon's smoke cleared and Robin could see more clearly again, he was greeted to the wonderful, odd, and wonderfully odd sight of Antaeus--covered from the neck down in green, Gak cake batter--hovering face down and toes up just a few inches from the ground in the magic glow of Princess Celestia and Luna, desperately sticking his tongue out towards the turf below.

“Nnngh! Nnngh! Come on! Come on!” he said, stretching his tongue out to lengths Robin hadn't known minotaur tongues could extend to, but ultimately and unfortunately for him, to no avail. Finally, after several seconds of the rather humiliating and childish display, Antaeus yelled out in frustration and threw his head back, shouting to the skies, “It is true! It is so true what Pinkie said! Gak be whack! Gak be SOOO whack!”

Robin, curious, plucked a blade of astro-turf from the ground and placed it within the barrel for five seconds. When he removed it, he found it covered in hardened Gak batter. Despite his best efforts, including dropping the thing to the ground and stomping on it with his steel-toed boots hard enough to shatter reinforced concrete--yes, even the steel re-barb--the small amount of the green stuff wouldn't even budge and the faux blade of grass remained trapped.

Placing the Gak covered bit of astro-turf into one of the pockets of his utility belt, Robin regarded Antaeus and smirked. “Yeah, that's at least one thing we can safely agree on.” Then, he promptly pulled out an electro-birdarang and beaned him in the head with it. After he stopped screaming and convulsing and passed out from the electricity coursing through his veins, Robin turned toward the princesses and asked, “How are you two holding up?”

Panting up a storm, Princess Celestia wiped away a veritable puddle of sweat from her face and said, “Oh, you know, hanging in there. A lot like our minotaur friend here, funnily enough, only in reverse.”

“So in other words, we are this close to failure where keeping him suspended is concerned whereas he was and still is this close to success,” said Princess Luna, holding her hoof in front of her nose by a hair's breadth for emphasis. “Normally two tons would be foal's play for either of us, but after doing our best to negate his efforts to get ground side--”

“I got it. You're both tired.” Robin looked back to Raven and Beast Boy, still frozen from the freeze breath. Pointing to them, he said, “I'll try and thaw them out and get them to take that burden off your magical shoulders.”

“Please, do hurry,” the princesses said at the same time.

Robin heartily acquiesced to their request, ran over to Raven and Beast Boy fast as he could, pulled out one of his bo-staffs, and started chipping away like he was mining for ore during The Great California Gold Rush. His focus was on Beast Boy since he had the better recovery rate and didn't need the same level of concentration and mental clarity for his powers as Raven did for hers. Soon, he was freed, and after some 'achooing' and an economic run down by Robin, he transformed into a pterodactyl, grabbed Antaeus in his claws, and hovered up to a nice safe hundred feet off the ground, both princesses promptly falling flat on their faces and taking in greedy gulps of air.

“Whew,” said Princess Celestia. “Luna, remind me when the last time we had a magical work-out like that was?”

“I do believe it was the last time the Northern Dragon Flight tried to sack equestria, some eleven hundred odd years ago.”

“Huh. Has it really been that long?”

“Could've fooled me,” Robin said, in between grunts as he now focused on busting Raven out. “From where I stood, you two rose to the occasion like seasoned champs.”

“Hehe,” chuckled Princess Celestia, weakly. “We still got it, don't we, sis?”

She raised her hoof for a hoofbump.

Obliging her sister, Luna said, “Yes,” bumped her hoof against her sister's, and finished with, “we do.”

The two princesses then promptly collapsed into sweet unconsciousness, smiling from ear to ear just as Robin had broken Raven out and she thusly left unconsciousness with a few coughs and some sneezes.

“Ro--Robin?” Raven asked in between shivers.

“No. Red Robin's.”

Raven scowled. “You know I hate that pun. And that restaurant.”

“Sorry. Couldn't resist. You gotta admit, you kinda set yourself up for that one.”

After taking a few more moments to wake up and get her breath back to normal, Raven shook her head and said, “Yeah, yeah. I guess I sorta did.” After Robin helped her back up to her feet, she asked, “So… what happened.”

“Long story,” Robin said, shrugging.

“We at least win?”

Robin stole a glance at Pinkie's party cannon and then at the slumbering sibling monarchs. “Yeah,” he smiled, “I'd say we did pretty handily. Errr… hoofily.”

Chapter 5 - INTERRACTIONS AND INTERROGATIONS!

The time it took to get to Titan's Tower from that point on was only about ten minutes. It helped a bunch that a severely dazed but still conscious Starfire carrying a Cyborg who was the same way arrived back from wherever they had been uppercutted to only two minutes after Raven was thawed out. It also helped that the regiment sized contingent of royal equestrian guards following the two sisters had finally arrived a minute after that, just as Princesses Celestia and Luna started to awake from their brief slumber of exhausation. Finding the missing element of harmony and friend of Princess Sparkle--Rarity if what the royal sisters said was true--on the shore of the pond she had apparently been tossed into was an unusually quick breeze by comparison. Deciding what sub-units of the regiment would be part of the ponies' entourage was a breeze quicker still. After all that, they left for the tower and after four minutes in transit, they finally made it back home.

Following that, everything was honestly kind of a blur to Robin.

Setting up one of the holding cells with an anti-gravity field to keep Antaeus afloat and a pool of non-newtonian fluid for him to fall into in case it failed and in case being in contact with the metal of the floor or walls counted as being 'in contact with the earth' and chucking him in there under watch 24/7 by security cameras and a squad of unicorn guards ready to levitate him at a moment's notice.

Performing an examination of the other Titans to make sure they didn't need any real medical care and could help him set up the gurneys and set on the gurneys the elements, the mayor and his family, and those two mystery stallions, diagnose all of them, and nurse them back to health.

Doing precisely that to the point where all eleven of the ponies were up and some--really the ones called Applejack and Rainbow Dash--were annoyed they still had to stay bedside for an hour and were quite vocal about it.

Catching their medical guests up to speed on things with Princess Celestia's and Luna's aid.

It all just kind of blended together.

He may have been a boy wonder, but even he could only deal with so much happening so fast with any real focus without having an extreme thirst for a gallon of gatorade, hopping onto the couch, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table, and just laying back and relaxing. Kind of like exactly what he just did now after that aforesaid third round of explanations in such short time.

“Another day,” he sighed and took a big gulp of the grape flavored, electrolyte charged goodness, “another yearning for things to be simple, straightforward, and easy.”

“You're telling me!” Beast Boy said from his spot on the couch. “I mean, day one on this crazy, kookie, pony planet, and we get saddled with having to essentially fight a flightless kryptonian without heat vision and all the sensory powers that runs off earth-magic instead of sunlight!? I mean… dude! We're not equipped to deal with that kind of threat on our own without TONS of prep! I mean, seriously!” Beast Boy slapped himself and threw his head and the rest of his body back such that half of his body was draped over the back of the couch like a towel.

“I concur,” Starfire said, before taking a sip out of the mustard bottle she held in her hands with a bendy straw as was custom. “We were most fortunate that this Antaeus seemed to be more playful and less careful at the onset of battle and did not utilize his super-speed to the extent he could have. Otherwise, Raven and I might not have gotten in the critical hits that we did and rendered him unconscious for as long as we had and he might have defeated us all.”

“Yeah, that really is the problem with fighting kryptonian and kryptonian-like enemies in a nutshell,” Cyborg said, in between munching on some crunchy pretzel covered beef jerky. “It's not that they're so strong and hard to hurt that's really the problem. It's that they're so hard to hit in the first place if they know what they're doing--being so fast and all--and that their healing factor lets them recover so quick that even if you do land a hit and it's a good one, they just get right back up like they're a Looney Toon and just keep coming and coming and coming till they tire you out eventually.”

