Chapter 19 - A Friend In Need...!
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Within Canterlot castle a presence travels along the darkened shades reflected off the light of the moon. The presence moved like liquid as the very atmosphere around it dimmed and bent the light in the area. It shifted and composed itself into a humanoid shape as it composed itself in front of a statue. The creäture seemed to be a mixture of a dragon, goat, and other species with a long serpentine body with a few cracks within the stone statue.
"It appears much more is needed. The summit of the nation's leader shall be a venerable place to cause more Disharmony. If not for the death of the others I would not have even considered this so consider yourself lucky…brother."
The faint sound of noise echoed from the Sugarcube Corner bakery. "Son of a…" Naruto hissed as he clutched his hand in pain. He had misjudged how far he was from one of the ovens and burned himself.
"Oh my Narry are you okay?!" She quickly hurried over to Cheese Sandwich. The very first thing, she did was look at his hand carefully.
"I'm fine…nothing serious."
"No words! Let madam Pinkie cure you!" Pinkie said in a serious tone, bringing his hand closer to her. Pinkie then kissed his hand gently. "You all better now?" Pinkie asked in a rather, cute and concerned tone.
"You're worse than Rain." Naruto murmured as a blush colored his cheeks. At least Rainbow Dash shared her raunchy sense of humor to many unfortunate victims. Sparing no one from one of her jokes if that pony happened to end up in an embarrassing situation or made a flubbing of their words, but for some reason he seemed to be Pinkie's receptacle for all of her teasing and such.
"Aaw, am I the reason you're blushing like that?"
"Can we finish focus on the baking?" It took more willpower than Naruto felt was necessary to prevent himself from whining. It was rather early and he had a few things to do.
"I'm just teasing you!" Pinkie giggled.
'Someone that cute shouldn't be devious.' Naruto thought before quickly changing up what he thought. 'No not cute…devious. Devious and evil with her trolling ways.
"Now back to the baking!" With an exaggerated land ho gesture Pinkie Pie began to happily bounce her way to the other side of the kitchen. Thankfully it didn't take long for them to make the batch of muffins thanks to how proficient of a baker Pinkie Pie is.
"So Narry, what are your plans for today?" Pinkie Pie wondered as the blond brought out a tray of muffins from the oven to cool on the counter.
"After I visit Bulk and Lyra in the hospital I'm going to meet up with Twilight at my house to continue a project I've been working on. In fact the two of us are even going to the park to relax. If you want you come could join us tomorrow, I don't think Twilight would mind it much.
"Well that sounds rather fun. If the cakes don't need me I'll be sure to be there. " She said as she waved the blond off. Naruto made a bee-line to the hospital to visit the two ponies whom neither thankfully were going to be staying in the hospital long. Bulk's rather tough hide absorbed most of the damage caused to him by the Ursa's strike allowing him to come out from the incident with a few busted ribs and dislocated shoulders along with some scratches.
Lyra got off even lighter thanks to merely just suffering from a case of magical exhaustion that was rather easy to remedy with a few days of relaxing and not using her magic. After dropping off the consumables he made his way back to his home where Twilight had just arrived outside his home with the supplies he requested. "Thanks for bringing over these supplies on such short notice Twilight." Naruto was working desperately to get back to his old level of strength. The issue of the sealed Ashby was hanging over his head along with bits of information he had retrieved not only from Rainbow Dash, but Luna's only vague recollections.
There were at least two of Nightmare Moon's elites still out there, one Pegasus and a Unicorn along with the escaped criminals. A good deal of them tended to become bandits. Wild and destructive, they seemed to taking residence in the country side with theft, assault, and other such crimes becoming more rampant among trade routes. That on one hand was only based on the knowledge that they knew and it was known that the unknown enemies were far more dangerous. What were they planning? What resources did they have?
