//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: Unexpected Aftermath // by Autum Breeze //------------------------------// Chapter 8 ___________________________________________________________ I stir from sleep, confused as to what could’ve woken me. Blinking, I look down and notice Flurry is awake too. Her eyes are narrowed and fixed on something behind me, in the back of the cave. I bite my lip, the pain confirming I’m awake. Slowly, I ease Flurry out of my grasp, slipping her into the boy yak’s forelegs and squirm out of the pile. Hopping to the cave floor, I turn to the back of the cave, bracing myself, trying to look as intimidating as possible. How did Cozy pull this off? I feel like an idiot, trying to look intimidating in her body. “Who’s there?” I growl, doing my best to hide my surprise when my horn glows, trying to go along with it to seem more confident. “Flurry doesn’t like you, so I doubt I will either. Show yourself!” Please don’t be the yeti. Please don’t be the yeti! A deep chuckle comes from the darkness, before I’m blinded by a green light. Shaking my head, I blink, trying to clear my eyesight. “Well, well, well. Trying to be all macho, are we?” my old voice asks. My eyes widen as my old body walks out of the darkness, my face warped in a sinister sneer. What? Shit! How? This isn’t a dream this time. Fuck! How’d Cozy find her way back to Equestria in my body? That shouldn’t even be possible! “How’d you get here?!” I snarl, thrusting my head forward aggressively. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Cozy chuckles, before glaring. “It wasn’t easy. That world of yours is pathetic. Still, at least now I have a better body for the job.” I cock my head. Wait, what? Cozy rushes forward, grabbing me by the head and lifts me up. I cry out, waving my legs helplessly in the air and flapping my wings, trying to get out of her grip. Cozy laughs coldly and, to my bewilderment and horror, I drop as she grabs my horn and I feel my horn vanish from my head and my wings get smaller in seconds. I flop onto the floor of the cave, putting a hoof to my head and glancing back at my now puny wings, before cruel laughter makes me turn my head and my blood runs cold. Cozy is still in my body… but it’s changing. Her Alicorn wings and horn are growing out of it, spreading to match the size difference and magic is glowing around her hands. “But… but how?!” I whimper, backing away. “You… you can’t…” “Oh, can’t I?” she laughs, my male voice sounding so heartless and evil scaring me to know end. I had no idea I could sound like that. “This body will work so much better. You humans may lack most things ponies have, but add magic and you’re more than any creature in this pathetic world can handle. Speaking of which…” She lifts a hand and, to my absolute horror, hear a whine as Flurry is yanked over, Cozy holding her by the back of the head. “I never did like how this runt got lucky by being born this way. Plus, she’s annoying,” she glares at Flurry, before giving a sinister sneer. “About time I remedied that.” Within seconds, she crushes Flurry’s skull, the body falling limply to the floor. “FLURRY!” I scream, my eyes wide. That… that did not just happen. It… it can’t have. Cozy gives a maniacal laugh. “And this is just the beginning. Soon, this whole world will feel my might.” I just sit there, tears streaming down my face. She killed Flurry Heart. She just killed her, in cold blood. Flurry was such an innocent soul… and now she’s gone. “Oh, don’t feel too bad,” I slowly look up as Cozy struts towards me, her hands outstretched, and orb of red energy glowing in front of it. “You’ll be joining her soon. Then I’ll…” She grunts, stopping, raising an arm to shield her face. I blink. There’s a light shining from behind us. I slowly turn around… only to blink in confusion. It’s… it’s Flurry Heart? She’s hovering in the air, her eyes narrowed, horn glowing as her body shines with her golden aura. “St-stop!” Cozy growls, backing up as the shining Flurry comes closer. “No! You… you won’t… STOP!” I slowly turn my head to Cozy as she backs away from the oncoming light. That last one… sounded familiar. Cozy didn’t say it in my voice. I feel a warmth pass over me and look up to Flurry, who’s smiling down at me, a hoof outstretched. I slowly lift my own hoof and take it, the warmth flooding my body, my vision becoming pure white. When my vision clears, everything the same… including Flurry being right there. At once, happiness floods my very soul and I grab Flurry tightly, hugging her as hard as I can. I never wanna