Chapter 8
As Applejack followed Twilight up the stairs of the building, she began to feel a sense of panic. This ain’t like me, she thought. A pony like me shouldn’t be gettin’ a-scared like this.
Twilight looked back at her companion. “Is something wrong, Applejack?”
“Ah, nothin’ much, Twilight. I’m just a little nervous, that’s all. I ain’t never been in a battle before.”
“Don’t worry, Applejack. My book back at the Ponyville library explains perfect combat procedure. We’re guaranteed to win!” reassured a confident Twilight.
“But Twilight, the stakes are mighty high right now. Ah know we’ve been through a lot together, but ain’t nothin’ ever been like this. If something goes wrong that we might’a not seen, we could be in big trouble.”
Twilight glanced pensively downward, trying to remember a paragraph from the tome accounting for alternate outcomes. “I don’t think there was anything about something going wrong, at least as far as I can remember. That must mean that there’s no way anything can go wrong! Just trust me on this one.”
“Alright, Twilight. Ah’m going to follow you because you’re mah best friend and all, but I still have the heebie jeebies in mah stomach. Something just ain’t right about ponies fightin’, that’s all.”
“Of course there isn’t. This should have never happened, and I can’t believe nopony saw this coming. Once this is all over, I’m sure the Princess will have some pegasi scout the other islands around Equestria to make sure there are no other groups that might come in hurting ponies.”
“But how’ll she know that all the land’s accounted for? What if we miss some spots? What if there are a whole lot of islands out there, Twilight, and they just keep a-comin’?”
Before Twilight could respond, she reached the top of the stairwell. Using her unicorn magic, she opened the door to reveal an empty rooftop. Smoke filled her nostils; she looked around for the source and soon realized that a plethora of the nearby building were on fire.
She and Applejack spent a moment in silence, gazing at the chaos around them. The buildings were being ignited by some projectile thrown by the trolls. Not only were they slaughtering the ponies in the streets, but they were razing the city as well.
“Oh Celestia!” Twilight exclaimed. “This is horrible! They’re destroying the whole city!”
“And they won’t stop neither. They’ll keep on rolling through Equestria until the whole continent is on fire.”
“Then it’s all the more important that we rescue the Princess. I really don’t think we can stop this. We’re just losing time now. These buildings are being burned way too quickly. The rate of incendiary spread compounded by the fleeing panic of the population would be so much more significant than whatever we can do to stop it and the rate at which we’d be slowing them down would be less than the rate of their advance and the amount of Equestria that gets destroyed during the time we spend here against the time we could’ve been over there would be-“
“Alright Twilight, I see what you mean now. This here force is too powerful for 5 little ponies to stop. I’m sorry I didn’t see that before, Twilight.”
“Don’t worry about it, Applejack. You were only trying to help.”
“Ah know. Ah just hope that ah didn’t put any more ponies in danger by wantin’ to stay here rather than go right away to get the Princess.”
“There’s no time to worry about that now, Applejack. We can still rescue the Princess in time if we hurry.”
“In time for what? There won’t be nothin’ left of Equestria by the time we get back.”
“We’ve got to at least try. If we give up now…”
Applejack nodded, understanding the importance of their mission. She and Twilight looked down into the street below, now flooded with a seemingly endless horde of trolls.
“Jumpin’ into there would be suicide. There’s no way that’ll be of use to anypony.”
Twilight assessed the situation and concluded that her friend was right. Jumping into a sea of trolls wouldn’t slow down the destruction of the city, and it wouldn’t save enough ponies to be worth the time spent. They had to save Celestia, and they had to act fast. “Come on Applejack, let’s take the stairs back down. We’ve got to find the others before they get lost in the hordes.”
Fluttershy opened her eyes, but the scene wasn’t any less grim. The buildings around her were still burning, the ponies on the streets were shrieking, trolls were overrunning the city, and she was alone on a rooftop in the middle of the night. The rooftop was illuminated only by the fire of adjacent buildings.
Well, she wasn’t completely alone. Pinkie Pie sat beside her, absentmindedly scratching her head. After several minutes of trembling in fear, she finally mustered the courage to gently say to her companion, “Um, Pinkie? Pinkie Pie?”
Pinkie Pie continued to scratch her head and stare off into the distance, as if she didn’t realize that Fluttershy was there at all.
“Pinkie Pie? I, um, I think that Twilight wanted us to help her. You know, go down there?” Fluttershy tepidly pointed to the madness below.
Pinkie Pie finally looked up. “Oh?” she replied in a disinterested tone.
“We really need to go, Pinkie Pie. We’ve been out here for 15 minutes, and the others are probably waiting for us by now.”
Pinkie Pie stood up and blinked at Fluttershy without saying a word.
“Are you okay? You, um, don’t really seem yourself.”
“Who, me? What are you talking about? I’m doing just fine,” expressed Pinkie with a nervous laugh.
Fluttershy was deeply concerned about her friend, but she had bigger worries on her mind. She walked over to the ledge, afraid to look down. Pinkie Pie eventually was next to her, but Fluttershy couldn’t tell how much time was passing. She was beginning to shake visibly from sheer trepidation. This was all so surreal.
Pinkie finally looked at her and said, “Oh, I think Twilight wanted us to go down there and surprise them.”
Fluttershy closed her eyes. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m actually up here!! How is this happening to m-
Her thought was interrupted – she felt something hit her back and she lost balance, slipping over the edge and beginning to plummet towards the sidewalk below.
“PINKIE! HELP ME!” she cried as she descended ever more rapidly.
“Silly Fluttershy, I’m the one who pushed you off! There wasn’t anypony else up there, Fluttershy.” Pinkie Pie didn’t seem bothered by the fact that she was plummeting towards the pavement.
“HELP!”
“Shh, you’re going to spoil the surprise!”
Fluttershy vehemently flapped her wings, stabilizing her fall and levitating safely before hitting the ground. Pinkie Pie, however, continued descending, hitting a troll square on the head and knocking him to the ground. She landed on his back and proudly exclaimed, “Hi-ya! Take that, Mr. Trolly!”
Pinkie immediately found herself surrounded by a mass of trolls, each of whom looked like they were intent on eating her. “Oh, you guys want to eat me? Take this!” Pinkie jumped towards one of them with two hooves in the air, knocking him backwards and out of the circle of trolls closing in on her. Fluttershy helplessly floated overhead, too afraid to join her friend in the fighting.
Pinkie jumped up to kick another troll, but this time she was grabbed mid-air. One of the larger trolls extended his huge claws and swiped her out of the air, preventing her from hitting her target. The troll grunted loudly, slobbering beads of drool from his hideous face.
“Pinkie!” blurted Fluttershy, who overcame her fear at the sight of her friend in danger. She dove towards the troll, pushing him back a step and knocking him off-balance.
However, the troll was much larger than Fluttershy and was unfazed by the impact. He tightened his grip on the pink pony with one claw and simultaneously swatted at the yellow one with the other. He struck her directly on the face, rendering her unconscious. The pegasus’s wings stopped moving, causing her to fall right into the claws of another troll.
The trolls turned to their commander. “Boss, what do you want done with these?”
A massive, green monster extended his hand. “Give them to me. We’ll ship them back to the homeland. I’m sure there’ll be some use for them there.”
Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were then loaded into cold, wooden wagons. Those wagons were headed straight for Fortch-An.