“And I thought for sure they’d trapped me in there for good!” Smolder exclaimed, waving her arms around. “But the big dumb lizards kept checking to see if I ran outta air, and the next time they checked, bam!” She punched the air as she exclaimed. “Then I chased their sorry tails outta my cave all the way to the river, and I never saw ‘em again!”
Silverstream and all her new friends laughed with Smolder after she told her story about the basilisks. Ocellus was really worried when she mentioned them, and everybody else followed suit when she explained how their breath could turn people to stone. But things eased up when Smolder clarified that it didn’t work on dragons. She even went on to explain how they’re huge pests in the Dragon Lands: how they keep making nests in their volcanoes, cooling the lava down, and stealing all their food. Though it was pretty funny to hear how much Smolder hated having to chase them out all the time.
Still, that story about how they almost got her back would have been pretty scary, if it weren’t for how excited and energetic she was about telling it!
The group of six settles down a bit in their blankets, still hiding out at the place that Ocellus called the Castle of the Two Sisters. Ever since they’d ditched Twilight’s boring school, they’ve been having a blast just hanging out with each other, and Sandbar’s supply of food and other essentials made it so they could hang out here as long as they wanted. And tonight’s sleepover was putting all of those supplies to the test!
Right after they finished telling scary stories around the fire, of course.
“So!” Smolder exclaimed, kicking back and relaxing on top of her rock. “Who else has got a story?”
“Somegriffon stole a bag of bits from Grandpa Gruff once.” Gallus shuddered when he finished that line. “Once. Tore the whole of Griffonstone upside-down to find it, and he chased the thief out of town for miles! I don’t think she ever came back.”
“I-I, uh, found a super scary story one of my, er, weird cousins wrote,” Ocellus opened, fidgeting a bit. “It was about an evil changeling princess called Chitter that lost all her memories and became an even more evil changeling princess called, er,” - she scratches her head - “What was it again? Athleta? Atlantic? Um... W-well, anyways, it was super violent and went on for way too long, a-and I don’t remember it all too well anymore...”
“Aw, man,” Smolder laments. “That sounded kinda cool, too! C’mon, who else has one?”
“Hmm, Yona already tell one before...” The yak’s eyes light up, and she turns towards a contemplative Sandbar. “Hey! You no tell story yet! What scary pony stories you got for us?”
Sandbar couldn’t help but shrink in on himself a bit under all the attention.
“W-well, I, uh...” He swallowed dry. “I-it’s not really a, story. It’s more what happened to me and my parents a while ago...”
Upon seeing everybody’s expectant looks, he sighed and continued on.
“Whew, okay, well, w-we were up in Canterlot a few months ago for a big celebration, right? So everything was going great, when all of a sudden, this big s-storm rolls in...”
Silverstream’s blood runs cold.
“A-and then all these big scary airships came down from the sky, with these huge monsters on board! They jumped down and attacked all of us, then put us all into these big metal cages. I-I’d never been so scared in my life!”
“Oh my gosh,” Ocellus gasped, “I think I heard about this! It was that Storm King guy, right?”
“Uh-huh,” Sandbar confirms with a shaky nod.
“Whaaaat?” Smolder exclaimed. “C’mon, no way! Don’t you guys have guards or something to stop things like that?”
“Yeah,” Gallus chimed in, “And you’ve got the princesses, too! Wouldn’t they have stopped them?”
“They tried,” Sandbar continues. “They really, really tried. But they lost to the Storm King’s two commanders, I-I remember seeing the fight up close. Th-there was this pony called Tempest, a-and this weird green creature I’d never seen before called--”
“Anonymous,” Silverstream cut in.
“Hey, yeah! How’d you know?”
As the attention shifts to Silverstream, everyone falls quiet at seeing the bubbly hippogriff reduced to fearful shivering, hugging her pillow as tightly as possible.
“H-he attacked my home, too.”
Her moment of retrospective terror was interrupted by Ocellus buzzing over hugging her from behind, and even Sandbar came over to rest a hoof on her withers.
“I’m sorry,” he sighs. “I knew bringing it up was a bad idea...”
“This guy sound really scary!” Yona exclaims, more excited than frightened.
“Huh, now that you guys mention it,” Gallus hums, “Gabby did say something about a big storm, and monsters in Equestria chasing her off. Was that what it was?”
“Pffft, he doesn’t sound that tough,” Smolder flippantly responds. “I bet me and my friends could take him on in a--”
“No you couldn’t!” Silverstream shrieks, her voice echoing in the distance for a few moments due to it’s sudden volume.
“Whoa, okay, sorry!” Smolder says, holding her hands up and looking as shocked as everyone else was at the outburst. “But seriously though, how scary was this guy?”
