Chapter 12
Sorry, Random Pony
As soon as the Sun rose over the mountains surrounding his city, Cricciero, Lord of Pelola, opened his dull green eyes.
A sliver of sunlight cut through a gap in the curtains to the noble’s right. It seared across his tired retinae and pulled him from his slumber. His first movement of the morning was a subtle clench of the jaw. Moments later, he sat up in bed, removing his eyes from the obstinate path of the Sun’s tiny gleam.
Cricciero pushed down his shiny, black mane and scratched the stubble on his wide, sharp jaw. He sighed, a deep and strangled sound, then turned and rang a silver bell that rested on his bedside table.
Moments later, the doors to his bedroom opened. There stood a timid maid, who curtseyed once before speaking in quick Itailian.
“You rang, Master?” Her voice was quiet, high pitched, and as annoying as the sunlight.
Cricciero cleared his throat. Still, his voice was low and gravelly. “Which servant prepared my chambers yesternight?” he asked in immaculate Itailian.
The maid blinked. Beneath her ribcage, she felt a shiver. “I did, my lord,” she managed to squeak.
Cricciero nodded. He smoothed down his black mane and nodded some more. Then he beckoned to the little maid and closed his weary eyes. “Come closer," he said darkly. “Come closer to my bed.”
The maid swallowed and hesitantly obeyed. She stopped at the lowest corner of his mattress. Without opening his eyes, Cricciero beckoned again, calling her even closer. Shaking on her hooves, the maid took three short steps.
Cricciero opened one green eye and studied her face in the room’s dim shadows. “You have not worked here for long, correct?” he asked.
The maid shook her head.
Pouting, Cricciero nodded his head. Then, in a single swift motion, he threw off his covers, grabbed the mare behind her neck ― eliciting a shriek ― and dragged himself off the opposite side of the bed, pulling her onto the mattress. She screamed and thrashed while he grabbed her neck, forcing her onto his pillow.
“Do you see that?” he growled above her ear.
“Wh-what?” she whimpered. “What?”
He pointed behind his head, glaring at her with bloodshot eyes. “Il maladetto Sole! The cursed Sun! Do you see its light?”
The maid’s panicked breath slowed as her eyes squinted toward the curtains. A tiny sliver of light grazed directly over both of her eyes. She gulped. “Yes…?”
“I was woken by that putrid light,” Cricciero spat. “It interrupted my sleep, my beautiful dreams. I might have slept for hours more were it not for its intrusion!” He snarled in her face. “What, tell me, prevented you from properly closing the curtains last night!? I hope it was a monster, else my patience will be short!”
Shivering on her back, eyes twitching madly, the maid shook her head in small, quick movements. “Mi dispiace!” she squeaked. “Please, excuse me! I’m so sorry!”
A lingering sneer stretched across the lord’s wide features. He released his grip around the maid neck, only to strike her cheek with the same hoof. The blow was so hard that she tumbled across the mattress and fell to the floor on the side of the bed from which she had approached.
On its opposite side, Cricciero took a deep breath, rubbing his stubble once again. “Vai. Go now,” he said flatly. “And if you cannot properly arrange my room at night, assign someone more experienced.” He ground his teeth. “I do not tolerate impropriety.”
The maid clambered to her hooves and made a beeline for the door. She shut it softly behind her, but Cricciero heard her wails and heavy hoofsteps as she galloped far from his chambers.
He sighed again. Seconds passed as he composed himself, then he turned around and threw the curtains open. Pelola’s sunlit streets lie nearly empty down below, and he kept his eyes wide open until they adjusted to the morning’s glow.
“Buongiorno, strade mie,” he said under his breath, then proceeded to the washroom where he carefully shaved his stubble away.
His breakfast was brought to him in his chambers by two older maids who said nothing upon its delivery. He, in turn, said nothing to them, and ate his food in silence while they hurried away. Chewing slowly, Cricciero tried to remember what he had been dreaming about when the sunlight stirred him awake.
From deep within the bowels of his castle, Cricciero heard an echoing scream ― “RrrrraaaaaAAAAAAHHH!!!”
He paused while lifting a piece of toast to his muzzle and lifted his ears. The reverberations of the scream lingered in his walls.