Those questions along with others were motivating Naruto to essentially recreate and redefine the art of Ninshuu and Ninjutsu more befitting of an Equine. He was already working on the theories of chakra he had learned from Hagoromo when the latter had thought him his reincarnation technique, but no matter how much Naruto had grown and matured he was not a scholar or theorist. A battle genius yes, but when it came to divining that one true answer it was out of his league, meaning that he would come to a point where he would need help from say someone like Celestia whose wisdom was both vast or ancient or a pony like Twilight who was without a doubt a much sharper thinker than he was on defining such subjects.
"No problem, I was glad to help." The Unicorn levitated the various writing supplies. She couldn't help, but wonder what Naruto was working on. She sure it had something to do with those scroll things Naruto was often seen with. Twilight gazed around the stallion's home and couldn't help but take notice how simple it was.
Sure there was furniture in nearly every room, but the atmosphere felt more like a place. Those things one should have instead of any atmosphere that conveyed the feeling or sense of a home.
"If you wouldn't mind setting them on the table." He said gesturing to the table where he had some of his latest scrolls and ink bottles at. There was one scroll tightly wrapped and tucked to the side of the corner.
"You spend a lot of time making these scrolls. Are you an artist of sorts?" After all scrolls weren't commonly used by most common ponies. Instead being used for events or as a formal means of communicating in a political or military setting. n Equestria unless it connected to a historical event or they were put on displayed for a museum.
"I use them for various things. Information and theories that are incredibly important that I solive."
"Can I read them?" she asked with a hint of curiosity at the idea of the theories the blond was talking about only for Naruto to hastily gather them.
"Nah-uh, sorry, I'm not finished with them yet. These scrolls are very important to me and I don't want to risk them being damaged." He said as he set them in a cabinet. He turned to see that she was a bit disappointed.
"Once I'm doing with the scrolls I'd be happy to go over some of their content with you."
Her face lit up and she smiled. "Thanks Naruto, I'm really excited to see these ideas you wanted to show me." Twilight wanted to figure out what the blond was hiding things to her determination streak. .
"I could say the same about that magic of yours. I'd love to see more of what you'll be able to learn. Anyway I'm going to take a shower feel free to make yourself at home."
Some time had passed and Twilight had already quickly read through the first of the few books Naruto had on his self. Twilight waited for Naruto to get done shower and a good deal of time past. She started to grow anxious and her attention turned back to the scrolls. She couldn't help but grow curious about what was within the scrolls. Twilight knew she shouldn't, but a quick little peek wouldn't hurt would it?
Carefully Twilight opened the cabinet and brought out a few of the scrolls. After all she was a very curious pony by nature and one of the things she enjoyed was learning. Upon reading the scrolls she realized she didn't understand its contents at all. "Ok…this might be a little more difficult than I thought." She thought to herself as she levitated a piece of parchment to take down some notes. Twilight was so lost in the notes she didn't notice the sound of the running water stopping.
"Twilight…what are you doing?"
Twilight jolted, her loss of concentration caused the ink bottle she was bringing over her spill over the scrolls.
Naruto dashed to the table as he scooped up some of the ruined scrolls. It had taken him days to come up with the numbers along with weeks to being able to afford and gather material. Months until he finally felt comfortable enough to use hooves all that time. Naruto couldn't help but feel both hurt and angry.
Twilight meanwhile wore a look of shock her face. Her ears were folded down on her head, and were shaking her head from side to side, tears welling up in her eyes. "I…I'm so sorry Naruto. I…I can replace the material and…and I can help."
"You've done enough. " The tone the stallion used came out much colder than he intended.
"N-Naruto." The remorse could be heard in her cracking voice as her shoulders dropped and she timidly looked upon the blond.
"I spent weeks on that and you just go and muck it up." This time his voice was decidedly angry.
"I didn't mean…"
"What kind of friend would do something like this? Just leave." The comment came off much meaner than the blond would ever attend for a war. The progress he made wasn't something he could so easily replicate. After all, there was a reason why he had so many scrolls and random theories. They were concepts he planned on revisiting. Naruto winced at the sound of a slammed door and the faint sound of crying in the distance.
"I'm surprised by how harsh you were to that pony."
"She ruined my hard work. I didn't intend to come off as so mean, but I was just so angry."
