Chapters A Hero Is Hatched, Villains Are Made
"Hey come on give it back!" A peagsus colt named Hoops said who was currently trying to get his favorite basketball from the ego-maniac Rainbow Dash and one of her friends Spitfire. Dash wasn't exactly the kindest pegasus like it was stated she had a massive ego, a bad attitude, a record of pick pocketing and stealing from many pegsi.
This behavior ended up rubbing off onto her friends Spitfire, Soarin and Lightning Dust. They even went as far as to call themselves the Shadowbolts and even gave Rainbow the leader the nickname Slippery Eel the first part relating to her illegal hobby and the second part to her name and some irony since the group lived in Cloudsdale the highest point in Equestria.
Rainbow and Spitfire continue to throw it back and forth when Soarin joined and when they tossed he pulled out a needle. "NO! Please don't pop my ball!" The basketball colt says in a begging position "Oh yeah what are you gonna do about it?" right as he is about to make the needle touch the ball, a portable ball air pump pokes him directly in the eye making him drop the basketball which is caught by Rainbow.
"OUT OF MY WAY!" Hoops shoves Spitfire aside which quite frankly serves her right
"GIVE IT BACK!"
"Oh yeah you want it try to catch me! See ya loser!" Rainbow dashes away Hoops following behind now enraged.
Meanwhile back on the ground level in Canterlot was Twilight Sparkle who was trying to pass an entrance exam by hatching a dragon egg, key word trying. Speaking of trying the whole reason why she was doing this was because she was trying to enroll in Princess Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns.
"We don't have all day." One of the judges reminded her, the filly attempted to use her magic on the purple dragon egg but only managed to release a signal spark before giving up.
Back in Cloudsdale
"See ya loser!" the rainbow maned filly said rudely knocking Hoops aside. Knowing that he could catch up to her again, gained a really sudden spike in speed and when she hit a cloud ring she seemed to release a massive sonic boom like rainbow wave.
"HA! You didn't catch me!" the filly bragged and taunted to the colt who was recovering from her sabotage. She gently punches him which also gives him a static shock which she swore was rainbow rather than yellow or blue.
"What in Celestia's name was that?" she asked herself and tried to do it to Hoops again but the electricity seemed to have gone away.
Back in Canterlot Twilight Sparkle by this point had given up on trying to hatch the dragon egg "Sorry I wasted your time." she said admitting defeat which was followed by the sonic rainboom going over the area. Twilight's eyes glowed and her horn shot a strange rainbow bolt of electricity which shattered the egg to pieces releasing a baby dragon which was still surging with rainbow electricity.
Twilight was enveloped in a blob of the same rainbow magic. Not wanting to accidentally use it on anyone tires to control it. "Must..keep...it...stable!" the unicorn filly ends up absorbing the magic into her body most of it getting in her brain and as a result she blacks out.
Once Twilight was placed onto a stretcher, into an ambulance and headed towards a hospital the stallion who brought the dragon in now wearing electricity insulated gloves picked him up and placed him in a box "You're clearly no good anymore." he says planning to throw him into the alley behind the building only to drop his glasses into the box.
"AH WHERE THEY GO!" he stumbles around trying to find his glasses only to trip and drop the baby dragon's box into Canterlot's stream which goes down a waterfall and into a river. The box eventually washes up on Manehattan beach where the dragon is somehow not found by anypony and ends up living on the streets growing up.
A Few Years Later
"AH HA FOUND THE JACKPOT!" The teen dragon who had named himself Spike says reaching into a dumpster and into bag full of clean unsold, leftover donuts. He grabs a glazed one but before he can take a bite it slips out of his grasp and ended up in the middle of the road.
Looking forward and behind for ponies rather than left and right for cars. He went for the treat only to see a black van speed towards him. He closes his eyes and braces for impact but that never came, not because he wasn't hit in fact he was right in front of one of the wheels but because he had somehow flipped the van over which had knocked out pony bank robbers and all their stolen money.
Not wanting to be seen and with no hiding place in range he stupidly jumps to backwards. This move turns out to be not so stupid as he suddenly find himself floating in the air. He yelps and allows himself to fall back to earth faceplanting into the pavement which damages the ground with a crater rather than the dragon with serious injuries.
"Was I flying?" he asks himself before noticing that he had grown a pair of wings. Reaching into the box he originally arrived in he pulls out a Superpony comic book "Superpony had invulnerability the inablity to be hurt by anything from heat to explosives."
"Could I also have-" he picks up a dumpster full of trash which would usually weigh a bunch but to Spike it was as light as a single donut. He places it down he tries to breathe fire but nothing comes out, annoyed he stares at a metal trash can only to see it start melting.
"May not have fire breathe but I have a fire stare." Spike thought as he referenced the comic again "A costume I need a super suit."
"This design will just simply never do!" Spike heard a voice say which turned out to be a white unicorn mare who threw out some kind of shirt. Once the mare had left he checked the failed design which to him looked pretty nice it was a red long sleeve shirt with a U on it, it also came with a belt with the same letter on and a black face mask. Spike checked the belt out and found it was trademarked by a buckball team named the Underdogs.
"Now for my superhero name something that starts with a U....Underdog...Underduck...Underdrake that's it!" Although drake to some ponies referred to a male duck, to others it meant a flightless dragon which to Spike sounded ironic since he had wings. He tires the suit on, adjusted the belt to fit him but found the red shirt a bit oversize "Eh i'll grow into it."
Princess Celestia checked up on her somewhat faithful student in her personal quarters only to find papers scattered all over the floor. A bit concerned the powerful unicorn approaches the younger one who had her back turned to a random corner.
"Um how are the studies going Twi-" she cuts her own sentence off when Twilight turns around revealing an injured pupil "What happened?!"
"You want to know what happened?! A tried asking one of my guards for some candy but he refused he told me I wasn't a high enough rank but I'm a princess the highest rank a pony can have he even went as far as he poke me in the eye with his spear.
"I'm sure he didn't mean to, maybe you made him." Celestia suggested which Twilight cringed at "He poked me like this!" the filly stupidly pokes her injured eye with a sharpened pencil, making scream and stumbled around eventually slipping on some paper.
