Spawn of Disharmony
By: KenSES64
Chapter 29: Sleepless in Ponyville
I was looking throughout several newspapers, looking for stories that seemed to be affiliated with last week. Let me explain, after Trixie vanished into thin air and that red mist thing spoke to me, I ran back to Ponyville to tell the others what happened, and they didn’t know what to make of it, not even Princess Celestia. So I decided to do my own research on this and basically now I’m going slightly mad.
As I was cutting out yet another article Rainbow came into our bedroom after a day of flying and whatnot. She got a look of concern in her eyes when she saw me. “Seth are you okay?” she asked, “You don’t look too good.”
“Don’t worry, I’m *yawn* fine. Just working.” I respond.
“Seth I know you better than anypony else, I can tell when something’s wrong.”
I let out a deep breath and said, “I’m just worried about what might happen. I mean after what happened last week. Not just that, but you know about Ditzy Doo going missing about two weeks ago?”
“Yeah, I heard that her daughter is still crying over it.”
“Well it... wait, Ditzy’s a mother? Nevermind, anyways after doing some research I found something troubling. In the past four months a total of 78 Equestrian citizens have been reported missing, including Ditzy and Trixie. I tried to case my tracker spell to see if I could find any of them...”
“And?”
“I got nothing. No signal, no directions, no quick flash of where they were. As though they never existed. I just have this feeling that something big is going to happen. I mean 80 beings don’t just drop off the face of the planet like that.”
“Beings?”
“Yeah, it’s not just ponies. There are some griffins, three zebras and a donkey in the reports. Another thing that worries me is the when the earliest of these reports came out, yet it may be just a coincidence.”
“When?”
“The day after we returned from that alternate universe.”
Rainbow put her wing around me and gave a reassuring nuzzle, “Seth, I see why you’re all stressed out and I agree that this isn’t normal at all, but as long as we have each other’s backs nothing going to happen to us.” Her grip tightened around me, “I promise that I won’t let anything keep us apart. I...I can’t lose you, I almost did six times already and that’s six times too many.”
“Rainbow?” I say as I see tears form in the corner of her eyes.
“When you fought Drez and he just destroyed you, I just couldn’t watch and before you opened your eyes after we defeated him, I honestly thought you were dead. Then I was worried about your safety when you were captured by those gargoyles and changelings, the two times when you fought Inferno and even last week when Trixie turned you to stone.”
“Wait, that’s only five.”
“Yeah the last one, well technically it’s was the first to happen, but it was when you ran off after a slapped you about a year ago. I-I hate that one the most because I was the one at fault.”
“Rainbow, I told you that I wasn’t mad at you then and I’m not mad at you now. I love you more than anything else in the whole world.”
“I know, I love you too.” She said before wrapping both of her arms around me and started crying into my chest. Now I absolutely hate seeing Rainbow cry, despite that fact that she normally only lets out these feelings when it’s just the two of us. I just returned her embrace and gently ran my hoof down her long, muti-colored mane.
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A few days later Rainbow and I were asked by Applejack to join her, Rarity, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders on a camping trip. We agreed thinking It’ll be a good way of helping me relax and take my mind off of the disappearances. Yet, it doesn’t help that this morning I found out that the entire town of Dodge Junction’s population has gone missing too. Yeah an entire town of ponies gone over night. I know I shouldn’t be thinking about this right now, but the missing count jumped from 78 to 263!
Now, now Seth. You need to put it aside for now. You’re on a camping trip with your beautiful fiancé, two of your best friends and three cute little fillies, so just relax and enjoy yourself. Wait, am I giving myself a prep talk in my head? Am I really that stressed?
‘Or MaYbE yOu’Re JuSt LoSiNg YoUr MiNd.’
I look around the campsite, where Rainbow and I were waiting for the others.
“Um... Rainbow, dear? Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” She asked.
“Nevermind.”
“Okay. Now when they get here I’m going to set up a fire pit with nothing, but my awesomeness.”
And she did. She kicked some logs out of the trunks of some still standing trees, I’m not even going to try to question that, and she flew into a nearby river and grabbed some rocks for the pit. With that she was done while wearing a cocky grin.
I was just amazed and muttered, “I love that mare.”
Apparently Applejack heard this and whispered, “Just don’t love her too much with my little sister and her friends around, if you get what I’m saying.” She then gave a wink.
I felt my face warm up, “You’d think that Rainbow and I would do something like that right in front of three little fillies? Seriously AJ, what do you take us for?”
“I’m not saying y’all would, it’s just that in that other universe I heard you two up on that cloud you where using. Y’all two ain’t that quiet.” Applejack then walked off to begin unpacking.
I walked up to Rainbow while she was sitting on a log next to Scootaloo, “Looks like you’ll be sharing a tent with me and Seth huh?”
