//------------------------------// // Shadow in the Sky // Story: Sunset Rekindled // by EldritchNexus //------------------------------// Nose Nip and Sunflower were back to back, fighting the shadow-ponies that surrounded them. There must have been at least a dozen of them on the bridge with them. But they couldn't figure out how they got aboard. What they knew, though, was that these creatures wouldn't do them any good. "Pick a body part!" Nose Nip said to Sunflower. "Right." nodded Sunflower, vigilantly. The two earth ponies charged at the shadow-ponies, knocking them down or throwing them against walls. Nose Nip even hit one so hard that its head was sent flying clean off its shoulders and shattered against the door, where it evaporated into black smoke. However the headless creature evaporated as well, and reshaped itself from a pegasus to a unicorn. It fired a magical blast from its horn, sending Nose Nip flying into the controls of the airship. As he flew, he wound up knocking an unused level back all the way, snapping off the shaft in the process. This, combined with an unknown assortment of buttons and switches that Nose Nip collided with, caused something unexpected: There was a strong smell of oil and gasoline, and then loud roaring coming from the underside of the balloon part of the Summerstar, which suddenly began rocketing across the night sky at blinding speeds, leaving a trail of fire and smoke from three previously dormant engines attached to the airship's balloon. The Summerstar was speeding three hundred miles per hour...then four hundred....five...six hundred miles across the ocean, and everyone on-board awake or asleep found themselves smacked into walls. But still, the shadow-ponies kept attacking, even spreading out into the corridors and other rooms. The other passengers found themselves locked in combat with the shadowy equine creatures. Pressure Point, Teddy, and Maud Pie were fighting four in the cargo area; Scarlet Blaze and Trixie in the main corridor; and Golden Sun, Bathilda, and Lightning Dust in the lounge. The others were fighting both the shaking zeppelin and the shadow-ponies to get to the bridge. Nose Nip staggered back up and started smacking shadow-ponies left and right, even breaking a few of their necks. Sunflower also did the same, but the shadow-ponies just sprang back to life in newer bodies each time. Their shadows were starting to cover the walls, even after they moved away from them, and began to turn into even more shadow-ponies. "How man o' dese guys are dere?!" Sunflower exclaimed, trying to hold her ground. "As many as they want, by the looks of it!" said Nose Nip. "But we can't fight them with our airship speeding into oblivion like this!" "Then stop it! You're da pilot!" said Sunflower. "I don't even know what I did to make them speed like this!" shouted Nose Nip over the roaring engines. "And even if I did, the controls for them are probably broken now!" "Oh, just poi-fect." groaned Sunflower. The doors to the bridge opened again, and Frosty, Sunset Shimmer, Radiant Dawn, Felix Summerset, and Crimson Blade all hurried inside. Sunset Shimmer recognized what the creatures were quickly enough, and told the other three unicorns to fire stunning spells at them. The shadow-ponies hit the ground, paralyzed just long enough for them to talk to Nose Nip and Sunflower. "What the heck's up with the Summerstar?!" shouted Radiant over the sound of the rocketing engines. "I accidentally damaged the engines while fighting those things." said Nose Nip. "I didn't even know this thing had boosters at all! But it's too late to switch them back off." "Then we'll have ta go to da engine room and cut deir power ourselves!" said Frosty. "Sunflower and I can handle that! Nips, why don'tcha make sure we don't end up crashin' into somethin'?" Nose Nip nodded. "The rest of us will try and get the creatures off this airships before we're overrun." said Radiant Dawn. "That won't do us any good, Red!" said Sunset. "They'll just keep regenerating and multiplying until sunrise. What we have to do is make sure we outlast them until morning, and then they'll be weakened!" "And how long till the sun rises?" asked Nose Nip. Sunflower held up her pocket-watch. "About a half-hour away." said Sunflower. "So we better get our flanks movin'!" Frosty and Sunflower sped out of the room, followed by Felix and Crimson, while Radiant Dawn and Sunset Shimmer stayed behind with Nose Nip to remove the shadow-ponies from the room. Radiant successfully blasted a few shadow-ponies in half, incinerating them with his magic, while Sunset Shimmer juggled the others in the air, smacking them into each other, and then shooting them out of open windows. But when either of them tried removing the shadows on the walls, they expanded