let her out of my sight again. Never. My wings flap, and I realize they feel bigger. Shifting my head a bit, I see my wings are Alicorn sized again and a glance up reveals I have my horn back. A hiss comes from the back of the cave. Turning to look at Cozy, I don’t see her or the body of the Flurry she’d crushed the life out of. Instead, I see a wispy pony shape. It looks like broken shadow, with glowing green eyes… and a red curved horn. My eyes widen, before they narrow. “Sombra?! How?! I thought Twilight and the other banished you to aether again!” The shadowy form hisses. Not all of me. What was banished was what did get sent the first time the Crystal Princess used the Crystal Heart on me. My horn remained, lost in the frozen tundra, slowly regaining my energy. I blink, before I snarl. “You showed me my worst fear. Cozy keeping my body… but why the fuck did you make the Fear Cozy crush Flurry Heart’s skull?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!” He winces and I realize it’s because the light from Flurry Heart is shining on him. Her light is weakening him. I did nothing to what you saw. I only showed you what was in your heart, foal! I blink. Huh? A growl from Flurry makes me look down to her to show she’s giving Sombra the nastiest look I’ve ever seen her give anyone, before she fires a blast of magic at him. It hits and he wails in pain. “Why creepy shadow yell in pain?!” Glancing back, I see our back and forth has woken the yaks and the mother is standing protectively over her young, while giving me a look that says she wants us to join them. She wants to keep us safe too. I turn back to Sombra as he wilts back. I let go of Flurry and she hovers next to me, her eyes fixed on the shadowy figure before us. “Flurry sensed you,” I say, thinking things over. “She knew you were there… and somehow led me out of your Fear Spell… You were trying to turn me into your mindless puppet!” He snarls at me. Yes. An Alicorn under my control, especially one merged with Grogar’s magic, would be very useful. He glares at Flurry Heart. And you’d have been mine if not for that meddling infant! I look to said infant, then back to the shadow. “Your time is long gone, Sombra. I don’t know which version of you it is, but judging by your voice, despite being auto-tuned as it sounds right now, you’re clearly not the one from A Tale of One Shadow or the Fiendship is Magic comic, so I don’t feel any reason to take pity on you.” He cocks the area where an eyebrow would’ve been if he had a real body at me. What in Equestria are you talking about? Okay. Keeping him talking is good… but I need to think of a way out of this. Even if Flurry keeps me safe from his Fear Spell, the yaks could be more vulnerable. I don’t think he’s noticed them yet and it’s probably best we keep it that way. Still, what am I going to do? Weakened a state as he clearly is, this is still Sombra we’re talking about. The fact he so easily trapped me in a Fear Spell like that shows he’s not completely helpless, which is not a good thing. We don’t exactly have the Elements of Harmony or the Crystal Heart to deal with him, so what’re we going to do? I almost jump when I feel a hoof touch mine. Looking down, Flurry has landed and reached her hoof to take mine. She’s giving me a determined look. I stare back at her for a few moments, before my face matches hers and I nod, turning back to Sombra and closing my eyes. I can feel Flurry’s energy flowing over me… it’s like she’s guiding me. I take a deep breath and let my mind flow, feeling my horn infuse with magic. I open my eyes and, together as one, Flurry and I fire beams of magic at the shadowy form of Sombra, red and yellow auras combining into a duo of red and gold, spiraling as they sour towards the fallen king. The beams hit and he yells out as he’s disintegrated, the last vestiges of his essence being sent into the aether to join the rest of him. We stop our magic, my legs almost instantly buckling from the energy drain, but Flurry catches me in her magic. I look down at her and give a small smile. She cheers, her smile wide as can be and hugs me, rubbing her face into my fur. I sit down, unable to keep the smile of my face and return her hug… before I look to where Sombra’s essence had been and frown, worried. Sombra seemed confused when I demanded he explain why he made me see Flurry crushed and said he’d done nothing to change what I saw, that it was all me. I look down, thinking it over. I guess… I guess my worst fear being Cozy returning and somehow bringing my human body with her would make