"Recreating your progress shouldn't take that long, should it?"
"It'll set me a day or two to remember and write up everything again." Twilight's distraught face came to his mind. While Naruto was upset he didn't want his friendship with Twilight ruined over it. All he would need is a nice long walk to cool then he would find and apologize to Twilight. He cursed himself for losing his cool like that. Especially so soon after Twilight's fearful revelations of her losing a friend over something he did. The more he thought about it the more shameful he felt for allowing himself to lose control of his emotions like that.
He trekked within the forest and away from his home. Minutes passed as Naruto tried and fail to come up with an apology to Twilight. He was trying to come up with something sincere beyond a mere I'm sorry, but nothing came to mind. He arrived to the library hoping that Twilight would be willing to listen to him.
Naruto knocked on the door. The door suddenly swung open. "Put'em up!" Naruto literally could not react as the dragon attacked him. Despite his gusto Spike's attacks were quite ineffectual as Naruto was able to react and move faster than Spike can punch.
"Spike…spike listen." He tried to reason with the angry dragon.
"You're going to pay for making Twilight cry!" he shouted at him as he maneuvered Naruto into a corner by a bookcase.
"Spike listen I didn't mean…" the sound of a bite and the sensation of teeth caused Naruto to pause in mid-sentence. With a yelp he swung his limb, sending Spike flying into a bookcase, causing an avalanche of books to fall on them. Naruto hurriedly rushed over and cleared the books.
"You jerk; picking on mares isn't good enough? You have to attack poor, defenseless baby dragon too?" Spike accused the blond despite the fact in any other situation he would be offended at the claim of being a baby.
'Defenseless my foot' he silently remarked as he glanced at the bite marks. "I didn't mean to hurt Twilight, Spike. Just let me explain my side." He pleaded in hopes that Spike would stop attacking him long enough for him to explain his side.
"Alright, but if you try anything funny." He threatened while giving the blond the stink eye.
Naruto rolled his eyes and suppressed a sigh. "Trust me, I won't." he said as he explained what happened in detail.
Currently Twilight's face was in the large white poufy pillow of her bed. Tears streamed down her cheeks, dampening her fur and the pillow and bed sheet. She sobbed loudly into the pillow. 'Twilight its Naruto.' Hearing his voice on the other end drew her attention. Her face left the pillow. "Listen, I'm sorry about what happened. I didn't mean to come off as so cold or to insinuate you weren't a real friend. I was wrong for getting so angry and risking our friendship over an accident. I don't want you to ever think I would give you up as my friend because of something like that. You're feelings are more important to me than some scrolls so please don't cry anymore and I'm sorry. That's all I wanted to say I'll leave you two alone now." Naruto left after the apology, wanting to give the Unicorn some space.
Naruto walked by Spike with a nod as he wordlessly left the library leaving the young reptile a Dilemma. On one hand he was his rival for Rarity's affection, despite the obvious fact that Naruto was completely blind to the mare's affections and Rarity's own willingness to blind herself to her feelings out of fear of what that meant to the nature of their relationship on the other hand Naruto treated Spike as simply just another friend and didn't make things awkward by one way or another bringing up that he was a dragon. That was pretty cool.
At best the two of them were casual acquaintance who knew and interacted with each other when Twilight was there than having any genuine guy bonding time. Spike then realized he was going to have to get to know more about this rival of his if he was going to form an opinion.
Despite being able to give his apology Naruto still felt in a crappy moodHe was about the third of the way home when he heard voices.
His attention was furthered garnered when they got louder. "I should have known a failure like you wouldn't have any money." Though he didn't recognize the voice he couldn't mistake the sound of that crying.
He got closer and saw some pony he had never seen before was accosting Fluttershy. His mane and tail were of a russet color with his coat being the complexion of olive. He was wearing a dirty white T-shirt and ripped blue jeans and was built like your usual Pegasi, but far more lanky with his head sort of lop-sided.
