//------------------------------// // The Attack // Story: The Pony Of Vengeance // by BradyBunch //------------------------------// Amadeus, the top crime lord in Manehatten, tapped the wooden planks of the dock with a foot impatiently. Amadeus was bulky, large, and intimidating to be around. He was a black color with a short jagged mane and tail. There was a scar running from his right temple down to the base of his neck in a vertical motion, his most defining feature. Behind him were about twenty others who comprised his entourage- ponies and griffons alike, grasping weapons like wrenches, baseball bats strapped with barbed wire, and hatchets. One or two griffons even had guns in their talons. It was dark and chilly; the sun had just gone down. His sharp eyes were looking out at the water's horizon, where a small silhouette was slowly approaching. It was the private yacht loaded with weapons that he had ordered from Count Privilege. Amadeus understood completely why it had to arrive by boat, of course. He wasn't stupid. With all of the attacks going on in Manehatten, everything was needed to be top secret and hidden, even more so than in normal circumstances without some creature of the night going out and killing criminals like himself. Nopony had even seen him. All anypony knew about him was that he was the one killing off so many criminals. There was no description of him either; he left no survivors. No witnesses. Nopony to describe what they had seen. It was eerie. His hand twitched thinking about this so-called Night Terror. Before he had appeared in the picture, everything had been going easily. Count Privilege had offered him new, innovative weapons that could kill more easily than anything he had seen before. The Count in turn had been supplied with these weapons by a mysterious pony identified only as Client 24. And nopony had heard of him before then, and nopony had seen what he looked like. But enter this Night Terror...and suddenly their lives were all in danger. The game had changed drastically. And so they had no choice but to arm themselves even more, and look to Client 24 for protection. And Client 24 had risen to the task spectacularly. He had, for tonight, issued out four special devices called Rocket Launchers, objects capable of hurling an explosive with incredible range and accuracy. He knew that the Night Terror would show up tonight, since they were receiving more guns. And when he did show up, he'd meet four rocket launchers, ready to receive him, along with several of his griffons, who were the only ones physically capable of holding guns. They'd be swabbing the docks with his innards in the morning. He had met Client 24 only once before. At the start of the secret deal between the corrupt Count and Client 24, he had been invited in to know what exactly was happening, and that he could trust the Count to not throw Amadeus in jail for buying illegal weapons. When he had met the shady client, he felt as though he had an ice cube run down his back. He just gave off an aura of coldness, all around him. He didn't know how he did it, but he knew somehow that there was something not natural about him. Something not real. Like he was some evil creature from the abyss of Tartarus, taking a pony form, except he did it so poorly that he could still sense that there was some kind of devil inside him that was only waiting for the opportunity to manifest itself. And it was somehow rather cold now- much, much colder, in fact. And it got colder and colder as the yacht grew closer and closer to the docks. Thump thump Beside him, a pony shivered. "It's chilly out 'ere, in' it?" False Felony squealed out loud, rubbing his hooves together and blowing into them. False Felony was a seedy-looking character with stray hairs all over him and partially-dilated amber eyes. He was a tan color, with a dark brown mane. His teeth were sparse and crooked, and one of them was gold-plated. He was a professional con artist, though Amadeus sometimes wondered how he managed to sell anypony anything with his repulsive appearance and seedy way of talking. He despised him, but put up with him because he was rather profitable. But that would change soon, of course. His worth would come to an end. Amadeus said nothing to the pitiful pony beside him. "What the bleedin' Tartarus are we even doin' out 'ere?" False Felony complained. Amadeus groaned inwardly listening to the fool. "It's jus' a stupid cargo shipment, ain' it? Can't the bleedin' thing wait fer tomorrow?" Amadeus let out a small exhale. "The cargo is too important to be unloaded in broad daylight," he explained in a deep, commanding voice. "It is not up to you to decide when or where the shipment arrives. Your