"My faithful student you can't be indulging yourself in crazy fantasy, becoming a princess takes a lot of hard work and the role itself is not a walk in the park.”
"Fine you won't support my role of princess I show you! i'll show all of Equestria!" Twilight starts laughing like a maniac and jumps out a window somehow unharmed by the glass. Where she found her brother Shining Armor mopping the floor "Hey Shining come on!"
"But Twily I'm training to become a Royal Guard!"
"I know a better way to become one!"
"Yeah no, sorry little sis i'm taking the sim-" he gets cut off by his deranged sister firing a spell at him which turn his eyes pupils from black to blue.
"As Princess I command you to follow my orders! Follow me!" Twilight says which seems to work as the stallion starts following the latter command. Twilight knew that the only way to get her unruly subjects to obey her was to take over Equestria.
A Few More Years Later
A large figure loomed in the streets of Manehattan and once it had come out of the shadows revealed to be a crab tank, robot with 2 metal crab like claws and a furnace that acted as some sort of mouth, which was operated by a messy maned, eye patch wearing unicorn "Attention citizens of Manehattan surrender yourselves and your city to me Princess Twilight Sparkle or see it and yourself utterly destroyed."
Crowds of citizens started laughing at the slightly older unicorn and her piece of machinery, which even got the attention of the city's mayor Mayor Mare who joins in on the laughter.
"Run along little unicorn you can play with your toy somewhere else." Mayor mocked struggling to hold her laughter back. "You think i'm playing?" Twilight asks pulling 2 levers which makes the 2 claws grab the mayor and lift her up "Surrender your city to me or else!" the deranged pony demands then lowering the mayor to the open furnace threatening to throw her in.
"You won't get away with this!" A white unicorn mare says
"I'll take that as refusing to surrender!"
"No need to shake here's Underdrake!" It becomes Twilight's turn to laugh at the super dragon more specifically his suit. "You call yourself a hero your suit doesn't even fully fit you."
"You release her at once or else!" he says rolling one of his sleeves up and balling a claw into a fist "Let see you handle this!" she deploys an entire pad full of heat seeking missiles and since dragons were pure heat they all homed in one him. Underdrake manages to grab the first one, bringing it to a stop right before it can push him into a building and destroys with his super strength crushing it into a ball.
He gets overwhelmed by the rest of the missiles which directly strike him. Despite this once the smoke clears up both him and his suit are shown to be okay.
"WHAT IMPOSSIBLE!"
"invulnerability ever heard of it?" The unicorn switches to her last resort and goes to throw Mayor Mare into the mouth furnace only for Underdrake to crash right through the furnace destroying the robot in the process. The smoke clears up to reveal both creatures unharmed simply covered in soot.
Twilight on the other hand ended up under a pile of rubble, she's picked up the heroic dragon. "You saved the city er....Underdrake."
"That's right i'm just here to keep Manehattan safe!"
"You know Underdrake a hero like you deserves a kiss!" the white unicorn mare offers, the dragon blushes and backs up. "I'm a humble hero, a true one, not looking for any rewards, please and thank you fellow citizens." he says then takes off at a supersonic speed, where he drops Twilight off in jail.
"Look up in the sky it’s a bird!" Special Delivery started
"No it’s a plane!" Parcel Post countered
"It’s a snake!" Derpy randomly added
"A snake?" the 2 mail stallions asked
"No bird nor plane or snake just friendly old me U-" the dragon crashes ends up crashing into a clock tower. "Underdrake!"
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"Princess" Twilight Sparkle: Put A Bookmark In It
The city of Manehattan was really if not always busy known as the city that never sleeps, Equestria's only 24/7 tourist stop, sweet dreams almost everypony, etc the factors the caused the city's constant busyness was the amount of activity, not only daily and overnight jobs but also the amount of security patrolling the city due to amount of goods stored in Manehattan which manages to beat other major places like Las Pegasus and even Canterlot.
Despite being a very rich, modern and sophisticated place Manehattan still had it fair share of street performances one notable one being a a yellow pegasus stallion with a red mane, named Spike Strip with his namesake for a cutie mark, he dressed in a magician top hat, suit complete with a mustache and a pair of glasses unusual for a magician like him. He was known in the community for being simple, humble, ordinary, down to earth and described by many as somepony with nothing to hide.
"You see this bit and notice how it's whole?" He asked getting a nod from the intrigued mare earth pony viewer the showpony then bites into the coin and takes it out to reveal it now in the shape of a half moon. He even shows the mare both sides of the bit to show he wasn't using a folding coin.
"That was an impressive trick Spike!" the mare flips 2 bits into his magic top hat and once she had left the peagsus spits the metal out of his mouth. You see Spike wasn't any ordinary peagsus, he did have something to hide and the clear glasses were for a reason. The thing he was hiding wasn't in any way bad in fact it benefited the city. Large amounts of goods comes large amounts of crimes and the glasses created the illusion of the whole pony appearance.
His supersonic hearing picked up the typical to him cries for help so running into a random ally, Spike takes off his glasses which broke the illusion and jumped into his hat and out came a completely different creature. In reality he was actually a purple dragon with green back spikes, although he didn't have fire breath what made up for that was heat wave vision, pair of wings which allowed him to fly, something no dragon, except he had, supersonic flight and hearing, complete invulnerability to things like bullets, fire, explosion etc unless he allowed himself to be hurt by them.
He along with the city called his superhero persona Underdrake. When fully suited up, he wore a black eye mask, blue cape, a somewhat oversized red shirt and belt with a U on it. He took off the ground and into the sky where he eventually traced the cries of help to the local park.
"What seems to be the problem Rarity?" The drake asked in a more confident, heroic way "Thank goodness you're here Underdrake Opal stuck in a tree and won't get down."
"Seriously this is the 3rd time this month." Underdrake thought as he flew up to the cat only for it to hiss at him, which reminded him of the first time this happened where she attacked and tried to scratch him only to injure herself due to the dragon's invulnerability. He considered ripping the tree out of the ground and shaking Opal free but he quickly shot that idea down remembering the second time which resulted in the feline receiving a worst injury.