Naruto didn't know what this stallion's deal was; all he knew was that he wanted to get him away from Fluttershy. "Get away from her!" Naruto shouted as the olive Pegasus seemed to register his voice before making a mad dash at him. Naruto immediately reacted and punched the crazy pony sending him flying across the field and landing with a thud.
"Fluttershy. Are you okay? Can you move?"
Fluttershy looked at him, tears streaming down her face, she was bleeding a bit from her nose and her face was also slightly bruised not to mention the outfit she was wearing had dirty stains and ripped around the shoulder area where it looked like the fabric was yanked.
"Who the hell are you? Another pathethic friend of Fluttercry's?" the Pegasus taunted. "Figures a loser like her would hang out with wingless hacks."
Naruto let out an inhuman snarl as the air around him grew hot. For the first time in years his eyes turned into those familiar crimson slips of a feral animal. Ever since his partnership with Kuruma the malevolence that tainted the chakra had essentially vanished. There had been only one other time he had been this angry and he had killed the one responsible. "Leave…NOW!" It took all of his will power to suppress the very urge to kill the pony. If there was anything that could trigger Naruto giving in to murderous impulses it was hurting Fluttershy. Unlike with Rarity he didn't think he could forgive himself if he traumatized her further by taking a life in front of her eyes.
Fluttershy was so gentle and sweet it was inconceivable that anyone would bare her any ill-will.
The idiot wisely chose to leave. Naruto scooped Fluttershy up and placed her on his back. He made the trek back to her cottage, seeing as it was closer. During the trek Fluttershy seemed to slip between falling asleep to being awake and unfocused.
Naruto nearly bust down the door when he arrived to the cottage. His arrival startled her animals who immediately readied themselves for a fight. "Guys please…I…I need your help." He wasn't sure if they understood him. He was never a person who got along with animals after all. "Fluttershy's hurt…and…" He had to keep calm for Fluttershy's sake. To Naruto's surprise Angel was the first to step forward and suffice to say Naruto wasn't used to the rabbit showing any other expression besides a grimace. "Angel, don't give me shit. I get it, you don't like me or anypony at all for that matter, but please, Fluttershy needs help, doesn't that mean anything to you at all?"
The pony had been right; Angel simply did not like most ponies or anyone for that matter. One of the few creatures he asked cared about, even if he was a brat to her was in the stallion's hands and needed help even If Angel could care less about the stallion his mama needed his help. Angel seemed to communicate with the other animals before pulling at Naruto's leg to lead him somewhere.
He placed Fluttershy on the bed as the animals soon returned with medical supplies. It would have been impossible not to pick up some first aid considering the people in his life. Naruto got right to work, disinfecting her wounds and wrapping them up with bandages.
"Sorry, but I have to make sure its tight." Fluttershy's eyes began to tear up a bit. He looked at her, and brought his hoof to her head and gave a gentle rub.
"I…I understand."
"This shouldn't have happened." He softly muttered himself. What would inspire somepony to do such a thing?
"I-t's okay. Y-You saved me from that bully w-who was trying to m-mug me." Maybe it was because how safe she was now or perhaps how vulnerable she was and felt the need to be close to somepony. Whatever the reason Fluttershy hugged Naruto, startling the blond quite a bit. She blushed a bit and whispered into his ear. "You're my hero."
For as long as Naruto remembered he considered Fluttershy like a little sister. He never had a sibling and as a result interpreted the feeling of always wanting to protect Fluttershy as a big brother would, but at that moment he realized something. Fluttershy reminded him of his wife that sweet and gentle nature that she had along with the drive to help those around her except for one thing.
Fluttershy never had someone to inspire her to seek courage and grow. She never had someone to stop her from going the wrong way. Yes, she had friends, that much were true, but she didn't have someone to give her the confidence to grow.
"Will you…will you be okay?" he asked as her hold on him tighten.
"Can you…can you please stay?" Right now Fluttershy really needed a friend. Naruto's warmth and presence took her mind off the awful memories of her fillyhood that was resurfacing. Some time had passed and before she knew it Fluttershy began to drift off. The sound of his heart beat and his warmth put her at ease enough for her to go to sleep.
