//------------------------------// // The Image // Story: A Cold Life // by gracial //------------------------------// “No, stay away from me!” Snowi screamed as she ran from the horrible beast. “You can't escape your destiny, fool!” it shouted after. “You think that's going to slow me down?!” she continued running. Suddenly, her hoof got caught on a root jutting out of the ground. “Agh!” she shouted as she tried to free herself. She got it out, but her leg was too twisted to keep running. Within seconds, the beast was looming over her. It pinned her to the ground, and she shreaked in terror. “Aaaaaah! Somepony help me!” As she looked into its horrid eyes, it only said three words, “Wake up, Snowi.” “Huh?” she stopped squelling “Snowi, wake up!” Suddenly, the world around her crashed, and she opened her eyes to meet those of a certain baby dragon. “Oh Spike, it's just you, phew.” She had never been so relieved to be awake. “You seemed to be having a bad dream.” “Yeah, they usually aren't THAT bad, though.” “Oh jeeze, are you okay?” “Yeah, j-just give me moment.” “Okay then.” With that, Spike went upstairs. Snowi recapped on what she just saw, 'Okay, so first thing, that was the scariest dream I've ever had. Second, that thing looked like it crawled straight out of Tartarus. Third, I'm not completely sure it was just a dream...” She thought about how it felt so realistic. She usually forgets her dreams when she wakes up, but she could remember every part of this one, even how the road felt. “Maybe I shouldn't pay to much attention to it.” she said to herself, “ I can just ask Twilight if it was some kind of reaction to my life suddenly getting better or something.” She got up and looked at the clock to see what time it was. 12:44 PM “Great, overslept again.” she muttered to herself. She headed to the kitchen to fix herself something to eat. After she ate some cereal, she wondered something, “Okay, why is it so quiet?” Usually, there was the sound of birds birds tweeting outside, or the clip-clop of ponies passing by. She went upstairs to ask Spike what was going on. When she go up there, she noticed that Twilight and Rainbow Dash were still sound asleep. “Jeeze, I would have figured that Twilight wouldn't be a late sleeper.” She looked around for Spike and spotted him looking out f the window. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Come over here, I need to tell you something.” he said in a hollow tone. She walked over to where he was and sat on the ground beside him. “Somethings wrong, and I mean really wrong.” Snowi looked out the window to see that Ponyville seemed to be completely deserted. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Do you feel kinda...sad? For no reason?” She was starting to get worried. “Yeah, we need to wake up Twilight, she might be able to help. The only thing is, she's a heavy sleeper. Once she's asleep, it's nearly impossible to get her up.” “Is there someone else who might know about this?” Snowi asked, reasoning that Twilight couldn't possibly be the only pony who might have a clue. “Well, Twilight left me a letter to send to Celestia Thing is, I sent it over an hour ago and still no respon-” At that very moment, Spike burped up a sealed scroll. “Well speak of the devil!” Spike opened the scroll and proceeded to read it aloud, “Ahem, To my most faithful student, I'm afraid I do not know what could have been the perpitrator, as there are too little details to say with certainty. There are several types of magic that are dark in the way you describe them, though they are uncommon. I ask that you tell your friends and the rest of Ponyville to remain indoors until the situation is resolved. I will send some of my guards to assist in the investigation. Until then, stay safe my little pony. Princess Celestia The dragon finished the letter with a sigh. “If there are a lot of these things that use dark magic, then this is going to be a lot harder.” Snowi looked outside to see if there was any movement. Nothing, as she expected. She heard a yawn from behind her, and spun around to see the cyan pegasus getting out of bed. “Well hello sleepyhead, feeling well?” Rainbow Dash turned her head slowly to face the blue haired pony, “No, I feel horrible. I had a dream last night about some monster attacking me, and I wake up to find that I must have blacked out during the party. I never do that, I know how to keep myself awake! Worse, I feel as if someone beat the lights out of me. What exactly happened last night?” Snowi and Spike looked at each other with nervous expressions, wondering which one should tell her what really happened. Finally, Snowi looked back to Rainbow Dash. “It wasn't a dream,” she said, “it really happened.” Rainbow Dash recoiled in shock. “Tha-that thing was real?! “Yeah, and you're the only one who knows what it looks like. We need you to tell us so that we can know what it is. If we know that, we might just be able to find it and beat it.” Spike said. Rainbow Dash was still in disbelief at what she had just heard. 