Giya’s hooves met the ground with a painful jolt. Almost instantly her forelegs buckled and she fell forwards. Her muzzle smashed into the ground. Dirt shot up her nostrils so that she leapt up and reeled backwards, snorting in distress.
“Ugh!” she hissed, flicking her head wildly and blowing out air repeatedly. After a few more tries, she then sighed and relaxed her body. She fumbled hastily for her boomerang; when her hoof landed upon it, she hooked it quickly onto her belt and began to look around. Suddenly, after all the commotion, it had gone quiet.
Maybe this had been a mistake. Perhaps she should have just stayed at home.
And then she heard Chisana’s scream again.
She gasped and reared up, then threw herself into a full gallop. She tossed her head and she leapt over loose rocks and pebbles, stumbling with every other step. But Giya carried on, her hooves tearing up the rich but dry dirt beneath her. A cloud of dust blew up in her wake.
Giya knew where she was headed. She had been close by that same morning: the Commons. Just past the market, it was the hub of the island.
She tore through the semi-wilting copse which enclosed the Commons, zipping around the trees with a newfound agility the likes of which she had never known before. She was clumsy by nature; this was truly liberating.
The trees thinned out quickly, Giya’s unfaltering speed carrying her through in record time. Another scream sounded over the thundering of her hooves; it was somepony else’s this time, but the sound still made her blood boil with unexpected fury. Whoever was behind this would pay—though she hadn’t quite worked out yet how she would stop this miscreant. A skin-tight all-in-one suit and a tri-blade boomerang would not usually be her choice of armour and weaponry. But this new determination spurred her on.
Giya skidded into the Commons just in time to hear a tremendous roar. The sound caused a massive barrage of wind to strike her, knocking her from her hooves so that she was hurled backwards. She shrieked but acted instinctively; she angled her body downwards and slammed her forehooves into the dirt below. She then forced all of her weight down onto her legs, digging them deeper into the ground and giving her enough force to maintain her grip.
The bellow died out not long later and the winds eased. With a yelp Giya fell to her stomach and cringed, a new pain sparking momentarily. Her fore legs now throbbed painfully. It seemed that the Fates seemed to think she hadn’t already been through enough.
Slowly, Giya forced her wobbly legs beneath her and rose up onto all four hooves. She then shook herself off gently and took a deep breath in. The cool air flooded her lungs and released a soothing chill into her chest, letting her relax a little.
“C’mon, Giya…” she whispered quietly, a small smile growing on her face as she began forwards. She faltered mid-stride. “Oh, for the Stars’ sake! Now I’m talking to myself?”
Another roar, even louder now and throwing up an even stronger wind, knocked her from her musings. It came from behind this time and was so powerful that she was thrown off her hooves. She hurtled upwards, shooting through the treeline. The view up here really was amazing. After a moment, however, she then plummeted, gravity having regained its hold upon her. She fell at an angle, heading straight towards the commons. The huddled, trembling crowd watched in terrified awe as the earth pony mare seemingly flew down towards them.
Giya hissed at the bite of the wind and fumbled for her boomerang, grabbing it quickly and spinning it hastily in her hoof. She was thrown off course almost immediately by the sudden velocity change. An ancient tree’s colossal trunk met her in the air; she grunted as her body wrapped itself around the wood before gravity snagged her once more and she fell, completely out of control and still a good way up in the air.
She couldn’t help it. She screamed, knowing full well that this fall would break every bone in her body. She closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable. And then it happened. Her rump connected with something hard and she quietened, the pain surprisingly less than she had expected. After a moment she then let out a breath, knowing full well that it was her last.
Wait. How come she was still breathing?
Giya tensed her body, waiting for something—anything—to happen. But nothing did. And so, with a shaky breath, she squinted her eyes open and looked down.
It was a horrifying sight. Below her, a heavy-duty bamboo pole shook ever so slightly. She gulped and glanced to the side. No, not a pole; it was a trident. The prongs had impaled the tree at an angle, catching her mere milliseconds before she smashed into the ground. Oh, Stars.
How had it gotten there? Giya frowned and then turned her head again, looking hesitantly up to the handle of the trident. The sight that met her eyes made her gasp; a stallion floated down towards her, using a neck scarf as a parachute and grinning smugly.
He was a superhero too, it seemed. Just like she herself, this newcomer was clad entirely in a one-piece outfit, his being simpler than her own; it was two-toned, with a rusty-red top half and black for his rear legs. His mask, too, was that same lovely shade of brown, but with the exception that it was coloured white around the edges. His eyes were simply freakish, just like hers; they had developed an unnerving lack of white and were entirely brown in colour.
Giya shuddered.
