Life in Ponyville continued its usual routine of ponies wandering the town, performing their jobs and earning their bits before heading back home with their loved ones.

The week after Twilight received the tickets, there was a slight development at Sweet Apple Acres. The orchard had experienced a huge bumper crop and right around the time Big Mac had received an injury and was unable to work for a while.

With the enormity of the task Bright Mac decided that they needed to ask for help from the townsponies to harvest this crop. Applejack protested that they would be able to handle it themselves but parental authority overruled her opinion so she had no choice but to accept defeat.

As Applejack was heading to town to request help from her friends she spotted a herd of cows stampeding toward Ponyville. Reacting quickly, she called on her dog, Winona, and the two proceeded to divert the bovine herd back to their pen.

After that incident Applejack then asked her friends to meet her at her farm to help her with the harvest. Twilight and Starlight used their magic to levitate the apples from the trees while Rainbow swiftly collected them from the air. Fluttershy had her animals search the ground for any apples that might have missed Rainbow’s sweep. Rarity made a few upgrades to Applejack’s tractor so that it could pull a trailer holding many buckets of apples that Pinkie seemed intent on stacking as high as she could put them. Sophia helped out by keeping Pinkie’s stack stable with her telekinesis.

Surprising to the group of friends, the Ponyville weather team and other Ponyville residents came to the orchard to help out once they heard that the Apples had a bumper crop that was too large for them to handle. Sophia couldn’t help but smile as she found that Ponyville fostered a sense of community. Within hours the entire orchard was harvested.

In Twilight’s friendship report, she not only mentioned how it was okay to ask for help and to give help in return, she also mentioned that a sense of community was as good as having an entire town’s worth of friends.

Weeks after the harvest, Sophia noticed a change in the dynamic between Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. At first the pegasus seemed to be avoiding her for some reason until she realized that the pink mare wanted her help with a prank on Spike.

Rainbow ended up scaring the dragon into getting the hiccups while he was carrying scrolls which caused him to breathe fire on all of them. Sophia giggled at the thought of Celestia having scrolls raining down on her head.

The two started pulling more pranks on their friends while Pinkie forbade Rainbow from planning anything on Fluttershy since she was too sensitive for pranks.

The pranking duo even tried pulling some pranks on Sophia which ended up with the two of them playing the metaphorical role of villains in a classic cartoon where the villain would end up outsmarted and often humiliated at the same time.

Sophia had to wonder why they thought a classic rabbit trap set up as a carrot under a small box with a stick and rope holding it up would work. Instead she flipped the script by quickly replacing the carrot with a delicious cupcake which tricked the pink mare into going for it. She ended up caught in her own trap. When the mare struggled to get out, Sophia sat on the box while increasing her own weight to make it hard for her to escape without crushing the crate.

Rainbow bellowed in laughter as she saw her friend falling for her own prank to which the bunny looked at the pegasus with a wicked smirk. “Lightning rod says ‘what’?”

“What?” came the mare’s words on instinct. That was when she was struck in the flank by a bolt of psionic lightning. She only used a tiny amount of power so that the bolt would only sting a little. “Ow…:” She rubbed the afflicted area with a hoof.

“If you two are going to go around pranking others, you better be prepared to get pranked in return,” Sophia warned.

It was then that Pinkie emerged from the ground outside of the box. Sophia figured that she tunneled her way out. She was an earth pony after all. The pink mare was in a fit of giggles, “That was a good one. I’d better up my game with you.”

“I look forward to seeing you try,” Sophia challenged with a smirk.

The rest of the day was uneventful. It was the next day where things became a little rowdy with the arrival of one of Rainbow’s old friends from flight camp.

Despite her initial opinion of them, Sophia was curious about the ways of griffons, though she found this griffon’s behavior to be deplorable. Although this griffon who Rainbow introduced as Gilda did seem to have some respect for her friend, that courtesy didn’t extend to any other creature in this town.

Sophia frowned as she observed Gilda trying to drive a wedge between Rainbow and Pinkie by threatening the pink mare and causing her primitive helicopter that she used to reach her friend to crash.

The griffon’s behavior only worsened from there as she scared off Applejack’s elderly grandmother to steal one of the apples she was selling. This was followed up by her disrespecting Fluttershy who was trying to protect a family of ducks crossing the street.

