//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Twilight to the Rescue (Raw Version) // Story: Out of Sight... // by Star-Killer89 //------------------------------// Written by Star-Killer89, Editing: Working on it ^^; HOOFINGTON - TRAIN STATION 40 MINUTES EARLY - 00:39 A.M. After leaving Trixie’s cart, Twilight spent almost an hour looking for a hotel where she could spend the night, but since most of the cheapest ones were full due to the Fair the town was holding those days, while the others were just too expensive for her, she simply decided to take the last train for Ponyville, that was due to leave the station in about 10 minutes. ‘I did my best to help Trixie, but it seems it wasn’t enough.’ she thought, while standing on the platform, waiting for her train to arrive at the station ‘Maybe she’s right. How could I possibly understand what she’s going through? My parents loved each other and our family never had to suffer money issues. They even enrolled me to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, the best magic school in all of Canterlot, if not of all Equestria. How could I ever say I know what means to sustain a life of sacrifices, always wandering with no fixed abode? Maybe if I just-‘ Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by an increasing barking; concentrating on the direction the sound was coming from, she was soon able to identify the shape of a little dog, moving forward her “Blacky?” The black dog reached Twilight, and kept barking in her direction “Blacky, what are you doing here? How did you find me?” She then noticed something was stuck beneath the dog’s collar ‘That’s the handkerchief I gave to Trixie. He must have followed my scent thanks to that…but why?’ Blacky was still trying to gain Twilight’s attention, increasing the pitch of his barking ‘Why Fluttershy is never around when you need her? I do not possess the same ability she has to communicate with the animals.’ she desperately thought “What are you trying to tell me? Does something happened to Trixie?” To Twilight surprise, it seemed the dog understood what she just said, spin around and headed back from where he came, barking to Twilight, asking her to follow him ‘Shoot, I really hope Trixie is ok’. Once arrived at the cart, Twilight immediately realized something was wrong. The door was fully open, and not a single sound was coming from the inside “Trixie? Are you ok?” she asked, while walking through the doorstep. The room showed the signs of a frisk: the table was overturned, with the cups they used to drink tea shattered on the floor, the bed had been torn into pieces, the oval mirror shattered, the nightstand and wardrobe’s contents scattered all over the floor and on the wooden planks there were a couple of blood stains. ‘Ohnononononono!’ She frantically started to look around the room, hoping to find any clue that could have allowed her to track Trixie down “What should I do now? Calling for help? Nonsense, it’s the middle of the night, and there aren’t any houses in the neighbourhood, so it’s impossible somepony saw what happened. Going to the town and asking the help of the police? No, that will take too much time, and I will never be able to even tell them what happened. Uuuurgh, I’m running out of ideas.” Again, Twilight’s thoughts were interrupted by Blacky’s yapping, and she noticed that the dog had laid something at her hooves, a purple conical piece of clothing, decorated with powder blue and yellow stars. “That’s Trixie’s hat…” Twilight murmured, and levitated it, carefully turning it around and inside out, until something just fluttered on the ground. ‘A horsehair?’ Twilight then suddenly gasped “That’s it! I can use a tracking spell to locate her!” She focused her magic on the thin string she was holding and casted the spell; towards her, a light arrow just appeared, which slow pulsing indicated that Trixie was being held some miles away from her actual position. “Don’t worry Blacky, I’ll find Trixie and bring her back to you.” Twilight reassured the dog, while trotting towards the direction the arrow was pointing. After 20 minutes of running, crossing a hard court, a plain and even a forest, Twilight finally arrived near her destination. The magical arrow was now frantically pulsating, and finally the unicorn came to face with the warehouse where Trixie was held captive ‘She must be inside that building.’ Twilight dispelled the charm and started to carefully check through the surroundings. Fortunately, it seamed that the forest almost completely surrounded the place, so she didn’t have to march out form her hideout. At a certain point she saw Loneshark standing outside of the building, guarding a door, but she decided to keep on turning around the place, in case there were even more abductors outside. Once she certified there were no other ponies, she returned where the ponynapper was, and started to figure out a way to knock him down; she then remembered that on the other side of the warehouse, inside the forest, she noticed a huge rock that she could use as a weapon. ‘Perfect!’ she thought, and then started to use a levitation spell on the rock. Luckily, the door that Loneshark was guarding was located near the corner of the building, and the abductor was unwise enough to just stand near the edge of it. Twilight moved the rock from the other side of the building, raised it at a proper height, made it turn the corner, and released it when it was on the vertical of the pony. The hit was hard enough to knock him down. “Alright, one down. Now I just have to save Trixie.” --- Twilight carefully approached the door, opened it lightly and took a peek. The inside was too dark to see what was standing on the other side, so she silently squeezed in. The light of the moon piercing through the windows allowed her to wander between various corridors, formed by huge shelves, most of them filled with wooden boxes; it appeared the building was some sort of storehouse for some wholesaler, maybe of furniture, judging from the size of some of the boxes. Twilight continued to wander through the maze, until she heard a feeble voice in the distance, and slowly and carefully started to approach it. When she was close enough to see Trixie, she almost screamed for the shock. Trixie was standing near a metal pillar, her forelegs tied behind it and her hindlegs tied in front, and she was not having a really great time. Uma had just finished using a big knife to make a series of little wounds all over her body, each one deeper than the precedent, with the 2 deepest on her ears, that now presented each one a deep hole near the top. Blood was straining all over her body and a little pool had formed beneath her “Please, have mercy! Trixie doesn’t know anything!” she screamed in pain. “It’s a shame, my lady. I hoped you would have willed to tell me what we wanted. I’m afraid we’re running out of time to use colt gloves.” he said, laying with his magic the knife on a small table near himself and looking inside the briefcase “I hope you believe me when I say that I will not enjoy what I’m going to do right now.” he then added, drawing a pair of old rusty railroad spikes and a hammer from the briefcase, and started to approach Trixie’s forelegs. “Please, stop! Trixie is telling you the truth! Pleeeeease!” “Just try to not pass out, ok? Here goes one.” he said, leaning the first spike near Trixie’s right foreleg and lifting the hammer, ready to strike. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Trixie cried with all her forces, while trying to wriggle out from the knots that were keeping her bound to the pillar. --- *CLANG-SDLENG* Uma just stopped the hammer a few inches from the spike, distracted by the noise of something metallic hitting the ground in the distance, and waited a couple of seconds, scanning the surrounding area. He was sure the noise was not made by his partner, since it would have been followed by some foul and unnecessary curses. No, he knew for sure that it was something else that was wandering around that place. Maybe it was just one of those dozens rats that decided to made the warehouse the home for their offspring, but it could have been somepony else. “Excuse me for a moment, miss.” he said, laying the hammer on the ground and leaving towards the way of the noise. After a couple of seconds, Trixie opened her eyes wide and started to breath again, glad that something had lead the torturer away from her, and she regained to wriggle out of the ropes that were keeping her captive. It was at that point that she felt that something was already messing around with the knots, and she tried to turn her head back. “TWILI-“ she started to scream, surprised by the presence of the other mare, before one violet hoof was pushed in front of her mouth. “Shhhh, keep your voice down Trixie. We have less than a minute to set you free and escape from here before that pony will be back.” Twilight tried to use her magic to untwist the ropes, but without success. “Knots. Why did they have to use knots. Can’t you help me?” “No, I can’t use my magic with this attached to my horn.” Trixie replied, lifting her eyes pointing at the device that was surrounding her horn “The other ponynapper said it’s some kind of magic suppressor.” ‘Shoot! Think Twilight, think!’ she frantically thought, while looking around in search of something that could cut the ropes. “Twilight, the knife. That’s the knife he was using to torture me on that table. Use that!” “Of course! Why didn’t I think about that early?” she said patting her head, and used her magic to levitate the knife and put it right under the ropes that were blocking Trixie’s hindlegs, trying to divert her attention from the blood that was stained on the blade “Hold still!” Once the cyan pony’s forelegs were free, Trixie sighed in relief and adopted once again the normal posture on all her four hooves “Blast, I was starting to loose the feeling of my hindlegs. Hurry up, Twilight, we’re running out of time.” “I’m working as fast as I can.” she replied, her head lowered almost to the ground just to have a better look of the last knots “This blade isn’t really that sharp, you know?” She immediately regret to have spoken such words, since she knew that the weapon was used to hurt her just a few minutes before “I’m sorry. Just give me one more second, ok?” she added, and finally managed to set Trixie free. “Done!” she exclaimed while lifting up again. --- Suddenly, a blurred trail passed a few inches before Twilight’s eyes and something metallic hit the ground, standing still on it, in the exact spot where the head of Twilight was just a moment ago. It was one of the railroad spikes, and it managed to pierce the floor for half of his length. “You are really one lucky mare. I hardly ever miss my target.” said Uma, approaching the two mares. “How did you manage to be here so fast?” Twilight asked, standing between Trixie and the stallion and levitating the knife towards him in a threatening way. “Please, just because it appears you managed to knock out my partner so easily doesn’t mean I didn’t prepare some magic alerts in case somepony showed up uninvited. As soon as you entered the area covered by that lamp, I knew there was an intruder.” “So, if you know I was here, why didn’t you stop me before?” she replied, while starting to withdraw from Uma and approaching Trixie, who, in the meantime, was standing motionless, frozen by fear. “Well, I would have found it kind of… inconvenient, to interrupt such an amazing attempt of rescue. I was sure no one was following us when we reached this destination. You must be some really talented unicorn, not only for being able to track us down, but even because you was almost successful with your plan.” Uma started to reduce the distance from the two mares, and to form a psionic blade in front of his right foreleg “My name is Uma Chimamire, first assassin of the order of the Red Hoof. May I ask for the name of my opponent?” Twilight kept moving herself and Trixie back, until she stopped right in front of the surrounding shelves. She gulped, and with the most intimidating tone she manages to use, said “M-my name is Twilight Sparkle, pupil student of our beloved ruler, Princess Celestia, and bearer of one of the Elements of Harmony, the Element of Magic”. “Well then, Twilight Sparkle, shall we begin our duel?” Uma said, as he immediately started to leap towards Twilight. Unfortunately for him, the lavender unicorn had other plans, as she had noticed that the supports of the shelves close to them were old and rusty enough to make them easily collapse, and that they were full of huge wooden boxes. “Run!” she screamed towards Trixie, and used her hindlegs to hit the base of the shelf to her left in the corner that faced Uma. As she expected, the supports just broke down, and the wooden boxes stored in it felt down, piling up in front of her and blocking the path between Uma and them. Twilight and Trixie took advantage of the situation and started to run through the maze of corridors of shelves, trying to reach the exit. “So that’s how you decided to confront me? By running away? Well that’s useless!” they could hear Uma yelling towards them “You can’t escape me. Just stop to bring shame on yourself and fight with honor!” The two mares stopped halfway from the door Twilight used to enter the warehouse, while Uma decided to take another path and started to chase after them. “This is bad. Really bad. I don’t know if I’ll be able to fight him back.” whispered Twilight between a pant and another “Trixie, you need to run for the exit.” “But..” “You can’t use your magic while that thing is still attached to your horn, and I guess you’re not really good at barehooves combats, am I right?” replied Twilight, and the beaten look Trixie gave in reply confirmed her concern “Now, I’ll stay behind and distract him. Reach the exit and head west, through the forest. I didn’t have to take any detour while coming here, so if you maintain the direction, you should be back to your cart. Once in Hoofington, head straight to the police station and ask for their protection, got it?” Trixie reluctantly nodded and asked “What about you?” “Don’t you worry. At Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns they also had classes of Theory of the Duel and Magical Self-Defense.” Twilight replied, even though