The Stranger
There was trouble in Ponyville, which wasn't a surprise. The town was notorious for strange occurrences, be they mundane or magical. It probably wouldn't surprise them if an alien just randomly showed up one day. Well, it would surprise them but it probably wasn't out of the realm of possibilities.
What was a surprise though was the new and dangerous monster that had arrived. It was first spotted inside the Everfree Forest by Zecora who said that she had spotted it gliding towards the town. She said it looked like a cloak flying in the wind with a bright red light in the hood. It had been inside the town for a good several minutes before Zecora had been able to convey what she saw, but nopony was panicking or even saw remotely what Zecora had described. While it was possible that Zecora could have been lying, Twilight and the other girls believed her. Zecora had no reason to lie to them, but the implication was worrying. Whatever this monster was, it could either hide really well or it could pass for a pony.
For several days there had been no sign of any such creature, they all thought that it may have moved past Ponyville, but there had been reports of ponies being in multiple places at once. At first the girls thought it may have been a changeling but nopony was being replaced nor looked drained of love. The only suspect left was the creature Zecora saw. It would explain why it had been able to hide for so long. However, if it was a shapeshifter, then it would be difficult to track down. Twilight had told the Princess's about it and they replied that they would look into this matter. They also mentioned to keep the Elements of Harmony close, for just in case. So until the Princess's got back to them in the matter, they were on their own.
Then, without warning, things began to escalate at an alarming rate. Whatever this creature was, it began to torment them.
First, Applejack had run herself ragged looking through her whole orchard because she heard Applebloom crying out for help. Saying that a timberwolf had got her and was dragging her away, but no matter how fast Applejack ran or how far she searched she could find nothing. She went home to get Big Mac to help form a search party but Applebloom was there helping Granny Smith. At first she thought it was some elaborate prank on Applebloom's part but Granny Smith confirmed that they had been together the whole time and suggested that Applejack was hearing things.
Second, Rainbow Dash had tried to get a decent nap on one of the clouds but each time she would start to drift off, something would poke and shove her. She looked around for anypony to be responsible but she was the only one there. She had shifted locations several times but each time she was bothered again. The issue only got worse. At night, when she was in her own home trying to sleep, she would hear something hissing and growling. Whatever it was, it had sounded like it was getting closer. When she opened her eyes, the sound was gone. It would return immediately after she closed them again. Since then, she hasn't been able to sleep alone and frequently goes to Fluttershy for company.
Speaking of Fluttershy, Third. The poor mare was jumping at every little thing after her experience. Whenever she was alone, in her peripheral vision, she would see a claw, tentacle, or some other appendage begin to reach around her. Whenever she looked towards it though, it would disappear. This had made her paranoid of every shadow, branch, or whatever she came close to. When Rainbow Dash came to her for comfort, she was quick to welcome the other pegasus.
Fourth, Twilight probably got the least worrisome torment out of the rest of the girls. It was more annoying than horrifying. Any time she would look away from a bookshelf more than a few seconds, two or more books would be rearranged out of order. She had gotten dizzy from trying to keep track of them all at the same time.
For some reason though, Pinkie and Rarity had remained untouched. Although, Pinkie did mention that some pastries had gone missing mysteriously, but that was hardly noteworthy. Rarity confirmed that she had no misfortune happen upon her. That is, until today.
Spike had ran up to Twilight and said that they had finally found the shapeshifter. Oddly though, it had practically pranced up to the two in the form of Rarity. At first they were shocked at it's sudden arrival but Rarity quickly told Spike to gather the girls while she kept it here, somehow. Spike had initially denied her request, not wanting to leave her alone with the monster, but her insistence and a promise to keep away from the creature made him change his mind. Twilight told Spike to stay at the library until the matter was sorted out, the less ponies and dragons that it could duplicate, the better.
Unfortunately, when they had arrived, things had taken a turn for the worse. Both Rarity's were in an argument and none of the other girls could tell which one was the real Rarity. Twilight had brought the Elements to put an end to the creature's torment but she hesitated on which Rarity to give it to.
"Girls you have to believe me! I am the real Rarity," said one of the twin mares. The girls glanced between the two uncertainly, which brought a tear to the mares eyes.
"Don't listen to her! I'm the real one," the other insisted.
"I-I'm not sure," Twilight admitted. "They look, sound, and feel the exact same," she observed further. It seemed this creature was an expert at replicating another pony.
"Oh, wait," Pinkie suddenly cut in, "What if we ask her things only the real Rarity would know?"
"That's, actually a good suggestion. Alright Rarity, what is the name of your pet?" Twilight asked.
"Opalescent," the real and fake Rarity said together. It also seemed like the creature had thorough knowledge of it's impersonation.
"That was an easy one. Ok, what's your little sisters name?" Rainbow Dash added in.
"Sweetie Bell," they said together again. This time they glared at the other look alike.
