//------------------------------// // VI: The Surprise // Story: Kesho Saga // by ScapeDragon //------------------------------// “Hey! Fatso!” The sudden insult caused Glare Steel to completely halt the process of her magic spell. The aura went away from the crystal horn and the small bits of black crystals dropped to the ground and dissolved into dust once they hit the ground and quickly blew away from the gentle breeze. Glare felt like someone just poked her in the butt with a pencil considering the look on her face. I think I even saw her twitch her eye a bit. She immediately turned her attention to me walking over and staring daggers at me. “Keep Starlight occupied for now,” she told the orange crystalized ponies as one held a hoof over her horn ready to flick it if Starlight were to try anything. Glare stood over me with a serious look on her face and one of her servants forced my head up to look at her. It only took one insult? Really? “What did you just call me,” she asked, “you little pest.” I had to put on a brave front. I know Fluttershy and Starlight are probably confused as to what I’m trying to do but it was the only thing I could think of that would keep Starlight safe from harm. And cowering away from Glare now would just make her go back to trying to zap Starlight’s horn. “Y-You heard me,” I got the words out. “I called you fatso.” I added more to the insult by sticking my tongue out at her like some kind of child. She frowned strongly seeing that and her left eye began to twitch again. Without any warning, she slapped me in the cheek really hard causing a loud clap to be heard. I couldn’t help but let out an ow from the hit as my cheek quickly stung red from the pain. “You dare to call me something so vile you piece of trash?!” I had no clue it would only take one word to get her over the edge. “I think I’ll kill you first before I get back to work.” She held my chin up with only one hoof now and took a good long look at me. “Wait a second,” she started, her expression quickly changing to confusion. “You look…familiar. Like I’ve seen you before. But how can that be?” She moved my head with her hoof examining my head from every angle. Once she finished, she smiled darkly at me. “It’s you isn’t it?” I looked at her honestly confused. Her grin got wider as she was confirming it more and more. “Yes, it is you. Quickly!” She told one of the guards: “show me his cutie mark!” “Hey wait!” Now, the reason I was in such a panic is because there’s something about my cutie mark that I’m really quite ashamed of. And that’s….well, I don’t exactly have one. I’m ashamed to say that I’m a full grown stallion and yet I still don’t have a cutie mark so it’s always embarrassing to bring it up at times. I’ve even learned how to separate the hair on my tail so that both my flanks are being covered. And the idea that somepony, despite being a horribly evil pony, is going to see it made me sort of freak out. Just natural instinct I guess. Glare went over to my flank to spot the cutie mark and was just completely silent for a few seconds. She then came back up to where I can see her clearly and stared at me again. “You look like him,” she started, “but your cutie mark….it’s different than I thought.” Her comment left me in shock. “What do you mean,” I asked blabbering. “I don’t have a cutie mark.” “Don’t be an idiot. I can clearly see it on your flank. The large batch of crystals. The cutie mark of Sombra’s son.” She couldn’t be serious…..did I…did I just get that recently? I haven’t even noticed! “Although,” she went on. “I was honestly expecting to find a four year old or something. Not some fully grown stallion.” “Huh?” I said confused. “And that cutie mark….something is off about it.” “I was told the crystals on your cutie mark would glow red, but these ones, are glowing blue. Tell me, why is that?” I didn’t know how to respond to her. Heck, just a few seconds ago I just barely realized that I was given a cutie mark. “I…I don’t know.” It was the only thing I could say at the moment. It was the truth. She didn’t like the truth. She held a sharp crystal up to my neck growling. “Are you or are you not Sombra’s brat?!” She yelled at me gritting her teeth. “You better stop messing with me right now!” “Listen to me,” I tried to get the words out without sounding too scared. “I have no idea why my cutie mark is like that. I didn’t even know I had