'A monster like that...being real?' she thought to herself. 'I sure do hope that we can even hurt it.' She took a deep breath before explaining what it looked like, “It had the body of a mare, but trust me, it wasn't a pony. She had tentacles coming out of her back and sides. She had a horn that was jagged, kinda like Chrysalis had, but it was flat like a knife. her entire body was a strange type of red that hurt my eyes to even look at. her eyes were black with red...center. What do you call it?” “The iris?” Spike said. “Yeah, an iris that was the same as the rest of the body. The weird thing was, it was as small as when we do that thing where our eyes get really big, but the eye itself was normal size. She also appeared to be crying some sort of black tears, but she was smiling as wide as Pinkie when she's made a new friend. It was really freaky. She also had a mane that looked like Twilight's, but it was black with a red highlight. That's pretty much all I can remember.” “Gosh Rainbow, that must have really been scary.” Spike said in concern for his friend. “Nah, I fought her. It was all a punch here and a buck here, that beast didn't even know what hit her!” Spike stared at Rainbow for a few second with a blank expression, “You ran away, didn't you?” Rainbow Dash lowered her head in disappointment, sad that the truth was so obvious, “Yeah, not before it landed a few blows, though. I'm glad I made it here, I'm not sure I would be in such good condition had I fainted in the middle of a road.” “Hey, did you happen to see her cutie mark?” Snowi asked. Rainbow Dash thought for a few moments, “Yeah, now that I think about it. It was some sort of spike ball. No wait, it was like a...thing. A pointy thing. Darnit, it's on the tip of my tongue!” She shouted in frustration. “I got it!” she suddenly shouted, “It was a star surrounded by smaller stars...just like Twilight's.” Rainbow looked wide-eyed at her sleeping friend and started shifting in the opposite direction. “Oh Rainbow, don't be like that” Snowi stated, “Twilight was with us all last night, it couldn't have been her! Besides, she's your friend, she would never do that to you.” Rainbow Dash relaxed, “Yeah, you're right. Maybe it was a changeling or something.” Snowi raised an eyebrow, “What's a changeling?” Rainbow Dash turned to Snowi, “They invaded Canterlot. Seriously, where have you been?” “Jail.” Rainbow's eyes widened in surprise, “Oh, um, yeah. They're these bug-like pony-ish things with horns and wings and can take on the appearance of another pony.” “Wait, you said they invaded Canterlot?” “Yeah, but we stopped 'em with the power of love.” “Oh, nice.” “Anyways, it was probably just one of those little pests trying to get me to turn on Twilight. Well, it's not gonna work!” Rainbow Dash shook her head, trying to free herself of the thought of Twilight being the beast that attacked her. “Wait, Rainbow,” Spike said, “the changelings could only alter their appearance, they wouldn't be able to grow any tentacles like that.” Rainbow Dash thought about it, and then looked at Twilight again, “I'm still not going to believe that was Twilight, or anything to do with Twilight.” Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door. “I'll get it.” Snowi immediately said, quickly running down the stairs. She opened the door to reveal three royal guards. “Man, that was fast. We only received the letter a few minutes ago.” “Never mind that, is there anything we can help with?” one of the guards asked. “Actually, I think we may need the other elements. Can one of you go and get Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Applejack for us?” She had memorized their names at the party, something of which she was proud. “Yes ma'am.” the guard at the front of the group said, immediately flying off to retrieve the four ponies. “As for the two of you, I need you two to go out and tell anypony who's on the streets to get inside. We don't know where this thing will strike next, but we don't want anypony just wandering the streets. Report back here when you've covered the entire town.” “Yes ma'am.” the two replied, quickly flying off to do their duties. Snowi closed the door and headed back upstairs to see her two friends sitting in silence. “So,” Rainbow Dash said, “what now?” Snowi shrugged, “I don't know about you, but I'm starving.” “Yeah, me too.” Spike agreed. “I guess we could have something to eat, but after that we need to wake up Twilight. She's the only one in here who could figure this all out.” “Well, I guess I'll fix us something.” Spike said before getting up and going down to fix something for the group.