“H-he...” Silverstream pauses to sniffle. “He didn’t just attack Mt. Aris. H-He came after me...”
“Take cover!”
BOOM
Silverstream shrieked as a lightning bolt tore into the top of a building, raining dust and debris around the food cart she had taken cover under with the owner. All around her, hippogriffs cried out in panic as they ran and flew all about, desperate to find any cover from the violent storm above.
More specifically, the massive airship armada descending from the violent storm above.
The royal guards scrambled into action, taking off from Queen Novo’s palace and flying towards the rapidly descending vessels, spears at the ready. Unfortunately, their attempts to intercept the ships were fended off by crossbow fire coming from their decks, and the few hippogriffs that did reach the balloons and tried and deflate them found that it was not hot air that kept them afloat, but some kind of storm magic, which reacted to their stabbing and clawing with retaliatory bursts of lightning that sent them falling to the ground.
The ships stopped their descent once they were close enough to the ground, and the creatures from aboard the ships made themselves known, leaping down to the ground with weapons and shields in hand. One of them knocked over the food cart in their search for more hippogriffs to terrorize, and pounced at the two of them the first chance he got.
Silverstream just barely managed to evade capture, and as much as it broke her heart to hear the cart owner not being so lucky, she didn’t dare slow down or look back. She flew as fast as her wings could carry her, weaving past fleeing civilians and fighting soldiers as she made a beeline for her home, hoping that her family would still be all right.
She could see her mom in the window near the front door as she got close, and she quickly unlocked the door and opened it up for her just in time for her daughter to come barrelling through, landing in a heap as the door was quickly locked again.
“Silverstream!” Ocean Flow exclaimed, helping her daughter up and scooping her into a hug. “Oh I’m so glad you’re safe! What’s going on out there?”
“There’s a big attack!” Silverstream cried. “Big monsters everywhere! And the guards can’t fight them off!”
“Oh, no...!”
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK
Both hippogriffs shrieked at the knocking before realizing it was coming from the back door, and could see General Seaspray through the door’s window. The pair rushed to unlock the door, and Silverstream wasted no time in tackling the big hippogriff with a massive hug the second the door opened.
“Thank goodness you two are all right!” His relief was short-lived, and his attitude returned to being deadly serious. “You two need to get back to the palace, now! Sky Beak’s already there waiting for you!”
BOOM
The bolt of lightning overhead cut off any further discussion, and the three took off towards the castle without delay, flanked by Seaspray’s guards. They got around two-thirds of the way there before Ocean Flow froze with a horrified gasp.
“Terramar!” she shrieked. “He’s still--!”
“Where?” Silverstream demanded, shaking her mother’s withers.
“He’s still in bed!”
“I’ll get him!”
WHOOSH
“No wait, Silverstream...!” Seaspray called out.
Without a moment to lose, and without stopping to argue about it, Silverstream bolted back towards their house. Flying faster than she even thought possible, she arrived in a matter of seconds, soaring through the still open back door and banking towards the--
CRACK
She shrieked as the front door came flying off of it’s hinges and flew straight towards her, unable to stop in time before it slammed into her and sent her to the ground. Her head spun as she lay dazed under the door, coughing and spluttering as she tried to regain her bearings and push the door up off of her.
“♪ Knock-knock, open up the door, it’s real! ♪” sang a joyous and unnerving male voice she didn’t recognize, “♪ With the non-stop pop-pop from stainless steel! ♪”
She finally managed to pull herself from underneath the heavy door, but froze in terror where she laid when she saw the source of both the door and the voice.
Standing there in the doorframe was a tall and green-skinned biped, covered from neck to toe in smooth dark plate armour that was overlaid atop a sleek black bodysuit, the chestplate bearing the insignia of the airships that were attacking. Though he wasn’t nearly as tall as the other beasts that were attacking, he projected an implacable aura of pure menace that none of those hulking brutes could match, accentuated by the wide and unmistakably evil smile that adorned his uncovered face as he looked down at her. Worse still was the joyous glint he had to his eye, the kind that she only ever saw Skystar get when the two of them horsed around in the palace.
She couldn’t help but let out a terrified whimper at the sight of him. And his widening smile upon locking eyes with her was not helping matters.
“Oh hey there baby girl, what’s shakin’?” He began walking towards her, her breathing quickening as she began crawling backwards. “Say, is this your house I’m trashin’?”
She couldn’t so much as utter a single word, tears welling in her eyes as she crawled back away from him, more afraid than she’d ever been in her whole life. Each heavy metallic footfall of his only served to hammer that fear in even further.
“Man, I’ve gotta tell you, most of you horsebirds so far have been a solid six out of ten on the cute scale, but you? Solid eight, maybe even a nine! Just, oh,” - he gives a chef’s kiss - “Délicieux! Almost makes me feel bad about stealin’ your queen’s fancy pearl! Almost!”