With his past methods out of the question he quickly gets a new idea. Underdrake decides to rip the branch Opal was stuck on and handed it to her owner.
"There you are Rarity she should come off eventually."
"Thank you Underdrake!"
"You're welcome just doing what I do best to keep this city and Equestria safe." He takes off again and is spotted by 3 mail ponies.
"Look up in the sky it’s a bird!" Special Delivery started
"No it’s a plane!" Parcel Post countered
"It’s a snake!" Derpy randomly added
"A snake?" the other 2 asks
"No bird nor plane or snake just friendly old me Underdrake!" He responds and waves to the trio of mail ponies who wave back. He then spots a highspeed chase between police and a stolen armored car. The dragon flies down, infront of the moving vehicle and stops it with little to no effort.
"I'm feeling generous today so i'm giving you 3 seconds to step out!" He demands rolling up one of his sleeves "1...2...21/2..." right as he was about to say 3 the same amount of flightless dragon step out with their claws up "We surrender...the boss isn't with us we swear." one of the goons say
He lets the police take them away as he flies the armored vehicle, all the bits, diamonds and gemstones still intact and returns it to the bank, it's original destination really reflection the good side of the spectrum.
Meanwhile in the outskirts of Manehattan was an old looking tree which seemingly doubled as a house with boarded up windows and doors. Said tree was secretly the lair of one of Equestria's most notorious villains Princess Twilight Sparkle. Except although she was pretty skilled with magic she wasn't actually a princess she just believed she was.
The unicorn wore a black ripped suit to look cool, a very messy mane as a result of failed experiments mostly mixing explosive chemicals, wore a eyepatch not to look cool or evil but because she as a filly she had actually poked her eye out and a bandage over her head thanks to head trauma from other failed experiments.
Minor head trauma aside her physical state is nothing compared to her mental state which not only made her think she's a princess but also that everypony else are her unruly subjects so as a result Twilight's trying to basically take over Manehattan and possibly all of Equestria which really reflects the other bad side of the spectrum.
"Ah ha Shining I think I just found the solution to all our problems!" Twilight announced showing the other unciron a page in a book
"That's great Twily will it make me captain of the Royal Guard?" the unicorn cringed at that a little "You could say that. You see Big Brother Best Number #1 Assistant this book says something about a magical artifact known as The Page Turner capable of encasing and trapping its target in a story. It can also do the opposite and bring things from the story into reality"
"What kind of stories?"
"All kinds of stories can be thought of action, adventure, comedy, war, superhero, sc-fi...romance" she stuttered a little "Pirate etc and once I get my hands on it and make a example out of Underdrake, the police and a few residents of Manehattan and eventually all of Equestria once I will have no choice but to do what I Princess Twilight Sparkle commands!" this is followed by a bit of laughter
Once nighttime had fallen the unicorn duo made their way to town hall where there were multiple night guards with flashlights patrolling the area. They originally took cover in a bush before sneaking behind a box, then a barrel and then a pile of both.
"Alright here the plan-" Twilight' whispering gets cut off by a nightguard shining his flashlight at the duo's hiding spot who just barely mange to avoid being spotted by ducking at the last second "As I was saying here's the plan you take out one and pose as them to drive the other one away to allow us access into the building."
"I don't get it"
"Steal that nightguard’s armor, you'll get to know what's it like to be a Royal Guard.” Conveniently the nightguard Twilight pointed a hoof at had a white coat of fur “You got it Capta-I mean little sis!” Despite changing who he was referring to Shining still saluted to the command.
Sneaking behind you guessed it more bushes he made it over to said nightguard tapped him on the shoulder and pulled him back into his hiding place. Shining came out dressed in the guard's armor looking identical to him the only difference being the somewhat messy coat but thanks to the darkness went unnoticed by the other brown coated guard.
"Hey bud I think I saw some movement over in the bushes."
The other guard started making his way over to the alleged area of movement only for Shining to trip him at the last second in hopes of giving him and his sister more time.
"Alright now let me in" Twilight whispered coming up to her brother who checked every compartment of his armor "I don't seem to have anything."
"What! Nothing like a key, keycard, lockpick, combination anything to allow us entry."
"Wait I think I found something!" The stallion pulled out what he thought was a kind of key but was actually just chapstick "Huh? Well at least I know that Royal Guards either are allowed or hide things in their armor." Annoyed Twilight grabs the tube of chapstick from him and throws it onto the ground.
"You're lucky I always have a plan B." The unicorn starts focusing really hard and eventually gathers enough energy to cast a teleportation spell which teleports her and her brother into town hall somehow leaving the armor behind.
"Awww my armor's gone...welp it was fun while it lasted."
"Yes I successfully performed a teleportation spell!" Twilight celebrated by walking around while remembering all the times she had failed this type of spell which ended with her inside a wall, floor or even piece of furniture or piece lab equipment. The duo found themselves in the town hall library which held every type of book, a copy of lawbooks throughout history, important documents and what the evil princess was after artifacts, more specifically the Page Turner.
"Hey Twily the Page Turner must be the book under that spotlight with no security." Shining is rudely kicked by his sister. "Are you even hearing yourself?! That book is obviously a decoy and security trigger! The real Page Turner must be hidden in an unexpected place somewhere nopony would ever look. Don't touch anything! Don't wanna risk setting off any alarms."
She walks around scanning each shelf before finding a book wrapped in chains which prompts her to charge a blast up "Wait a second why would an artifact just have plain old chains as security? If this was real it should have enchanted chains." She thought to herself which was enough to convince her that this is another trap.
Twilight finally takes notice of how high the shelves are which give her another hint, clue of where the magic book could be. Right as the unicorn places her hands on the shelf to start climbing she feels and faintly hears how unstable the shelf is. "This will clearly set off an alarm or at least alert the guards outside." she thought walking around the shelf to find a metal plate which read a genre of books, this one being adventure books.
She scans multiple bookshelves of different genres avoiding the ones that could obviously hold a decoy and alarm like magic, law, adventure, fantasy and eventually find the genre that no one could think to find a artifact "Ah-ha science these kinds of books are so boring to the average reader that the shelves grow cobwebs."