“Hmmm…”
Cricciero left his breakfast on a desk and opened the double doors to his room. A young maid, different than the one he had scolded, gasped when he emerged into the hallway.
“S-s-signore!” the maid stuttered.
“Ho sentito qualcosa,” he said. “I heard something.”
The maid nodded. “A scream downstairs. I heard it, too.”
“Hmmm…” Cricciero ignored the mare completely, walking down the narrow hallway that led only to his chambers and descending a widening flight of stairs to the third story of his castle. He peeked over the balustrade of a lofty platform into the central courtyard below. Racing for the open drawbridge was a lanky, charcoal stallion with a wavy violet mane.
“Dottore Attuno?” Cricciero asked under his breath.
A tiny filly ― and a unicorn at that ― burst into the courtyard from two stories directly below Cricciero. Eyebrows raised, he leaned against the balustrade and watched the ensuing confrontation with great interest.
{-DD-}
“Zoccolo!” shouted Dinky Doo. “Stop!”
“I am-a very sorry, little friend,” the stallion said over his shoulder with a smile, barreling toward the castle’s exit, “but I cannot-a! Say goodbye for me to Vesparè!”
Dinky skidded to a stop, spread her tiny legs out, and screamed once more. “GAAAHH!” Her horn flickered above tightly shut eyes.
Zoccolo looked ahead and gasped. Down the sloping central street of Pelola, between himself and the train station far ahead and above, a gust of wind tore down the valley. Zoccolo watched it topple lampposts, rip store signs from their hinges, and trip several ponies to their knees. He braced himself for the gale, but it never reached his frame. Instead, the wind caught on the lip of the lowered drawbridge, and its brute force lifted the entire plank of wood and slammed it shut.
Zoccolo stumbled from the thunderous impact of the closing gate. Mouth agape, he slowly smiled. Then, hiding the expression, he turned with wide eyes to face Dinky.
The little pony shook where he stood, legs wide and firmly planted. Her eyes were still closed, but she breathed hard between clenched teeth, trembling so badly that her mane flounced around her stubby horn.
Behind her, standing in a doorway, was Sweetie Belle, gawking across the entire courtyard where the drawbridge stayed stubbornly closed. “Wow…” she breathed.
Apple Bloom ran up from behind her. “What?” she asked. “What happened?”
“Uhhhh…” Sweetie Belle blinked. “They closed the drawbridge.”
Apple Bloom looked past Dinky at Zoccolo, shuffling on his hooves. She frowned. “Good. We can’t let him get away, not after all he’s done.” She started marching forward―
“Wait,” said Sweetie Belle, holding a pale hoof to Apple Bloom’s chest. “I think… this is important.”
“Huh?” Apple Bloom stared into the courtyard with a sudden softness in her eyes.
Zoccolo sighed through his nose. A small smile persisted on his face, though it was a tentative one at best. “Graziosa…” he began.
“My name is Dinky Doo,” said the little filly. She steadied herself and opened her golden eyes. “And I’m just trying to do what my mommy would do if she was here.”
A look of pride flashed across Zoccolo’s eyes. “Che brava. You are a special filly, Dinky. Do you know it?”
“This is not about me,” Dinky growled.
“Oh, but it is.” Zoccolo nodded slowly. “This is all about you, Dinky. You do know it, don’t you? You can feel it.”
Dinky gulped down a lump in her throat, but the righteous anger in her face didn’t falter at all. “Why are you doing this? Why did you lie to my friends?” She pointed a shaking hoof to the castle around them. “Why take us all the way here… just to leave us?”
Zoccolo patted his sidebag. “This is-a very important, Dinky. More than you realize.” He winked. “And so are you.”
“Stop with… don’t do that!” Dinky slammed her hoof down. “I don’t want to hear your… nice things! Do you hate us or something?” Tears built up at the bottom of her eyes. “You’re being so mean!”
Finally, Zoccolo’s smile disappeared. He took a single step closer to Dinky, though quite a distance yet divided them. “I do not-a hate you, Graziosa. Far from it. I wish you the very best on-a your adventure, and I believe deeply―” He touched his chest with the edge of a hoof. “―that the foals you seek will-a be safe. This-a journey is no longer mine.” He lowered his head in a prolonged nod, then turned and galloped to the upright drawbridge.
