//------------------------------// // Escalation // Story: The Adventures of the Elementals // by AutoKnight01 //------------------------------// I only own the OC's as seen in this story and the plot of it. Everything else belongs to Hasbro. Enjoy! The Adventures of the Elementals Chapter 27: Escalation *Blizzard day one; Ponyville; 3:30 PM* Hours had gone by since Cryo left to begin his hike up the mountain. In that time, the snowfall had gotten worse and much heavier than it had been. The work Pyro and Cryo did in the morning to clear the streets was pretty much for nothing now as more snow piled on much more than before. Ponies that hadn't left their houses were officially trapped inside while others couldn't even reach their homes anymore. The lucky few that could get out found themselves harboring a few of the unlucky stranded ones. The ones stuck outside had to work fast to get somewhere indoors or away from the cold or else they would freeze. At the current moment, the snow was coming down hard and very few ponies were still in the streets. Three of them were Pyro, Gem, and Typhoon all using their respective elementals powers to try and keep the snow as best they could under control but they were soon finding that damn near impossible to do. It was coming down faster than they could move a single pile of it. With Pyro's burning, Typhoon's blowing, and Gem's plasma plowing, their work together seemed to be all for not. Inside Sugarcube Corner, The Cakes, Twilight, Cadence, Rose, Applejack, Terra, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie, and Fluttershy were doing their best to stay warm; all but one of them actually. The Cakes and Twilight had built a strong fire in the fireplace and everypony was gathered around it except for Pinkie Pie. She just stayed by the window shaking and looking out into the cold hoping to see her partner in the snow. He wasn't though. She knew exactly where she was and she wanted nothing more than to be right there with him. "Pinkie, dearie, come over here with us, please. You're shivering." Mrs. Cake sounded like she was begging. It didn't seem like Pinkie even heard her. So Terra walked over to her and decided to give it a whack. "It's okay, Pinkie. I know you're worried about Cryo. But he's gonna be fine. You know how strong he is. He's going to come back. I promise." She did her best to sound as reassuring as she possibly could. And that wasn't easy for her seeing as how it's not usually what she does. Her tough and brutally honest personality took a quick break and it was honestly tough for her to do that. "He's out there all alone though...." Pinkie just could get her mind off that fact. "What if something happens? What if he gets hurt, or worse?" "Something happen to Cryo? No way. See this?" The mare of earth gestured to the window and what was outside it. "This is his element. Natural or not, it's snow and ice. If anything, I think whatever is causing this storm should be scared out of its mind right now. Because when Cryo gets up there, he's gonna take it out. And when he comes back, you can have another one of your parties for him." That seemed to get Pinkie to smile a bit. "Yeah. A "Great job at kicking the storm in the butt" party." Pinkie giggled. It also seemed to get a few laughs out of the others too. In those laughs, Cadence had coughed a few times and was able to hide it before the laughter died back down to silence. "Come on now, Pinkie. Get yer caboose over here and get it warm." Applejack said with a tone more demanding than requesting. With a sigh showing her breath, Pinkie complied this time and walked over to the fireplace sitting between Rainbow Dash and Cadence. Her front hooves extended forward to the fire and she began to feel heat return to her body. "I know you feel useless right now, Pinkie. But the best thing we can do for Cryo right now is to stay here and get warm. He won't like it if he comes home and one of us isn't here." Cadence reasoned. She was right. Cryo was coming back and he expected everyone to be alright. The best thing Pinkie could do was make sure that happened. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty useless too right now." Terra spoke again. "Pyro, Gem and Ty are all out there trying to help and I can't do crap because this snow is too thick." That was an unfortunate limitation for Terra's powers. She can only move earth if either she is touching it with her own hooves, she can see it, or it is blocked by a thin layer of something. The layer of snow outside was way too thick for her to do anything. So she was stuck inside with the others and she hated every bit of it. "It's alright, Terra." Her partner rubbed her shoulder. "Yer still a powerhouse but ya just gotta take it easy this time around." After Terra grumbled, she looked back at the fire and noticed that it was starting to grow. Being around their new friends for long enough now, they knew what that meant. "Pyro is coming." Twilight said as she turned to view the front door. And sure enough, she was right. The front door opened up letting in some cold air and snow as Typhoon, Gem, and Pyro all got through it as quickly as they could. Typhoon and Gem were bundled up while Pyro only wore a scarf and jacket. The snow that was on him was melting just by touching him. "Sweet mother of Cybelle, it's freezing outside!" Gem shouted as she took off the snow goggles Pinkie Pie lent her. Pyro and Typhoon shook the snow off their own bodies as the others approached them. Rose was the one who was standing closest to Pyro. "So how went the clearing?" she asked. That got her sighs from all three of them. "We didn't even put a dent in it." Pyro said with regret. "Eet's coming down to hard. No matter what we do, eet just comes right back." Typhoon added. "Nothing works." Gem sadly admitted. "It looks like we're just gonna have to wait this out. We're all completely useless in this case." Just when the session of the self pity seemed like it was about to commence, a knock came from the door drawing everypony's attention. "Anyone wanna bet on how many icicles are hanging from the body of whoever is out there?" Terra suggested out of sheer boredom. "Not now, Terra." Pyro turned on his horn and opened the door revealing a grey stallion wearing a black necktie and a white snow coat. "Who the hell are you?" Terra asked a bit rudely. "I'm an assistant to the mayor and she has requested that you come to town hall immediately." "What? In this? Are you insane?" Rainbow Dash cried gesturing to the outside. "Can't unicorns shield themselves?" The stallion asked. "The mayor wants all of you. Now." With that, the stallion turned around and headed outside. With a groan, everypony began to stand up and put on their warm clothes and boots. Even Mr. and Mrs. Cake bundled themselves and the babies up not wanting to be away from the elementals at a time like this. When they were all set to go, Twilight cast a force field orb surrounding them all and Pyro kept a flame above their heads as a source of heat. It was quite a way to walk from Sugarcube Corner to town hall and they had to do it in piles of un-groomed snow. As they made the trek, Pinkie looked out and over to the mountains. All she could think about was Cryo. Was he okay? Was he hungry? Lonely? Scared? All the questions regarding his safety or wellbeing went running through her head and they wouldn't slow down. As they reached town hall, Twilight and Pyro put a cease to their work and the flame and force field vanished. The door to the building was only barely able to open so they had to go in one at a time and a lot of snow piled in with them leaving a stack of it almost as big as a pony. Once they were all inside, all of them shook themselves off and The Cakes checked to see if the babies were unharmed. They were perfectly fine; a bit cold, but fine altogether. "The mayor is upstairs on the second floor." The aide said. As he proceeded up the staircase, the others followed. Soon, they found themselves in front of the door leading into the mayor's office. Mr. and Mrs. Cake decided to stay outside so they could comfort their children. The others proceeded to enter the office and Mayor Mare looked up from her desk to look at them. "Twilight Sparkle. Princess Cadence." She acknowledged. "Alamantians." The four present element movers nodded in response. The mayor looked at all of them with what appeared to be a deadpan expression. "I need a full rundown of the situation now." She demanded. The lavender unicorn stepped forward to give her just that. "This blizzard isn't a weather team mishap, mayor." Twilight started off. "We have reason to believe there is something at the top of Mount Blackmane causing this." All the mayor did was nod before speaking again. "I see. Now where is your ice mover friend....Cryo?" "He's hiking up the mountain as we speak trying to reach the top. Hopefully he gets there soon and puts an end to this cold." Twilight answered. That answer didn't seem to make the mayor any less tense. "So a freak blizzard happens and your ice mover just so happens to be the one who goes to fix it. Interesting." It was very clear what she was insinuating. None of them could believe she was though. "Oh come on now, mayor. Don't tell us you think this is his fault too!" Applejack said a bit cross. "I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying it sounds suspicious." The mayor replied. Pyro stepped forward now with the full intent to speak his own mind. "Whatever