//------------------------------// // Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 13 // Story: RoMS' Extravaganza // by RoMS //------------------------------// "This is it?" Pinkie and I turned to face Cheerilee, cross-faced as she tightened her coat. I bit my lip and sighed. "I guess... It's not like we're walking in the belly of the beast." "Oh, come on, it's not a beast, it's a wall," Pinkie said, leaving us no time to reply, "and we have the proof Sweetie Belle is in there! Alive! We have to go or- or Rarity would never forgive me." "What if I'm wrong and there's nothing left on the other side?" I countered, a hoof to my throat, pushing down the spiny knot that rested there. I breathed out and watched the puff of steam die as it left my lips. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, took my time to swallow, and avoided both Cheerilee and Pinkie's expectful eyes. "Ponyville's at stake. Heck! Equestria may be at stake too if we don't do anything. And help is hours away." I broke stare with the black behemoth we were standing against and turned to both my friends in full. "If I'm right, we will have seconds to act inside because time is broken in there." "That'd explain why Timeturner's clocks broke down," Cheerilee noted. I chuckled. "Explain, I don't really know. But I hope time really does flow in there, albeit slower than out here. Otherwise, I don't think we would survive the trip." "But we have to do it right?" Pinkie asked me, the ghost of a quiver on her lips. I bared my teeth, sifting the cold night air in between them. I had hopes but not certainty. Actually, I knew nothing past an intuition. I was no Twilight or Sunset or anypony important. I was just a pony, in a town, in dire need of help and guidance. But I had received none, and ponies expected me to give it. I broke my stance and with a smile carried my cold and slumbering, old body to Pinkie and hugged her, quickly inviting Cheerilee to join in. And she greedily accepted. Feeling the warmth of their coats against my cheeks, I held back a few tears. I was betting on instinct, and carrying them with me on this uncertain trip. "I have to do it. For Ponyville, the city I love, the city I lost. about also for the ponies trapped within," I said. "But you don't have too." "Heck, I have," Cheerilee burst. "I am not going to let you walk in there alone." "I don't want you to get hurt," I replied. She laughed, and kissed me. It wasn't the first time, but she always gave them unexpectedly. As we held lips together, I threw Pinkie a glare. She better not have a doozie at this moment again. "It's only right to have one last quickie before the jump, right?" Cheerilee asked into my ear after she departed her lips.  My face shot red, I muttered a few incoherent back. And prompted her to laugh. "I was speaking about a kiss," she mused with a half smile curling the side of her mouth. "You're the teacher," I huffed, "and should be aware of your double-entendre." She chuckled. "Or play with them." "You must have been the delight of an Equestrian Lit' teacher in college." "If only." We turned smiling to Pinkie, a weight on my chest I didn't know I had lifted, and the party pony smiled back. A playful one, definitely a knowing one. "Should we go?" she asked. "I don't want to be late to the party," I said. "I think we're already late." She struck the snow with her hoof. "And I will solve that. Or my name isn't Pinkie Pie." "Ready?" I asked Cheerilee. She close her eyes and chuckled once more. "I don't think so. But it's like a school test. You're never ready even though you know it's coming." She took a deep breath, nodded to herself, exhaled, and snapped her eyes open. "Let's do it." The three of us stood in line to face the nearby monster, the Wall, in its ominousness and sharp outline as the night sky slowly blued with the sign of the coming dawn. Another series of smiles, huffed laughters, nods and swallows. A certain apprehension washed over me as I peered into the blackness now in the reach of my hoof. That was until Pinkie did a pinkie. "LET'S DO IT!" Cheerilee jumped, her hoof clamped on the edge of my sleeve, and I followed her. Cold. The first sensation I felt was cold. A freezing wave like steeping under an icy rain. Second came heat. Like the burst of dry warmth over your face as she switched on the gas stove and the combustion blows hot air at the tip of your nose. Then came the fall. In a total darkness, Cheerilee's hoof released its hold and I was alone, tumbling, every point of my body being dropped, accelerated towards an unfathomable ground. Noise. A crashing wave that beat at my chest in shockwaves stronger than any of Vinyl's oversized speakers could ever produce. A thud-thudding that overtook the pounding blood in my ears, the beating in my chest and lifted my insides that shifted and tumbled inside my belly. If I screamed, I never heard myself. And finally came colors, or rather a single colour. Blue. Violent and bright. Far too strong to sustain. I didn't pay it much mind at first to be honest. I was fixated on the agitated waters below my hooves. Barreling askance to it, It ricocheted once and crashed into the brightly lit waters. I didn't see Cheerilee. But I felt her. She pierced the surface above me and hit my withers. White hot pain shot through my eyes and water forced their way down my throat. I coughed, bubbled water, gasped out, my hoof finding no place to pull myself up. I swam towards the light, kicking and struggling until I reached oxygen again. I opened to a world of chaos, lights and distortions. A brightly glowing blue dome stretched far and wide above my end, encasing swirling motes of black cloud, striped with lightning which cracks like a whip rippled against my ears and the wild body of water that flooded the land. Dead trees peeked their bleached branches through the water like legs shot upward, asking for help that never came.  