Dinky felt dizzy. Her jaw hurt from clenching so hard, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t loosen it. With tears burning in her eyes, she snarled and kicked at the ground, but did not give chase. In fact, her knees were barely strong enough to stay standing.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle hurried to her sides. Sweetie draped a tender hoof over Dinky’s arched back. “It’s gonna be okay…” she said half-heartedly.
“Hey!” Apple Bloom yelled after Zoccolo. “I’m happier’n a pig in mud thatcher finally gettin’ out of our manes, but don’t just leave us in the dark! What the hay’d you want that golden horsehoe for, anyhow?”
Zoccolo ignored her. He grounded himself less than a foot from the base of the tall drawbridge. Even from their distance, the fillies present could see a wave of effort seize in his body. The muscles in his shoulders pulled them back, while his hind hooves dug into the stony ground. To their surprise, sparks shot errantly from Zoccolo’s forehead with a repeating hiss, like water hitting hot metal.
“What in Equestria…?” Apple Bloom muttered.
“Does he have a horn?” Sweetie Belle wheezed.
Dinky gulped. “Just a broken one…”
Sweetie glared at her. “You already knew? And you didn’t tell us?”
“It didn’t seem important!” Dinky said in a tight voice. “I-I didn’t even think broken horns could work!”
“Well, they can’t, but that’s not the―” Sweetie Belle was cut off…
…by a veritable explosion of magic. Up ahead, like a cannon shooting out thousands of tiny metal pellets, Zoccolo aimed a blast of sparks from his horn at the closed drawbridge. It wasn’t closed for long. As quickly as it had slammed shut, the wooden bridge crashed down. It slammed so hard into the earth across the moat that even the fillies in the middle of the courtyard were knocked off their hooves, tumbling over each other like dominoes.
Dinky sat up first, gawking at the stallion. He turned around for just long enough to wink at her before galloping away.
Before even a single tear ― warm with anger and confusion ― could drop from Dinky’s shining eyes, she and the other girls were startled by a tremendously loud roar directly behind them. They screamed in unison and spun around in the courtyard.
“What was that?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Did that pig monster follow us from the mirror place?”
The roar persisted, though quieter, in a constant blend of a deep bass hum and rapid thuding.
“It almost sounds… like a machine?” Apple Bloom guessed aloud.
With the scraping of stone-against-stone, a secret platform slid away, revealing a hole several yards away from where the frightened fillies held each other. Within seconds, something emerged from the hole: some kind of shiny, metal carriage, but without the proper apparatus to attach a pony up front. The foreign growling was definitely coming from inside its metal shell.
Above the noise, seated behind an upright pane of glass, was a dizzy-looking Trotto Verde. He rubbed the back of his head and scowled. “Dov’è andato quel cazzo dottore!?” he yelled.
Sweetie Belle elbowed Apple Bloom over the top of Dinky. “That’s your cue, AB,” Sweetie whispered.
At that moment, a burly stallion with a jet black mane and tired green eyes descended a nearby staircase into the castle’s central plaza. Apple Bloom noticed him first and got the other fillies’ attention by clearing her throat louder than the metal carriage’s hum. “Ya reckon that’s who I think it is?” she asked out of the corner of her mouth.
Sweetie gasped. “Elvis Pranceley!?” she squealed.
“What?” Apple Bloom rattled her head as if to shake out the stupid. “No! I bet that’s Cricciero, the guy who owns this whole castle!”
Sweetie gasped again. “You mean the one who kicked out all those poor ponies from the hospital?”
Before Apple Bloom could smack her upside the head, Sweetie Belle winced and said, “Oh, wait. That was a lie, huh? I keep forgetting.”
Cricciero angrily stomped up to the side of the metal carriage and shouted at Trotto Verde in Itailian. They had a brief and loud conversation, and all the while Cricciero only got more angry. Soon enough, Trotto pointed at the fillies, and Cricciero’s swollen eyes swiveled to glare at them.
The fillies took a uniform step back, but froze in place as Cricciero stormed toward them. In broken Equestrian, he shouted while he approached, “Who is-a doctor true?”
Apple Bloom blinked. “Huh?”