just gotten one. But believe me when I say…” I had to say it at this point. Even with Fluttershy and Starlight looking at me. “I am…King Sombra’s son.” She just looked more upset hearing me say that. “If that’s true, prove it then. Do something only Sombra’s kid would know. I want you to summon a black crystal.” “What,” I foolishly said. She slapped my other cheek this time making me wince in pain. “Damnit I wanna see you summon a black crystal! Only those with Sombra’s blood are able to do something like that! Show me you can do it damnit!” “Okay! You want to see it?! I’ll show you!” I closed my eyes and focused hard on summoning the crystal. I even made sure to summon a small one cause I’m sure even that would suffice. But nothing was coming out. Not even a pebble sized one. Glare immediately lost her patience after half a minute and I could feel her get up in my face. “Hello?! I’m waiting here pal!” I tried to block her out having my eyes still closed and focusing on that crystal showing up. Unfortunately, nothing was happening. “You were just messing with me weren’t you,” she growled. I suddenly felt something press against my neck causing me to open my eyes to the sight of Glare holding a blade up to my throat. “I don’t like it when ponies think it’s funny to mess with me! You better show me something or so help me I’ll cut you to pieces! Could I…can I really do this? This power just seems to come and go now. Even when I want it to come out the most, it won’t budge. And now because of my screwup…. Wait, what’s that? Glare heard it too along with her group of crystal soldiers. They all looked behind her and saw a cart rolling towards them, squeaking from its wheels. The cart had a blue and yellow paint job and looked kind of like a treasure chest. I looked over to see Fluttershy and Starlight’s reactions to this, and they looked more surprised than confused. “What’s this,” Glare asked very annoyed. She trotted up to it rather quickly and punched the top thinking that would pop it open. Surprisingly it did. The top popped open and this pink pony hopped out of it giving out a healthy and loud: “Surprise!” Her mane and tail were super poofy and she had this huge smile on her face. Glare was taken aback by the sudden positive attitude radiating from this new pony. Even the crystalized ponies backed up startled. Clearly not amused, Glare went back to standing her ground. "Who are you,” she growled. “Answer me!” The pink pony smiled and hopped off the cart and stood in front of Glare giggling. “Hi there,” she greeted Glare. “It’s so good to meet you Miss Glare! I see that you’re having a good time!” Glare was taken off guard by the positive outlook the pink pony had. “Wh-What? What are you doing here? Go away!” She seemed a tiny bit scared now. “But I haven’t given you the proper welcome party to your visit here in Ponyville!” She smiled brightly making Glare more nervous. “Welcome party,” Glare repeated confused. “Why of course! That’s why I brought this!” She smiled brightly as her cart shot off a splash of confetti and streamers firing it up in the air and making it rain down upon everything. The confetti and streamers cover the crystalized ponies as they just stand there taking it. Glare was totally taken aback quickly brushing all that stuff off of her. “I am so confused right now….” To be honest, I’m with Glare on that. “What’s wrong? Ooh! I know what’ll make you happy!” She dug into her cart-chest and pulled out a few gifts all wrapped up neatly in little bows. All this sudden randomness was just leaving Glare speechless every time. Glare pointed at the gifts stuttering: “A-A-Are those for me?” “Of course silly! This is your welcome party after all!” The pink pony set the gifts aside and went back into her cart-chest, this time pulling out a large yellow and white cake. “And what’s a welcome party without cake?” She cheered stretching out the last part of her sentence. As soon as Glare took notice of the cake, her eyes sparkled. “Wh-Whoa. That looks…really good.” I could see drips of drool slowly drop from the tip of her bottom lip. It was like she was trying to hide her excitement or something. “Is…is that…please tell me that’s ice cream cake.” The energetic giggling pink pony nodded her head. “You bet!” Her cart then spat out a table which landed neatly next to the two as she set the cake down on it smiling. Then she neatly went