She only dimly registered his words, on the verge of hyperventilating as her mind was almost consumed with panic, the welling tears from before now freely streaming down her cheeks. Her prone pace had increased in step with her terror, and she had managed to crawl to only a few feet away from the back door. He, however, had made it halfway through the house at his casual pace, evenly spaced between both doors.
“Say, you wouldn’t happen to have directions to that shiny little ball of magic, would’ja--?”
“Hey, who’s down there?”
Hearing Terramar’s voice brought her panic to a halt, and seeing him descend down the flightwell behind the frightening creature spurred her to action.
“S-Silverstream?” he asks, immediately afraid of the invader. “What’s--?”
“Run, Terramar!” she shrieks. “Head to the palace, now!”
The terrified tone she took with him removed any desire to argue, and he shot right out of the front door, away from the intruder. At the same time, Silverstream scrambled out of the back door as quickly as her shivering limbs could carry her, taking flight the moment she was outside. Terramar fell into formation beside her, confused and nervous.
“Sis, what the hay’s going on?” he calls out to her. “Who was that--”
“Hey, where are you cats goin’ in such a hurry?” came the voice of the green figure, cutting Terramar off. “Party’s back over here!”
The two of them look back and drop their jaws in a mix of shock and renewed fear as they see the creature, in spite of his heavy armour, easily keeping pace with the two of them in a dead run on land, looking up at them with a big smile. The pair of them scream at the sight and fly even faster to try and escape him, and they could see the great doors of the palace entrance up ahead, teeming with guards and giving them hope of escaping this nightmare.
They peek back long enough to see the guards descend on the frightening creature before they shoot right through the opening in the doors. They barely have time to register the sounds of fighting outside, along with the guards’ orders to close the doors, before the two fly straight into General Seaspray. Silverstream immediately clings to him, breaking down into tears.
The doors slam shut with a resounding KA-CLUNK, leaving Silverstream’s panting and crying as the loudest sound in the hall.
“Oh, thank goodness you made it,” the general sighed.
“Wh-where’s mom and dad?” Terramar shakily demanded.
“They’re safe, they’re with the queen and the princess. Now, what happened out there?” Seaspray demanded. “Did you run into a monster?”
Too distraught to properly reply, Silverstream could only babble things through her tears, leaving a shaken-up Terramar to fill in the blanks.
“Th-there was this green guy in armour at our house,” he began. “H-he was working f-for them. H-he said he was looking for the pearl!”
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP
Everygriff snapped their attention to the huge metal palace doors, dust and sand shaking off of them under the force that was used to knock on them.
“Little pigs, little pigs,” sang the creature from behind the door, “Let me come in!”
Silverstream screamed. “That’s him! That’s him!”
“Gods,” Seaspray mutters. “There were thirty guards out there...!” Shaking his head, he directs his stern attention to the hippogriffs under his command. ”Get that door barricaded, now!”
His guards waste no time in complying, sliding the door’s massive bar into place and gathering whatever they can to brace against the door.
“Not by the hair on your chinny-chin-chin?” the voice continued, dripping with malicious glee. “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!”
CLANG
Silverstream shrieked at the noise, and everygriff else looked on in a mixture of shock and horror as the centre of the door dented outwards, the entire door rattling in it’s hinges with the impact. The meagre reinforcements the guards had added to the door shook loose like twigs, and they didn’t even have time to put all of them back into place before the door was struck again.
CLANG
The second impact created a huge, tent-like dent, and cracks began forming in the stone where both the door’s hinges and the bar’s anchors were mounted. Silverstream couldn’t help but cry out again at the strike, clinging to the general even tighter.
“Terramar,” Seaspray demanded of the younger hippogriff, “You said that he was after our pearl?”
“Y-yeah, h-he was asking Silver about it!” the terrified hippogriff stammered back.
SMASH
The fist of the creature burst right through the seam of the door in a shower of metal, drawing another terrified scream from Silverstream. The guards struck at the limb, but their weapons did nothing against whatever metal his armour was made out of. The hand retracted until the elbow was in the seam, twisting it about to widen the hole it had made to make room for his second hand to enter.
“Terramar, take Silverstream and head to the pearl chamber, now!” Seaspray ordered. “Tell the queen what you told me!”
The younger hippogriff nodded with a determined glint to his eye, but his efforts were held up by Silverstream continuing to cling to the general’s foreleg.
“Silver, come on!” Terramar urgently asked. “We gotta go, now!”
groooooan
The door’s seams were forced open by both of the creature’s hands, the metal crying out with fatigue and cracking in places as he widened the hole with strength that shouldn’t be possible for a creature that size to possess. Silverstream’s pupils shrank to pinpricks and Terramar’s jaw hung open as they looked at the sight, and their terror only grew stronger when the creature pushed his face through the hole to look at everygriff, wearing an expression that was equal parts gleeful and insane.