Waves rumbled and crashed against my face and down I went. Back in the silence underneath the surface where the muffled gurgles and bubbles that escaped my gritted teeth remained unheard. I kicked and jabbed, and hit something--somepony! I clasped my hoof on a torn cloth and swam upward, back to the light. Back to the mess. I gasped for air and looked upon a known face. Pinkie. "Cheery!" I screamed at whoever would hear. "Cheery!?" I looked around, searching for a hint of bordeaux purple and a dash of mauve. But Nothing! I called out again, fighting the nerve to drop Pinkie to dive under in the blackness. But I couldn't. I rammed hooves and legs, biting the leather of Pinkie's coat. Kick after kick, I brought us both to the whining branches of a nearby tree and helped Pinkie to lock her hooves onto the upmerged body. Looking around, I knew now where all the river water went over the past week. Swallowed, but not vanished. It had accumulated into a lake that washed and swept across the streets and abandoned houses of a swallowed ponyville. Like a geyser sprinting through the meanders of the town, the water cracked windows, battered walls, upturned carts and discarded everyday life items and the cacophony it sung to my ears was like a dagger plunged into my heart. I was watching destruction rip through my town. And I couldn't bear letting it be. I looked past debris and torn off roofs and found the sight of the castle. And then paused. My bet had been that time played differently in this miniature world. That past the Wall, nothing would be the same. And as I crawled my way up the branch of the drowned tree, I stared in disbelief at what I saw. As my eyes traced the way to the castle of friendship, the blue tinge that shone over the landscape seemed to give place to mauve, then to purple, and finally to read. And as the colour shifted, agitation died down. The waves slowed on their path, their white crest foam umbreaking, steady, like epoxy dioramas from an art exposition gallery. I saw birds stuck in the air, immobile, frozen, imbued in a redden shift of light. And even further, there stood a wall of water, a large rushing wave. A tsunami like those I'd read about in journals. In all my years, I'd never seen the sea, and then and there, I was given a prime spectator to watch unfurl one of nature's most devastating feats. Time. We still had time, I believed. Cheerilee. Snapping back to the dire reality I was in, my eyes darted back to my surroundings, scouring for a hint of purple or pink in the blue haze. Before I could cry out, a tug at my hindleg captured my attention and crooked over my branch to catch a glance of Pinkie Pie, a weary smile on her face, and Cheerilee in her arms. A weight lifted off my chest and I crawled my way down the tree. We had no time. And they knew it. Sharing a nod, we clasped hooves together and battled the current of the roaring lake that had engulfed the town, stuck in the middle of thunder, storms, and otherworldly distortions. Houses after houses, past boutiques, gutted restaurants, flooded stores, we clung to wood, poles, shutters hanging about broken windows. I heard screams, low or high pitched, as if run through a phonograph some playful foal was playing with. Coming from behind further, it told me a harrowing truth, ponies swallowed by the beastly Wall were still there. Alive, but in danger. I looked at windows and roofs searching for sights of survivors when Pinkie and Cheerilee dragged me further to one of the small town squares where only the marble head of a fountain statue emerged from under the battling foam. "Careful!" Pinkie screamed, catching me off guard. a loose wooden beam slammed into us, shattering our hold. Pinkie rolled away towards the fountain, Cheerilee, a better swimmer than I ever would be called out for me. And I, I simply sank. Down under, my rump hid the murky gravel that once was a road and bounced off. I tossed back and forth in the current and felt myself rushed in through a small enclosure--a door. I hacked for air, trapped in a whirlwind of water roiling inside a destroyed shop. Wood desks flung about around me and I swam and kicked to avoid them slamming their edges into me. I battled to the nearest wall, aiming away from the windows where the mad water would spit me out into another flooding torrent. I found a grasp on a piece of furniture screwed above the water line. A clock. And it was ticking.  