Her figure of speech ends up being right as the unicorn ends up having to clean a few cobwebs while in the process of scanning the bookshelves. She eventually found a book that stood out from the rest, which didn't have a title or pattern it was simply blank. One half expected it to be a secret lever that opened the room where the real Page Turner but the other half turned out to be right as she easily slid the book from the shelf
Twilight closed her eyes expecting an alarm or security device to go off, she opens the book a little closing her eyes, again expecting some kind of security system to be activated but that moment never came.
"Looks like my theory, at least one of them was right!" Twilight concluded then fully opened the novel and out came a bunch of long scrolls which seem to act like tentacles. But unlike most tentacles released from imprisonment they didn't attack Twilight or go rouge instead they extended to other genre shelves where they grabbed a book from each and retracted back in the Page Turner genre in their grasp.
"Guess The Pager Turner was drained of its power when it was stored away." Twilight thought as her brother caught up to her "Hey sis you won't believe what I just-Oh you found the Page Turner."
"Right you are Shining and check it out contains every genre imaginable, adventure, pirate, war, romance" she shutters a bit "Not let's get out of here." Twilight cast a teleportation spell haphazardly fast and as a result although her brother and book successfully end up outside Town Hall Library the caster gets stuck inside the wall, her upper half outside and lower half inside.
"Oh come on!" Twilight said in a voice loud enough for her bro to hear but quiet enough to not draw attention from the guards.
"With step 1 a success we can now move onto step 1.5!" Twilight announces crossing out the first step with a red marker "Wait why step 1.5?" Shining asks
"Well Big Brother Best Number #1 Assistant we've gotta see if the Page Turner actually works, it looks like it was drained of its power after all." She hears a faint ruckus outside her hideout "And I think I just found the perfect test subject." an orange cowpony was in the middle of throwing another apple when Shining opened the door.
"Oh sorry I didn't think anypony actually lived here." she admitted putting her basket of apple behind herself "Don't sweat it m'am. You see my little sister is an author and wants someone to proofread her story." the stallion explains to her "Don't know a lot about writing but guess I can give it a shot." Twilight briefly shows the cowpony the blank cover and opens the book to find an illustration of the wild west, leaving her confused.
"I don't seem to see any-" The apple mare is cut off by scroll tentacles wrapping around her body and pulling her into the illustration in the unicorns' perspective she just appeared in the now animated picture but in the earth pony's point of view the tentacles faceplanted her into the ground.
"Where am I?" The earth pony muttered rubbing the back of her head only to feel and hear the ground rumbling which also made rocks move. Next thing she knew a herd were stampeding across the area and heading right towards her "BUFFALO STAMPEDE!" she ends up running off a random cliff, faceplants onto a ledge of rock, the ledge breaks off and falls into a river below.
"IT WORKS!" Twilight cheers closing and holding the book close as if it were her favorite toy.
"Before I can make all of Manehattan bow down to me Princess Twilight Sparkle first I gotta take care of the police. Step 2 of course." the evil unicorn told her brother who was walking alongside her to the police station. The younger pony wore a pair of sunglasses to cover her eyepatch, a hat to cover her bandaged up mane and a trench coat to cover her ripped black suit.
The chief of police Double Tap was adjusting his hat when he was approached by the 2 villainous unicorns "Hey officer my little sister wants your opinion on her work of art."
"Sure sounds simple enough." The Page Turner opens to a comedy story
"As Princess I command you to put a bookmark in it!" Double Tap isn't able to fully process the circus illustration or the unicorn's statement when tentacles grab him by the neck and head and into the picture itself. He finds himself a part of the tight rope walking act, he yelps falling off the rope and into a tank of water below.
"FREEZE!" Another officer says holding them at gunpoint Shining puts his hands up but Twilight just laughs "As Princess I command you to put a bookmark in it!" she opens the book to another random page that the officer is dragged into. "They've just trapped the chief and one of our troops! FIRE!" That officer along with a few others open fire on the duo but the tentacles from the still open random page deflect the bullets.
"As Princess I command you to put a bookmark in it!" grab the group pulling them into the page which is revealed to be a pirate story.
They all scream as the ship they were spawned into was not only going through a massive storm and rough water but also under attack by a kraken.
The next place Twilight and Shining head to is the bank "Now for step 3 make an example out of someone in Manehattan." Right as they were about to enter the bank they were stopped by a security guard "Hold on there you 2 you're wearing an awful lot of clothing, are you sure you aren't hiding anything in that trench coat or hat?"
"As Princess I command you to put a bookmark in it!" The guard is pulled into an illustration of a war story where he seeks cover in a trench from all the gunfire and warfare. Which sets an example for the ponies leaving and inside the bank. "As for the rest of you unruly subjects, who aren't trapped in a story I recommend handing over all your money and valuables." Twilight said which prompts her brother to open a sack
Since most of the ponies inside the bank were rich and wealthy the duo unicorns got a surplus amount of bits and jewelry. "Now onto my final step, step 4 trap Underdrake and once he's out of the picture Manehattan and eventually all of Equestria will have no choice but to bow down to Princess Twilight Sparkle and I know exactly who to target to get his attention."
"Come on Opal your food is right in front of you." Rarity said offering her cat a bowl of food in hopes of getting her off the severed branch which only made the feline grasp the branch tighter. Sighing she leaves her boutique and notices a car swiftly pull up to her getting suspicious she moves away from it a bit.
"NOW I GOTCHA!" This proves to be useless as Twilight comes out of the car door on Rarity's side and traps her in a choke hold to restrain her rather than the move's intended purpose.
"You release her at once!" Spike Strip says rushing over the ponynapping in progress "You think you're some kind of hero?" Twilight asks smacking the yellow peagsus in the face with a closed Page Turner knocking and nearly knocking his glasses and hat off, which allows the deranged unicorn's cart zip away with Rarity . Spike picks it up,runs into another alley and suits up into Underdrake.
