//------------------------------// // Chapter 26 // Story: The Siren // by McPoodle //------------------------------// Ponyville Marketplace. August 27. Three days after “Green Isn’t Your Color”. The day of “Sonic Rainboom”. Friday. Today Mrs. Peel was wearing a lilac crepe half-dress with wide shoulder straps, straight hem and cleavage, with a matching jacket with a navy trim. She had accepted her Canterlot friends’ offer to come to Ponyville for a visit. She was confident that this would be safe for them, because it was a Friday. "Monster!” It was Friday. Monsters weren’t supposed to attack Ponyville on Fridays! That was why the entire Ponyville Rescue Team was out of town, cheering Rainbow Dash on for some sort of flying competition. Ponyville was under attack, with nopony trained to take the monster down. Nopony but Mrs. Peel. Quickly, Peel led Upper Crust and Lipstick Vanity into the Bunker. “Where’s Blueberry?” Lipstick asked, with an uncharacteristic tone of concern. “I’ll go back to look for her,” Peel said. “Now both of you stay here where it’s safe.” She darted out of the vault just as the mayor and Big Mac were pulling the door shut. “What are you doing?” the mayor exclaimed. “You’ll never be able to take on that monster yourself!” “I have to try!” Peel exclaimed. Bon-Bon, seeing a commotion at the door of the bunker, made to follow Mrs. Peel. “Now where do you think you’re going?” asked Big Mac. “You’ve got an amateur facing off against a monster. I’d like to help!” pleaded Bon-Bon. “Nope,” said Big Mac. “Mrs. Peel already proved herself against that snake a moon ago.” “He’s right,” said a thoroughly miserable looking Amethyst Star. “You’ve done nothing but run from monsters at every opportunity, just like the rest of us normal ponies. I’m not going to let you become a burden.” “But…but that was part of the ac…” Bon-Bon slumped over in defeat. “Yeah,” she said finally. “You’re right. I’m just a normal pony.” And she slowly walked back into the depths of the Bunker. Her cutie mark was now almost impossible to see. Lemon Peel soon spotted the giant eagle in the sky, tearing the roofs off of building after building, looking for ponies to destroy. “Giant eagle, giant eagle,” she said to herself as she looked desperately around her. “Something to entangle the claws? That could work.” She remembered Rarity’s spool of super thread from the tarantula attack, and ran for Carousel Boutique, dodging from building to building to stay out of sight. Blueberry Frosting swore it wasn’t her fault if that one craft exhibit distracted her when everypony else was running for shelter. Now she was trapped back at the train station, hoping she wouldn’t be spotted. “Aw, poor Blueberry Frosting…” an unfamiliar voice said from the shadows. “Who’s there?” Blueberry exclaimed, whirling around. Out of the shadows emerged Upper Crust, with a caring smile like Blueberry had never seen on her before. “Look,” Upper said with the wrong voice, pointing at the partially obscured figure of the eagle. “Does it look familiar to you? Something out of your dreams, perhaps?” Blueberry broke out in a sudden sweat. “No!” she exclaimed, looking away. And a few seconds later sneaking a peek at her. “A very familiar beak, I’d say,” remarked Upper Crust. “A very…true beak.” “I…you don’t know what you’re talking about!” “Oh I think I do. The beak…the wings…” A look of animal desperation came over Blueberry Frosting. She watched as Upper Crust walked casually into the open railway car. “Come with me, Blueberry,” Upper Crust told her. “Come with me to a place where your truth can finally be set free. Where you can finally fly… Not like a pegasus, but like an eagle…” “I…I can?” Blueberry asked, walking slowly towards Upper Crust. “I can finally fly?” “Come with me, and you can be who you truly are.” Blueberry entered the railway car, where the rest of the Basilisk’s gang were already waiting. Mrs. Peel laid her careful trap of super thread and then walked into sight of the monster. The giant eagle blundered into it, tangling itself up completely. At that moment the train pulled out of the station, heading southwest. Peel thought this odd but dismissed it for the moment. And so, she lost her chance to save Blueberry Frosting from joining the Mutes. The next day, when she had informed Applejack of the events she had missed, she made a confession: “After I found out that Blueberry was gone, I went back to that net, where that monster eagle was still trapped. And for a long moment, I wanted to kill it, for having a part in the disappearance of my friend. Have…have you ever felt that?” Applejack nodded. “After my parents died. I was sent off to Manehattan against my will so I wouldn’t do anything I would regret. Getting my cutie mark, both the process that led to me getting it, as well as what happened immediately afterwards…well it really set me straight. I never wanted to kill another monster after that…with one exception.” And she told of her experience with Nightmare Moon. “So you faltered once,” observed Lemon. “But you held strong so many times before and since. I find your restraint admirable.” Applejack nodded grimly. “At the end of the day, all Apples, all Lemons, are monsters,” she told Lemon. “We all have that urge to kill and destroy, an urge that Queen Chrysalis did everything in her power to grow, until changeling minds only knew that urge and the ever-present hunger for love. But through Reformation we found a way to break away from Chrysalis and to suppress that urge into a whisper, so we can finally live our dream of being ponies. “I will never forget that I am a monster. And somewhere out there might be the next monster that needs my help to become a pony.” When Amethyst Star heard what had happened, she cursed herself, as she so often did. Because today there had been another foal delivered at Ponyville Hospital. A perfectly normal foal. Once she was done with it.