“Who is-a doctor true?” Cricciero yelled again, coming to a halt only feet from the fillies.
“His name is Zoccolo!” Sweetie Belle answered. “He tricked us, too!”
Cricciero squinted. “Zoccolo... doctor no true at-a childs?”
Apple Bloom blinked, and glanced at Sweetie Belle again.
Sure enough, the filly responded, “Yes! He told us this place used to be a hospital! He used us to steal the horseshoe!”
“Gold-a shoe is my!” Cricciero boomed, leaning over the fillies with a threatening glare. “I get! You get!” He hurried back to the noisy carriage and was about to climb in when he shot the fillies an exasperated glance. He beckoned them closer with a wild hoof. “Venite! Venite!”
“I don’t get it…” Apple Bloom said. “He wants us to go with him?”
“Guess so!” Sweetie Belle trotted forward gaily.
“Are you kiddin’ me!?” Apple Bloom yelled. “Ain’t you learned yer lesson yet, girl?”
“Maybe if we help him, he’ll take us to Haissan!” Sweetie Belle chirped. “I like to think everything happens for a reason.”
“That’s stupid!” Apple Bloom grabbed Dinky and headed for the open drawbridge. “We gotta get outta here! Itailian ponies are crazy!”
Sweetie Belle deflated. “But… look at his cool carriage!”
“It’s hardly a carriage, Sweetie Belle. It don’t even got a place for―”
Trotto Verde pulled on a lever to his left, and the carriage shot forward. Cricciero, hanging halfway out of the open seats, grabbed Sweetie Belle around the neck as he passed her. She made a strangled choking sound as he scooped her into the carriage, which ― by motor alone ― tore out of the castle, across the moat, and chased Zoccolo up Pelola’s steep valley.
“Oh my gosh!” Dinky screamed. “Sweetie Belle!”
“I hate Itaily!” Apple Bloom spat. “Come on, Dinky, we gotta hurry!”
“Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh…”
And the fillies chased the car chasing the thief.
{-DD-}
From a first story window, Scootaloo watched Zoccolo gallop toward the train station… alone.
“What the…” Scootaloo squinted. “I don’t get it. Where’s he going?”
A mechanical rumble shook the desk she was standing on to peek out the window. “Whooa!” Stabilizing herself, Scootaloo listened closely to the new whirr in the air. “Huh… sounds like an engine.” She blinked. “I have no idea what’s going on here.”
Watching Zoccolo get smaller and smaller as he hurried up the valley’s slope, Scootaloo racked her brain. “Now what do I do?” she said to herself. “I thought he was gonna meet up with me in here!” She looked over her shoulder. “Where are the girls?”
The unseen engine revved. Scootaloo threw her gaze forward just in time to see a metal carriage launch from the open drawbridge, clearly giving chase to Zoccolo.
Scootaloo’s jaw fell open. “He… he stole something without me?” She guffawed, rubbing her temple hard with the flat of a hoof. “What a jerk!”
Frowning, Scootaloo slumped down to her haunches, sitting still on the desktop for several long seconds. Though the sound of the engine grew fainter, a similar buzz persisted in Scootaloo’s ears. She rubbed them, but the noise didn’t go away. Eyes widening, Scootaloo hopped down from the desk and hurried to another window. From it, she could see into an adjacent alleyway… and noticed for the first time that the silver Vespa parked in its shadows was still running.
An all-too-familiar, decidedly creepy smile slithered over Scootaloo’s face.
{-DD-}
The metal carriage zoomed up the street, honking an obnoxious horn. Several Pelolan ponies dove out of its way before it could smash them into the cobblestone. As it sped past a certain alley, a pair of stallions in blue shirts and small black hats emerged with angry faces. They were both hitched to a small cart that trailed behind them, and one of the stallions reached behind to flip a switch on the cart. Immediately, a flashing blue light swiveled in place on top of their cart, accompanied by a soaring whine that filled the morning air.
Nodding once to each other, the stallions rushed into the main street and galloped after the motor carriage… but not before a pair of sweating fillies approached from behind, grabbing onto the small police cart before it took off up the hill.
“Whew!” Apple Bloom panted, balancing on a step on the back of the flashing cart with one forehoof clinging to a small latch while the other steadied Dinky at her side. “That was lucky!”