Tracking where Rarity was no problem with his supersonic hearing picking up her cries for help. He spreads his wings, takes off from the ground and into the sky. He crashes right through a wall and into the princess' hideout, where he found Shining Armor trying to aim a turret at the door
"Give it up Armor you're not match for me!"
"Oh thought you were gonna come through the door and by come I mean crash but guess crashing through the wall cooler." Shining shrugs his error off, turns the weapon towards the dragon and fires but the bullets as the dragon expected and the pony didn't just bounced, ricochet off him, not even damaging his somewhat oversize red shirt.
He grabs the turret off its stand reverting it to an empty machine and twists it as if it was plastic. Shining was used to this noting this as typical Underdrake behavior but something he failed to notice was that the drake with wings had twisted the barrel around his his hands making makeshift handcuffs.
"Never seen that trick huh?" Underdrake asks before knocking the stallion aside with a punch right to the muzzle. "Surrender now Underdrake or your beloved Rarity gets it." she says holding the white unicorn by the neck
"Please Underdrake you don't want me to get hurt." Rarity begged on the verge of tears
"What are you gonna do bore her to death with one of your books?" He quips
"This is called the Page Turner you flying lizard! As Princess I command you to put a bookmark in it!" Twilight opens the book with a picture of black hole slightly obscured by long tentacle-like scrolls which instantly wrap around Underdrake. "Not even the strongest creature in Equestria and survive a black hole." She said laughing as the scrolls dragged the dragon towards the illustration only for him break free using his super strength "The black hole might be stronger than me but not these flimsy scrolls."
"Harder than I anticipated." Twilight thought before closing and opening the book to the same page which released double the tentacles. Underdrake was ready from them this time flicking, swatting and slapping them away which was somehow enough to make them retreat, retract back into the book.
"Hey guess what purple little freak? GENRE ATTACK!" Giving up on trapping the super dragon in a black hole she flips to a war story and out came a bunch of turrets which fired off but didn't even leave a scratch on the dragon. The crazy princess flips to a medieval story which shoots a cannonball and unlike the bullets actually damage Underdrake enough to knock him against a wall.
She fires another cannonball which the dragon manages to dodge noting how it would've hit him in the head. He is then sprayed with water and pied in the face.
"Why did it choose such an inconvenient comedy story." Twilight muttered as Underdrake punched her into Rarity which gave the evil unicorn another idea.
"Alright Underdrake last chance surrender now or i'll trap Rarity in the black hole, just like all the others. Choose now!" Twilight demanded once again holding her by the neck, the Page Turner flipped to the black hole, tentacles slithering around her face like a binch of snakes. The flyable drake kept a focused face which to the evil pony looked like he was choosing really carefully but in reality he was using his heat wave vision on the Page Turner. The reason she didn't use it on Twilight's arm was because he knew the princess would be able to feel it.
She took notice when the Page Turner was suddenly colored red but this just signaled it was too late as the scroll tentacles when crazy slapping Twilight making her release Rarity and allowed Underdrake to swoop in a save her. The tentacles eventually stopped failing around and came off the book resulting in them tightly wrapping around the unicorn restraining her.
"You did it Underdrake! You stopped Twilight Sparkle." she notices Double Tap on the circus page "Wait but how are you gonna get all the ponies she already trapped in the book?"
"Well I have a hunch..." He trails off ripping the page Rarity had seen which released what looked like the spirit of the comedy genre, Double Tap shortly followed. Using his super speed the dragon flips through the rest of the pages containing real ponies along with empty pages that released other genres.
"There we go everypony's out and the Page Turner's once again drained of its power." He picks up a struggling Twilight and a knocked out Shining Armor.
"Thank you Underdrake!" the coward of ponies said
"You're welcome everypony especially you Rarity just doing what I do best keep Manehattan and Equestria safe." He says before taking off, holding the artifact and the criminals who used it.
"Off to jail you two go! Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor too!" The dragon ends up literally dropping the siblings into the jail. He completes his daily mission by returning the now empty Page Turner back to The Town Hall Library, before finally taking flight again.
"Look up in the sky it’s a bird!" Special Delivery started
"No it’s a plane!" Parcel Post added
"It’s a snake!" Derpy randomly added
"A snake?" the 2 mail stallions asked
"No bird nor plane or snake just friendly old me U-" the winged drake crashes ends up crashing into a library billboard "Underdrake!"
Flashback
"This job isn't as exciting as I thought it would be." Derpy sighed disappointed that her dream job as a mailpony wasn't as fun as she anticipated. What made this job disappointing was that rather than delivering mail around Manehattan like the other 2 mailponies she was instead stationed at a newspaper stand that would occasionally get delivers and speaking of which,
"Welcome to the team Derpy!" Special Delivery said driving by in a mail truck and dropping off a stack of newspapers. Derpy walks over to it and finds the headline to be about a crime wave accompanied with a blurry picture of a tall figure in a trench coat and fedora labeled as an eye witness report.
"Whoever behind this is a massive jerk." Derpy for some reason said out loud which is followed by a weirdly shaped hoof stepping on the stack and a voice asking "Who are you calling a jerk."
The pegasus looks up to find the same tall figure seen in the picture, she repeatedly turns her gaze between the picture of and the actual figure itself which gets interrupted by a red hand which looked more like a claw grabbing her
"Please I just started this job I don't have anything."
"Oh yeah let's see about that." The figure shakes her a little releasing a dozen chocolate chip muffins "Seriously...Maybe you're hiding something in these things." the other red claw looking hand pressed the top of the muffin against a wall which doesn't reveal any valuables as a result he squishes it in their palm only to get the same result.
Annoyed the criminal shakes Derpy more and a lot more violently which drops a lot of bits, along with a bit of jewelry "More to add to my ever growing greed." Spike who was dumpster diving in an alley for another meal ended up overhearing this crimnal act in the process and rushing over to an empty trash can suits up as said criminal notices the new mailpony's derped out eyes.
"Hey you mind if I fix those...hah too bad i'm gonna fix them anyway." he balls up his claw looking hand and goes to punch Derpy.
"No need to shake here's Underdrake! You leave her alone she needs those bits and valuables!" The dragon says jumping out of an alley, the figure laughs "You call yourself a dragon you're barely 4 feet tall."