“Like I said before the fight started,” Raven said, levitating indian style off her spot on the couch and meditating with her eyes closed, “a war of attrition with him would've been bad.” She sneezed again from the minor cold the freeze breath had made her contract. She sighed and levitated the cup of herbal tea she had set on the coffee table into her hands and took a sip. She sighed again in warm relief. “But for now, let's just count our blessings that like a lot of kryptonian and kryptonian-like enemies, Antaeus has his own kryptonite. His own Achilles Heel to be more thematically accurate. One that's arguably way easier to exploit and way more devastating than any glowy, green, radioactive rocky fragments of his home world.” She took another sip and let out another relieved sigh. “We should all just relax for the precious little time before we're on the clock again. Which means no more chit-chat. You guys know I have a migraine, so please, stop aggravating it, if you'd be so kind.” She massaged her temples as she finished saying those last few words.

A chorus from the other four Titans expressing the sentiment of 'Alright' in their own unique ways sounded out. Rather annoyingly loudly if Raven's expression immediately after was any indication. But as the ensuing quiet was allowed to reign without any interruption, her face returned to its trademark neutrality.

And so it was for a good minute and half afterward that no one said anything, the only sounds being the Titans eating or enjoying their beverage of choice.

All was peaceful, and Robin felt himself slowly drift off into a well deserved cat-nap to refresh his proverbial batteries.

“HIYA, TITANS!”

But then, as he was just about to hit Snoozeville, the train suddenly diverted to an unexpected detour to Loudton. With a terrible start, and on instinct, he jumped up from the couch and attempted a haymaker to the face of the source of the noisy disruption: a ridiculously pink earthpony somewhere in the recesses of his mind he knew was named Pinkie Pie. A Pinkie Pie that had somehow utterly evaded his detection and had seemingly just… appeared on the couch next to him.

Fortunately for him and Pinkie both, Raven managed to catch Robin's arms in the telekinetic grip of her magic at the last moment and stop the punch from actually connecting.

“Wow! You're really quick on your feet there, Robin!” Pinkie complimented, her smiling undeterred despite the metal lined green gloved fist only an inch away from her muzzle. “Are all humans supposed to be that lightning fast?”

“From what I know, no.”

Robin and the other titans' heads swiveled towards the entrance to the living room to find the sliding doors there parted, Princess Sparkle and the remaining elements of harmony standing there in the threshold.

“Robin here,” Princess Sparkle continued, “seems to fall squarely in what's called the peak human category. Am I right?”

“Uh… yeah,” Robin said, looking between the princess and his fist and Pinkie's face before grimacing, pulling away, putting his hands up placatingly, and panickly saying, “It's not what you think! Pinkie Pie here just startled me and I didn't know what was going on and my muscle memory has a mind of its own when someone gets the drop on me like that and tends to want to attack whoever it assumes is attacking me before they land a hit and--”

“Relax, dude,” the one named Rainbow Dash said. “It's okay. We totally get it.”

“Oh believe you me, Mr. Robin sir, you would not be the first to accidentally strike our darling Pinkie Pie when she just hops in from out of the blue like that,” the one named Rarity said.

“Heh. The quilts we could weave with all the yarns we got in our looms from that there clothing shop,” the one called Applejack said, smiling as she shook her head.

“The important thing to remember is that unlike each of my friends here and myself at one point or another, you had the skill and self-control to stop before you punched her,” Princess Sparkle said.

“Errr… actually, if it wasn't for Raven and her magic, I wouldn't have stopped in time,” Robin said, massaging the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry.”

Pinkie wrapped a foreleg around Robin's neck and pressed one side of her face rather annoyingly hard against one side of his face. “Awww, don't be such a worry wort, Rob!” She pulled away for a sec, suddenly looking unsure. “I can call you Rob, right?”

“I… guess? It is sort of my official unofficial nickname after all.”

“Goodie!” Pinkie Pie pressed her side of her face against Robin's again with irksome force. “Anyways, like I was saying: don't sweat it, good chum! Even if you did, it wouldn't have knocked me down for the count or even just really thrown me for a loop! I may look cute and cuddly and giggly--and I totally am by the way--but I assure you I'm way tougher than I look. Like a rubber ducky! Or a bungee cord! Or that piece of gum that gets stuck to your shoe and just won't come off no matter how hard you try and scrape it off! Oh! Oh! Or like--”

“Alright already!” Rainbow interrupted. “I think he gets the picture by now.”

“Huh,” Pinkie said, tapping her chin and looking thoughtful. “You really think so?”

“Yeah, I think I got a pretty firm handle on things,” Robin said, chuckling slightly before suddenly getting more serious. “Speaking of, do you mind if you let me go? I kinda miss my personal space and would like to have it back… ASAP...”

“Only if you say please,” Pinkie said in sing-song.

“Okay. Please let me--”

“Pinkie!” Princess Sparkle scolded. “Behave now!”

Pinkie looked suddenly downcast, like a child being told they had to put their toys away and go to bed. “Oh, alright,” she said exactly as such a child would. “I was just trying to thank him for saving the day in my own super special way.” Like a mexican jumping bean colored pink, she hopped back over to her (pony) friends' side.

“So...” Raven began, “I take it that's why you're here then instead of laying down and recovering? To thank us?”

“Right on the bits there… uhhh...” Rainbow Dash suddenly went wide eyed and blinked, looking and sounding a lot less confident. “C-crow?” she asked hesitantly.

“Raven,” Raven and Princess Sparkle said in stereo.

The eyes of everyone in the room except for Raven's and Princess Sparkle's went wide at that.

“Whoa,” said Beast Boy, cleaning out his ears with his pinkies. “Did you guys just hear that? I couldn't have been the only one. I mean, it was like an echo, but--”

“Without the whole, echoey part,” Pinkie finished.

Rarity gasped suddenly. “It was!”

“Okay, what are you guys talking about?” Raven and Princess Sparkle asked in unison again.

Everyone in the room except Raven and Princess Sparkle plus Robin gasped.

“Now if that ain't what we call an uncanny resemblance in my neck of the woods, I ain't got a clue what is,” Cyborg said.

“You said it, pardner,” said Applejack. “If I didn't know no better, just going off the ole' mark one eardrums, I'd guess they was twins or somethin'!”

“What? That's ridiculous. We sound nothing alike,” Raven and Princess Sparkle spoke at the same time.

“There it is again!” Beast Boy and Pinkie Pie shouted at the same time, the former pointing an index finger at Princess Sparkle and the latter a hoof at Raven.

“I'm scared/I am scared!” the one called Fluttershy and Starfire shouted respectively before the former ducked and hid behind her mane and the latter hid and ducked behind the couch.

“Now this is just plain weird,” Cyborg, Rainbow, and Applejack all said at once.

“Okay, everybody just calm down and BREATHE, okay?/Okay, everypony just calm down and BREATHE, okay?” Raven and Princess Sparkle said in unison respectively.

“I agree,” Robin said quickly, hoping to stop this sudden people talking at the same time spell everyone had suddenly fallen under. “I mean, don't you think you all are overreacting a little too much? So what if their voices are eerily similar? It's not some major catastrophe or even an omen for one.”

“Seriously, I don't know what you all keep talking about! We couldn't sound more night and day!” Raven and Princess Sparkle said at once.

Sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose hard enough to redden the skin there something fierce, Robin decided to spare himself the trouble and save himself the headache by taking the safer route of procession and just changing the subject before things got even crazier… and odder. “Look your majesty, we're honored you and the other elements of harmony came all the way up here to show your appreciation, but don't you think it's a wee bit premature to be so up and about after the fight you just had?”

“Normally I'd say yeah, but those doctor guards watching over us after you and princesses Celestia and Luna filled us in on things just gave the six of us a clean bill of health,” Princess Sparkle said, seemingly overjoyed for the subject change. “Your medical facilities really are top notch!”

Robin rubbed the back of his neck. “Apparently so top notch even I forget how fast they can work their magic sometimes.”

“Which is very rare, let me tell you,” Raven said, also seemingly overeager for the subject change. “Robin here is like an elephant when it comes to technical knowledge.”

At that, not only Princess Sparkle, but the other elements too--now broken out of their prior stupor over what had just happened no doubt thanks to Raven's words--raised their brows up in confusion.

“He has big floppy ears?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“A big ole trunk-nose he can grab things with?” Applejack queried.

“Dazzlingly beautiful, ivory white, ivory tusks?” Rarity inquired.

“He eats clay to supplement his diet with essential vitamins and minerals otherwise not found in the grass and tree leaves he mostly consumes?” asked Fluttershy.

“He speaks mostly in rhymes?” Pinkie Pie asked.

Now it was Robin's turn to raise his brow questioningly. He looked at his fellow Titans to find them mirroring his look.

“Uhhh… no,” Raven said after a couple moments of silence. “It's… an expression, or at least a variant of an expression that goes, An elephant never forgets. I was comparing Robin's memory to that of an elephant's because just like how an elephant never forgets, in the arena of technical knowledge, Robin also tends not to forget.”

“Huh,” Princess Sparkle said, tapping her chin. “An elephant never forgets? Now that's an expression I can't ever remember hearing or reading about before. And that's funny because I suppose I'm like an elephant when it comes to expressions.” The Princess giggled for a bit before tilting her head to the side and looking thoughtful. “I wonder if Zecora knows more? I mean, I knew elephants in this world are considered the wisest race in all Zebrica, but I wonder if there's a similar expression out there that the zebras or someone else has.”

“Wait, wait, wait, hold up!” Beast Boy said, waving his hands around. “Elephants are sapient on this planet? Zebras too?”

“Wait, wait, wait, hold up!” Rainbow Dash said, waving a hoof around. “Are you saying they aren't on your planet?”

“Well, no. On--” Beast Boy began.

“Their world, they're animals,” Princess Sparkle finished for him. “In fact, on their world, earth, humans are the only sapient species and everything else, and I do mean everything, are just animals. Even equines similar to us.”

The other elements and all the titans gasped, though each group did so for differing reasons.

“Now if that ain't just the strangest thing I done heard all day,” Applejack said, eyes wide.

“You said it, darling,” Rarity said, eyes just as wide.

“Okay, quick question: how did you know that about earth if you've never been there and we're supposed to be the first humans, plus tamaranian, ever to set foot on equis?” Beast Boy asked.

“Well, that's the thing. I have been to earth.”

The titans gasped again, though the elements were noticeably silent this time.

“Say what?” asked Cyborg.

“Wait a minute,” Robin said, rubbing his chin in realization. “It all makes sense now! Team, don't you remember that strange question Princess Celestia asked us at Starfield when we first met her and Princess Luna?”

“The one where she inquired if we entered into this world via a statue of a horse rearing up belonging to a high-school named, Canterlot High?” Starfire asked.

“How could we forget? Thought the poor lady must have hit a goose with her head on the flight over when she asked that one,” Cyborg said.

“Well, she didn't,” Princess Sparkle said quickly and more than a little heatedly. “Though I will admit the whole situation was… well… more bizarre than even being Pinkie Pie's friend is.”

Robin, Raven, Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Starfire looked between the princess and Pinkie several times before all saying, “You're joking,” or in Starfire's case, “You are jesting.”

“Nah, it's exactly that weird,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Can confirm,” Pinkie Pie said, nodding.

“It's a long story,” began Princess Sparkle with a sigh before her stomach growled like the r-cycle revving up to go. “And in case that didn't give it away, I'm more than a little peckish. We all kind of skipped breakfast to see a play this morning--”

“Twi, what'd I say 'bout remindin' me, girl?” Applejack suddenly asked.

As Rarity grumbled at the applemarked mare, Princess Sparkle finished by saying, “and we didn't get lunch at Starfield since we got there just fifteen minutes before the commencement speech and got in a long conversation with the Mayor and his family that ate up all that time.”

She gave Applejack a look that, though brief in a blink and you'd miss it sort of way, Robin caught, categorized as questioning, and labeled under the potentially signficant heading in his mind's filing cabinet.

Applejack, though, didn't seem to notice and just added onto what Princess Sparkle had just said with, “Plus, that Antaeus feller up and dropped outta the sky like a fallin' piano 'fore my unc got too far into the speech anywho.”

Robin smiled, nodding. “I gotcha. So what you're saying is, you want to eat first before continuing the conversation.”

“I can eat and chat at the same time if you like.”

Rarity shivered in disgust. “Not with your mouth full, I hope, darling.”

Princess Sparkle rolled her eyes. “Rarity, you know my table manners have greatly improved under your tutelage ever since I became a princess.”

“And for that, you have my highest adulations and sincerest gratitude for attaining a greater level of sophistication as a lady of your stature ought well to maintain,” Rarity said, patting the princess on her back like a proud mother would her child. “But darling, amongst friends you must admit you have a nasty tendency to just let your manners up and take flight to the stars above!”

Princess Sparkle let out a long, drawn out sigh before groaning out and saying, “Uhhh… fine.” She looked to Robin, frowning. “On second thought, ignore my suggestion. Yes, I do think I will be eating THEN chatting, just to be sure that EVERYPONY'S HAPPY.”

She beamed, more than a slight twitch to her eyes and tremble of annoyance in her lips.

Beast Boy's spirits were unsullied by this, however, as he threw his hands up in triumph and shouted, “Cool! I finally have someone to share my snacks with! Vegetarians of the world--worlds--unite!”

Suddenly, with the kind of speed Robin usually attributed to speedsters like Kid Flash or just The Flash, Rainbow Dash flew forward and came to a sudden halt with her nose inches away from Beast Boy's. “Wait a minute… are you saying you had snacks this whole time… and you didn't tell me?”

“You… uhhh… kinda… didn't ask?” Beast Boy chuckled nervously as he nervously rubbed the back of his neck.

“Dashie, what do we say?” Pinkie Pie asked, bouncing up next to Rainbow's side.

“Uhhggghhh, fine,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes and throwing her head back. “Please can I have snacks? Pretty please? With raisins and peanut butter and celery on top?”

“Hehheh,” Beast Boy chuckled, scratching one of his temples with his thumb. “You know, funnily enough, I think I got a lot of all those things the last time I went grocery shopping.”

“Really!?” Rainbow exclaimed, mien afire with excitement.

“Neat. That sounds really good,” Princess Sparkle said to a chorus of agreements from her other friends.

“Then it's settled!” Beast Boy leapt onto the top of the couch, puffed his chest out triumphantly with his fists on his hips, and proclaimed heroically, “I, Beast Boy The Great Mac Von de la Magnifico… The First… shall procure snacks for the six of you, miladies!” He took a flourishing bow and then promptly stood back up fully, pointing his index finger high up into the air and then adding, “For the great nation of AMERICA!”