“I’m scared, Apple Bloom! Is Sweetie Belle gonna be okay!?” Dinky said over the whine of the police siren. The cart was picking up speed, bouncing slightly over worn cobblestone.
Apple Bloom nodded, partly out of reassurance and partly from the bumps in the road. “Absolutely! You’ve seen fer yerself, Dinky: if the Cutie Mark Crusaders are good at anything, it’s gettin’ ourselves outta trouble!” She smirked.
Dinky studied the expression and, with some effort, managed to mirror it. The fillies held on tight, and the chase continued.
{-DD-}
Sweetie Belle coughed daintily. “Khe khe! Excuse me.” She cleared her throat, composed herself… then screamed at the top of her lungs. “AAAHHHHHHH!”
Cricciero glared down her her, his foreleg still firmly anchoring her body to his side. “Stai zitta, piccola puledra. È chiaro che questo Zoccolo ti vuole bene. Sarai utile nel accordo con questo ladro schifissimo.”
Sweetie Belle sniffed once. Tears gathered in her eyes in the moments before she wailed, “I don’t speak Itailiaaaaaaan! Waaaahaahaahaaaaaa!”
Disgusted, Cricciero whacked Sweetie Belle on the top of her head.
She gasped. Her lip trembled. Ultimately, she only cried harder.
“Wheeeaaaaaaaaaaaiiii! Y-y-you… you hit me! Bwwaaaahaaahaaaahaahahaaaaaa!”
“Silenzio, puledra! Silenzio!” Cricciero’s eyes twitched.
“Wh-wh-why… w-would… y-you… h-h-h-hit… a little… giiirrrl?” Sweetie bawled.
“Graaaa!” Cricciero smacked his own forehead instead.
“You… y-you really are a b-b-bad guy! Waaahaaaaaa!”
{-DD-}
Zoccolo was a very fast stallion.
In avoiding Cricciero’s motor carriage, it was fortunate that Pelola’s main street was more suited for the quick of hoof than the strong of wheel. With pounding hooves and a lasting grin, Zoccolo outran the metal carriage by guiding its path into restaurant tables and over fallen lampposts. “She is-a more powerful than I thought,” he said under his breath while vaulting over one of the latter.
Finally he reached the train station, but he did not go inside. Instead, he aimed his gallop left and passed through the thick trees surrounding the station. Without looking for oncoming trains ― since he’d already planned the escape to a T ― he dropped off the platform and crossed over two sets of rails before leaping up on the other side. But he didn’t stop there, hurrying well beyond the platforms and weaving through more forest. Before too long, his tall ears caught the sound of churning water, and he smiled knowing the River Pon was only a bit farther north.
With a triumphant “Ha!”, Zoccolo burst through the last line of trees and surveyed the majestic river. It was enormous: a bridge not far from where he stood stretched at least two hundred feet over the water. The river itself was far below, having carved a winding path over thousands of years. Zoccolo took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of the river, and sighed confidently. Tossing back his purple mane to reveal the stub of a horn on his head, Zoccolo trotted straight for the bridge.
“Ce l’abbiamo fatto, Zuka,” he said to the chameleon crawling circles on his back. He gave a loving glance to his sidebag. “We finally did it. Il tappeto è nostro alla fine.”
Zuka clapped her little claws while Zoccolo took his first few steps onto the bridge. It was of solid construction, but had no rails, and Zoccolo’s rapid heartbeat didn’t slow the entire way across.
This was especially true because, about halfway across the bridge, he heard the hums and thuds of the motorcar… coming from the other side of the river.
Zoccolo stopped, peach eyes widening. “No…” he said. “No… it cannot-a be.”
From a path in the woods across the River Pon, Cricciero’s metal carriage roared into view. The vehicle stopped in front of the bridge and Cricciero himself jumped out with Sweetie Belle squeezed under his foreleg.
“Aaahhh!” Sweetie yelled. “No, please! Gaaaahh! Let me go!”
Zoccolo gasped. “Dolcetta...”
“The chase has finished, Zoccolo,” Cricciero’s gravelly Itailian shouted over the rush of the river. He held out a meaty hoof. “Give the golden horseshoe to me, and the filly will be safe.”