job is only to deliver it to our base." "Yeeah..." False Felony spat on the ground. "But we're the bleedin' leaders of crime 'ere! I gotta right ta know, ain't I?" Thump thump Amadeus's ears twitched. What was that sound? It was faint, but it seemed to grow closer. He tried to tune out the complaints of the annoying pony beside him and strained to hear the next noise. He kept his eyes on the sailboat drifting slowly to the docks. He could now see the individual ropes drooping from the top of the mast. The sails sagged; there was no wind to blow it. So whoever was piloting it was using the outboard motor to slowly maneuver it into the dock's space. Thump thump And indeed, the voice seemed to grow louder, just slightly louder, ever so slightly. The boat maneuvered into the space in front of Amadeus and False Felony. It floated gently for just a second before it tapped on the edge of the docks and bounced back a little. A few of Amadeus's underlings threw ropes onto the boat before it could drift away, and pulled the boat to the side of the wooden platform jutting out fifteen feet from the pier. Once the boat was secure, Amadeus inspected the outside. It was about thirty or forty feet long and did not rise much above the height of Amadeus. There was no second deck, no pilot house- hay, as far as Amadeus could tell, not even a pilot at all. This was slightly unsettling to Amadeus as he scanned the long narrow boat for signs of life. Thump thump There was that sound again- but the boat had stopped moving. Was the outboard motor still running? Why hadn't the crew turned it off? Or maybe it wasn't the outboard motor. Maybe it was something else. Thump thump And of course it was something else. The sound was muffled. It emanated from the insides of the boat like the heart of some hideous being, some kind of predatory monster that was waiting for anyone to enter near it and then snap its jaws shut and your life would be gone, it would be over in the snap of its claw. Amadeus snapped his talon at the nearest four ponies that worked for him. "You there," he commanded them. "Inspect that boat and get our cargo out." The four ponies nodded, though giving the boat a wary eye. Thump thump They gulped, but didn't want to risk upsetting Amadeus, so they steeled their resolve and boarded the boat. The boat listed slightly as the ponies boarded it, and one of them kicked the door to the inside open. They descended into the boat. Descended into the belly of the beast, Amadeus thought. Thump thump The inside of the boat was dark; none of the lights worked. The four ponies looked around, gripping their weapons in one hoof each. Thump thump. "I'm scared," a mare whispered. "That sound...it's scary." "Don't worry, Rosebud," a stallion smirked. "I'll protect you." Rosebud slugged him in the arm. "Idiot," she muttered. The stallion did not lose his smirk, but instead moved deeper into the confines of the cramped boat. The three other mares with them laughed and searched the boat in the darkness. Thump thump. The stallion, whose name was Game Player, felt, rather than looked, for the crates Amadeus needed. But he was less focused on the crate as he was on the other mares in the boat. He whistled out loud just thinking about them. They were curvy and sassy- just the way he liked them. He licked his lips just thinking about what he'd like to do to them once they were done here. He had had...colorful thoughts, to say the least, about all three of them. There appeared to be a lot of blinking objects on the walls of the boat. They made a small blipping sound as they made their blinks. It was in this sparse light that Game Player moved and searched for heir target. His shin bumped against a piece of wood and he swore under his breath. Peering closer, he discovered that it was labelled TOP SECRET DO NOT OPEN in bright red letters. He triumphantly used his crowbar that he held to pry open the top to try and make certain that it was what they were looking for. The top snapped off after a bit of applied pressure, and Game Player peered inside. The crate was indeed filled with black rectangular Ls, exactly what Amadeus described their cargo as. Game Player leached inside and picked one up, turning it over and over. Thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump. He turned, startled, and dropped the strange device. In a corner of the boat, sandwiched between two more crates, a pair of burning scarlet eyes looked straight at him. There was no other feature that stood out about it. Just a dark outline of burning, bright red eyes. The pony to whom they belonged spoke to him softly, almost reassuringly. "You vermin," he spoke. "You detestable creature. You don't deserve to