"Call myself a dragon? Does he mean he's a-" Underdrake's thought is interrupted by the figure dropping the new recruit, approaching him, taking off his fedora and lowering the rim of his trench coat revealing a tall red dragon "The name's Garble gang leader and a real dragon cause I can do this!" he proceeds to breathe out a massive stream of orange fire at a wall which manages to burn a hole in it.
"Oh yeah what about this!" He takes the larger dragon's claw and crushes it as if it were a tin can. Angry Garble breathes another stream of fire this time directly at Underdrake and once all the smoke clears up he's revealed to be completely unharmed.
"Huh? Not even a normal dragon can survive a fire blast that powerful."
"Guess that doesn't make me a real dragon more like an extraordinary one!" The purple dragon empathizes his point further by flying up revealing his pair of wings "You may have invulnerability and wings BUT I HAVE A MACHINE GUN!" he pulls a Tommy Gun out of his trench and fires it at Underdrake but just like with the fire once the gun runs out of ammo he finds the bullets dented and the dragon unscratched.
Underdrake flies forward landing a hit on his snout with a balled up claw, knocking his trench off revealing a white suit underneath and that he had no wings. He punches the Garble in the same area with his other claw conventionally knocking him into a nearby jail and into a cell.
Meanwhile across Manehattan in a cave filled with bits, gemstones and valuables a orange dragoness named Smolder wearing a blue dress and make up was having a tea party with a few stuffed animals and going to take a sip of tea only for her watch alarm to go off making her spill it "OH COME ON! That's the 5th dress this month! Looks like the boss been captured.”
She takes the dress off and wipes the makeup revealing a purple suit and fedora underneath. She runs over to a blue dragoness named Ember wearing a black suit and fedora whispering something in her ear. The blue one runs over to a dark purple dragon, eyes covered by a blonde tuft of hair wearing a tan suit and fedora his name was Thorn, Ember told him the same thing. Finally he delivered the same message to a large brown dragon with blue ice cream cone like horns, wearing a blue suit and fedora he was named Fume.
"This is taking longer than usual." Garble grumbled sitting in a prison cell board as always. He hears and sees a crack in the floor, a circular slab is then made around the crack breaking it off, turning it into a hole and out comes the 3 dragons "Knew you all would never abandon me."
"Of course not you're the boss after all!" Smolder whispers handing the boss another white fedora "We wouldn't know what to pull off without your knowledge." Thorn adds
"Hey can you hurry it up there." Fume says staying below the trio due to being too big to fit through the small hole "Now come on before any guard sees." Ember says pulling Garble into the hole, Smolder puts the slab back in place and seals the slab back into the floor.
"So what happened this time?" Thorn asks the gang back in their hideout and all sitting on a pile of gemstones "I tried to rob a namby pamby pony of her valuables only to be stopped by a short dragon with wings and invincibility he calls himself Underdrake or something like that."
"We're definitely looking forward to more of him." Ember adds sarcastically
***
Spike Strip started packing his things up to head home when his supersonic hearing picked up the sound of police sirens and walkie talkie "Attention all units an bank robbery is currently being executed by a group of 4 pegasuses or pegasi." the yellow pegasus goes to reach for his hat when he is approached by 2 mystery creatures.
"Hey Shrimp show me a magic trick."
"It's Spike Strip and listen i'm packing u-"
"No you listen here-" The familiar male voice said grabbing the pony "I may not like you Namby Pamby ponies but you're gonna show me one of your acts or i'll do a trick myself involving your face and the sidewalk." He throws the magician to the ground who hears the sound of bits shuffling.
"Alright pick a card any card." The male creature picks a card face away from the pony "Is this your card?" he pulls out the same card
"What you think of that trick Ember?" he asked the other creature who was apparently named as such "It was terrible show him another."
"I think I heard the phone ring?"
"Phone? I thought this city got rid of phone booths a long time ago."
"Maybe they're rare or maybe you need to get your ears checked." the male response to to Ember's question resulted in an argument which allowed Spike to slip away and suit up into Underdrake. The dragon with wings tapped both creature's shoulders and gave them a balled up claw to the face, knocking off their disguises off and them out, revealing a red and blue dragon, who dropped a few bits out of her claw.
"Just as I suspected." Underdrake thought taking back the clawful of bits
Present
Garble and his goons had just stolen an armored truck full of Puckwudgies who were conventionally all muzzled and restrained from attacking anycreature. The reason why the hoard were after these creatures was because they've been declared endangered by the city's press and now were highly valued in the black market which was outside Manehattan
"Alright we've gotten away with them but how are we gonna smuggle them out of Manehattan?" Thorn asks "Simple we're gonna stuff them into a wagon full of cupcakes." Garble plans followed by a sudden stop and lower in the vehicle "Looks like we've hit a pothole i'll check it out."
The purple dragon grabbing his AK-47, slowly steps out to find a wheel trapped in a pothole. He is then tapped on the shoulder by a lighter purple dragon
"No need to shake here's Underdrake! Planning to smuggle Puckwudgies eh?” The other purple dragon fires his AK-47 but it has little to no effect on Underdrake. Thorn gets halfway through his ammo when his firearm is taken, snapped like a twig before getting knocked out with a punch to the snout
Garble and the rest of his goons step out and attempt to fire their own machines guns, Underdrake simply walking through the bullets. When he gets close they each release a blast of fire but get the same result.
He knocks them out, throws them in a dumpster and with that rightfully returns the armoured truck to the zoo and the dragon gang to jail.
***
"Finally got that Orthros inside now I don't have to worry about it slobbering on me." A disguised Smolder said as she approached Zeppelin security, she places her suitcase on the conveyor belt, which not only contained a parachute but also a cramped in Orthros another endangered species.
"Hey check this out!" Right as the smuggling suitcase went into the x-ray the dragoness did a flip which managed to distract all the zeppelin staff and security in the area. By the time Smolder got done the bag had already gone through the machine. A security guard then checked all her trench coat and pants pockets for anything dangerous but found her clean of them.
