After killing all the beasts that had tried to invade Ponyville, the eight friends had split up to offer relief to the citizens.
Rainbow Dash with the help of the meteorological team was working to extinguish the fires caused by winged beasts bringing rain clouds on the areas and homes affected by the flames.
Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie had joined the hospital doctors and nurses to provide first aid to the injured.
Elias, Sunset and Twilight were busy searching for missing and wounded in the ruins of the destroyed buildings.
Rarity and Applejack instead took care of bringing the injured to the hospital.
Fortunately there were no casualties during the attack, but several houses had been destroyed and several injured, even if they were not in danger of life, were serious. It took a couple of hours, but eventually the eight friends managed to calm the flames and bring the injured to the hospital. The citizens were grateful for the heroes who had saved them, and to thank them they had decided to have a party in their honor that evening.
"They were really kind to organize a party for us tonight." Fluttershy said.
"Yeah. If I have to be honest, I was convinced that when they saw me, the citizens would have been afraid, but instead they welcomed me with practically open arms. " Elias said as he thought of the warm welcome of the Ponyville ponies.
"Obviously they would have given you a warm welcome! You are a hero, Elly! You saved Ponyville from the attack of twenty monsters that appeared out of nowhere!" Pinkie said.
"We, Pinkie, we saved Ponyville from monsters, right girls, girls?" Elias when he turned he saw that Twilight, Sunset, Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash seemed distracted, as if they were looking for someone.
"Girls, is everything ok?" asked the cadet worried about the ponies.
"We can not find our little sisters." Applejack said worried.
"And we can not even find Spike." Twilight said sharing the same feeling of Applejack.
"What if they were taken by those horrid creatures ?! For Celestia, please tell me they're fine!" Rarity said on the verge of tears.
"Girls calm down! Not necessarily the fact that they are not found have to be a bad thing." Elias said trying to calm the ponies.
"How is it a good thing that Spike and our sisters the are not found?!" Rainbow Dash asked furiously.
"For the simple fact that during the attack, they could find a place to hide in. They will probably still be hidden somewhere." Elias replied, keeping calm. "In fact I would propose to start looking in the places that they frequent the most, a few suggestions?"
"Well ... there's the Golden Oaks bookstore where I , Twilight and Spike live, then there's the Sugarcube Corner, the Sweet Apple Acres where Applejack lives and all his family, and then there's the Carousel Boutique where Rarity lives and finally, the Clubhouse where the little ones meet most of the time. " Sunset replied.
"Ok, so I would suggest starting from the nearest place, what would it be ...?"
"The Golden Oaks bookshop!" They answered in unison Sunset and Twilight.
"Okay, so let's start the research from there. Let's go girls, show the way." Elias and the seven ponies quickly headed for the bookshelf hoping to find Spike and the missing sisters. When they reached their destination, he was amazed to see that the library where they lived Sunset and Twilight was a giant tree. But the detail that had attracted the cadet most was that, beyond the broken door, the bookstore and the houses around it had not been damaged. But when they entered, they found the library in a state of absolute chaos. The various furniture was reversed and all the books scattered around the room.
"Looks like a tornado has gone in here." Elias said
"Come on girls, let's start the research." Twilight said, beginning to wander around the library hoping to find Spike and her friends' sisters. The cadet and the seven ponies began their search by examining all the rooms and calling out the four missing children. At one point during the research, the eight friends heard a voice.
"Twilight? Is that you?"
"Spike? Spike is that you? Where are you? Are you okay?"
"It's me, and we're fine but we're stuck in the closet."
"Are we? Who is with you?"
"There are the Cutie Mark Crusaders here with me."
"Cutie Mark Crusaders?" Elias asked curiously.
"Our sisters!" They told Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Rarity happy to hear that their sisters were safe.
"But we can not get out, the door is locked." Spike said as he tried to open the locked door.
"Get away from the door, now I'll let you out." Elias said approaching the door.
"Who are you?" Spike asked, hearing Elias's voice for the first time.
"It's a friend Spike, do as he tells you." Sunset said reassuring Spike.
"All right, girls, let's get away from the door." As Spike and the CMC moved away, Elias approached the door and saw several cut marks on the surface and noticed that it was also damaged as if someone or something had tried to enter, but only getting the result of blocking it. In fact, the young soldier tried to open it with the handle, but the door remained closed.
"As I imagined." Elias said to himself. "You have turned away from the door?" When asked what he did, the cadet received a positive response from the four voices on the other side of the room. Then Elias having the certainty that no one was behind the door, charged a powerful kick towards it, made her break off the walls and with another kick made her fall. After the door was knocked down, Elias stepped aside to allow Spike and the CMCs to get out. When the latter came out of the closet were greeted with a hug breaks bones from their sisters.
"Spike, thanks to Celestia, you're fine." Twilight said happy to see her "brother" safe and sound.
"We were worried that something had happened to you little guy." Said Sunset also glad to see Spike unscathed.
"I'm glad to see that you're fine girls too." Said the small purple dragon embracing his "big sisters".
"Oh Sweetie Belle, I was so worried! I was afraid that those hideous creatures had hurt you!" Rarity said in tears as she hugged her little sister tightly.
"We're fine with Rarity, and it's thanks to Spike that nothing happened to us." Said the little unicorn with a white mantle and a pink and purple mane.