live. You've been sentenced to death." It was his heart! The thumping was the sound of his hideous heart! There was a small click as the Night Terror pressed a detonator. The blinking objects on the sides of the boat went out for just a moment. Then they broke loose their separate explosions, and the roar was the last thing Game Player would ever hear. BABABLOOM! The noise almost shook Rainbow Dash out of the sky. She fell for just a few feet before catching herself with her wings. Her eyes automatically traveled to the source of the noise, and her mouth fell open just a little. There was a giant cloud of flame billowing up out of a boat at the docks. It stood out from the rest of the darkened skyline like a sore hoof. She could hear some screams in the distance, and a few lights in nearby buildings flicked on. Rainbow wanted to help at the docks. Her entire being wanted to help the ponies in trouble. But she had promised to return to Twilight when she had heard something suspicious. And so, looking back at the docks, she sped off to their apartment building at maximum speed. An eruption of flame and a massive roar came out of the boat, which suddenly cracked in half and just about capsized the low boat. The mast split in half like a pretzel stick, and the ball of flame that rose above the split boat was bigger than the boat itself. Amadeus and the rest of the entourage was thrown to the ground by the massive, concussive sound and the rumble under their feet that was bigger than any earthquake. Amadeus looked at the inside depths of the boat, which was slowly sinking in two burning halves into the depths of the docks. They were dead. They had to be. Nopony could survive such an explosion. They had been sent to their graves. Amadeus's heart ached for the loss of his comrades, but he mostly felt a rush of fear. What had set off the explosion? Who had created it in the first place? The answer hit him with obvious clarity. Who else would it be? It had to be the Night Terror. Now would be the time for the concealed ponies operating the rocket launchers to get them ready to fire. And he accordingly heard the shk-shk sound of the launchers being loaded, in the hidden positions the ponies were in. As the burning wreckage sunk, the flames still licking up at the sky, a figure jumped ten feet above the wreckage, outlined by red by the fire behind him. It looked like the shape of an upright pony with a spiked mane and tail, with something long pointing out of his right front hoof. Out of his forehead jutted a long sharp object. He landed on the wooden dock jutting out of the concrete pier, squatting from the impact. His head looked straight at them, and from either side of him a massive pair of wings unfurled themselves, bigger than a normal pegasus's wings. But there was something off about the wings. There was a sort of sheen to the feathers as well- almost reflective and sharp. The same quality existed on the pony's horn that stuck straight out of his head. His right arm snapped itself back, and the long object in his right hoof disappeared behind him. Burning wreckage rained all around him, the remnants of the boat. Amadeus looked at the Night Terror, fifty feet away on the wide wooden dock. The Night Terror glared back with an equal ferocity. All Amadeus could see was his eyes embedded in his large silhouette. And oh, sweet Celestia...the eyes burned with an intense fire that radiated the promise of Tartarus to all he attacked. The red eyes narrowed. Amadeus gulped and screamed hoarsely, "NOW!" There came four separate swooshing sounds, and four red-tinged comets of flame screamed through the air at the Night Terror on the docks. One after the other, they slammed into the ground right in front of him or right into the Night Terror himself. The wooden docks he was on disappeared under the intense fiery explosions, and the Night Terror disappeared in the cloud of flame that billowed from the spot of impact. All around Amadeus, several ponies and griffons cheered and screamed in victory at seeing their foe defeated. Smoke trails hung in the air from the trail the rockets had left. Amadeus got up, his legs shaking from the events that had happened in under a minute. He could still feel the rocking of the boom from the boat, which by now had completely sunk. Their cargo was gone, but the Night Terror was dead at last. But as the flame died down, Amadeus had a chill run through him. The Night Terror was floating above the surface of the water. The massive pair of wings he had had folded themselves in front of the Night Terror, shielding him from the explosions. The wings didn't even look damaged from the massive impacts of the rockets, except for a residual burn on