she decided to pass over the fact that the practical part of the course was the one that she almost failed “I just need to keep him busy for a while. I’ll reach you in Hoofington as soon as possible. Now go!” Trixie headed for the exit, while Twilight, hearing Uma approaching towards them, left her hideout; her horn started to glow with more intensity and she threw the knife she used to release Trixie towards her chaser, letting it stuck into a box upon Uma’s head, drawing the attention of the stallion towards her and away from the direction Trixie took. “You were looking for me?” she asked to the assassin, her knees bent in a defensive position “Then come and get me.” “Finally, you decided to stop your futile running and to confront me.” he replied, and he started to cast a magic in turn “Brave, but foolish!” From the tip of his horn, a half-dozen sharp magical bolts were thrown towards Twilight. The lavender unicorn managed to cast a protective shield around her, but it was not powerful enough to repel the projectiles, which were only diverted and managed to get through the shield; two of the bolts wounded her on the left flank and on the right cheek, while the others passed a few inches away from her. When the pain started to fade away and Twilight reopened her eyes, she noticed Uma was dashing towards her, with the psionic blade ready to hit. She teleported behind him just a moment before the swing of the blade could reach her, and performed an energy sphere that hit Uma in the back, sending him ten hooves away on the ground. Performing these three spells in quick succession strove Twilight, who started to heavily pant and sweat ‘Please, stay down.’ she thought, but unfortunately Uma was already starting to lift up again. He was already on his hooves, showing the back to his opponent, and it seemed like Twilight’s hit had no effect on him, except for a slight burning in his coat. Suddenly, he started to laugh, weakly at first, but then louder and scarier “This is amazing! It’s the first time in ages somepony manages to hit me. I’m so excited. I may have finally found a match!” He turned around, a maniac look on his face, untied his ponytail and stood on his hindlegs “Let me show you all my gratitude!” he said and, with a big smile on his face, created 2 psionic blades, one around each foreleg. --- It seemed that was not Trixie’s lucky night. She managed to reach the door Twilight indicated her, but found it closed, as it seemed like Uma had shut it before turning to confront them. With her magic suppressed, she had no choice but trying to pick the lock, so she managed to find a string of metal, sharp and thin enough to enter the keyhole, and was now trying to use it with her mouth. ‘Oh father, why did I never paid attention when you were teaching me this trick?’ she cursed herself. Five minutes had already passed since she started to pick the lock, and she was starting to loose all hopes, when she heard the devices finally turned and heard the noise that the door was unlocked. “Finally, now I ca-“ started to say Trixie, but stopped when the door opened itself. On the other side was standing Storm, rage in his eyes, a strain of blood dripping from his head where Twilight knocked him with the rock and that was staining his suit, a butterfly knife tied to his left hoof with a string. “End of the line, you bucking horse!” he said with a tone full of hatred and rage. --- ‘How can he be so fast while standing on just two hooves?’ Twilight was having a hard time as well. How much time had passed since Uma decided to mean business? One minute? Five minutes? Ten? Twilight was not so sure anymore. Uma’s speed had dramatically increased since then, and Twilight was sure that he was just playing with her now. His movements were so fast Twilight was just able to spot a faint wake of his opponent, so she was firing spheres after spheres of energy at him, missing Uma all the times. As time was passing by, she was starting to pant and sweat heavily more and more, as her magic supply was starting to run out. Twilight shot another sphere towards his opponent, but again he just vanished before it could hit him ‘Where did he go now?’ she thought, when suddenly the stallion hit her hard on the right shoulder with his hindleg, throwing her on the ground several hooves away. She didn’t have the time to recover, as Uma reappeared just in front of her, and kicked her in the stomach. “Gaaaaah!” she coughed, while her breath was taken away and she spat some drops of blood. “Get up!” Uma shouted and kicked her again harder in the stomach “Come on, get up! Is that all your power? Is that all the ‘Element of Magic’ is capable of? Is that all the fighting will you posses?”