Angel the ever vigilant watcher watched the scene unfold. For some time he had figured that Fluttershy's crippling shy nature would prevent her from finding a mate that would be good for her. It seemed like the stallion with her was at least adequate in some regards. As for the others, well, he was going to have to test him to see if he was worthy.
Sometime would past and after the day's tiring events Naruto would soon fall asleep as well.
"Fluttershy... Time to wake up Fluttershy." As she started to stir, she was clearly relaxed and didn't realize that she had fallen asleep. "Wha...What happened? Did I fall asleep?" She asked while looking up at him sleepily.
"Its morning." He said as Fluttershy softly gasped.
"Oh my. Did I keep you here all night? I'm so so so sorry. I didn't mean..." Before she could continue her endless stream of apologies Naruto cut her off.
"Its ok. I already fed your animals." Which in itself was a difficult task. How the hell was anypony capable of deciphering twelve the difference between twelve types of seeds that looked alike. "Breakfast is downstairs and I contacted Rarity and she'll be here soon."
"Thank you…" After ensuring that Fluttershy was indeed fine Naruto left back to his own cottage with promises to return soon to check up on her.
"Naruto!"
To his surprise Twilight was coming towards him wearing a saddle with scrolls sticking out of them. "Twilight." The two paused, their eyes met as an awkward silence occurred between them.
"I'm sorry." Both of them spoke.
"I…I didn't mean to come off as so harsh with you."
"No its my fault. You asked me not to bother your scrolls and I didn't listen. I don't blame you for being mad."
"Still, its just some silly pieces of parchments."
"Actually…that's what I'm here about." With a dazzling smile Twilight's horn glowed as she levitated some of the scrolls. "Check it out." She insisted as Naruto grabbed one of the scrolls and opened it.
"I…what…how?" Naruto asked in awe. The hand writing couldn't have been his because it was far too neat, but all the sealing code matched up perfectly.
"I remembered all the content of scrolls down to the very detail. So I copied them and recreated them from scratch. Also…" she levitated the rest of the scrolls. Naruto grabbed one and opened it. His eyes skimmed over and he gasped in awe.
"That…the solution…how?"
"W-Well…your magic…or chakra as you called it in the scroll kind of reminded me of how unicorns channel their magic. So I did some research and see if those gates you mentioned matched anything in Unicorn biology. I wrote up some notes and made theories based off a pony's biology and adjusted the notes to match. Did I…did I do okay?"
"Okay?" he shouted. In his happiness Naruto ran over and pulled Twilight into a hug. "You're freaking amazing Twilight." He was such an idiot. Why didn't he account for the biological differences between human and an Equine's body? Since he didn't have magic like a Unicorn he supposed the idea never occurred to him.
"Y-You're welcome." Twilight Sparkle was stunned by the display. She wasn't used to such affectionate displays by anyone who wasn't family or the Princess. Especially not members of the opposite gender and as such she couldn't help but blush.
Regaining his senses Naruto brought the hug and looked a bit bashful. "S-Sorry…got carried away. Twilight, think that maybe we can work on some of my theory when you have time?"
A bright smile formed on Twilight's face. "I'd like that. I'm curious about these human creatures and this chakra you had written down. I don't think I read anything about either of them."
"I'd be happy to tell you."
Unknown to the two of them Spike had followed after Twilight whose only explanation to him was that she needed to talk to Naruto. Happening upon the scene sparked an idea in Spike's head. He could kill two birds with one stone. If he hooked Naruto and Twilight up his sister in all and blood would have a nice and caring special somepony and that would make him wooing Rarity all the more easier.
'Spike my man you are a genius.' He happily thought to himself.
Like before Twilight Sparkle dictated her latest letter to the princess on what she learned.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I learned two important lessons today. One about having respect for each other's property. If you're not careful accidents can happen and you can end of destroying something very valuable to someone. Also a true is always willing to apologize and to let bygone be bygones. This incident taught me that an argument or emotional outburst cannot sever the bond of true friends...