the edges. And it was then that he realized that the wings were made of metal! That sharp sheen he had noticed on them earlier was because they weren't natural! They were made up of metallic feathers! And not one of them looked torn out of place from the damage they had inflicted on him! Whoever the Night Terror was, he had managed to create an artificial, indestructible pair of wings that he had obviously strapped to his body. Or he had put the extra pair of wings over the Night Terror's original wings, assuming he was a pegasus. And Amadeus knew that his horn was also just a blade attached to his forehead. While that detail meant that he was at least not an Alicorn, it did not make him any more comfortable with the Night Terror's appearance. The wings held themselves in place for just a minute, then drew themselves out to the side, displaying their full wingspan. Drops of flame dripped off of the edges of the wings, giving him even more of a demonic appearance. The red unblinking eyes continued to look at Amadeus with a bestial ferocity. In the light Amadeus could see another detail about him: he had painted himself entirely black, either with ash or several coats of paint. Either way, when light threw itself onto him, the Night Terror could not be identified by sight alone. He just floated in the air with his metallic wings, drips of flame dropping off of his wings and into the water. "My turn," came the whisper. BANG Twilight whirled around to see Rainbow Dash burst through the window to their apartment. She breathed heavily for a moment, just trying to catch her breath. "Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy asked, poking her head up from the book she had been reading. The rest of the girls swiveled their heads to look at Rainbow. "Twilight!" Rainbow cried as soon as she caught her breath. "At the harbor- there was this explosion! The Night Terror's there! He's gonna kill somepony if we don't act quick!" "Then we need to get there now!" Twilight declared. "We need to gather together now for a teleport, girls. No beauty sleep tonight. We haven't a moment to lose!" Rarity grumbled, but reluctantly came near to Twilight as she charged her magic for a teleport. The Night Terror reached with his right hoof to his flank and took something off of it. He held it at an angle to the ground and ignited the device he had taken off his flank. BWOWWWWwww A fountain of energy shot out of the device and solidified itself into a flat, white, four-foot long crackling blade of pure power. He whipped it up to his face in a mock salute, the blade making a low wubbing sound as it sliced through the air. Then he held it down and to the side, and sped forward faster than anyone could see. Amadeus scrambled away before the Night Terror could reach him, and the Night Terror slammed into one pony who desperately tried to swing at him with a hatchet. The axe was knocked out of his hooves and skittered across the ground. The Night Terror took a massive swing with his sword, and the unlucky pony was cleaved in two across the diagonal. Both halves fell to the ground, sizzling and cauterized. He then moved to the next targets. With one long swipe he sliced cleanly through three ponies at once, their limbs and what was left of their bodies falling to the deck. The blade made a sound similar to a type found in dubstep sounds; a deep, wavering sound that ebbed in a wubbbing noise. He twitched his wing, and a single bladed feather flew out of the back to hit a griffon clean in the throat that was sneaking up on him from behind. The griffon stumbled, then collapsed in a stream of blood. A pony moved in front of the Night Terror and fired a crossbow at the dark murderer, but the Night Terror dodged the bolt by moving his head to the side, then jumped straight for him headfirst. The thin blade he had attached to his forehead acting as a horn sank into his chest with a sickening crunch, and both of them fell to the ground. The Night Terror extracted his horn from the pony's chest, making the pony scream in agony before he died. The Night Terror's bladed horn was now stained red and dripped with blood. He raised his head up, and some blood dripped off the horn onto his forehead above his eyes. Three of the rockets fired at the Night Terror again. The Night Terror leaped above the missiles with his wings and the missiles flew into the dark inky waters of the harbor, then jerked his left arm at the hidden spots in the harbor. A red glowing projectile screamed at the spots where the missiles were being fired, and it detonated at the base of a cargo crane. A red blossom flowered at the base with the sound of thunder, incinerating a rocket launcher. The crane itself toppled over