. Suddenly, a scream was heard in the distance “T-Trixie…” Twilight managed to say between the coughs. “Seems like Loneshark is on his hooves again.” said Uma, taking a deep breath and regaining his composure “I guess this is the end, miss Sparkle.” he then lifted both his forelegs up his head, ready to give her opponent the final blow. Twilight was on the verge of fading, but she had to react. With all her willpower, she managed to focus long enough to perform another spell and from the tip of her horn erupted a glaring light that managed to temporarily blind Uma. While the stallion diverted one step from her, covering his eyes, Twilight took the advantage and casted one last sphere of energy towards him. Being merely 2 hooves away from her, the shot managed to hit its target, and hurled Uma several yards away, making him land against one of the shelves and burying him under the crates stocked on it. Twilight was now standing, breathing deeply and exhausted from the fight, and was looking in the direction the stallion was thrown, waiting for any reaction on his part, but it seemed like the crates had knocked him out. She took a minute to finally throw up, due to the kicks she received in her stomach and to the strain she built up during the fight. When she was again on her hooves, another scream from Trixie reminded her they were not safe yet. ‘Hold on, Trixie. I’m coming!’ she thought, and started to head towards the exit, staggering. --- Trixie collapsed on the ground and was trying to withdraw from Storm. “Stay away from Trixie!” she shouted, kicking in the direction of Storm as he was approaching her. He grabbed her head with the right hoof and slammed it on the floor, making Trixie scream in pain “It’s an easy task he said. You just have to let her say where the money are he said”. He sat on her belly, blocking her on the ground “WELL…THIS…IS…NOT…WHAT…I…CALL…AN…’EASY…TASK!’ ” he shouted, smacking her face after every word. Storm panted heavily and noticed that Trixie had stopped screaming and was now standing motionless, with her eyes closed. Afraid that he could have accidentally killed her, he put the tip of his butterfly knife into her flank. The pain woke Trixie up, making her scream again, and she tried to unsaddle Storm, but the stallion just moved his weight on his flanks and blocked Trixie more strongly. “Last chance, sweetie.” he said, putting the knife near Trixie’s throat “Where… are… THE… MONEY?” . With a last bit of courage, Trixie spitted a mix of blood and saliva into Storm’s face “Buck you!”. Loneshark lost his control, screamed angrily towards the mare and lifted the knife, ready to strike, when suddenly, one of the boxes crushed at high speed into his face, throwing him off Trixie and sending him fly towards the exit. Trixie turned her head and saw an exhausted Twilight approaching her “What took you so long?” she ironically asked. Twilight gave a faint laugh in reply “That stallion was damn tough.” she replied, and helped Trixie to stand up “I don’t think we will have enough time nor strength to run back to Hoofington. There’s only one solution. Stand still!” --- HOOFINGTON - ½ MILE AWAY FROM TRIXIE’S CART 2:00 A.M. Twilight managed to perform a teleportation spell that brought both the mares away from the warehouse. “Sorry, this is as far as I could teleport us.” The effort she made in performing this last spell left her without magical power, and she was on the verge of fainting, but Trixie supported her. “Are you alright?” asked the show-mare with concern. “Yes, I’m fine. I just need two or three hours of sleep... maybe a week, and I’ll be back as new.” she said with a weak smile on her face before paying attention to Trixie “What about you? Your wounds are still bleeding.” “Oh please, do you really think that these little scratches may hurt The Great and Powerful Trixie?” she replied with pride, but immediately lost her self-confidence and started to shake “You know, I….for a moment, I really thought I was going to die.” she added, and then collapsed on her hindlegs and started to cry. Twilight approached her and put Trixie’s head on her shoulder “Shhhh, it’s over now. We just need to reach the police station and they will never going to hurt you again.” The two mares stood there for a couple of minutes, until Trixie had shed all the tears she was holding, and then Twilight helped her to stand on her hooves again “Alright, let’s go.” the lavender unicorn said, and started to head towards the town. --- A noise of something cracking echoed throughout the surroundings. “Hmmm?....LOOK OUT!” She had no time to react, as a bright trail passed in front of her eyes, and, in just a couple of seconds, the only thing she could see was the body of the other mare collapsing on the ground. A blood-red pool forming beneath her hooves. TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 5