sense as my biggest fear. My family is what I fear her harming… but if she were somehow able to bring my body with her, I likely would never see them again, so it would add up… but then there’s the part of her taking the Alicorn Magic right out of me, leaving me in her body and then crushing Flurry to death right in front of me. Where the fuck did that come from? I know I wanna keep this baby safe, but that’s well beyond what merely wishing to keep a baby I have no connection to safe would result in when it comes to a worst fear. “Creepy pony gone?” I look over my shoulder as the mother yak lets her children out from behind her, the three coming over to us. I nod firmly. “He’s gone. He won’t be coming back this time.” She looks to where Sombra had been, stares for several moments, before nodding. “Good. Ponies and yaks go now. Sun up. Weather better.” I nod, getting up and shifting Flurry onto my back. The yak mother walks up to the snow wall and bucks it several times until it’s been smashed away. We all walk out and I take in the smell of the fresh morning air. It’s cold, but I don’t mind. After what we all just went through, I’m just grateful to smell the air again. “Lots of ponies out this morning?” The question pulls me from my riviere and I open my eyes only to freeze up. Twilight, the rest of the Mane 6 sans Fluttershy, Shining Armour, Celestia and Luna, along with at least twenty Crystal Guards, even freaking Star Swirl the Bearded are all standing there, staring in slight surprise at us. There’s a long silence as we all just stare at each other. “Fuck.” ___________________________________________________________ “It’s been hours!” Dash called as she flew down from air, landing among the group of ponies. “Face it, Twilight. Cozy Glow’s long gone. She’s probably teleported herself and Flurry Heart far from the north by now.” She stomped a hoof. “We need Discord to track them down!” She shook her head. “Never thought I’d say that.” Twilight bit her lip, glancing to her brother, who was clearly struggling not to freak out. The moment the storm had ended and the sun was peeking over the horizon, she’d arranged the search party. Star Swirl had arrived during the night after answering a summons from Princess Celestia. The other Pillars had also been contacted, but had yet to arrive before they’d gone out on the search party. Fluttershy had stayed behind to comfort Cadance. However, the search hit a snag almost right from the get go. For whatever reason, the spell they’d been using to track Flurry had stopped working entirely… either that or Dash was right and Cozy had teleported herself and the foalnapped princess somewhere out of ranch. The spell was limited, after all and with the magic Cozy had inside her, there was no telling how far she could teleport. She was so worried for her niece. There were so many bad things Cozy could be doing to her. That filly had made it quite clear she wasn’t above hurting other ponies… but would she really harm a baby? Twilight wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to her own question. Twilight turned to Star Swirl, opening her mouth to ask his advice, when the sound of a magical explosion went off, accompanied by a huge surge of magical energy, so powerful Twilight could easily feel it and, judging by the looks on Star Swirl, Shining and her friends, they had too. At once, she and Star Swirl lit their horns, pulling everypony into a teleport, focusing on where the magical surge had come from. When the teleport ended, they were on an unassuming outcrop of the mountain. “Huh,” Pinkie Pie cocked her head, glancing around. “Isn’t this near where that pony-eating yeti was?” The sound of snow being forcefully hit by something made them all look around, before Pinkie pointed to a cave entrance, snow covering most of it. The snow was moving away, as if some creature was knocking it back bit by bit. They waited for a few moments, before enough of the snow was cleared out and an adult nak stepped out, followed by two younger yaks, likely her offspring. Following them, however, was an Alicorn filly with another Alicorn on her back. The five walked out, not seeming to notice the group. Cozy Glow took in a deep breath, a contented smile on her face. The yak mother took notice of them, her children moving slightly behind her, looking unsure. “Lots of ponies out this morning?” Cozy Glow turned her head at the yak’s words, only for her eyes to open wide at the sight of them all. They all stared at each other for several long moments. Cozy Glow’s expression wilted. “Fuck.”