“Yeah, if that’s okay with you.” Scoots responded.
“Sure as long as you don’t snore. You do snore do you?”
I chuckle and say, “Oh the irony.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow, “What do you mean by that?”
“Well, to tell the truth Rainbow, you yourself tend to snore, quite a bit, but don’t worry I think it’s kinda cute. Well, nowhere near as cute as when you sometime talk in your sleep.”
Rainbow blushed as the other giggled a bit. She then gave me an angry look and said, “That’s it, you’re going to sleep outside tonight.”
I chuckle and say, “Okay I know you’re joking. You wouldn’t do that to me, right sweetheart?... Right?”
She did.
I have to say it wasn’t that bad actually. It was kinda nostalgic for me of the first few weeks of my life, before Twilight took me in. Yeah, Rarity offered for me to stay in her oversized two storey tent, but I declined. I soon fell asleep.
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I saw the silhouettes of two ponies. One a pegasus, the other a unicorn. It looked like they were kissing. Then a bolt of lighting stuck and the sky turned red. They both jumped back surprised. Then two dark blue eyes appeared and a voice echoed throughout, “ShE cAn’T pRoTeCt YoU sEtH.”
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I then woke up and it was morning. After packing up we traveled on to our next campsite. I saw Sweetie Belle pulling a cart full of crap for Rarity. I really wanted to offer to take over for the poor little filly, but the harness clearly wouldn’t have fit me and, I’d get tired pretty quickly if I used magic to carry all of it. So I gave Sweetie Belle the rest of my water, so she can hydrated and also made a mental note to give Rarity my two bits about this sometime later. I can’t really call her out on it right if front of everypony.
Anyways, Scootaloo went on ahead on her scooter, but we found her in a bush not that long after. Weird. What was weirder is that she was extremely jumpy.
That night we took shelter in a cave after Rainbow told another campfire story like last night and Sweetie Belle sang “99 Buckets of Oats” and I gotta say her singing was nowhere near as good as it normally is. We feel asleep during it. Not to be rude, but it was just super late, but we awoke when she finished by shouting the word “Wall”. She herself then instantly fell asleep.
As did I when I got in my sleeping bag, and since Rainbow wasn’t really mad at me anymore I got to have my sleeping bag next to hers. So, I was nice and cozy with my favorite pegasus. Yay.
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I had the exact same dream that night except when the lightning struck the pegasus was gone and the voice now said, “I’m WaTcHiNg YoU sEtH.”
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“Seth, Seth, Seth.” Rainbow said while shaking me.
“Wu-What? Rainbow?” I mumble.
“Scootaloo’s gone!” She exclaims.
I’m sure my eyes widened as I instantly cased the tracker spell to make sure nothing happened to her. Thankfully I sensed that she hadn’t disappeared, but she was still in danger of falling into a river.
We rushed out of the cave to fine said river and rainbow caught her as she went off a waterfall. She place her down here where I was and began to scold her, “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?!”
Scootaloo ran up to her and said, “I’m so, so sorry Rainbow Dash. I just wanted you to hang out with me and see how cool I was so you’d take me under your wing and teach me everything you know and become like my big sister, but then you started telling those spooky stories and I got scared. I thought I heard that headless horse, so I ran out here by myself. Well, I guess you know the rest.”
Rainbow smiled and said, “Hey, I’m going to tell you something, but if you tell anypony else, I’m going to deny it. First time it heard those stories, I was scared too.”
“You where?”
“Sure, I mean I got over it because I realized pretty quick that if there was such a thing as a headless horse, I could totally take it on.” She paused for a second. “So you’re looking for somepony to take you under their wing huh?”
“Uh-hu.”
Rainbow wrapped one of her wings around Scoots, “Yeah, I might be up for something like that.”
“Really?”
“As long as you don’t go falling into any more rivers in the middle of the night.”
“It’s a deal.”
They then hugged and I had an incredibly hard time holding back a “D’aww”.
Rainbow looked at me and said, “You know you can join it too, if that’s okay with Scootaloo.”
“I’m fine with it.”
So I wrapped my arms around them both and smiled. I felt really nice, almost like a little family.
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At the falls with rainbow colored water (I don’t remember what it was called) I sat there just marveling at the sights as the mares and fillies finished a race. Rainbow flew back and sat next to me and asked, “So are you feeling less stressed out.”
“Yeah, I mean I’m still concerned, but whatever happens I’ll hopefully be ready.” I then looked at Scootaloo talking with the other Crusaders. “So you’ll really be taking her under your wing huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’d say she couldn’t have picked a better teacher.” I then gave her a peck on the cheek and she then gave me a tackle/hug/kiss.