"Ah got one, on Tuesday me an Rarity had a heated debate about how I practiced my sales. What did we argue about?" Applejack asked.
One of the Rarity's had a confused frown while the other had a confident smirk. "What? But we never had an arguement," said the confused one.
"Au contraire, we did. I was trying to offer my assistance by giving advice on how to better display her apples," the confident one said.
"They don't need to be in any fancy schmacy display," Applejack said. She pointed to the one that answered correctly, "There's the real Rarity."
The signified mare smiled gratefully at the farmer and walked over to stand next to the other Elements of Harmony. She accepted her element without hesitation and they all turned to the other Rarity who was outright crying with a look of utter betrayal on her face. "It's no use, fake! We got you cornered," Rainbow Dash taunted.
The elements began to glow but unexpectedly, it was snuffed out immediately. The girls looked down at their necklaces confused. The Rarity that Applejack picked out walked away from them with her head held high. She turned towards them and played with her mane with a hoof. "Terribly sorry, dears. But you guessed wrong. Thanks for the souvenir though," as she said that, Rarity's Element of Harmony sunk into her body and disappeared beneath her flesh.
"What-But, you low down imposter!" Applejack yelled, charging that's other mare. Before she could connect though, the fake disappeared. Applejack slid to a halt as the girls looked around for the shapeshifter. The fake reappeared next to the still crying Rarity.
"I may be an impostor. But at least I didn't betray a close friend," the being said, giving Rarity a mock hug. The mare didn't even move, too upset to acknowledge the fake pony. "Poor dear, her friends couldn't tell the difference between the real Rarity from a Stranger. Oh well. Farewell darlings. Better luck next time," she taunted before disappearing again.
The girls glanced guiltily towards the crying mare. What had they done?
This was bad. This was really, really bad. A new villain, appearing to call itself Stranger, had arrived in Ponyville and they successfully acquired an Element of Harmony. Without it, they had no means of defeating the shapeshifter. More importantly though, Rarity had locked herself up in her shop and refused to let anypony in. They had really messed up.
"I'm telling you! It really did happen," Applejack insisted. The farmer felt the most guilty of all of them since it was her quick decision that lost them the element.
"We believe you Applejack," Fluttershy tried to calm her down.
"It's just this creature is more cunning then we thought," Twilight agreed. Twilight was going over Pinkie's 'Pony's of Ponyville' list to try and determine who the creature would impersonate next. Pinkie and Spike were trying to help Rarity feel better but so far, they've made no progress. Spike was beside himself when he heard of how terrible she was feeling.
Rainbow flew in from outside, slightly out of breath, "I flew all around this town maybe 20 times. Either that thing is still invisible or it's in a disguise that's not a duplicate."
"I was afraid of that," Twilight said while bringing out a rough sketch of a floating cloak of what seemed to be for a hornless minotaur. Blackness on the inside of the cloak with the exception of a single red light. "Whatever this thing is, it's adamant on remaining in Ponyville. What it's plans are, I haven't got a clue. I can't imagine it can stay invisible forever, or else it wouldn't have bothered to disguise itself as Rarity to steal her element," she pointed out. "So it needs a unique disguise in order to pass by suspicion. We'll have to keep an eye out for anypony who might have been replaced. However, I believe that it may be disguised as possibly one of the new ponies in town. Unfortunately, they came at roughly the same time, so we have no definite clue." Twilight pulled out four sketches of the suspicious ponies. The first one was of a brown pegasus with a wild blue mane and tail. Her wings we missing several feathers and it didn't look like she could fly well. Her cutie mark was of a leaf with vibration lines around it. "Twitchy, the unstable coward."
Twitchy glanced around nervously, her body twitching every few seconds. "Twitchy clear?" she asked herself but immediately hid behind cover as soon as somepony passed by. "No, no, no," she answered herself. She waited a few seconds and peaked out again. Seeing nopony, she slowly took a step out of her cover and snuck past a few buildings. "Safe? Yes, yes," she continued to talk to herself. She passed by the Carasol Boutique and peaked a glance inside the building. She looked around at the dark room, "Opal cat? No no. Filly Bell? No, no, no." She glanced around herself and whispered, "Take again?" She immediately shook her head and smacked her skull repeatedly, "No, no, no! Twitchy is good mare, no bad. Good mare," she insisted to herself.
"Who's there?" she heard somepony call. Twitchy immediately panicked and ran away from the building.
"Happy place, happy place," she cried to herself. Spike rounded the corner just in time to see the mare disappear from sight.
The next image was of an earth pony mare with an, almost white, light blue fur and bright yellow mane and tail. She seemed to be wearing a dress that looked like a dining table. A plate around her neck and a cup around the base of her tail. Her cutie mark was of a single dandelion."Marribelle, the oddly dressed."
"Um, nice dress?" Roseluck said uncertainly. She stared at the mare wearing the weirdest dress she's ever seen. What kind of pony would wear something you'd put on a table?