reason you have to blame Cryo for this, forget about it. I can tell you right here right now that he is not responsible for a single flake of snow outside." "He's telling the truth, mayor." Now Cadence talked. "Cryo isn't even capable of doing something on this sort of scale. Strong as he is I don't think he is THAT strong." They mayor took a few seconds to fully think about what she was being told. The only pony that had a chance to actually bring about a shred of help was climbing the country's tallest mountain in hopes of neutralizing the storm completely. It wasn't very comforting to hear and she hated to admit it at the moment, but she had to put all of her faith into the lone ice mover. "How am I supposed to keep this town under control at a time like this?" She asked any of them. "I'm supposed to be the one in charge of that job. Yet you lot seem to have better luck doing that than I do at times. Especially in times like this." Rose stepped forward sporting a comforting expression. "Don't beat yourself up, mayor. We still have faith in you. By "we" I mean Ponyville." She said. That did little to ease the mayor's head but it did get her to smile a bit. "Thank you, Rose." She stood up and walked to the window. "But we still need to find a way to keep this town calm. There are a lot of ponies still outside and they need to get indoors before the cold gets to them." The orange mare of honesty joined the mayor and looked down at the snow. Quite a few ponies were still outside trying to conquer the wind and snow. "Maybe they could come here." Applejack suggested. "They might not be able to reach their homes but this place could act as a shelter." "But I hardly think the food I have stored in this place would be enough to serve them all." The mayor argued and turned back to Pyro. "Isn't there anything you can do about this?" The red stallion shook his head. "I'm sorry, mayor. I tried. It's just coming down too fast for me to do anything about." The mayor sighed and turned around once again looking outside. Then all of them heard a small gasp. Their ears led them to the source and the source was Typhoon who had a hoof to her head. And now it had been long enough for everypony to know what that meant. She sensed something. "What is it?" Cadence asked. "Zere ees something downstairs." The telepath replied. "I'm not sure what though......eet's strange." "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Every single head whipped to the door as that shriek rang through their ears. "Mrs. Cake?" Typhoon ran out and looked down from the indoor balcony. Mr. and Mrs. Cake were down there but they weren't alone. They were backing away from a white looking pony who was growling at them and snapping too. Typhoon jumped down from the balcony and landed nicely on her hind legs in between the white attacker and the Cakes. "Back off!" She cried as she shot a small blast of wind to throw the pony back. That however was not the result she ended up observing. Instead of getting blown back like normal ponies do, this one instead split into many pieces and splattered on the floor in small piles. Curious and confused, Typhoon slowly approached one of the pieces as the others looked down from the second floor. "What....what was that?" Mrs. Cake asked shivering not out of cold but fear. In order to answer, Typhoon needed to feel it. And she did. She pressed her hoof down on top of the tiny white pile of unknown material and she immediately felt a chill and moisture. "Eet's....eet's snow." "Is that what you sensed?" Gem asked from the second floor. "I think so." The pink pegasus backed away. "But...how ees eet possible?" Before anyone could think of an answer, the small piles of snow began to come together and join together. Four legs formed, a head, and then two glowing blue eyes with catlike irises. It started to approach Typhoon and the Cakes again. The two babies began to wail. Typhoon was about to charge but then her read brother jumped down in front of her. "Sorry pal. Winter isn't coming early." With a punching potion, Pyro let loose a short range stream of his element that began to make the snowpony scream upon impact. He was sure to not make the flames travel farther than past the walking hunk of snow so he wouldn't set the whole place on fire. The white pony screamed for a few more seconds before it completely melted away into a puddle of water on the floor. Afterwards, Pyro kept the fire one for just a bit longer making the water evaporate. After the fire stopped coming from his hoof, he set it down and looked outside. That was just one small pile of snow that came from the same blanket that was covering the town. All of the others came downstairs and Terra tried to do her best to help calm the