Zoccolo scowled and spun around… only to see two police officers holding Apple Bloom and Dinky Doo in their grips.
“Lemme go!” Apple Bloom grunted, thrashing against her captor.
Dinky only whimpered, her lower lip quivering as she stared directly at Zoccolo with enormous, glittering eyes.
Zoccolo gulped. “Ch’è successo?” he asked. “What-a happened?”
“These creeps are workin’ fer Cricciero!” Apple Bloom shouted. “The whole dang town’s prob’ly shoved in his pocket! I hate Itaily!”
The policestallions looked at each other with equally baffled expressions and shrugged.
Cricciero laughed across the river. Zoccolo slowly turned to face him, glaring from beneath his brow.
“Ah, so you are angry now?” Cricciero asked in scathing Itailian. “You know nothing of anger. I will not hesitate to throw her over the bridge.” He jerked Sweetie Belle’s tiny body toward the empty edge of the narrow bridge.
Sweetie shrieked. “Aahh! What is he doing? What is he saying?” She looked at Zoccolo with shrunken pupils. “Help me! Please, Mister Zoccolo, help meee!”
Zoccolo took a step forward, his face awash with fear. “Ma… come?” He looked upward at the sky with incredulity in his eyes. “How did this-a happen?”
With a skeptical glance skyward, Cricciero shook his head. “It is far too late to pray now. Return the horseshoe, and only you will die. I will let the fillies go home.”
Zoccolo gulped and took several steps back.
“Stop moving!” Cricciero shoved Sweetie Belle even closer to the edge. One of her hooves slipped over the side.
With shaking hooves, Zoccolo reached into his sidebag and produced the Golden Horseshoe. It sparkled in the sunlight as Zoccolo’s sad eyes scanned its every feature.
“Give it to the constables,” Cricciero demanded through clenched teeth.
Zoccolo hung his head. Then, with sluggish movements, he turned around, set the horseshoe on the surface of the bridge, and expertly slid it in an arrow-straight line to policestallion holding Apple Bloom. The officer reached a forehoof down and caught the sliding horseshoe―
―giving Apple Bloom the opportunity to shake a hoof loose and punch him right in the snout. The constable grunted and, without taking his hoof off the horseshoe, instinctively reached for his face. Apple Bloom jumped out of his grasp and swiveled to buck the other officer in his ribcage. Wheezing, he let go of Dinky for long enough for Apple Bloom to grab her.
The first officer angrily swung at Apple Bloom, causing her to stumble back with Dinky in her grasp. The two fillies toppled to the ground, directly in the center of the bridge. The flute, ever tucked behind Dinky’s ear, finally came loose, rolling to the center of the bridge where it stopped against Zoccolo’s hoof.
Eyes glued to the flute, Dinky scrambled away from the officers alongside Apple Bloom. The older filly stood up, dragging Dinky away from the police and toward the center of the bridge. She helped Dinky to her hooves and they hurried together to stand at Zoccolo’s side.
“We gotta help Sweetie Belle!” Apple Bloom said immediately.
Zoccolo swallowed his surprise and stared daggers at Cricciero. “I gave it to them!” he shouted in Itailian. “Now give us the filly!”
Cricciero squinted toward the other end of the bridge. “Do you have the horseshoe?” he yelled over the river.
The constable rubbing his snout raised the golden object over his head. It twinkled beautifully.
Cricciero grinned. “Bene.” He shoved Sweetie Belle forward.
She gasped and stumbled, but caught herself before teetering toward either edge of the bridge. With chattering teeth, she galloped to join Zoccolo and her friends in the center.
Cricciero’s grin hardened and took on a poisonous curve. “Uccideteli tutti,” he said, loud and low.
The constables paled and glanced at each other.
Zoccolo scowled. “That-a wasn’t the deal!” he shouted at Cricciero. “Let-a them go!”
Laughing, Cricciero puffed out his chest to occupy as much of their exit as he could.
“What’s goin’ on?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Zoccolo?” Sweetie Belle asked over Cricciero’s doubling laughter. “What do we do?”
One of Zoccolo’s eyes twitched nonstop. He craned his neck and nervously stared at the constables.