with an anguished scream of tortured metal and it crashed onto the docks. The Night Terror fired another glowing red projectile at the gates leading out into the streets and it hit the corner of the street and the side of a building next to the gate. Debris burst out of the brick building and it collapsed, twisting the wire mesh gates into an impassible barrier. There was now no escape. Another griffon ran as fast as his legs could carry him and tried to fly away, but the Night Terror intercepted him before he could get too high into the air. The griffon felt something grasp around his throat, instantly cutting off his windpipe. The griffon choked as he looked into the eyes of death itself. The eyes were the color of fresh blood, wild with rage. The griffon saw the abomination swing his sword behind the griffon's back, and felt something bite into his flesh. It felt sharp, and so hot, so unbearably hot. It hurt him so much he almost blacked out. He could smell smoke, hurting his nostrils. And his back suddenly felt a lot lighter, like something was suddenly gone. He tried to flap his wings to get away, but for some reason his wings would not respond. And then he registered why. The Night Terror had cut off his wings! He had cut them off! A loose scream tore out of his throat, and the Night Terror smiled coldly at him. He relaxed his grip. The wingless griffon plummeted to the ground three stories below him. He landed on his upper back, and he felt only a heavy jolt run through him before he died. Pop came a noise to the side of the wreckage. And seven more figures appeared, with one of them being a baby dragon. Their appearance was unheeded by everyone, however. Amadeus and False Felony looked up in terror at the nightmarish figure, the lord of death itself, as the Night Terror fired yet another bolt into a concealed spot. Another boom resounded forth, and the final two rocket launchers clustered in that spot were instantly incinerated. Most of the ponies and griffons had been killed by the explosions that had been fired by the Night Terror. But there were a group of five that spread themselves out so they weren't in one group ready to be killed. One of them was a griffon that fired one of the only guns at the Night Terror wildly, distracted by fear. But the Night Terror merely deflected the bullets with his metal-plated wings and pointed his left hoof at the griffon. A loud boom erupted out of the object in his hoof, and the griffon stumbled backwards with a screech, dripping blood from his stomach. He fired twice more at the griffon, and two holes appeared in his skull and shoulder. He collapsed and moved no more. The remaining four ponies tried to scramble away, but the Night Terror, still floating in the air, trained his gun on all of them and a loud rapid-fire chattering filled the air. He ripped a line of fire across the docks, cutting across the paths of the four ponies and dropping them in their tracks. The Night Terror turned once again to look at Amadeus. His eyes narrowed in amusement. In one hoof, a long object extended out, with a cylindrical sight on the top. In another hoof, a jagged bar of lightning crackled, making a deep, uneven hum. Beside him, False Felony trembled pathetically. He looked on the verge of peeing himself. "Amadeus himself," the Night Terror whispered. Even though it was a whisper, Amadeus could still hear it as loud as if he had said it in his ear. He windmilled his white bar of humming power, making a deep fwub wubwubwubwub sound. "I have been looking forward to this for such a long time now." "Kill me already!" Amadeus bellowed at the nightmare floating above him. "I'm no use to you alive! So kill me already! Do it now before your blood warms, so you can kill me in cold blood!" The Night Terror chuckled. It was a haunting noise to hear, and it struck terror into all those that listened. "No, I don't think so," he murmured. "Not yet, at least. I have something special for you in mind." He fixed False Felony with a hateful stare. "As for him, however..." False Felony yelped and, snapping out of his petrified stupor, leaped up and tried to run away. The Night Terror just coolly pointed his left arm that held a gun at the terrified criminal. The Night Terror fired. False Felony flinched hard and closed his eyes, expecting a wave of pain to shoot through his body. But he slowly opened his eyes to find out that he was not in pain after all. Did the Night Terror miss? But False Felony soon discovered why he had not been killed. Half an inch in front of his face was the bullet, with the promise of death on it, just hanging in the air. It was surrounded by a violet aura of magic. All heads turned to see who had cast the