behind the cake and got a slice from it holding it up to Glare who licked her lips at having the slice of cake so close to her now. “There you go! Dig in!” Glare hesitated to take the slice of cake, perhaps because she thought that this could be some kind of trap. “No,” Glare reeled her hoof back holding it up to her chest. “I-I really shouldn’t. I mean, I couldn’t. Right?” The odd behaving pink pony just giggled hearing her. “Oh don’t worry! You can just have one slice! Don’t worry, I won’t tell.” She smirked winking at Glare who was still a tad unsure if she should. Looking to her left and right, she smiled at the slice of cake taking it with her magic and happily eating it. Her eyes began to light up and a loving hum comes out of her after just one bite of it. “Oh my goodness,” she praised. “That tastes so good!” Glare begins to dig into the slice of cake humming harmonically in joy. The crystalized ponies went over to Glare, probably thinking that something was wrong with her. Well, except for the three crystal ponies that were holding me, Fluttershy, and Starlight down still. But that didn’t matter. The crystalized pony holding Starlight was suddenly thrown off of her by some rainbow blur. The one holding Fluttershy got wrapped up in something that looks like cloth as it pulled it off of her. And the one holding me down was suddenly pulled off of me like it was nothing. I turned around to see what happened to it and it looks like someone was able to hogtie him. I looked around to see who caused it only to get motioned by a mare wearing a cowboy hat telling me to get over to where she was. I quickly nodded my head a little nervous rushing over to her. “Good, you’re outta there,” she whispered as I got to her. I was a tad confused. “Who are you,” I asked first. “Are you going to help us?” She nodded her head and smiled motioning for me to look behind me. I turned around back to where Glare and her crystal ponies were and saw that they were still pretty distracted by the party they were having. Glare’s humming could still be heard, like she wants it to be known that she loves burying her face in that cake. I wasn’t sure what the plan was that this girl and that pink pony had. Was it to just kill her with kindness or something? Once Glare was finished with, pretty much the whole cake, she licked the large tin that was holding it. The pink pony giggled seeing how Glare was acting. “Enjoy the cake?” Glare just smiled like a school filly. “Of course,” she said with glee. “My I haven’t had something that delicious in ages!” She smiled brightly before looking down at the empty cake tin again and frowning. “I…I ate all of that?” “Huh,” the pink pony looked a bit confused. “Well yeah!” She grunted sounding a tad frustrated. The energetic pony in front of her noticed that Glare’s attitude was changing so she attempted to save the day for her. “Hey look! For you!” Suddenly the pink pony pulled out a gift wrapped up in a nice bow from the cart-chest. “A welcome gift!” Glare’s smile came back as she was in awe at the gift in front of her as she quickly took the gift and ripped open the top eager to see what’s inside. All of a sudden, something shot out of the box and spooked her. The colored paper snakes leapt up and then lied on the ground as Glare just looked completely shocked at the sudden surprise. Even the pink pony was a bit taken aback. “Surprise?” Clearly the pink pony had no clue this would happen since that last sentence seemed to have a question mark at the end of it. I could hear Glare’s heavy breathing as the gift box she was holding started to have sharp crystals pierce through it. She completely crushed the box and threw it aside spooking the pony in front of her. “How dare you,” she yelled. “How dare you! Do this! To me!” She raised her hoof up only for the fake snakes to quickly wrap around her hooves very quickly and pull her down to the ground. “Ach! What the?!” One of the snakes quickly wrapped around Glare’s horn. “No! Stop!” From the corner of my view I could see Starlight come out with her horn glowing like before. Clearly she had something to do with those snakes wrapping around Glare. The pink pony sighed seeing this. “And we were having so much fun too,” her hair dropped down a bit. “Rainbow, I thought we were going to use the cute sun hat as the gift.” “Sorry Pinkie,” a mare with a rainbow mane and tail walked up from