“Heeere’s Nonny!”
Silverstream switched to clinging to her brother in that moment, screaming the loudest she ever had at that point.
The creature’s face grew visibly strained as he began to push hard against the doors. The cracks in the stone anchoring the hinges and the bar’s braces spiderwebbed out of control and began grinding to gravel as he pushed the normally outward-opening door inwards, and even the guards were beginning to panic at the display of unnatural strength.
“Go!” Seaspray bellowed.
Terramar did not need to be told twice, taking off with his inconsolable sister in tow.
CRACK
creeeeeeeak
THUNK-THUNK
The hinges finally pulled out of the wall and the doors fell to the ground, and the two siblings saw the terrifying creature stepping across the door and cackling almost deliriously, an entire army of more of those larger monsters at his back. That was the last they saw of him before they rounded a corner, heading towards the pearl chamber as fast as their wings could possibly carry them.
With the exception of Sandbar, who understood all too well what she went through, the rest of their friends gaped at Silverstream’s story, utterly gobsmacked at what they just heard.
“We got away just in time,” she sniffled. “He was literally on our tails when the queen used the pearl’s magic to transform us, and we escaped into the water. I didn’t sleep for days after it all happened. I-I still have nightmares about him.”
“So do I,” Sandbar confesses.
“Holy crap,” Smolder finally exclaims, if somewhat quietly at first.
“Yeah, you can say that again,” Gallus adds.
“And this happened to pony city too?” Yona loudly asked of Sandbar.
He nodded sadly, and began to tell them more about the attack on Canterlot. How Anonymous and his companion Tempest had soundly defeated most of the princesses in a matter of minutes, how the guards had been beaten almost effortlessly, and how Sandbar and his parents were separated when the beasts had caged them. He even saw those two return with Princess Twilight in a cage. And when he was loaded on board an airship in a big rush, he could see him flying around with a giant laser sword in his grasp and fighting with the Element Bearers in the distance, seeing him destroy entire swathes of Canterlot before he was forced away from the sight by a beast.
Silverstream wrapped the colt in a big hug halfway through the tale, and even Yona gave the two a huge hug by the end of it all.
“I... I don’t even...” Smolder spent a moment spluttering before finally finding her voice. “What the heck kinda monster is that guy?! Even the angriest dragons I know don’t just destroy whole cities like that!”
“Please tell me this guy was beaten,” Gallus begged out loud. “Please, please, please.”
“He was,” Sandbar confirmed, much to everyone’s relief.
“Oh, whew,” Gallus exhaled, wiping his brow.
“Still, that’s awful,” Ocellus murmured. “I was there when Chrysalis attacked Canterlot, but even she didn’t do all the awful things that he did!”
“Well, the important thing is that he’s gone,” said Smolder, patting Sandbar and Silverstream on the withers with a little smirk. “And he can’t go around destroying things like that again.”
“Still, I can’t help but wonder,” Ocellus continues. “What was he after? I mean, the whole reason Chrysalis attacked was because she was after the love that Cadance and Shining Armour had. Silverstream, didn’t you say he was looking for that pearl?”
“H-he was,” she admits. “But I don’t know why.”
“Wait, I know why!” Sandbar exclaims after a moment of thought. “Right before he attacked, he said he was there to steal the princesses’ magic!”
“He wanted magic?” Gallus asked with mild disbelief. “What for?”
“Who cares?” Yona declared. “No way it could be for any good!”
“Yeah, here here,” Smolder concurs. “He’s gone now. Whatever he was after, it doesn’t matter anymore.” She cracks her knuckles a bit with a toothy smile. “And if he ever does show his face again, I’ll be sure to let the Dragonlord know exactly whose tail needs a serious kicking!”
“Heh, I bet even he’d think twice about fighting dragons,” Gallus chuckles.
“Yeah, darn right he would!” she laughs.
The whole group soon joins her in laughing, starting a bit uneasy but soon growing more hearty and genuine. The two victims of the Storm King’s attack could feel their worries letting up, even if it was only by a little bit.
“Now, no more talking about sad stuff!” Yona declares. “Sandbar, you still have more marshmallows?”
The group of new friends, all too happy to put the matter of Anonymous and the Storm King’s attacks out of their mind, spent the rest of the night digging into Sandbar’s plentiful supply of marshmallows, roasting them over the fire with sticks and chatting with each other about much more light-hearted matters. By the time they were all ready to hit the hay for the night, their sleep was peaceful and uninterrupted, and the brief nightmares of Anonymous that Sandbar and Silverstream had were swiftly headed off by Princess Luna’s ever-present vigil over the dreamscape.