"Thank you! I commissioned Rarity to make it for me. She did splendidly," Marribelle gave a little twirl to show off the dress. "I was actually heading over there now to see if I could add to it by having a teapot hat."
Roseluck's weird look intensified. This mare was out of this world. "No offense, but you have odd tastes in clothes," Roseluck admitted.
"No offense taken! I prefer it to be odd. Normal types of dress are so bland. I like to find beauty in the things we pass off or annoyed by. You should have seen me when I was younger, oh the fun I had searching through garbage for hidden treasures."
Roseluck couldn't help but feel flabbergasted. This fancy lady willingly looked through garbage? She couldn't decide on whether to be impressed or disgusted.
The next picture was of a large stallion with dark brown fur and an equally dark gray mane and tail. His cutie mark was a block of solid gray steel. He was probably the tallest earth pony Twilight had ever seen, "Hast, the foreign builder."
Big Mac stared at the larger pony from across the road while minding the apple stall. The other pony was building some large metal thing but it didn't look like anything he's ever seen before. "What is that?" He finally asked.
Hast took a step back from his work and looked up towards the thing he was building, "It is not done yet. But when it is, Equestria will see something truly amazing. However, it needs a special something to work."
"Which is?" Big Mac urged him to continue.
"That is a secret I won't tell. However, I will say this. It is a precious jewel and I know the mare in this town is perfect for the job," with that, Hast went back to building the thing.
"You came all the way to Ponyville just to build this?" Big Mac couldn't help but ask.
"Believe me when I say, this is something incredibly important to me and I will not tolerate anything that will keep me from finishing it," Hast said in an almost threatening tone. Big Mac went quiet after that, not wanting to antagonize the other stallion anymore.
The last sketch was of another pegasus. This one was a dark blue pony with a red mane and tail, but oddly, up to his knees, his legs were covered in soot for some reason. Over his eyes were a pair of goggles that kept them safe. His cutie mark was of a ring of fire. "Speedster, the reckless thrill seeker."
"Hey, hey dude," Speedster elbowed the pegasus next to him.
"What?" Open skies asked.
"What's black and blue and red all over?" he continued, chuckling a little.
"You?" the other pegasus offered.
"Nah, newspaper, which I'll be a part of one day. Keep an eye out for the front page, I may be on it. Big old letters that spell S-P-double E-D-Ster, Jeronimo!" he called as he leapt towards the Everfree Forest clouds with a cloud board to ride on. Normally you'd only see boarders on a prebuilt cloud, but this reckless pony decided to play on the unstable ones. He cheered loudly as he slid across the uncontrolled storm clouds. His cheer didn't last long as he was suddenly shocked by a bolt of lightening. "I'm ok!" he called back, only to be shocked again. The pegasi that watched him couldn't help but shake their head.
"One of these four ponies has to be this Stranger in disguise and it's our job to expose them and retrieve the missing element," Twilight said with determination. They would fix this, she was sure of it.
The fake Rarity became visible again near the river where nopony was and winced as the element she stole slowly slid out of her body. "Dispicable thing was trying to burn the inside of my body. Too bad, it will never reach the hooves of the other elements. Good effort though." With no further words, she tossed the necklace into the river where it drifted down stream. "Ta ta!" she called to the object before disappearing again.
The necklace drifted away from town quite a bit before coming to a rest in a shallower part up stream. On the bank nearby, Marribelle was sifting through pebbles, talking to herself. "Closed for the day. I know she can do that any time she liked but really. That dragon's attitude was downright deplorable as well. And I so wished to have that teapot hat. I shouldn't whine though, I must get ready for my next dress. Some smooth and round pebbles is all I need." Out of the corner of her eye, Marribelle suddenly noticed something gleam in the water. "Hmm? What's this?" she asked herself. She reached a hoof into the water and pulled out the element. It sparkled from the moisture and sunlight. Marribelle was transfixed by the sight. "My oh my! What a lovely necklace. It's so pretty, but why was it discarded into the river? How peculiar. I must find the owner and return it to them immediately, they must be beside themselves with worry.... After I show it to Rarity, the stone just matches her Cutie Mark so well. Oh, I just know she's going to love it." She put the necklace in her saddlebag and trotted back towards town, not noticing the pair of eyes stalking her.
To Be Continued
Stats
Page generated in 0.014 seconds
Total duration
707 users online
897,760 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
No comments on this chapter, weird. Well i just read through the other story and came to this bit of fun. Just wanted to point out the "Whats black and blue and red all over" bit of dialog through me off a bit... Newspapers are black and white, lol. Maybe change their colors so the joke still works.
8398564
Actually the joke was that he was those colors and that he was going to be on it. So it would be black and blue and read all over. Besides, it's meant to show that he's egotistical. I apologize if you didn't like the joke but that was what I was going for.