Cakes and the babies down along with Typhoon and Fluttershy. "Living snow. That's a new one." Twilight commented. "Ze eyes.....eet looked like zose of a Shadowmare." Typhoon said. Concern grew for everypony as the attention was now focused on her. "Wait. Shadowmare? You mean like those creepy black ponies that attacked us at that party?" Rose shivered. She still clearly remembered the welcome party that was thrown a month ago for the six foreigners. The images of the black henchponies still ran through her head faster than Rainbow could fly. "Unfortunately." Rainbow replied to the florist. "Ty, are you SURE it was a Shadowmare?" "Absolutely. Ze thought patterns were very similar. Ze snow make up just altered eet." Typhoon answered. It made enough sense to them without knowing everything. But it made the situation ten times worse. "If this was just one bit of snow from the outside...." Cadence said in fear. "Does that mean...?" "I'm afraid eet does." Typhoon again clarified. "Nopony outside ees safe." "Or inside by the looks of it." The mayor put in her opinion. "Let's hope nopony got any of this snow inside their homes." "Well Pinkie, it sure looks like your pardner picked one heck of a time to leave." Applejack said to her pink friend. But the response that came back was silence. The cowgirl looked around for Pinkie and all of them soon followed her lead but what they found disturbed them greatly. Pinkie wasn't there. "Where the hell is Pinkie?!" Terra shouted. "She was with us when we came here." Mrs. Cake swore. "Didn't she come inside with us? I was next to her when we did." Applejack also sounded like she knew it was true. "Actually zat was me." Typhoon waved her hoof being. Applejack shrugged. Typhoon was pink too. She had forgotten that for a brief moment. They all began to think Pinkie was just pulling a prank or something to lighten the mood. Suddenly Gem got hit with a big bag of realization. "Was anyone watching her when Twilight let the force field down?" she asked. The silence she heard from around the room was a big fat "no". That confirmed her theory. The second Twilight let the shield down and they all started to pile inside town hall, Pinkie made a break for it. "Why would she ditch us?" Rainbow wondered. "Where could she have gone that was more safe than being with us?" Now it was Twilight's turn to get a sack of enlightenment smacked in her face. "When times like these come around, Rainbow Dash, where do you feel most safe?" she asked. "Well that's easy. With you guys. But mostly with....." The pegasus' eyes widened as she got what Twilight was inferring. ".....with Gem." With her partner. That was the main answer. Every single heart sank when they came to understand exactly what she had done. With a look of dread and fear, Pyro looked out the window at through the fog and snow he gazed upon the base of Mount Blackmane shaking his head in denial. "No......no. Even SHE has more sense than that.....doesn't she?" he asked anyone. "Have you even MET Pinkie Pie?!" Rainbow Dash cried. "That pony goes back and forth between crazy and sane all the time!" "Well...sure but come on. Going out in something like this...." He gestured to the outside. "That's just psychotic." "How far do you think she's gotten by now?" Terra asked her partner. "Knowin' Pinkie Pie, Ah'd say she's probably halfway to the mountain by now." The cowgirl replied. Their hope was diminishing every single second and no new piece of information did anything to help them. Neither did the next sentence that came from Pyro's mouth. "Then she's on her own." Every single pair of eyes turned to him. "You....you're just going to leave her out there?!" Mrs. Cake shouted. "You have fire running through you! You can go get her!" "I can't!" Pyro shouted back. "She's too far away now and I wouldn't be able to keep my body heat up long enough to find her. The only one who can help her now is Cryo. I can't even fly through this because it’s so rough." Mrs. Cake plopped down on her haunches at the thought of Pinkie out in this all by herself. The party planner was like a non-blood daughter to her and the thought of her freezing to death broke her heart. Mr. Cake did what he could and rested a hoof on her back trying to comfort her. "It's okay, honey. Cryo will find her." Even he didn't fully buy that line. If their problems weren't bad enough already with how high they were stacked, they were about to get a boatload more. And it all started with a shriek. It came from outside and everypony rushed to the nearest window they could find. All around the building, there were ponies outside and they were all being attacked by a pony made of snow and snarling. Rose spotted her sisters Daisy and Lily backing away in fright and Applejack