“Well, this is a pleasant surprise!” the newcomer cried, balancing on the tip of his trident’s handle. “The name’s… uh, Ailurus.”
Giya narrowed her eyes a little as she held out a hoof slowly. “Panthera,” she greeted with a nod. The way his eyes lit up at the sound of her voice, however, made a smile grow instantaneously.
“Well, isn’t that swell,” he barked. He guffawed loudly. Without hesitation he then bounced once on the tip of his trident and cried, “Hang on there!” before it shrunk in front of Panthera’s eyes; she hugged the tree for dear life, gasping. When she turned to face the stallion, however, her angry remark was lost when she saw how comfortably he swung from a branch a little higher up, kicking his hooves idly in the wind.
“Thanks a lot,” she snapped, but her words didn’t sound as grating as she would have liked. Ailurus, too, snorted before he stabbed his trident into the tree branch and clung onto the pole. It extended quickly, lowering him without trouble; when he offered her a hoof with a smile, she scowled quickly and batted it away, retorting with, “I’m a superhero too, y’know!”
Ailurus raised an eyebrow. “Oh really, Lady Panthera?” he asked, spinning around on the handle as if dancing. His tail flicked. “Care to prove it?”
Panthera did not have a chance to respond, though. Instead, the ground a few metres away exploded as if smashed with something massive; the quietly watching crowd screamed and scarpered for the tree line. Ailurus and Panthera shared a quick look.
“You ever done this before?” Ailurus suddenly asked, stopping his fidgeting. Panthera shook her head—much to his dismay. Despite that, though, a surge of confidence rushed through her. She could’ve sworn it originated from her hoof, though how she knew that she couldn’t say.
“Nope. But we’ll learn on the job, right?” she called before throwing herself from the tree trunk and catching the wind. It was sloppily done, but she landed without hurting herself any more, at least. Ailurus was in quick succession, slipping down his trident before cantering straight to her side.
“Course!” he yelled, throwing his head in glee. A dust cloud blew up behind the pair as they shot back into the clearing, newfound courage and determination in their veins.
A monstrosity of a pony stood before them. It was huge, with its ears brushing the topmost trees even when it stood on all fours. It was entirely transparent, too; only the glare of the light against its skin allowed it to be seen. When its hardly-visible eyes landed upon the duo, it reared up and bellowed. The tallest branches snapped from the trunks with a cacophony of cracks. The huddled hostages screamed when one landed mere inches from them.
“It’s looks like it’s made of glass!” Ailurus yelled. He thrust his trident into the ground and catapulted to the side, barely missing the shards of glass that tore through the air towards him. Panthera was slower; the ends of her mane were cleanly shaved off.
“What are we supposed to do?” she yelled, throwing her head to the side to grab her boomerang. She lobbed it towards the beast; it whistled through the air and smashed through its rear leg, sending it crashing to the ground with a boom. More fragments were sent flying; had Ailurus not thrown himself towards the hostages and knocked them out of the way, they would have been torn to shreds.
“Are you alright?” Panthera cried loudly, skipping on the spot as she tried to dodge the torrents of glass. Ailurus was quick to react; he leapt to his feet and galloped back to her side quickly, just as the beast vanished into thin air.
“Where’d it go?” Panthera cried, spinning on the spot. Ailurus, too, hissed and backed up to her; their backs met and they stood up on their rear legs uncertainly, each watching attentively.
“I have no idea,” Ailurus replied, stabbing the air dporadically with his trident. “It’s just vanished!”
“It must literally be glass,” Panthera reasoned, spinning her boomerang on her hoof. Just at that moment the beast reappeared halfway through a pounce; she screamed and threw all her body weight at Ailurus, knocking him away as the beast smashed into the ground and splintered. But, as the duo stood again shakily, the impact’s toll showed. The ground crumbled away beneath their hooves, swallowing them up whole into a dismal abyss of darkness. Up above, a tree fell over their entrance so heavily that dirt fell from the roof of their new prison.
Panthera hissed and pressed herself up against Ailurus. Before she could say anything, though, a warm orange light flickered feebly on the walls. It tried again, and again and again—until a roaring flame burst into life, crackling warmly.
It was a sight for sore eyes, to be true.
“What is this place…” Panthera whispered, cautiously stepping away from Ailurus. She rose a hoof and pressed it to the cold, damp walls of the tunnel; amidst the mold patches, crudely painted images could be seen. Ponies gathered all around the walls, in small congregations and at tables, fires and buildings. They laughed gaily as foals pranced around the outer edges. The old paint had run and faded over time, but the meaning behind each image was clear. It was a scene of unity. That had always been the virtue of the islanders: loyalty.