“Actually, the country is called Equestria. It's the continent that's called Amareica,” Princess Sparkle corrected.

Beast Boy looked confused and then looked at Robin, who just shrugged. The other Titans followed after their leader. Coughing into his fist, Beast Boy said, “Ahem. Well then… uhhh… I honestly don't know how to respond to that... so… I'ma just gonna get you all's food now.” He then looked comically austere again and proudly proclaimed, “As patriotically as possible!” He then promptly turned into a majestic and mighty bald eagle and flew for the fridge.

All of a sudden, Pinkie Pie gasped. “I just thought of something! Does this mean we're hanging out!?” She gasped again louder. “Does this count as our first official party together as friends!?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess it does,” said Robin.

Suddenly, he and the other titans minus Beast Boy but plus the other elements of harmony minus Pinkie were all scooped up faster than his highly trained and attuned eyes could see into a massive hug with Pinkie's forelegs wrapping about the lot of them.

“Yay! Teen Titans and Elements of Harmony hanging out and partying together as friends, finally!” Pinkie Pie shouted.

“Ummm… how is she extending her forelegs so far?” Raven asked, her cheeks pressed up against Princess Sparkle's.

“Like I said: just don't question it. Or anything else about her. Just chalk it up to Pinkie being Pinkie and leave it at that. It'll save you the headache. And the succession of increasingly heavy objects barreling down on your head. Trust me,” Princess Sparkle said.

“Exactly!” Pinkie Pie empathically agreed. “Just relax and have fun like good friends should!”

“I'm afraid having fun will have to wait.”

Robin's eyes and the eyes of everyone else in the room turned towards the entrance to find Princesses Celestia and Luna standing there.

“The Mayor and his family have awoken,” Princess Celestia continued, finishing what she just said.

“Wait… do snacks have to wait?” Rainbow Dash asked, pointing her nose at Beast Boy, who had just pulled out the celery sticks, jar of peanut butter, and carton of raisins out the fridge in the form of an octopus.

“Rainbow!” Princess Sparkle chided.

“What? I'm hungry! Like, SUPER hungry! Like, I could eat a horse-apple hungry!”

“Yes,” Princess Luna said, sounding and looking austere. “Snacks will have to wait as well. Now that the mayor has regained consciousness and mobility, we must interrogate the minotaur at once, posthaste.”

“Awww!” Rainbow and Pinkie Pie and even Applejack and Rarity said at once, much to Princess Sparkle's chagrin.

“But it looked so delectable!” Rarity complained.

“Sorry ladies, but duty calls,” Robin said, ignoring the looks he knew all the ponies were giving him over having somehow slipped out of Pinkie's grasp when everyone wasn't looking and placing his bottle of gatorade calmly down on the coffee table. Heading for the door, he said, “Interrogating Antaeus shouldn't take too long. About an hour, hour fifteen at worst, ten minutes bare minimum. Then we can all snack out as much as we want, okay?”

He walked past the royal sisters and nodded and then walked down the hallway towards the conference room they had agreed earlier to hold the interrogation in.

As he walked, he could not help but overhear Princess Sparkle ask, “Uhmmm… how did he just get out of Pinkie's hug without anypony noticing like that?”

Raven's response put a smile on his face.

“Well, just like with all of you and Pinkie, we Titans have learned not to question it over the years and just chalk it up to Robin being Robin.”

*****

A couple minutes later, Robin, the other titans, the elements, the two royal sisters, the Mayor, his wife, and his daughter were all seated within the conference room, the circular conference table emitting a three dimensional image from the hologram projector well built into the center of it that showed Antaeus hanging around in his cell, slumbering like a baby.

“Wow. This technology is… is...” Princess Sparkle muttered, at a loss for words and trying to find some to adequately paint what she was seeing.

“Out of this world? Eh? Eh?” Beast Boy offered, wiggling his eyebrows playfully at the pun.

“Far out,” agreed the mayor's daughter, Babseed, smiling like she was in a candle store. “This is like somethin' straight outta the pulps! The good ones at that!”

“Well, technically, it literally is out of this world--far out--plus it really is just super cool and awesome, so yeah. I guess it fits,” Princess Sparkle said, still marveling and gawking at the projection.

“Certainly beats having to actually be there to talk to him, that's fer sure,” Applejack said.

“And it really is certainly far less dangerous,” Mayor Orange added, still rubbing his aching head, his wife patting him on the shoulder to soothe his nerves.

“Think that's cool?” Cyborg asked before opening the control compartment on his left arm and pressing a few buttons. “Watch this.”

From off-screen and above, a metallic, robotic claw descended into the frame and stopped just in front of Antaeus' face.

“What'll it be, Rob? Should I give him a wake up call with a little hot stuff?”

At the press of a button, a small fire emitted from the center of the claw.

“Something a little more precise?”

At the press of a button, the fire stopped and out from the upper claw tip emerged a small red targeting laser aimed at his upper lip, ready to aid the aim of the far more damaging regular laser that emerged just below it at the center of the claw.

“Or maybe something a bit more shocking?”

At the press of a button, the lasers retracted and the whole claw seemed to spark with electricity dancing across its surface.

“Ummm… don't you think those options seem a teensy, weensy bit extreme, darling?” Rarity asked.

“As well as needlessly painful, particularly since, at best, without his earth-magic coursing through him, he's only a regular minotaur? At the peak of his race's physical condition to be sure, but still,” said Princess Celestia.

“Don't sweat it,” Cyborg said. “They're a lot meaner than they look. I took the information y’all gave me about the local run of minotaurs and adjusted the output energy accordingly. Nothing should do anything more than wake him up. It might sting a little for a bit, but hey, he's a big, tough guy. He can walk it off. Errr… float it off.”

“Be that as it may, 'twould be best if the method of waking did not cause any damage to him at all. We are set to have plenty of diplomatic fallout with Minotauros as is, and we do not need anymore if we can avoid it,” Princess Luna said.

Robin nodded. “Okay then. Cyborg, use the sneeze spra--”

“Ooooo! Ooooo! Ooooo!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing in her seat and raising her hoof like an excited kindergartener in class. “I know, I know! Pinch his nose! Pinch his nose!”

“Uh, why?” Raven asked.

“Because it'll be funny AND won't really hurt him at the same time, silly! Bust two rocks with one swing!”

“When you say pinch, how much pinchin' we talkin' here?” Cyborg asked, massaging his chin, intrigued.

“Yeah, like just pinching his skin a little bit or like putting a potato chip clip on his nose?” Beast Boy asked, also massaging his chin, also intrigued.

“Like a potato chip clip of course!”

Robin scanned the room, determining if anyone else had any thing to say to that. Finding nothing but shrugs all around and neutral expressions, he then turned to Cyborg and said, “Alright then. Since no one seems to disagree, go ahead. Pinch his nose.”

“Like a potato chip clip, remember!” Pinkie Pie quickly added.

“Yeah… like that.”

Wordlessly, Cyborg nodded and pressed buttons on his on-board panel. The claw then moved towards Antaeus' nose and promptly clamped down around it, pinching it to a much smaller proportion that Robin honestly did find quite comical.

“Nnnngh… nnnngh...” Antaeus muttered, starting to toss and turn in his sleep. In what sounded like the tone of a frightened child rather than the big, booming one he was known for, he said something in minotauran Robin couldn't quite understand, but he could tell that the tongue was cognate with greek. Something else he could gather was that Antaeus' fright wasn't like waking up in the middle of the night because a gust of air from the AC brushed the hairs on your leg the wrong way and you thought a spider was crawling on you. No. The minotaur's fright seemed all too… great. Like, he thought he was in real peril.