and turned into more shadow-ponies. There was little Sunset and Radiant could do but hold them off while Nose Nip manned the controls. "They're worse than the Changelings!" shouted Scarlet Blaze, as she fired a large cluster of spells at the shadow-ponies. "There's just no stopping these creatures!" "The Great and Powerful Trixie shall make them hate their own immortality after Trixie is through with them!" Trixie shouted as she unleashed a chain lightning spell from her horn on the group presently attacking them. The shadow-ponies hit the floor and walls, leaving their shadows where they landed. The shadow-ponies transformed into new equine shapes while they shadows sprang up as shadow-ponies themselves, taking the forms the others had previously taken. "On second thought, Trixie has been known to not meet expectations." Trixie said, wide-eyed and nervous. Teddy and his group already figured out that the shadow-ponies could multiply or reshape themselves if they were destroyed on solid ground, so they figured they needed to get the shadow-ponies off the airship as quickly as possible. Pressure Point and Teddy opened the cargo bay's door, being as careful as possible to not get swept away by the strong winds outside. Maud Pie stood stationary and four shadow-ponies approached her. They all tried to tackle her, only to smack into her and slide to the floor, dazed. They got up again, and then charged at her again. Maud listlessly raised a hoof and casually swatted them away. "Bring it on." Maud said blankly, to a fifth shadow-pony. The shadow-pony, which was in the form of an earth pony, began to expand in size five times over. It stomped on the cargo bay's floor. But Maud just looked at it indifferently. The giant shadow-pony charged towards her, like a bull in a china-shop. But Maud leaped into the air, did a somersault, and grabbed the giant shadow-pony's tail even as she was mid-air. She started swinging around the shadowy giant at the other shadow-ponies in the room, knocking them all out the opened cargo door, before tossing the giant out after them. The shadow-ponies all hit the seawater below, with the giant making a large, satisfying splash. "Well..." Pressure Point panted. "Thank Celestia that's over--" Then another shadow-pony flew through the doorway, ramming into Pressure Point and sending them both over the edge of the cargo door. Teddy. alarmed, ran over to look down, followed by Maud. Pressure Point was holding on for dear life from a loose cable hanging from the cargo bay, being blown back as the zeppelin moved at its near-terminal speed while the winged shadow-pony was pursuing him, poised to strike. "Pressure, are you okay?!" Teddy called down to him. "Does it look like I'm okay?!" Pressure shouted. "I should've known that joining Sunset Shimmer on any adventure would get me killed!" "Oh, boy." Teddy said, disoriented by the fast speed of the airship, combined with the predicament Pressure Point was currently in. "Don't worry, Pressure! We'll getcha help!" "Forget about me, darn it!" Pressure shouted back up to him. "Just get the rest of those shadow-ponies out of the airship!" Suddenly, the Summerstar started to gradually descend. "Hey, I think we're landing!" Teddy said to Maud. Maud shook her head, and pointed down. Teddy, Pressure Point, and even the pursuing shadow-pony looked down, and saw they were getting closer and closer to the ocean's deep, moonlit water. All three of them opened their mouth to shout and panic (although the shadow-pony, being mute, made no sound of its own) as the airship came closer and closer to drowning itself. More shadow-ponies started to appear throughout the airship as Frosty, Sunflower, Felix, and Crimson fought their way to the engine room. But they found themselves able to blast or hoof-punch their way through their shadowy adversaries. Suddenly, the Summerstar started to quiver beneath their hooves. "Now what's wrong wit dis thing?!" Frosty shouted. Lightning Dust and Golden Sun were in the middle of fighting yet another growing swarm of shadow-ponies, when they was a loud banging noise, and everyond in the lounge was sent skywards. However, Bathilda and Lightning Dust were able to catch themselves in mid-air, while Golden Sun caught himself with his own telekinesis, and all the shadow-ponies were smacked hard into the ceiling. "Dude, what's going on?!" Lightning Dust said, as the airship sank further and further down. "Either the helium tanks and engines are failing, or the growing number of these creatures in putting too much strain on the airship to keep us airborne." suggested Golden Sun. "How the heck would you know that?" Lightning asked. "It's all elementary: if you tie a balloon to something heavy, it will stop going up." said Golden Sun, simply. "Either way, if