The one hadn’t lowered the horseshoe, holding it above his aching head as he rubbed the last lingering pains from his snout. There, aloft and glowing, the Golden Horseshoe taunted Zoccolo with how easy it would be to just―
The horseshoe was suddenly snatched from the constable’s extended limb. Both stallions gasped as they toppled in two directions, landing hard on the ground just in front of the bridge. Meanwhile, with thunderous buzzing, Scootaloo drove a silver Vespa over the narrow bridge with a devilish smirk across her face and the Golden Horseshoe held tight in one hoof.
“Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle cheered.
Apple Bloom pumped a hoof in the air. “Yeeehaaw! There’s our knight in shinin’ armor!”
Dinky beamed at first, but her smile quickly faded as Scootaloo approached fast… without slowing down. “Uhhh… girls?”
“Jump!” Scootaloo yelled at them. “Jump high!”
“AAAAHHH!” Zoccolo, Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Dinky Doo all screamed together and leapt as high as they could.
With expert timing, Scootaloo squeezed the brakes and turned the handles hard to the left. The scooter fell and, without its driver who rolled to a stop by her friends, slid under their airborne bodies and sped to the other edge of the bridge where Cricciero watched in awe.
The ponies landed as Scootaloo cackled. “Ha HAAA! Take that, ya grabby melon fudge!”
Cricciero bared his teeth, steeled himself, and headbutted the silver Vespa just as it reached him. The vehicle flipped and spun like a tossed coin, launching over everypony’s head and dropping ineffectually into the river below.
Scootaloo gulped. “Whoops,” she said. “Sorry, random pony from whom I stole that scooter.”
Apple Bloom gaped. “Scootaloo!”
A grimacey smile froze on Scootaloo’s face. “I said ‘whoops’, didn’t I?”
Fuming, and burdened with heavy breaths, Cricciero looked up from his epic headbutt and glared directly at Zoccolo. His green eyes looked brighter than before, if only because the white around them was suddenly veiny and red.
“Cavoli...” Zoccolo said under his breath.
Without a word, Cricciero charged the group, keeping his lead low with intent to strike.
The two police officers recovered from their fall and joined in the advance, rushing the Cutie Mark Crusaders and their resident thief with the grace of two caffeinated mules.
Zoccolo reached his forelegs out and held the four fillies close in a last ditch effort to protect them. “Mi dispiace, amichette,” he whispered above their heads. “I’m so sorry, little friends.”
As Dinky backed into Zoccolo’s embrace, her hoof nicked something cold and slender. She glanced down, and saw the old flute from the diamond dog’s cavern rolling slowly away toward the surging waters below.
Dinky blinked, then her soft golden eyes slowly narrowed. With a determined look, she scooped the flute off the bridge and brought it to her mouth.
“Dinky?” asked Sweetie Belle.
The tiny unicorn took a deep breath, and began to play a song.
Sweetie Belle smiled as the tune carried on. She stole a quick glance at the river below, then beamed in Cricciero’s direction.
“Perché sorridi, leet-ahl poh-nee?” Cricciero huffed in his final sprint.
Sweetie Belle giggled and pointed at the water. “Sea pony,” she said.
The melody on Dinky’s little flute was interrupted by a rising, rumbling sound from below.
The constables threw out their hooves and came to a screeching stop several feet from the fillies.
Cricciero didn’t slow down, but he did cast his eyes over the western edge of the bridge, where ― for but a brief moment ― he saw a great swell build up in the water, licking and lashing the sides of the river as the wave grew taller and taller, until it became a veritable tsunami of magically accelerated river.
“Porca vacca...” Cricciero swore.
Then the mountainous wave hit the bridge.
The entire structure shuddered on impact. Cracks formed along its surface as bits of wood and stone were swept up in the water. A tremendous CRASH echoed in the forest on both sides of the river, and then the risen water dropped back into the riverbed east of the bridge with an even louder SLAP. After several short seconds, the wave was gone; the bridge yet stood, and the echoes died among the trees.
In the center of the long, cracked bridge, five ponies and a chameleon crouched close together, holding one another tightly. They opened their eyes to find themselves alone, standing in an inexplicably dry section of the structure, with no uniformed constables or raging lords in sight.
And in Scootaloo’s shaking hooves, the Golden Horseshoe gleamed.