Robin looked around the room to see if anyone else had noticed, but all he found were giggles and suppressed giggles and Fluttershy hiding behind her mane, for the most part. The only three people that looked even more skeptically upon the scene than him were Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Raven. Point of fact, they looked downright horrified.

“Hahaha!” Beast Boy laughed, wiping away a tear of mirth. “This is great!”

“Yeah!” Cyborg agreed. “Pinkie here was right! This really is funny! Hearing hulking, strong cats like that reduced to screaming like a baby always slaps a smile on my face!”

Suddenly, Raven turned to Cyborg and said, “Cy, stop it! Stop it now!”

“Aw, come on. Lighten up, Crow,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Yeah, like Pinkie said, it's not like it's really hurtin' the feller,” said Applejack.

“Yes. It IS. Please, stop it!”

“Listen to her,” Princess Celestia said.

“She is right,” Princess Luna added.

Taking this as final confirmation of his initial suspicion being right, Robin turned to Cyborg and said, “Listen to them!”

In between his fits of laughter, Cyborg said, “Oh, alright!” and with a few more button presses, released the claw from the bull's nose and moved it back a little out of his face. “There, happy now?”

Robin nodded. “Leaps and bounds. Thank you.”

“Now THAT was a good rip snorter, would you not agree, dear?” Mrs. Orange asked her husband as both of their giggling fits came to a close.

“Oh yes, yes, yes! Quite right, honey-bunch! Quite right, indeed!” Mayor Orange concurred.

“Funniest thing I seen all day!” Babs jumped in.

“Yes, it was most humorous,” Starfire added.

“Hehhehheh, see?” Pinkie asked. “I told you it'd be comedy gold.”

“Comedy platinum is more like it, darling!” Rarity said.

“Took the words right outta my mouth!” Cyborg said.

“Mine too!” Beast Boy said. “But I mean, could you imagine what it'd be if we actually understood what he was saying? Forget gold or platinum, it'd reach comedy DIAMOND levels of laughs!”

“No. It wouldn't,” Raven said coldly and matter of factly. “Trust me.”

Robin was curious at that and looked to see if the expressions on the two royal sisters mirrored Raven's own. They not only did, but appeared even more distraught. When he looked at Raven for an explanation, she shook her head and silently muttered out, 'Later'. If she of all people was telling him that, he figured Princesses Celestia and Luna would be the same way.

So for now, he decided to drop that particular line of inquiry and switch tracks back to the line they were there about in the first place. Besides, by the way the minotaur was staring into the camera placed--from his position anyways--in the front, top right corner of his cell, Antaeus was awake and ready for questioning.

Pressing a button for the speaker on the table in front of him, Robin said, “Good to see you're finally up, Antaeus. How are you feeling?”

Grumbling and shaking his head, Antaeus answered, “Oh, you know. Fairly well I'd say for being bonked on the old cranium while being simultaneously electrocuted. I can honestly say that though that was but the second time both things have transpired to my person at once, it invoked the lesser of the two agonies.”

“Happy to hear that. As a thank you, mind telling me everything you know about who sent you? I'd REALLY be happy to hear that.”

“Well then, I regret to inform you that ho-hum is all you shall be getting out of me concerning any actionable intelligence or relevance. I am exceeding in sorrow on the inside that I can be of no use to you and the equestrian crown.”

“Yeah, he looks REAL ready to burst into tears any second now,” Rainbow said with a roll of her eyes.

“Why? You might as well talk. I mean, it's not like your employers are going to pay you or anything since you failed to fulfill your contract, and when we find them, and WE WILL find them, they're going to assume you spilled the beans anyways regardless of if you did or not, so you'll probably be on their blacklist, and not just under the 'Do NOT Employ' Section. Likely, they'll also jot down your name in whatever section they put Mayor Orange's too, so why all the loyalty, huh? What have they done for you and what are they going to do to deserve your silence?”

Antaeus sighed tiredly. “Tell me something, Robin, you are supposed to be some self-styled hero, correct? A superhero, even, ripped straight from the pulps or--what do they call them in this country? Comic books? You tell me the value of loyalty, even undeserved loyalty, from both a personal moral and business outlook for a bull who prides himself an upstanding soldier-of-fortune for the most noble of nobles and regal of royalty, hmmm?”

“Loyalty in both forms is one of the highest virtues. Except when it's misplaced.”

“I agree,” beamed Rainbow Dash. “Talking from personal experience here.”

Robin continued. “Look, whoever hired you obviously has no respect for the law or due process considering there was an ongoing investigation by Princess Celestia and Luna themselves to determine what happened. I know you and your clients seem to have it out for the local municipal government, especially since it's involved in all this, but from what I understand the two sisters are world renown for their integrity and impartiality. Even back at Starfield, you showed them a modicum of respect. Sure, you were busy at the time, but I get the feeling that if you weren't on a job that had gone on too long for your liking, you would've showed them more. If anybody would've gotten to the bottom of things and determined wrong doing either way, even if the Mayor was in the wrong, it would've been them. So, if those three toms who stand accused were REALLY innocent, don't you think it would've made much more sense for your clients NOT to hire a foreign mercenary to humiliate and kidnap the Mayor at the grand opening for a stadium literally packed with half of Manehattan's population count in front of his wife and daughter and the elements of harmony, the greatest heroes in the entire country? You really expect me to believe that speaks positively to your and your employers' righteousness?”

Antaeus bristled at the underlying insinuation and shouted, “You are certainly one to talk of respect for due process and the law considering you and your team are textbook vigilantes who stay idle for neither in doing what you do! And from my understanding, the elements are little better save that they are officially government sanctioned vigilantes given they are lead by a mare who was Princess Celestia's pupil and is now a princess herself afforded even more special privileges most are not.”

Princess Sparkle winced at that, as did most of the other elements. Applejack and Rainbow however seemed to seethe at the accusation.

“But that is tangential to the point, that being that out of any of us, it was the Mayor who disrespected the law the most! Tell me, on what grounds did he have to arrest those three toms like that? His word? Last I checked, one required a bit more probable cause than a stallion's word to lock up someone else in jail, let alone three someones. Otherwise, anyone and everyone could lock up anyone and everyone else by just saying so! I thought folk were supposed to be assumed innocent until proven guilty, even if they are third-class subjects! I mean, I understand and respect equestria's right to be the pony nation, as the city states of the League are themselves run by minotaurs for the benefit and protection of minotaurs first and foremost, but even we treat our sojourners better, and we arguably are in far greater enmity with them than equestrian ponies and griffons are with each other!”

At this, Mrs. Orange stood out of her seat and pointed at the hologram. “Now see here you brutish, boisterous buffoon! My husband was well within his right as mayor to--”

“He can't hear you,” Raven interrupted. “Remember, he can only hear whoever is talking through the speaker, and since Robin's seat is the only one with a speaker, that means--”

Before she could finish that sentence, Mrs. Orange practically knocked Robin out of his chair she ran to and pushed him aside so fast. Pressing the button with her hoof, she said, “Listen you cud-crunching boor, as Mayor of Manehattan, it was my husband's prerogative, NEIGH, his DUTY to arrest those gentletoms for the crime they committed and that which they attempted to commit, and he did everything after that by the book as he was supposed to, including calling on the highest authorities in all the land to settle matters, so do not think for a single, solitary second you can get away with impugning on my husband's honor to save face for staining your honor by believing the drivel your clients gave you about theirs being a just cause! It is not just! Not just at all! The very definition of unjust! Those stupid, ugly beak-brains who sent you sought petty vengeance for my husband doing his job to the letter instead of joining them in their corrupt little scheme and sold you a fantasy, knowing you'd be too much of a gullible goof to search this matter out, so enough with your nonsense and just admit your guilt and say you were wro--”

Rather than give in to her command, Antaeus spit into the camera. The loogie was so thick that it actually took the lens a couple seconds to adjust to see through it and bring back the image of Antaeus there, floating upside down in that shell of hardened Gak, again.