something doesn't happen soon, we'd all better learn how to swim!" "Are ya kidding?" Lightning shouted over the increasingly loud roaring. "We have enough trouble up here in the sky! I don't need to learn how to live like a mer-pony, too!" Golden Sun floated over to a window. "Well, at least the sun should be coming up soon!" Golden Sun said. "Let's hope we live long enough to see that happen!" Lightning said. "In the mean-time, let's start booting their guys off our zeppelin!" Suddenly, a vast shadow passed over the Summerstar, and there was a sound that perhaps none of the ponies on the airship expected: the screech of a bird. "What the heck?" Lightning Dust said, landing to look out the window with Golden Sun. "What made that noise?" Golden Sun turned around, to a strange surprise. Frosty and his group reached the engine room, and found the generators that directed power to the zeppelin's rocket boosters. "Okay, let's put this baby to sleep!" said Frosty. The four detached the cables that connected the generators to the boosters, being as careful as possible not to do anything that would cause the engine room to be set ablaze and the Summerstar slowed down. At almost the same time, it stopped descending towards the sea, even beginning to rise back up to the appropriate altitude, as if a massive burden had been removed from its cab. "Well, our work's done!" said Frosty. "Now let's get those shadow-ponies off da blimp and get us a good night's sleep." They went out into the corridor and hurried to the armory. Suddenly, Golden Sun, Scarlet Blaze, Lightning Dust, and Trixie Lulamoon came up to them. "Well, it's good to know you all survived." said Felix. "But where are the others?" "I don't know." said Golden Sun. "But it looks like we might have another problem." "What problem?" asked Frosty. Sunset Shimmer, Radiant Dawn, and Nose Nip were all on the bridge, fighting more and more shadow-ponies were were nearly two-dozen by that point, when they suddenly faded into the darkness. "What the heck's going on?" asked Radiant. "It ain't even sunrise yet!" "Think they decided to give up and retreat?" suggested Nose Nip. "With...numbers that large and abilities that incredible?" said Sunset, panting. "I couldn't doubt it less. They were winning, and there's no denying that. Pop quiz: if you're in a lake infested with pirahna, why wouldn't they be swarming all over you?" "I dunno, Sunny." said Radiant. "I don't know, either." said Nose Nip. "And my dad fishes for a living." "The answer is..." said Sunset, in a grim tone. "Because there's a shark in the water; in other words, something bigger and meaner is coming our way...now." There was a loud screech coming from outside the airship. "In fact, I think it's already here." Sunset said, ominously. Pressure Point was still hanging from the loose cable that he had been dangling from for what seemed like ten minutes. 'For goodness sake, is anypony going to help me or not?!" demanded Pressure Point. "Sorry, doc!" Teddy called down to him. "We just wanted to make sure none of those shadow-ponies would be around to stop us. But don't worry, we're gonna get you back up here now." "Darn right you're going to--" said Pressure, as Teddy and Maud pulled up the cable he was hanging from. "Wait, so you mean there aren't any more shadow-ponies up here?" He looked around, and saw that the shadow-pony pursuing him had disappeared as well. "It doesn't seem that way." said Teddy. "I wonder why that is--what in Equestria?!" Pressure exclaimed as he looked up at the sky around the zeppelin. It was a remarkable sight: a vast winged shape, like a giant bird with a fifty-yard wingspan was gliding in circles around the Summerstar, like a great bird-of-prey. It was making calls with the power of a giant's bugle, but it surprisingly made no attempt to attack the airship. Pressure couldn't help but keep his gaze on the mysterious winged beast until he was finally pulled back up into the cargo bay, where Sunset Shimmer and the others had regrouped. "You okay, Pressure?" asked Sunset. "Don't worry, I'm fine." said Pressure. Suddenly, there was a loud whooshing noise from below the Summerstar, and the large group of ponies caught sight of a massive bird with red-and-gold feathers and glowing eyes flying right underneath the opened door. It passed by them at breakneck speed, and disappeared into the night sky. At first, one would have thought the bird-creature was a phoenix due to the similar colors, but it was much larger than any phoenix in recorded history, being roughly the same size as a fully-grown dragon. All of the ponies were totally lost for words and unable to comment on what they saw, instead closing the cargo door again and going back to the lounge area to reflect on what they all experienced and saw together.