spell. Twilight Sparkle, surrounded by her friends, was looking straight at the Night Terror with a determined expression. The rest of her friends looked at him with similar faces, except for Fluttershy, who was hiding behind Applejack's tail. The Night Terror's eyes widened in shock at the sight of Twilight. He looked positively astounded. The aura coating the bullet cut off, and the bullet clattered to the ground. "Surrender and lay down your weapons!" Twilight commanded the Night Terror in the fiercest tone she could muster. The rest of her friends nodded and got into fighting stances. "Or we will be forced to stop you!" There was a silence. An uncomfortable silence, filled only by the snapping of the fires that existed all over the harbor. No party moved; not the Night Terror, not Twilight and her friends, not Amadeus and False Felony. "Did you hear me?" Twilight asked the hovering terrorist after a moment. "I said, surren-" "Duck," came the reply from the Night Terror, who snapped his long weapon to face Twilight. Twilight gulped in fear. What did he mean? "For the last time, Night Terror," Twilight continued, not sure what else to call him, "If you do not lay down your weapons at once-" "DUCK!" the Night Terror bellowed, and his voice was so sudden, so uncharacteristic about him, that Twilight instinctively obeyed. As she hit the deck, the Night Terror fired his long weapon with a BANG at a space behind Twilight. Something heavy dropped to the ground behind her, and Twilight wheeled around, still close to the ground. If he had shot any of her friends- Celestia forbid, if he had killed any- But he hadn't. Directly behind Twilight was a griffon lying on the ground, with blood pooling out of a fresh wound in his chest. In one of his weak talons was a knife, aimed directly for Twilight's throat. Had the Night Terror not fired on him, Twilight would be dead, or at least seriously injured. Twilight gasped in shock. The rest of the girls displayed similar emotions. The Night Terror had just saved Twilight's life. They all looked with amazement at the Night Terror, who was still hovering in the air as he flapped his metallic artificial wings. Except for Rainbow Dash, who sped in between the Night Terror and Twilight. "Oh no, buddy. You want her, you gotta go through me!" she declared, putting up her hooves in a fighting stance. Rainbow then remembered that he was bigger than she was, had a larger wingspan than she did, and had more weapons than she did. She saw that he had smeared himself with some kind of black material, paint or ash or something else entirely. She eyed the long gun in his left hoof and the lightning sword in the other. He would not be afraid to use them. He would not be afraid to kill. Rainbow, on the other hoof, had never killed anything before, and wasn't sure if she could now. She gulped in what she refused to admit was fear, and prepared to fight for her life. The Night Terror looked from Rainbow to the figures of Amadeus and False Felony, still lying on the ground in front of Twilight. He looked back up at Rainbow's face. It was as if he was trying to make a decision. And all of a sudden the Night Terror abruptly dropped three stories to the ground with a soft thud as he folded back his wings and ran away at a fast clip on his hind legs, which was not at all what they were expecting. Rainbow blinked in surprise before she cried, "Hey! Get back here, you!" And she sped off in pursuit of the shadow. "Come on!" Applejack mustered to everyone else. "We gotta help Rainbow!" And she ran off after Rainbow and the Night Terror. Twilight paused for just a moment before running off after them as well. Amadeus and False Felony watched them run off in pursuit. Amadeus looked at False Felony. "Come on!" he commanded him in a deep voice. "We need to leave now while we still can!" And the two partners in crime scrambled away as fast as their legs could carry them. Neither one looked back. The Night Terror was fast on the ground, but Rainbow was faster in the air. She managed to get in front of him and land about ten feet in front of the Night Terror, who skidded when he saw her. Then he abruptly sped up and jumped. He leaped clean over Rainbow Dash in a single great bound, somersaulting as he landed on the ground behind Rainbow. Then he continued to run. Rainbow, slightly shocked at his physical prowess, sped after him again, flying close to the ground. The Night Terror had apparently discarded his long gun and put away his lightning sword, because he started now to run on all fours like a normal pony. He headed for the fallen wreckage of the crane that had fallen to the ground and jumped through the fire at the end of the fallen arm with no