“Did… did you just… Spit. At. ME?” Mrs. Orange asked, wide-eyed.

“Not at you, milady, but I did spit,” Antaeus said with a proud, cheeky grin, showing off his glamorous pearly whites.

The response was as immediate as it was explosive, Mrs. Orange screaming at the top of her lungs loud enough that even the hardiest ones in the room felt they had to cover their ears for protection. She then pressed the button again and said, “Prepare yourself, you lumbering lummox! For though you still possess great strength as a peak minotaur, you're not strong enough that my hooves will not leave a lasting imprint upon your miserable face when I come down there and punch and kick you into the next county! Into next week! When I lay my terrible vengeance on you for having the gaul to threaten me and my family and then attempt to SPIT. IN. MY. FACE. AFTER! You--you--!”

“Okay, that's enough,” Raven and Princess Sparkle said in stereo as they each levitated Mrs. Orange away from the speaker and up into the air. The two's eyes both widened and they both looked at one another. “Wow. We really have to stop doing that,” they said in unison again, making them both growl in annoyance and slap their own faces at the same time.

Robin noticed Fluttershy hide behind her mane again and duck behind Rainbow Dash and saw Starfire duck behind him.

“What you REALLY must do is stop holding me in your magic! Let me go so that I may teach that bullying bull what-for for his insolence!” Mrs. Orange shouted, trying in vain to fight against the telekinetic grip of the two spell-slingers.

“Yeah, how about no?” said Robin. Looking over at the Mayor, he said to him, “Mr. Mayor, since your wife is clearly hysterical, would you mind if she sat the rest of the interrogation out?”

Poor Mayor Orange sweated profusely, loosening the grip of his suit's collar with a hoof, looking at everyone and everywhere in the room except in Robin's and his wife's general direction. He was the picture perfect portrait of a pony politician pelted with perplexity.

“Dear,” Mrs. Orange began slowly, deliberately, and a little TOO calmly, “do not dare listen to hi--”

“No,” the Mayor finally mustered up the courage to speak. “No, I—I… would not mind.”

Again, the effect was immediate and explosive, Mrs. Orange screaming like a heavy metal vocalist, though this time things were so loud that much of the glass inside the room, including the lightbulbs, cracked or in some cases, shattered.

“Luna, quick! Call the guards!” cried Princess Celestia.

“Guards, come quick!” Princess Luna managed to shout out over Mrs. Orange's yelling via the aid of screaming louder than her somehow, though only just. “Escort Mrs. Orange far enough away where we cannot hear her and do your best to calm her down until the interrogation has concluded!”

The door slid open and in walked two unicorn guards in their ubiquitous golden armor, gritting from the sonorous strain, but nevertheless nodding at Princess Luna and then adding their magical glow to Raven's and Princess Sparkle's own, who then promptly stopped holding her altogether, leaving it to the guards from there on out.

As the guards turned to leave, levitating Mrs. Orange away with them, she looked at the hologram of Antaeus one last time and said, “This is not over, minotaur trash! This is not over! Do you hear m--”

The sliding door shut closed as she floated past the threshold, muffling her to the point she sounded like she was shouting ten feet under water, and then soon enough, she was heard no more.

“Wow. You guys have some really good sound proofing. Like, REALLY good,” Princess Sparkle said as she massaged her ears back to full health.

“Comes with having to live in a tower with a bunch of metal heads and a guy with sonic arm cannons,” Raven beamed, doing much the same to her ears.

“But boy was moms boilin'! And I thought I made her mad,” Babs said. “Now I'm glad ten times over I get to stay here surrounded by all this protection instead of having to go back home with her. Otherwise, I'd have to be on my super best behavior to avoid setting her off, and I can't manage that on a good day!”

“Oh, the horror,” Raven said with a roll of her eyes.

“No, no. My daughter is right. That actually is a fairly frightening prospect,” the Mayor said. He clutched his head in his hooves and said, “Oh, this is a disaster! An absolute, unmitigated catastrophe! THE! WORST! POSSIBLE! THING!”

“Hey now, unc,” Applejack said, getting out of her seat, walking up to him, and patting him comfortably on the shoulder. “Don't go talkin' again like Rarity when she gets a wee bit too excited on us now.”

“Why ever not? He is right, after all,” said Rarity.

“What? Girl, no he ain't,” said Cyborg. “He'd only be right if it turned out Antaeus heard everything that happened.”

“Actually, I did.”

Robin's eyes and the eyes of everyone in the room widened at that. Quickly, his look darted over to the button for the speaker to find that Mrs. Orange had mashed down on it so hard that the button was stuck in the on position, the casing around it cracked.

“And let me just say,” Antaeus continued, “that after such amusing entertainment, I do believe I shall renege just a smidge on my prior promise and provide to you but one single, solitary hint as to who my employers are.” He smirked. “Are you listening there, wherever it is in this 'Titan's Tower' of yours your voices originate? Are my words clear enough?”

“Crystal,” Robin said through gritted teeth.

“Bully. Now then, my hint is rendered thus: my employers are not the kind to give up so easily. You lot WILL be hearing from them again, sooner rather than later, until the mayor is just as locked up as those innocent toms and I myself am. If they do not already know where you live, they will soon, and not a one of you knows where they are, which gives them the supreme tactical advantage of initiative. Oh, and they have VERY deep pockets. So deep, I was offered a king's ransom for this job before lowering it to my usual fee after hearing how just the cause was.

“To compound how bleak your future portends further, doubtlessly as you are all aware by now, I am not the only demifysiko soldier of fortune out there, nor even the most noble, though by far I would say I am practically royalty in terms of power. They will find others, demifysikos or no, and they will inevitably succeed, even if they have to try, try, and try again. My employers are VERY persistent in their stubbornness. Like me. I suppose that is one of the prime reasons I like them so much. Kindred spirits and all that.” Antaeus' expression suddenly grew tired. “Now, if you would excuse me, I have some much needed beauty sleep to catch up on. A face as handsome as this simply does not grow on trees, you understand, but must be carefully maintained like a well manicured lawn or hedgerow. If you wish to poke and prod at me with any of the innumerable gadgets and gizmos you no doubt have in your inventory, by all means, feel free. But know ye this: I will yield ye nought but nil.”

Robin narrowed his eyes dangerously. “Cut the feed.”

With the press of a few buttons, Cyborg caused the hologram, and Antaeus' form with it, to peter out into the aether.

Robin managed to get the talk button on the table unstuck with a little finagling and asked, “Can he still hear us now?”

“He shouldn't,” Cyborg said. “Everything I'm reading says that the speaker's turned off now.”

“Good.”

“Well, at least we have some good news,” Princess Sparkle said, meeting her face with a hoof. “That whole thing, literally that whole thing, from nearly start to finish was just… just… awful! Just awful!”

A chorus of agreements sounded from the elements and the Mayor and his daughter.

“Actually, to tell you all the truth, that went about as well as could be expected. Certainly about as well as I expected before we began.”