Spike Strip who had already gone through security was about to board a Zeppelin only for his supersonic hearing to pickup the whimpering of 2 dogs which was coming from the suitcase of the suspicious looking creature in the trenchcoat. Spike drops his bags, reaches into one of them, pulls out his magic hat and runs behind a corner suiting up into Underdrake.
"No need to shake here's Underdrake! Hey you drop the bag!" he demands which Smolder responds to by ripping out 3 grenades which had been sewed into her clothing, pulling out their safety pins and throwing them at the dragon which clears the area. Underdrake wasn't afraid of the explosives as he just walked right through the explosion and smoke. She grabs a machine gun from the same place and fires it at the other dragon only to get the same result. The barrel's half empty when Underdrake bends the tip so when she fires a her firearm blows up destorying her disguise and suitcase releasing the Orthros.
Underdrake lets security take the dragoness away as he returns the attempted smuggled Orthros back to the zoo it was tagged with.
“Is this your card?” Spike Strip asked showing a stallion a card identical to the one he was holding “Why yes it is.” He reaches into his pocket and throws 2 bits into the pegasus’ magic hat. Once the stallion had left it’s revealed that the magican’s whole stack of cards were made up of the same card.
Spike started packing his things up when he saw Rarity walk by looking worriedly down at a newspaper and holding a microphone “Hey Rarity what’s wrong.”
“It’s terrible Spike the daily news had just declared Phoenixes endangered. I’m currently heading to Manehattan National Park to report on a Phoenix nest found there.”
“I got a feeling something or someone might try to steal them.” Spike thought remembering Garble’s attempt to steal and smuggle Puckwudgies out of Manehattan
“Well you better get over their don’t want to be late for your big report.” Unbeknownst to either them Ember was overhearing their conversation from a sewer grate “Did you hear what that pony said Phoenixes are endangered and there’s a nest of them at the national park.”
“That means they’ll be worth a lot on the market. Alright here’s the plan everydragon we’re gonna go there, steal the phoenixes and their eggs if there is any.”
Spike Strip ran into an alley took off his glasses, jumped into his hat and suited up into Underdrake.
Now with a whole camera crew Rarity stood near the tree where the Phoenix nest was. “Rarity here currently in Manehattan National Park. Phoenixes that had recently been declared endangered had just been found in this very park up that tree.”
The camera pointed at said tree which is followed by the tree next to it cracking, falling over scaring away a few birds and revealing Underdrake “No need to shake here’s Underdrake.”
“Underdrake! I’m glad but kind of confused to see you why are you here?” She asked giving him the microphone
“Just doing what I do best keeping Manehattan and Equestria safe. Part of that is keeping their residents and creatures safe especially the endangered ones.”
“NOOO!” Smolder said throwing a gemstone at the stolen TV they owned which broke right through and shattered the screen “Don’t worry Smolder I’m prepared for this with a DVD of military war tactics but since you broke the TV guess I’ll have to read the pamphlet."
“Uh boss that says pony military war tactics.” Thorn points out “I may hate ponies but they do occasionally provide us with more than valuables and gemstones. Now onto the tactics starting with the most simple: Sneak Attack we’ll wait till nighttime for Underdrake to either leave or fall asleep and then we’ll poach the Phoenixes.”
Nighttime had fallen over Manehattan and the gang of dragons had made it into the park and were targeting the phoenix nest from a bush.
“Fume you’re the biggest one here I want you to climb the tree." Garble orders, the other dragon nods in agreement, climbs out of the bush and heads towards the bush only to stop when he spots Underdrake sleeping back against the tree. "Uh boss-Come on Fume we don't have all day."
Knowing he had easily lost the verbal battle he sighs, slowly and carefully scoots up the trees, he goes to grab a sleeping fully grown phoenix and a egg but since he was using both claws he lost his balance and hit the forest floor with a loud thud which somehow didn't wake the much stronger dragon up.
"Phew that was a close on-" Some phoenix dust landed on his nose and he let out a surprisingly loud sneeze which was the last straw and woke the heroic dragon up.
"That was the loudest sneeze I've ever heard." he comments before getting a small rock thrown at his forehead stunning him for a second "The raid's a bust time to scram!"
The 5 dragons make their way out of the forest park, into a street a ponyhole (man doesn't exist in Equestria) which then gets the cover placed over it. Underdrake despite being able to fly at an incredible speed ends up arriving about 2 seconds late.
"Would go after them but it's best to protect the nest first. Now I know the phoenixes really are endangered" he thought
***
This failed attempt of course resulted in a lot of annoyed and angry grumbling among Garble's goons
"No need to over grumble goons we've still got 2 war tactics left, next up is sabotage which i'm going to show on this now fixed TV!" The red drake goes over to the mostly repaired TV only to trip on a ruby knocking the TV off the small table and shattering once it hits the ground.
"Nevermind guess i'll just read it from the pamphlet. Sabotage: We'll do as much as possible to distract Underdrake from the tree. Once we do, we strike and snatch the nest and unlike Sneak Attack we'll execute this plan now! Come on!" At Manehattan National Park Rarity was currently trying to make a fire the old fashioned way by rubbing 2 sticks together. "Underdrake darling think you use your fire stare to make my fire trying to roast some marshmallows over here."
"Are you sure? It requires a lot of focus and if I wanna protect the nest I can't let my guard down." the dragon explains "No one would be silly enough to try to steal the phoenix eggs with you guarding it Underdrake." The pony complements "That's a fair point." he responds before staring at the pile of wood from Rarity perspective releasing a heat waves from between his eyes and once making contact with the firewood starts a fire.
Nearby Thorn lit a leaf on fire, discarded in a bush which set it ablaze, finally and the set of blazes spread to the trees. On the other side of the park, near a ranger cabin Smolder spotted a bear sleeping and poked it with a stick and jumped into a bush which was more than enough to wake it up. Thinking it was the ranger who bothered it, the bear runs at the stallion causing him to run into his cabin and now struggling to keep the wild animal out. In another part of the park Ember grabbed a wasp nest off a tree and threw it at a group of tourists releasing the swarm inside.
