Exiled Magic

by Lawpony

Pt. 9: With My Little Eye

Storm Glider and Slip Stream sat in the woods outside of Rainbow's house. Storm Glider whistled like a bird, and an owl who replied, followed by a bird chirp. She chirped in reply and then began sneaking up to he house. As she and Slip Stream stepped into the moonlight, two other ponies stepped out from the woods to their left, and another on their right. As they met at the house, two more pairs came around from the other side. Storm Glider nodded and one of the other Pegasi slowly stood up and looked into the window. She sat back down and nodded. Storm Glider then nodded and the same Pegasus reached up and began to open the window. When she had opened it fully Storm Glider tapped her leg once, and she went in. The others slowly made their way in. Just as Storm Glider stepped into the window, she saw a shadow perched atop a tree in the darkness, which unnerved her. Determined, she stepped through and closed the window behind her.

When they were in, Storm Glider pointed a hoof at the front entrance and a red Pegasus clicked a button on her gauntlet and a small knife poked out. She peaked around the corner and then with a flap of her wings, shot toward the door. The quick sound of a knife slicing flesh could be heard around the corner. Storm tapped her leg once and two soldiers rounded the corner. She followed and found the red Pegasus standing over a dead guard, next to the door.

"I knew it was a trap. A royal knight with no lock on her door. How obvious can you be?", she looked at the staircase. "Let's go. We need to arrest Rainbow Dash, but if it comes to it, Twilight gave the order to kill her if all other choices are dr-", she stopped silent when there was a creak from the window they came from.

"What was tha-"

A large thundering crash of metal sounded from the window they came in. Storm Glider ran over and saw a wall of metal bars was covering it.

"What the-", another metal crash. "Slip Stream open that door, we're getting out of here."

"What is this some kind of...", Slip Stream opened the door to see nothing but metal bars covering the opening. "Trap."

"Oh no. I led everypony in here. I had suspensions but I ignored them! I doomed us all!", Storm Glider yelled.

"Wait. Would they leave one of their own by himself like this? If they knew we were here we wouldn't have been alone this long," the red Pegasus pondered.

Storm Glider looked at the body. "Who says we killed him? His throat was slit, there should be much more blood. Check him."

The red Pagasus leaned over and touched the flesh of the body. "He's as cold as ice."

Storm Glider glared and stated "Do you know what that means Cherry Bomb?"

"That he was planted here," the red Pegasus replied.

"And probably not even one of their soldiers. Remove his helmet," Storm Glider ordered.

As Cherry Bomb began removing the dead pony's helmet, a pair of unnoticed, greedy orange eyes watched from a small hole in the ceiling.

"By Celestia's parents!", Storm Glider exclaimed.

Cherry Bomb, along with a few others broke down into tears.

"I...it's Lemon Lime! They killed him! How could they?!", Cherry Bomb demanded.

"Who's Lemon Lime?" A voice said from the middle of the room.

Storm Glider turned and exclaimed, "He was one of us! He was my friend!", as tears ran down her face.

When she had calmed down, she noticed the unfamiliarity in the questioning voice, and the others had as well.

"Wh-who said that?"

All the soldiers began looking from one to another, scanning the room for the source of the voice.

One very frightened stallion spoke up. "What if it's a gh-gh-gh-gho-", he began to stammer out.

A large claw burst from the ceiling and grabbed the stallion's head, snatching him up through the floorboards of the next floor. A soul chilling scream sounded from above, accompanied by the stomach churning sound of sliced bones and flesh.

"What is going on?!", a pony screamed.

Storm Glider looked around and thought. There's nothing I can do. There's nowhere to hide! We don't even know what that thing is!

After what felt like hours in the silence, Cherry Bomb suddenly had an idea.

"Storm! I know what to do!", Cherry bomb yelled over to her.

"Not now I'm thinking!", she yelled back.

"Anything so far?"

She didn't reply for a a few seconds. "No."

"Then my plan it is," she walked to the middle of the room, looked back, and at the nod from Storm Glider, inhaled a breath, "I have an idea. Everypony huddle up."

All of the soldiers moved in her direction, forming a large circle around her.

"I want the stealthiest of you to sneak up the stairs. I want you to tap a hoof once if the creature is near the hole, and twice if it isn't even in the room. If it is close to the stairs but with its back to you, try to surprise it. If nothing can be done, remain silent. Got it?"

"Come on guys," a blue Pegasus stallion stepped up and raised a hoof. "Let's go kick some monster tail," he whispered.

"Wait," Storm Glider halted them. "I need you four," she pointed to a group huddled together, "Go to the far corner and have a loud conversation about what's happened so far. Sound scared. We don't want our silence to be too loud.

After the four ponies went into a corner and began to talk about how helpless their situation was, a group of three made their way up the stairs. When they got to the top there was no sign of the creature, so one of them tapped the floor twice with a hoof.

"That's good. We have a moment to breath. Let's go up and see what the upper floor holds," Storm Glider motioned for them to follow her.

As they were about half way up the first set of steps, the sound of metal creaking could be heard, followed by the screams of the three ponies above.

"It's come back," Cherry Bomb began to turn around but Storm Glider stopped her.

"We face this thing, right here, right now. No running. Everypony, attack!"

Author's Note:

Hey look, another cliff hanger! I'm pretty sure that's become my signature move. Anyhoo!

So this chapter took me a long time to get through because nothing I wrote felt right, that and I pretty much stayed either busy or distracted. Now it's done! And keep track of the chapter names. The next one's interesting.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope you'll like the next one.

Thanks for reading!
-Lawpony

(PS. What do you think the creature is?!)

Comments

[Lawpony]

Oh, and also let me know if you see any stupid mistakes in grammar or the story. No matter how much I write I'll always have a habit of missing the tiniest details. It's very annoying.

[Lawpony]

Bruh I forgot what the creature was gonna be