A chorus that was a mixture of gasps and 'whats' resounded from the equine portion of the room save the two sisters.

“You mean to tell me you knew going in that we'd get zippidy doo-da for info!?” Applejack asked, hooves thrown up into the air.

“Well then why did we even bother with an interrogation then!?” Rainbow Dash asked, pulling her face down with her hooves in exasperation.

“One: yes, though we didn't get zippidy doo-da. Two: because I'm a man who prefers everything to be tested and verified as much as possible. I don't like leaving anything to chance if I can help it, generally, even things I'm pretty sure of or think I'm pretty sure of. My assumptions have been proven wrong on occasion. Not frequently, but frequently enough that I use as many safety nets as I can.”

“Okay then,” Princess Sparkle said, massaging her aching temples. “So what exactly did all that tell us that we didn't already know or thought we knew?”

“Nothing.”

The elements and oranges all went, “Huh?”

“Okay, this has officially left Sense City and has now entered Crazy Town,” said Pinkie Pie.

“And comin' from you, Pinks, that's sayin' something'!” said Babs.

“I know, right!?” Pinkie Pie replied.

“Look here, ya'll,” Cyborg began, “interrogations like this usually ain't meant to get any new information since generally the bad guy is still so sore after gettin' whooped not too long ago a train could fall on him and he wouldn't crack and give us more to go on.”

“Rather, such interrogations are meant to either reinforce or sunder what we are aware of or suspect,” Starfire said.

“And I'd say the dude reinforced plenty,” Beast Boy said, crossing his arms over his chest, putting his feet up on the conference table.

Another chorus of, “Huh?” sounded through the equine section sans Princesses Celestia and Luna.

“Beast Boy's right… for once,” said Raven.

“Yeah, I--hey!”

Before he could say more to the barb, Raven quickly continued. “We just managed to confirm that whoever's behind this can somehow inspire a sense of loyalty and righteousness in its agents, even the noblest--or those with pretensions of being the noblest--to a degree extreme enough that even while imprisoned with no chance of compensation for their work, they will not crack.”

“And that they got the money and resources to hire high-priced, super-powered mercenaries from around the world, meaning they probably have operations and people in key positions in government and industry already. Big ones. And those they don't have on the payroll already, they could just hire as needed,” Cyborg said.

That sent a wave of uncomfortable and nervous glances across the pony part of the room. Not even Princesses Celestia and Luna could keep up their neutral expressions this time.

“And that they're as determined to capture the mayor as I was trying to get my first moped,” said Beast Boy. “Meaning that they'll strike again, and absolutely will not stop till they get him.”

Babs looked especially frightened by this and hugged her slightly--though only just--frightened looking father nearer to her.

“And in all likelihood, since we foiled their schemes, they will attempt to come after us Titans and the Elements of Harmony as well,” Starfire said. “Meaning they may well decide to come after our loved ones also.”

Now it was the elements' turn to look especially frightened.

“And one other thing,” Robin said.

“What!?” cried Rarity. “You mean to say there's more dreadful, dreadful news!?”

“Yes. Probably the worst possible thing of all.”

“Oh no!” Rarity gasped.

Robin reached into a pocket on his utility belt and said, “While we were setting up Antaeus' cell, I found this in his ear.” He threw a small, silver, roughly bean shaped piece of metal onto the conference table for all to see.

“Ooooo...” Pinkie Pie 'ooo'ed in wonder. “What is it? Some sort of steel flavored jelly bean?”

“It looks like a--” Princess Sparkle started, tilting her head to get a better look at it. “Like an… ear-bud.”

“Okay...” Rainbow Dash began. “What's an ear-bud? Some kind of toy friend for your ear so it doesn't get lonely?”

“No, no. An ear-bud is a communications device, usually one-way, though two-way variants do exist, that you put inside your ear to listen to someone on the other end,” said Princess Sparkle.

“Like some sort of mini, portable, telegraph service, darling?” Rarity asked.

“Eh, not really. It's more like a mini, portable, radio.”

“What's a ray-dee-o, sugarcube?” Applejack asked. “Is that like that internet thing you mentioned using in the human world?”

“No, no, no, it's… uhhh!” Princess Sparkle face hoofed in frustration. “Look, the point is that it's human tech and is supposed to be several decades ahead of anything we're supposed to have on equis, which begs the question of how on equis was Antaeus running around with something like that!?”

“Because whoever his employers are, they have access to advanced technology that not only does this world not possess, but that most people on our world couldn't possess even if they tried. Dangerous technology that makes even our skin crawl,” Robin said, as stark serious as he could.

“Okay, now you're just puling our legs, right?” Rainbow Dash asked, incredulous. “I mean, even if this was one of those fancy-shmancy, two-way versions, I mean, so what? It's still just a talky doo-hickey at the end of the day. The worst that'd mean is that Antaeus was gabbin' with his employers and/or that they heard everything up till the point you took it out and turned it off.” Rainbow's eyes widened in realization. “Wait, you did turn it off, didn't you?”

“Yes. It's been disabled since before we finished Antaeus' cell,” Robin nodded.

Rainbow Dash let out a breath. “Good. So really, what's there to be SO worked up over?”

“The fact that it was emitting a low-level sonic pulse at a frequency usually used to influence someone's mind might have a little something to do with it,” Cyborg said.

Once again, gasps went off all around with the ponies, the two sisters once more joining in.

“By 'influencing someone's mind', do you mean like some sort of… mind-control?” Princess Luna asked.

“Exactly like mind-control,” Robin nodded, earning another round of gasps. “While we ran every scan we know to determine if Antaeus himself was being controlled and came up empty, there can be no mistake that whoever his employers can't convince or coerce into their service the old fashioned way, they have a keen interest in garnering the ability to hi-jack.”

“The tech in that ear-bud was pretty rudimentary stuff, so they were probably just trying to test it out more than anything, but still: dangerous stuff that don't portend well,” Cyborg said.

“Which leads me to my final take away from all this,” Robin began. “And that is that Antaeus' employers and whatever threat Larry sent us here to help you with are one in the same, and he was right. You really could use our help on this, because this sort of issue is exactly the kind we're good at fixing.”

Robin looked to Cyborg and nodded. He nodded back. Then with the press of a few more buttons in his arm, he brought up the image of a castle on the hologram projector.

“Hey… wait a second…” Princess Sparkle said. “That looks like… Castle Friendship!”

“That's because it is,” Robin said.

“Okay… why do you have an image of Castle Friendship pulled up?” Princess Sparkle shook her head. “Scratch that: how do you even have an image of Castle Friendship or even know what it is?”

“Because I sent a drone out to scan it over,” Cyborg said simply.

“And because we told them,” Princess Celestia said.

“As well as hoofed them the schematics,” Princess Luna said.

“Okay… why?” Princess Sparkle asked.

“Because while you all were still unconscious, we and the Titans agreed that it would be most sensible for you six to remain here in the tower until such a time as they could gather all of the necessary materials to transform the Castle of Friendship into ostensibly a Titan's Tower MK II so that we can be certain that you will remain safe in Ponyville with this phantom menace running about,” Princess Celestia said.

Six simultaneous 'whats' went off at the same time.

“And when were y'all plannin' on tellin' us this, exactly?” Applejack asked.

“Right now, actually, which is part of the reason we asked all six of you to attend,” said Princess Luna.

“But princess, we can't just upend our levels and stay here until however long this refurbishment takes! We have lives! Families! Occupations!” Rarity complained.