was able to spot her little sister and the two other crusaders by her side. Various others stood outside too cold and too scared to move and that left the elements with one thing to do. All of them other than Fluttershy went for the door and burst outside not even thinking about their jackets and other things. Terra and Applejack ran for the crusaders and got there in time. Terra rammed her head into one and Applejack jumped in front of another one bucking it to pieces. "Applejack! Terra!" Applebloom cried surprised to see them. "You three fillies git yer flanks into town hall pronto!" Applejack commanded. "Don't need to tell us twice!" Scootaloo bolted for the hall with Sweetie Belle and Applebloom on her tail. Pyro and Twilight used their combined power to clear the way for Daisy and Lily to get to the building safely and into Rose's death hug. Rainbow Dash and gem helped get Vinyl Scratch, Thunderlane, and a few other ponies free of the snow terror and they retreated. There was one more pony to save. A brown unicorn stallion with a light green mane who was scared out of his mind. That fear mixed with confusion when he saw a blast of wind tear the pony of snow in front of him to pieces. Then he saw the source of the blast. A pink pegasus. "Hurry! Get eenside town hall!" she cried. Taking a few seconds to get his mobility back, the stallion nodded and made a break for it. Typhoon stayed by his side and kept his path clear. More snowponies formed up behind them and began to give chase. Once the two of them were inside, the door behind them slammed shut and the snowponies began to bang on the door. With a small act of magic, Twilight locked it. Everypony began to gather into a group in the center of the room as the windows began to break from the snowponies banging against the glass. Shrieks of various ponies rang through as the elements and Cadence tried to think of something. Luckily Cadence was able to quick enough. She looked to Typhoon and told her what to do. Then she walked over to Twilight and Gem telling them something too. Liking the plan, the pink pegasus nodded and flew up a few meters with her front legs extended out. Outside, the wind around town hall began to spin in a perfect circle around the building. After letting it gain speed. Typhoon gave it a push. The twister she formed expanded and pushed all the snowponies back and the snow around the building in a one foot range. "Twilight, Gem, now!" Cadence cried as she fired up her horn. A beam of blue, magenta, and electric purple energy all shot up and phased through the ceiling and combined together a meter above the top of the building. The energy combined and formed together to create a force field around the building to where the snow stopped. "That shield is powerful. They aren't getting in." Twilight said confidently. "Yeah but....now we can't get out." Terra was quick to find the downside. And it was the downside that everypony heard and focused mostly on. All of them began to panic. "Everypony please! Calm down!" The mayor shouted. "We have enough food and survival equipment stored in the basement of this building. We should be able to get through this but we all have to remain calm. Now please. Everypony gather yourselves. We are safe here." "But....but what about our friends? What about our families?" Thunderlane shouted. "They'll be fine." Cadence answered. "These snowponies seem to be fixated on this building. So the others will be...” Cadence stopped what she was saying as she roughly coughed into her leg. Hearing that made Twilight approach her. "Cadence..." She pressed a hoof to the princess' forehead. "Cadence you're starting to feel warm." "What? No. Your hoof is probably just a little numb from the snow. Twilight. I assure you I am fine." The alicorn was confident of what she was saying. Twilight was unsure and was pretty sure of what she felt. She just had to keep an eye on Cadence for a while. Shrugging, she walked back to her partner who was currently looking out the window and at the herd of snowponies outside the force field. "What do we do now, Pyro?" She asked. "Now.....we wait it out." He looked out the window to Mount Blackmane. "And pray to the gods that Cryo and Pinkie somehow find us a way out of this." "And let's hope SHE finds HIM before she freezes to death." Rainbow added. The mayor began to head for the basement to fetch some supplies while everypony else began to ramble in fear and panic of what was happening. The elements were just thinking of their friends. Agua and Rarity, Spike, Cryo, and now they had to worry about Pinkie Pie out on her own in the freezing cold blizzard that show zero signs of letting up anytime soon. Twilight let out a sigh. "It's going to be a very long night."