behind me and towards her and Glare. “But she was kind of destroying the town.” “Rainbow is right Pinkie,” Starlight started. “She needed to be stopped.” The Pinkie pony didn’t smile hearing that. Does Starlight know these two? And that one mare that- “Glad it’s all over now,” the pony wearing the cowboy hat said heading to the group. “Y’all alright?” She asked that looking at me. I was surprised. “Huh, oh yeah! Y-Yeah we’re fine.” Out from my right was Fluttershy walking up to everyone along with a white unicorn mare with a stylish purple mane. “Is it really over,” the unicorn mare asked. “Take a look,” Starlight pointed out seeing as how the orange crystal ponies were quickly retreating and the wall surrounding the town was sinking back down to the ground. Glare saw this and growled. “Cowards! All of you!” “Sorry we didn’t get here sooner sugarcubes,” the cowboy mare said. “We had to make sure everypony in town was somewhere safe.” “It’s alright Applejack,” Starlight smiled. “What are we going to do with her,” the purple maned unicorn asked pointing at the frustrated Glare. “It should be pretty obvious,” the one I believed was called Rainbow said. “But I don’t think that’s what’s important right now.” She then turned her attention to me. I looked at her confused before realizing what she meant. “Wh-What?” The girls all looked a bit concerned and confused. Starlight stepped up. “Hold on Rainbow Dash. I know this might look bad, but we can’t jump to conclusions yet.” “You heard what that crystal unicorn said,” Rainbow Dash started. “He’s Sombra’s son! He’s going to do exactly what Sombra tried to do and take over the Crystal Empire! Maybe even all of Equestria!” “Kesho would never do that,” Fluttershy blurted out loudly. Everyone looked at her making her a bit nervous, but she went on: “Kesho is not that kind of pony. He would never do that.” “Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash started, “you just met the guy yesterday. I don’t think you have a great idea on who he is.” This caused Fluttershy to frown. “But he did save me just then,” Starlight began. “Glare would’ve done something to me and my horn if he didn’t stop her. And he almost got hurt in the process.” She looked at me looking a tad upset. “You could’ve gotten seriously hurt Kesho!” I flinched hearing her yell at me. “But, thank you.” I looked up at her and saw her give me a soft smile. That made me smile too. “Girls,” the purple maned unicorn started. “I just had a thought.” Everyone looked at her. “If this young stallion is supposed to be King Sombra’s son, and the Crystal Empire was attacked by a stallion with crystal like magic. Then, aren’t these two incidents related?” I was really hoping that whatever she said would’ve helped my current situation. Instead, it just made it worse. “You did that,” Rainbow Dash asked me looking very upset. “Kesho,” Fluttershy said looking scared now, “d-did you? I was getting way more nervous than I thought. I could barely let my words get out. “G-Girls wait, please you have to let me explain. I-I never meant to hurt anypony. I was scared! I didn’t want to get locked up! Please you have to believe me!” “You seriously hurt Twilight’s brother,” Rainbow Dash yelled at me. “Th-That was an accident I swear!” “Rainbow stop,” the cowgirl started. “You can’t go off like that.” “Well we have to do something with him right,” the purple maned unicorn started. “H-Hold on,” Fluttershy said loudly. All of them began to argue with one another about how to deal with me. Well, except for the pink pony who I think was just singing a song. Couldn’t quite make out what she was singing what with all the arguing happening. Suddenly, I saw a glow coming from behind the girls. A magic glow. That’s when I remembered that Glare was still technically lying down right behind everyone. I looked at Starlight’s horn and noticed that she wasn’t holding the snakes with magic anymore. So no doubt she could easily rip that prank snake apart with her crystal magic. She was going to attack us while we were all distracted! Talk about a cheap shot… Damnit! Powers! Don’t fail me now! DEFEND EVERYONE: If I can just focus hard enough, I can create a wall and protect everyone from the attack. I....I can do that, right? BLAST HER HORN: If I learned anything from Glare, it’s that shooting her horn will stop the spell before anyone can get hurt. Hope I got good aim.