A laugh escaped my lips, water rushing in to drown my impudence. Coughing, hacking, grasping at any grip I could find, I dragged myself out of the indoor maelstrom and onto the set of stairs that led to the first floor. I shook my head, pushed my mane back and put my wracked body into motion. I slammed a window open onto the square where I'd been sucked from and found Cheerilee and Pinkie Pie clung to a tree. I called and waved, motioning to them I was still around, and saw Cheerilee's brighten as Pinkie pointed in my direction. We needed out. I looked up towards the roof of the house, its wet straw rushing with the rain that drummed, only adding to the cacophony. I was too old for rooftop parties I told myself then. But I wasn't built for adventure either. There was a first time to everything. I dragged myself out of the window and onto the roof, studying the chaos to find a glimpse of the castle. And so I did. Past two blocks of houses and down the beaten path that led to the edge of town and the Castle past that. The tsunami was still rushing towards it and hadn't yet reached the small bridge that led to its entrance gate. I turned back to Pinkie, and at the light of cracks of lightning studied the swirls and foam that raged in a circle around the town square. The fountain top had already gone under. Water was rising fast. I followed the flow of the flood, its winding way in and out of the plaza, and found a way out. Waiving at Pinkie, I called attention to the wooden beam that had struck us apart as it accomplished a last roundabout at the edge of a house nearby and evacuated towards another street, closer to the Castle. They exchanged a word, nodded, and let go. Following them from my vantage point, I ran across the roof and skidded to a halt. To jump or not? My heart in a vice, I watched them round the plaza, carried by the current, and reached under me. I inhaled, ran back, and over. My hooves quit the mushy rooftop as I jumped, eyes closed with the rain hitting my eyelids. I landed on the next roof over, and galloped down its edges, jumping from houses to houses, calling out to Pinkie and Cheerilee to guide them to the edge of town. Throwing a look only from time to time, I saw the wall of water shift and grow in size. the closer we neared, the more violent and fast it got. It was waiting for us. The blue haze had lifted off of houses, the water, roofs, and us all. Only clinging at the apocalyptic landscape at our back.  Dull grey colours colored the world we rushed through, towards the orange and red tinted edges of the Castle in the not so far distance.  I jumped into the water once I'd reached the last house, emerging by Pinkie and Cheerilee, embracing as we paddled on. Until we reached the edge of the Tsunami as it engulfed the bridge. Only seconds to think, we rode the wave like those "surfers" I'd read about in the Canterlot journal Derpi used to deliver to me. "Brace!" Cheerilee cried. The head of the wave crashed through the Castle's gate, and blasted the crystal doors into shards. The formed gullet sucked us in and into the main hall of the Castle. Plunder and destruction unhinged or carried portraits and paintings off to a shredded end against the sharp edges of the rock furnitures and colonnades. We held onto a balustrade giving to the first floor as the water rushed in between us, level always rising. Pinkie Pie, the sturdier of us both, carried herself over the rail and caught us both, dragging us to safe, dey ground as bits and pieces of rocks, woods and shattered houses flooded in the Castle. By the laws of this encapsulated world I was sure Ponyville had seized existing months ago. My thought dwelled on the outside. Did the Princess ever get our message? I couldn't know. I propped Cheerilee up. "Are you okay?" I asked. She burst out laughing. "Okay, I sure am not. But it could be worth. We could be battling a chaos monster, something I literally don't get, or natural disaster." I deadpanned, then chuckled. Before I could say a word, Pinkie sprung to her hooves and shoof the wet off herself. Only for her ears to perk up.  " Did you hear that?" Pinkie said.  I did hear the scream that came right after. A scream that, to my mayor's ears spelled disaster. The scream of a pony. Furthermore the scream of a princess.  "Twilight!" Pinkie burst into a frantic run up a nearby set of stairs, slipping off the first one and slamming her jaw against the crystal tile. With proverbial stars shooting out of Pinkie's eyes, I grabbed her by the shoulder and propping her up on her hooves, we stumbled up the staircase till we reached a long corridor or carved doors with intermittent drawers set in between each pair, their tops devoid of even a single dust mote. "But it's been three months, Starlight!" a shrill voice reached our ears from a room beyond a bend in the hallway.  Our eyes grew wide as we recognized the filly's voice. My legs fluttered under my body and my knee hit the ground.  She was still alive.  "I can't escape," Twilight screamed.  "The book! Write for help! Fast!" Starlight's voice boomed vehemently, and carried through the stonework under our hooves as the Castle quaked under the water assault undergoing a level below.  Muffled words and muffled screamed followed as Pinkie, Cheerilee and I scrambled down past closed doors where knowledge I'd never understand lurked within books I'd never read.  Maybe there lay the explanation to my hitching unease that we were present within the walls of the Castle before Sweetie and even written for us to rush in.  "Sweetie Belle," Twilight howled. "Please, get help!" But that was a unicorn's duty, and I was no unicorn. We turned the corridor's bend and there, at a stone's throw away, an open door. We scrambled forward, fighting a sudden gust of wind that shot out of the opening, peperring us with paper shreds, filled with eerie design and desk furnitures that ricocheted against ceiling, ground and walls. The wind placated us to the ground and only after a few seconds did we find our bearing. And stumbled into the antechamber of the past year's destruction. Chaos swirled across the room, twisting and snapping in electric arcs, papers and all assortments of goods and research remains. All brushing over a large pentagram of chalked up runic inscriptions that glowed in all their cryptic nature with a powerful orange and black hue. All dancing around a black orb the size of a cart that bent colours and light around its extremities in a redden hue that bled over anything that came into contact with it. Paper, pens, chairs, all things turned into nothing in an instant at the mere brush with the monster within the sphere. Touch, freeze for an instant as all colours and details turn into a stretched, reddened shadow, then nothing. Gone, disappeared. Eaten. "We're here!" We three screamed in unison, once stupor seeped away from us. Starlight, her horn erupting with magic, doesn't even turn towards us. Her foor hooves locked onto a hefty crystal chair, she only has eyes for two things. Two ponies screaming in effort. Suspended in between space, the monster at the back, both wrapped in the salutary prison of magic shooting from Starlight's horn. A few stares exchanged, filled with surprise, pleas, and uncertainty. My chest sank. We were ill-equipped to deal with this crazy, monumental events. Why us and not... Miss Sunset Shimmer, Princess Celestia. Or anypony else. my heart in a vice, I contemplated how foolish I was stepping into this world of magic and terror. I was a mayor. Not an adventurer. I was no Daring Do, Element of Harmony. I three a glance at Pinkie who stared with horrified marvel at the spectacle of lightning and red colors that bled around the hole in the middle of the room. I was an Earth Pony. I had practical knowledge. Not... this deadly non-sense. Huddled behind the door frame, Cheerilee and Pinkie by my side, we could only watch the eldritch tug of war between the black sphere and two mares and one filly. "Look," Cheerilee said, pointing at the left side of the room by a cracked large window. A bundle of rope was snatched under a heavy, hardwood desk. Rope... Practical knowledge. If we didn't have magic, we could at least try to teach them our own way. "Cheerilee, you're a genius !" I exclaimed. She rolled her eyes and smiled. And finally I kissed her on the cheek. Pinkie Pie clapped her hoof. Cheerilee's face turned a bright, gentle tomato. "Help us!" Starlight gasped, wiping the sweat of her forehead against the headrest of her bolted, life-saving chair. "Pretty please!" We hadn't yet entered the room when a flying bucket flung itself against the doorframe and into the corridor where it bounced against the wall. Looking back at it, frowned, and shot my eyes wide--an idea surging into my mind. "Go get the rope!" I screamed over the violent howl of the ordeal. "I have an idea." "What are you...?" Cheerilee started. "The rope !" I said, rushing back to grab the bucket handle between my teeth. "Time is running out!"  Five seconds . I traced my way back to the stairs where the water level had risen yet again. Ten seconds. I dunked the bucket into the water and pulled away. Stumbling back against a large furniture, its drawers half opened if not shaken out of their rails by the earthquake that shook the castle.  I scrambled back. Twenty seconds. Splashing water over its brim and myself, I rushed back to the corridor. Thirty seconds. Down the bend.  Forty seconds. The doorframe.  As I reached in the room, Pinkie and Cheerilee had already crawled their way to the rope, retrieved it, and gone to the large research crystal desk and its chair where Starlight had harnessed herself, fighting the pull of the beast with all her might.  Cheerilee's eyes shot at me and screamed. "Where were you?! It's been five minutes!"  I didn't wait. Earth Ponies are practical creatures. But we can  be brash too. Down to earth no-nonsense. At least that's what I hoped I needed to be.  A life spent in bureaucracy, writing down rules and laws and audits and recommendations on blackboards and official papers. Always adding, never removing.  But now was time to remove what was written.  Shutting myself to the scream of everypony, I jumped into the room, and towards a certain doom.  I felt the ground being robbed from me as an invisible claw snagged me off before I could land, and like a hungry cat eager to play with a mouse, I felt myself being dragged towards the spherical black well. But I had a trick. Bucket handle in my teeth, I used my jump's energy to whirl myself sideways and throw the content of the bucket towards the ground, and the runes sparkling orange and black. Whether my eyes played tricks on me or time slowed down once again as everything neared the epicenter of this madness, the water licked its way past suspended notebooks, blueprints and furniture, till it crashed down against the tile ground, droplets and splashes shooting upwards, attracted to the vacuuming hole above. As I barreles my way towards the hungry maw, the water reached my target. My practical bet. The inscriptions, and its edge suddenly touched by my improvised weapon. And all turned to white.