problem. He ran up its steeply slanting edge up to the remnants of the shattered glass pilot house. Rainbow took to the skies again and flew to intercept again. She landed with a squat at the junction of the crane's arm and the tower it was on, cutting the Night Terror off. "Now I gotcha!" she cried triumphantly. The Night Terror stopped his run up the crane's fallen arm and looked at Rainbow. He tilted his black-obscured head. Behind him, the rest of the girls had assembled at the end of the crane's fallen arm. He was trapped. He looked behind him, then back at Rainbow. "I will not fight you," he told her softly, reassuringly. "I do not want to fight you. But if you get in my way I must remove you. Please get out of my way before I do something I'll regret." "You're already gonna regret the day you were born, punk!" she told him fiercely. "You're not going anywhere! Now just give up now, and we might go easy on you!" The Night Terror spread his wings and leaped off of the crane into the sky, catching everypony off guard. Twilight activated her horn, and the black shape of the Night Terror was suddenly encased in an aura of violet energy. He was paralyzed, unable to move in the air, as Twilight tried to bring him in. "You...are going...to come...with us," she grunted as the pony was levitated over. The Night Terror twisted his arm to face the slanting crane's body, aiming intentionally a foot in front of Twilight. Something long pointed out of his hoof. He fired his weapon at the crane's body, and a loud BANG and a sharp PING filled everypony's ears as the bullet struck the metal of the slanted fallen crane. The impact of the bullet was a foot in front of Twilight, who yelped in surprise and cut off her magic. Now free, the Night Terror shot off into the air, and in a second he was a hundred feet in the air. "You'll never take me in alive," he called down to them. The voice was so soft, and so quiet, but they could all still hear him clearly for some reason. "I will never surrender." And he blasted off into the sky at an unforeseen speed. In fifteen seconds he was gone. Rainbow tried to go after him, but was restrained by Twilight's magic. She grunted with effort as she tried to get free of the aura binding her. "Hey! Twilight! Let me go!" She struggled some more. "I'll get him! Let me go!" "No, Rainbow!" Twilight cried. "If you go after him alone, he'll kill you! He's already gone!" Rainbow looked up at the dark sky, fogged by smoke rising from the flame surrounding her. There was no sign of the Night Terror anywhere. And she belatedly recognized that Twilight was right. If she were to go up into the sky, alone, at night, in the foggy smoke, against a trained and experienced killer, there would be no way she could survive. And even worse, if she were to die, her friends would be completely devastated. They would lose their Cutie Mark bond holding all of them together without even just one of them. She would ruin herself and her friends, all if she would lose herself in a moment of heat. It took a moment for her to realize this, and even longer to accept it. Finally she stopped struggling and let herself relax. Twilight settled her down, and her magic cut off. All six of them looked up at where they had last seen the Night Terror rise into the sky. How had he disappeared so quickly? Twilight remembered how terrifying he had looked, and yet how he had saved her life. He didn't have to do that. He was perfectly content with taking life. And yet he had chosen to save her. Why? Did he have some future use for her that made it necessary to spare her for now? All around the harbor, flames of all sizes sputtered and flickered on damaged boats, loading cranes, and concrete slopes. Bodies lay strewn all over the place, in various degrees of harm. Smoke made the air thick, and some of the girls coughed hard as they inhaled some of the smoke. Why had the Night Terror attacked? Who even was he? What had he accomplished? Authorities begun to arrive on the scene after a moment or two of reflection. They broke into the scene as if flooding it. As newspaper journalists began to snap pictures, police ponies began to secure the area, and firefighters begun to attach hoses to fire hydrants to put out the fires, a reporter came up to the six girls. "Princess Twilight! You were at the scene of the crime! The Night Terror has undoubtedly struck again. Tell us, who was it that made these attacks? Did you see his face?" Twilight didn't answer. "Princess Twilight?" the reporter asked again eagerly. "Did you see him? Who was it?" Twilight finally turned around. "It's even more serious than we thought," she spoke. "But...I don't know what to do about it..." And nopony else did either.