"Underdrake! A forest fire has suddenly ignited!" A mare ranger told the dragon "You better get over there! I'll stand watch." Rarity takes Underdrake's place allowing him to fly off over to the fire. He dashes through the flames rescuing a surprising amount of critters hiding the burning bushes and trees.
"Now to take care of the fire." He notices that the fire has spread a bit and goes to fly through it again but recognizes that his supersonic flight is what fanned the flames so he dashes in the opposite direction and finds a pond. He flies head first into the ground, cuts a hole around the body of water allowing him to pick it up and pour the water onto the forest fire putting it out.
"Phew what a workou...Underdrake! A group of tourists are under attack by a swarm of wasps!" the same mare ranger informed. Having lost a lot of energy evident by how he was now flying at what would be considered normal speed, Underdrake heard the familiar sound of buzzing and found the swarm of wasps attacking the tourists. He flew up to them turning the swarm's attention from the ponies to the dragon but as always when they attempted to sting him the dragon went unaffected.
He grabbed the wasps, balled them up as if they were paper, grabbed the nest and stuffed them back in, patching it up with a pine cone.
"Underdrake my dad's being attacked by a bear!" A camper colt told a now panting and sweating Underdrake the latter 2 being thing dragons rarely do
"Looks like you can use a cupcake." the colt says unwrapping a vanilla cupcake with chocolate icing and conveniently for him had pieces of a emerald on it "Exactly what I need!"
The first bite Underdrake takes clears the icing and a bit of the top of the cupcake but he was modest enough to consume the rest of it in the second bite. He feels a pair of green flames go off inside him refueling his energy and allowing him to get a massive boost in speed allowing him to once again reach his supersonic flight speed and fly to the cabin to find the sheriff still under the attack by the bear.
He tackles the bear to the ground, away from the sheriff's cabin and after a bit of tussling around, the bear managing to land a few claw swipes that didn't even scratch the dragon, he managed to pin the bear down and allowed it to run out of energy and pass out.
At the phoenix tree Garble and Fume hiding behind a rock splashed Rarity with a bucket of water messing up her mane "AH! My regal mane!" the unicorn steps aside and pulls out a mirror to fix her mane which allows the dragons to climb up and swiftly retrieve the eggs from the phoenix nest.
Rarity having somewhat dried off her mane looks at and then up the tree to find the contents missing from the nest, something she notices right as Underdrake returns "Underdrake! Quickly someone took the eggs from the nest!" In response the dragon flies headfirst underground and uses his ultrasonic hearing to listen for rapid footsteps Underdrake flies slightly forward and pops out the ground to find Garble and his goons red clawed (No irony intended) with the Phoenix eggs.
"You know the drill Garble hand them over....1...2..." He gets bonked on the head, the eggs landing safety in his loose claws. "Run for it!" the 5 dragons all follow after the boss and run out of the forest park.
"Hey ranger you saw how those criminals just tried to steal these Phoenix eggs? You mind if I take them home with me." He asks "Sure anything for you Underdrake if it means keeping Phoenixes from extinction."
"We're not giving up just yet everydragon we're moving onto the next tactic: Watch and Learn which i'll show on the TV" the red dragon goes to a new stolen TV and inserts the DVD into the player only for it to reject the disk, confused her tries again same result a few more times film tapes come out the player. Annoyed he starts to and eventually manages to stuff all the tape back into the player and insert the disk and it actually starts playing.
It started off with Royal Guards dressed in black armor to represent the enemy, which to the dragons was the good side. Spying on Royal Guards in Golden Armor which the gang saw as the bad side.
The dark guards spied on the golden guards through binoculars and took note of how they would only guard the surrounding area so as a counter they decided to dig underground and plant explosives under their base. "As you can see all we have to do here is just observe Underdrake and once we learn his patterns we strike.
"This is a lot less exciting than I thought." Ember grumbled hiding behind a rock near the phoenix tree along with the others.
"You got that right, Garble we've been here nearly all day and Underdrake hasn't done anything we can counter." Smolder adds empathizing her point by pointing at the moon in the night sky.
"Wait I think he's finally doing something!" Thorn says turning the dragons' attention to the heroic dragon who flew up and grabbed the eggs from the nest.
"Let's follow him"
"But boss how are we gonna do that without him noticing?" Fume asks "Simple like this!" pulling out a bag of shattered rubies with a small hole in a corner, Garble attaches them to the winged dragon when he came by. A few moments later they felt it was safe to follow, the flightless dragons followed the trail which led to an rundown apartment inside a rundown building.
"Huh didn't expect that pony in a dragon costume to live in such a low quality place." Garble shoots a hole in the door with a pistol and unlocks it to find Spike placing the 3 phoenix eggs on his drawer "What's the big deal i'm just a humble magician-" "Can it Shrimp I was right about you Underdrake you are a pony in a dragon costume."
"Oh i'm no Underdrake I just know him, he's my friend he trusted me to keep these eggs safe in my apartment."
"Well in that case step aside!" Garble said holding him at gunpoint, the pegasus reluctantly steps aside allowing the red dragon to snatch the trio eggs and dash out the apartment.
"Phew that was a close one. Now to stop this Phoenix Poaching once in for all!" he results into Underdrake and finds the 5 dragons heading towards a ponyhole cover, luckily he was fast enough to grab all of them in his left claw right before they could lift the cover off.
"I'll take these!" He holds all 3 eggs in his right claw and sees a mailtruck. Getting an idea he hovers and then throws all 5 into the truck. He taps on the driver's window "You've got some trash to take out to the police station!"
"Look up in the night sky it’s a bird!" Special Delivery the driver started
"No it’s a plane!" Parcel Post added
"It’s a snake!" Derpy randomly added
"A snake?" the 2 mail stallions asked
"No bird nor plane or snake just friendly old me U-" the winged drake crashes ends up crashing into a tall tree getting his head stuck through it "Underdrake!"
Luckily for him not only were the eggs safe the 2 adults phoenixes came and safely retrieve their soon to be hatchlings back.
Author's Note
There won’t be much action in the Garble chapters since it’s more Brains Over Brawns