“What are these?” Ailurus whispered, pulling a torch from the wall with his mouth and lowering it to the base of the rock paintings. In the warm light numerous inscriptions could be seen, carefully carved to a minute level of precision; they were flawlessly written runes, each glowing faintly at the caress of the flames’ glow. They seemed to make up sentences, written in straight lines below each individual illustration as if telling a story.
“Wow,” Panthera breathed quietly, tracing a single rune with the tip of her hoof. Just after she had done so, she hissed and scarpered backwards, waving her hoof and cringing. The rune had suddenly turned a bright white colour, as if searing hot. “Argh! After all this time, I would’ve thought Chisana’s warnings might have stuck!”
Ailurus turned to her quietly, murmuring, “Pardon?”
“Sorry,” Panthera said, blushing slightly as she gingerly touched her hoof back down to the rock floor. “My friend is obsessed with runes… I would’ve thought I might’ve actually taken note of some of her warnings! But—“ She scratched the back of her neck slowly, “—I guess I never did, huh?”
Ailurus snorted slightly. A massive grin was on his face all of a sudden. “Obviously not!” he chirped, but his attention quickly diverted to the painting behind her. Unlike the others, this one was obviously special; the entire wall was dedicated to a perfectly formed, only slightly faded depiction of a number of large, equine-like statues. At the base of each a pony stood, holding hooves with their peers next to them and with their eyes closed. They looked in such a state of bliss that they could have been sleeping—with the exception of one, Ailurus noted.
“Look at this,” he whispered, pointing down at the farthest painting. It was the most faded of the lot, and the gender of the pony depicted could not even be guessed. In fact, their entire face seemed to have somehow dissolved away. Regardless, it was easy to see from their posture—from the hunched back to the slightly fallen ears and dragging tail—that they had been far from at ease that day. Even if they did hide it well. “Isn’t this strange?”
Panthera nodded, leaning in closer. “Whoever this was, they were a grumpy soul,” she said, snorting. When she took a step back and got a better look at the painted statue behind the pony, though, she took a sharp breath in. “Ailurus… look at this!”
Ailurus pushed her out of the way. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, however, a massive roar sounded and heavy thudding sounded above; dirt and rocks tumbled from the ceiling, plummeting towards the pair. They fled immediately back to the hole they had entered through, using their boomerang and trident respectively to launch from their little cave. It caved in right before their eyes, the priceless relics smothered.
“That statue…” Panthera uttered, spinning on the spot in terror with her boomerang at the ready, waiting for the beast to attack again. “It was this thing, wasn’t it?”
Ailurus nodded tentatively, trotting on the spot in just as skittish a manner as she. “It was smaller than this, but… yes, I would say so.” He gulped deeply and suddenly found his legs frozen in one position, unable to move from fear. “And that means some pony is controlling this thing with magic… and can bring inanimate creations to life as deadly monsters.”
Panthera whimpered quietly, but quickly tried to regain her composure. “But there were so many statues…” she whispered. Her ears fell, and both she and Ailurus suffered a momentary lapse in movement.
A scream sounded behind, accompanied by Chisana’s cry of, “You two! Get outta the way!”
But the massive, glass fore hoof smashed into them before they even knew what was going on, and they were sent hurtling right across the commons and into the centuries-old trees waiting there quietly.
For a moment, all the pair could hear was buzzing. Their vision was another matter; there was nothing but blackness. As their senses returned to them, though, the true cacophony of the situation made itself known. With squinted eyes, Panthera looked up and watched in awe as the hostages grasped any courage they had left, clinging onto the great beast as it showered them in shards and shavings of glass. They cried out desperately in the direction of the pair, but Chisana’s call was the only one that could actually be understood.
“Whoever you are, please, help us!” she yelled, crying out as the beast flicked its tail in an attempt to dislodge her. Despite the droplets of blood which beaded on her skin from the contact, she did not let go. “We’re on this thing! Just attack where we are! We’ve gotta get this thing down, or it’s gonna kill somepony!”
Panthera couldn’t tell if she’d ever seen her friend so serious; so desperate to help. With a nod she pulled her trembling, bruised and bloodied body up to her hooves, unhooked her boomerang and then heaved Ailurus up too. He gave her an appreciative smile and, after a few seconds, managed a confident little grin. In fact, he looked as if Revelation Day—only the best day of the year—had come early. His eagerness was infectious and she, too, smiled wider. A small blush grew on her cheeks, though she had no idea why.
“Let us show this beast that you don’t try to mess around with us on the job!” he yelled, then rearing up. He winced and fell back to the ground immediately. He shook his head in distress. He then unhooked his trident too and nodded once at his partner; she nodded back, and that seemed all the communication they needed. They threw themselves into the brawl, battered and bloodied though they were.
Time to end this.