"Spike?" Applejack asked.
"Yes, one of those monsters with knives was chasing us and was about to pick us up, but Spike spat a small flame on the face and made us buy time to escape." The little Earth Pony answered with a yellow cloak and a red mane. "
"Did Spike really do this, Applebloom?"
"And not just this!" Said the little pegasus with the orange mantle and the purple mane.
"What else did Spike, Scootaloo?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"After Spike distracted the monster, the four of us rushed to the bookstore to hide, but the monster chased us in. We thought we were being knocked out, but Spike put a bucket on the head of the monster and hit it repeatedly with a pan in order to stun him. Soon after we closed the closet, though the monster tried to enter but Spike was able to stop him. Then at some point the monster has not attempted more enter, as if it were gone. but when we tried to go out, the door was locked."
"Our little Spike is a great hero!" Pinkie said, hugging the little dragon.
"Oh come on, I did not do much." Spike said, blushing at the words of the pink pony.
"But you've done a lot. You risked your life to be able to buy time in order to allow your friends to save themself. This where I come from, it is a gesture that only the heroes do." Elias said to the young dragon.
"Thank you ... um ..."
"Oh right, you're right I did not introduce myself: My name is Elias Schützen, and if you're asking, I'm a human."
"Pleasure Elias, I'm Spike, I'm the number one assistant for Twilight and Sunset."
"I'm Applebloom, Applejack's sister."
"I'm Sweetie Belle. Rarity's sister."
"I'm Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash's sister."
"And the three of us are ... THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS !!!" the three little pony screamed in unison.
After having made the necessary presentations, both the eight friends and Spike and the CMC, they told each other what happened in the time frame in which they were separated. After finishing their stories, everyone decided to help Sunset, Twilight and Spike set up the bookshelf. Thanks to teamwork and the collaboration of everyone, the library was back as new, except for the front door and the closet that had to be replaced.
"Thank you very much, I do not know how long it would take me, Sunset and Spike if we had to fix all this mess alone." Twilight said thanking everyone for the help.
"It was a pleasure Twilight." Elias said.
"You do not need to thank us, we are friends and friends always help each other in time of need." Fluttershy said.
"Hey Twilight, Sunset, I took inventory of books in the bookstore and apparently one is missing." Spike said with a list in his hand.
"What book is missing?" Sunset asked.
"Tales and Stories, volume one of ScaleShell the Bald."
"If I have to be honest, it's not a serious loss." Rarity said in a disgusted tone at the thought of the book mentioned by Spike.
"Why, what book is it?" Elias asked curiously.
"It's a storybook for young audiences, but the stories inside are badly written and all have a negative and depressing ending." Sunset replied.
"In fact, no one has ever taken this book, and in fact has not been very successful, even if the author has written at least two or three more." I honestly do not remember. " Twilight said.
"..."
"Girls do not know about you, but I got hungry. Why do not we eat something?" Pinkie asked, rubbing her stomach.
"Pinkie's right! It's pretty much since this morning that we're not putting anything under our teeth." Rainbow Dash said.
"Ok girls, let's go out and eat something." In the meantime, I write a letter to Princess Celestia to explain what happened. " Twilight said.
That said, the ponies and the little dragon came out of the library to reach some place where they could go and eat something. But Elias remained behind, lost in thought. Sunset noticing the strange behavior of the cadet approached him to know if it was all right.
"Hey Elias, are you okay?" Asked the unicorn worried about the soldier.
"Mh ... Oh, I'm fine, it's just ..."
"It's just what?"
"It's just that I have a bad feeling Sunset."
"What do you mean?" The pupil of Celestia asked, confused by the words of Elias.
"You see, there's one thing I noticed when we came to the bookstore, i noticed that this area of the city was almost untouched by monsters. True, the inside of the bookstore looked like a hurricane had passed, but in the middle to the confusion, only one book disappeared from the building. "
"Why so many worries for a book that nobody likes?"
"In other circumstances I would not give so much weight to this thing, but ..."
"But…"
"But I can not get rid of the head that the invasion of monsters is not a random thing."
"And what makes you believe it?" Sunset said amazed by the statement of Elias.
"See, after we defeated Scarlett, the strange portal that sucked it appeared, and soon there are monsters appearing in Ponyville, which seems too strange to me to be a coincidence." The cadet answered to the events that happened during the day.
"So you think Scarlett is responsible for all this?"
"Unfortunately, my are only conjecture, but based on everything that happened today, I strongly suspect that she is somehow linked to the invasion of Ponyville, and searching for something in the library, and that something was the fairy tales book. "
"Let us assume for the moment that your conjectures are correct, Why would Scarlett want to take such an insignificant book? I mean, why be interested in a book of fairy tales virtually unknown?"
"I have no idea, I know it may seem crazy what I'm saying, but I can not get rid of this bad feeling and get rid of the head that this invasion was programmed and that the book plays an important role in all of this."
"So now what do we do?"
"I would say at the moment to keep the guard high, and maybe to do some research regarding this book and its author. I hope to be wrong, but something tells me that the troubles are not over yet."
In a cave in an unknown point of Equestria
"Well, well, well, I finally found what I was looking for, even if because of that stupid beast I risked losing it. But now let's not waste time, it's time to reveal your secrets my dear "ScaleShell the Bald"."
A terrible laugh echoed throughout the cave.