“Yeah! I have to be back by 10:00 AM tomorrow at Sugar Cube Corner or else Mr. and Mrs. Cake are gonna throw a fit! I mean, I made a Pinkie Promise! Do you two even KNOW what happens when you break a Pinkie Promise!?”

“Yes, actually. We do. Back when she wrote friendship reports, Twilight wrote extensively on the subject and I passed the information down to Luna so we could both be aware of the dangers of breaking one.” Princess Celestia looked sympathetic. “And we also know this is all so much so suddenly, so tomorrow, after the six of you have had a good night's rest, as the Titans escort you to retrieve the elements of harmony, you may go to Ponyville to set your usual affairs in order for the next two weeks.”

“Two weeks!?” the elements all shouted.

“Well, more like fifteen days since the nano-laminate fabricator's been on the fritz again lately,” said Cyborg.

“Fifteen days!?” the elements all shouted.

“But… but… what about our friends and family!?” Applejack asked.

“And our animals?” Fluttershy added.

“You needn't worry about that. As we speak, the first division, ten-thousand of this nation's most elite fighting stallions, should be arriving to protect them as well as the rest of the town from any reprisals,” said Princess Celestia.

“And the thirteenth should be arriving here in Manehattan within the hour for much the same purpose,” Princess Luna said. “We even have several miscellanous platoons already protecting your family outside of Ponyville.”

“Rest assured, my little ponies, your loved ones and property and jobs shall remain safe and secure. Trust me,” Princess Celestia said, smiling reassuringly.

The elements still looked uneasy for a moment, but after a bit of thinking on their parts, Robin figured they came to the conclusion he had that the plan really did make the most sense with everything going on, as they all nodded at each other and then at the two sisters.

“Okay, Princesses,” Princess Sparkle said. “We trust your judgment.”

“Though being honest, I think I can safely speak for myself and quite a few others in saying that we don't get why you trust THEIR judgment so much.” Rainbow gestured to the Titans. “I mean, come on! How are they not SUPER suspect? I mean, aside from how crazy their story is, don't you think it's a little suspicious how they just came out of the blue to save the day like that?”

“We thought the same thing, actually,” Raven said.

“So as a show of good faith and to prove we're here to help, we agreed to hand over the schematics for the remodeled Castle Friendship to the princesses here.” Cyborg chuckled nervously and looked nervous, rubbing the back of his head. “They contain some pretty advanced tech, so some of us… mainly me… were more than a little hesitant to part with them, but in the end, the princesses managed to convince me to chill. They seem like nice ladies.”

“And you a fine fellow, Cyborg,” Princess Celestia and Luna said, nodding to him.

Princess Sparkle gasped suddenly. “Advanced technology!?” Her eyes widened. “Can I look them over and study them!?”

“I don't see why not,” Princess Celestia said, shrugging.

“You are a princess of the land and leader of its greatest band of champions, after all,” said Princess Luna.

Princess Sparkle squee'ed and clapped her hooves together excitedly. “Yay!” She then rushed at great speed towards the two sisters, wrapped them both up in a great big hug, lifted them both off the ground, and repeatedly shouted, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” over and again.

She only stopped when Princess Celestia pointed out through labored breath, “Don't thank us, Twilight. After all, it was The Titans who so generously donated their secrets to us.”

“You're right!”

Princess Sparkle promptly dropped the two sisters unceremoniously to the floor and somehow extended her forelegs wide enough to encompass all the titans in a hug before once again shouting, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” repeatedly.

“Wow, Twilight. Your big group hug technique has really improved. It's almost as good as mine now!” Pinkie remarked.

“We can see!” Starfire beamed through the excruciating pain she and the titans were experiencing.

“There's just one more thing we have to get out of the way though before we finalize the agreement,” Robin said, returning to his seat, having slipped out of Princess Sparkle's grip while she and everyone else weren't looking.

“Now how on equis did he--” Mayor Orange began.

“Don't ask,” the other titans and elements interrupted.

Jumping back into his chair, Robin swiveled toward the Mayor and channeled his famed former mentor into looking as austere as possible. “I want you to answer me something, Mr. Mayor, and I want you to do so truthfully.”

The mayor looked confused, but answered, “Yes, young Robin. Whatever is it?”

“Did you set up those three toms?”

“Now lookie here, Mister,” Applejack started, “I'm gettin' real sick and tired of folk goin' 'round accusin' my unc of wrongdoin' now, ya hear!?”

“You said it, cuz!” Babs agreed. “Leave my Pops alone!”

Ignoring them, Robin asked again. “I'll repeat: did you set up those three toms? Are Antaeus and his employers right about that much?”

Applejack and Babs continued to vocalize their objections, but Robin paid little heed to them. His attention was focused squarely on the well dressed, top hatted pony before him. He scanned his face for any hint. Any of the tell-tale signs he was preparing to lie. He was certainly nervous, that much Robin could tell for sure, but that could easily be, and often was, from any number of other factors. Honestly, if he was in the Mayor's horseshoes, he'd probably be sweating bullets just like he was.

The Mayor took out a handkerchief from his chest pocket and wiped the sweat away. He took a deep breath. He looked Robin square in the eye and said, “No, sir. I did not. Those toms truly did try to bribe me, and no matter how much they or Antaeus or his employers try to change reality, facts are facts, and it is the zenith of falsity to claim their version of events as anything else but a mad revision of history.”

Robin searched for anything, anything at all to indicate even a trace of deceit in his words, anything to paint him as any of the superstitious, cowardly lot he had been head to head and hand to hand and mind to mind against since he was a much younger boy wonder.

He found naught but an honest man--stallion--that had merely been doing his civic duty to the letter and was just an unfortunate victim of circumstance because he would not betray his people for something so petty as money.

It was Robin's turn to take a breath. “Alright. I believe you.” He pulled a holo-disk from his utility belt and walked around over to the two sisters. “Here are the schematics, your majesties.”

“You are most kind, Robin,” Celestia said, grabbing the disk with her hoof and placing it inside her ethereal mane where, to the amazement of Robin and the other Titans, it stayed despite her hair's billowing motions. “Thank you.”

“No, Princess. Thank you.” He looked at all the ponies in the room. “Thank you all for giving us a shot to prove we're the real deal. I know it might not mean much to some of you right now, but I promise, The Teen Titans won't stop till we get to the bottom of this and this threat to your world is taken down.” He bowed politely. “You have my word.”

“And mine too,” Raven said, nodding.

“And mine as well,” Starfire said, nodding.

“And mine four,” Cyborg said, nodding.

“And mine makes six… no wait! Seven! No wait!” Beast Boy counted his fingers meticulously until he sheepishly grinned and rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry. I meant five. I, uh, sorta lost count. Hehhehheh.”

“And we promise that we won't stop either, princesses!” Princess Sparkle said.

“Yeah! The Elements of Harmony never leave equestria hanging!” said Rainbow Dash.

“Then it's settled,” Princess Celestia said, extending her hoof towards Robin. “Let's shake on it.”

“With gusto.”

Robin took Princess Celestia's hoof and shook it. Then he did the same with Princess Luna. By that point, all the Titans had begun to shake hands and hooves with all the ponies in the room.

When he got to Princess Sparkle, she smiled and said, “You know something? I think this could be the start of a beautiful partnership, Mr. Superhero.”

Robin smiled himself. “You know something else?” he said, looking around at all the other smiles and hand/hoof shakes going on. “I think you're right, Ms. Pretty Pony Princess.”

“Please, just call me Twilight. It's what my friends do, and you're one of them, after all.”

“Alright, Twilight.” Robin chuckled. “Will do.”