Having enough, Sophia decided to intervene. She could see in the griffon’s mind that she believed herself a superior species to them so she could do as she pleased. Just as the griffon was about to roar in the shy mare’s face, Gilda suddenly felt a weight on her back. She turned her head back to see the blue rabbit giving her an innocent smile and a wave of her paw. “What in Maar’s hell is this thing?” Gilda asked.

“Sophia? What are you doing here?” Fluttershy asked.

“I’m just making sure there isn’t any trouble around here. You should probably make sure those ducks make it to their destination.”

“Oh, right!” Fluttershy then began to go after the ducks. However, she looked back with a concerned expression on her face. “Will you be alright?”

“Don’t worry about me, Fluttershy. I’m just going to straighten out a misunderstanding,” Sophia assured. Fluttershy nodded and raced off after the duck family.

Gilda turned her head to look at Sophia again only to find she wasn’t on her back anymore but the sound of a clearing throat made her look straight downward to find Sophia standing in front of her. “And what are you supposed to be? Her protector?”

“In a sense. Are all griffons this petty?”

“You tryin’ to start something, dweeb?” Gilda growled.

“I could ask you the same thing, what with you being disrespectful to every pony you come across.”

“And what are you gonna do about it?”

“I have some advice for you: don’t push your luck or you are likely to end up biting off more than you can chew. I have ways of humbling insubordinate cubs…or chicks…like you, whatever you call your young.”

“Oh that’s it! You are my prey now!”

Gilda tried to reach for Sophia with her claws only for her to grab air before she felt a pull on her tail which resulted in her being lifted into the air and slammed onto the ground on her back. “Wha?! How are you strong enough to throw me?!”

Gilda felt a surprisingly heavy weight on her barrel as she stared at Sophia in shock. That shock was further intensified when the bunny grinned at her, revealing sets of razor-sharp teeth. The griffon then saw her eyes and sensed something primal in them that made her feel like she was the prey and it terrified her.

“Now that I have your attention, I believe you have a few ponies to apologize to. It’s apparent that flight camp didn’t teach you discipline, an oversight that I intend to rectify before I allow you to leave Ponyville. Meet me on the outskirts this evening. I’ll shine a light to lead you to me.”

“And why should I?” Gilda stated defiantly, though that came out weak as her mind reeled from Sophia’s display of dominance.

Sophia put on an innocent smile that belied her sadistic thoughts. “You seem to believe that you have a choice. Well…I suppose you do have a choice. You will be going through my boot camp, it’s just a matter of whether you go through it with broken legs or not.”

That statement took the last bit of defiance from the griffon. Reluctantly, Gilda acquiesced to Sophia’s orders though she still had to get one thing out, “Just what kind of monster are you?”

With an innocent smile Sophia replied, “The kind that you really don’t want to make an enemy of if you value not being their chicken dinner.”

Gilda gulped and nodded numbly before flying off. The rest of the week was spent with Gilda hanging out with Rainbow and her friends while being subjected to a torturous boot camp in the evening by Drill Instructor Sophia with the intention of instilling a soldier’s mentality into the griffon. She also subjected her to a series of obstacle courses that she ran with the griffon without using her powers. Gilda was surprised that Sophia performed the training exercises with her and did them better than she could which made the griffon feel her competitive urges take over.

Gilda also apologized to Pinkie for coming between her and Rainbow Dash, then to Granny Smith for scaring her and stealing an apple. The elderly mare had her pay for the apple. Finally she apologized to Fluttershy for being rude to her earlier.

Sophia showed that she could levitate herself and move at fast speeds which had them competing in flight races. However, Sophia beat her every time. Though this frustrated Gilda, Sophia encouraged her to use this as an opportunity to push herself further.

By the end of the week Gilda was too tired to cause trouble. Though Gilda didn’t complete the training, since a week was hardly enough time for a proper training regimen, she had learned a hard lesson about where her behavior would lead her. However she was also inspired to better herself as a result of Sophia’s words and actions.

Unfortunately she couldn’t stay in Ponyville any longer since she had other places to be. She said her farewells to Rainbow and her friends before flying off.

In the end Sophia got the information she needed about the griffons. She found them to be a proud race, though too much so for their own good. When something shattered that pride it left them wearing their insecurity on their proverbial sleeves. Fixing this issue would not be an easy one since they wouldn’t accept help from any non-griffon. Though with Gilda, it was possible that Sophia may have given their species a nudge in the right direction.

Only time would tell if that was enough.

Author's Note

One little bit of wisdom I've learned is that fear is one way of gaining someone's respect for a time but loyalty can be gained by being an inspiration to others. This chapter was my attempt at showing that.