//------------------------------// // Kidnap // Story: Courage // by scion //------------------------------// The wolf padded silently out of the forest, blue eyes fixed on the small town. He had gotten further into the dungeon than before, with his new skill, but had once again hit a dead end. A simple problem, one made impossible in his current form. He did not know why the Spirit of the spring had not changed him as the others had done, but it was unfortunate. He needed something no wolf would ever have. With that said, the wolf resumed the hunt for the next skill he would need to continue his quest and the dungeon. Perhaps the next was in the town? The wolf padded silently forward, across the grassy land in between the buildings and the edge of the forest. The town was silent and unoccupied. The wolf’s hackles rose and he pulled back his lips in a threatening show of teeth. Something was wrong. He was not expecting his own kind, but it appeared that the ponies here were almost the same. But a town like this should be bustling. But there was no movement. No sound. The wolf padded through the streets, chain clinking softly against the cobblestones, keeping close to the buildings, well within the lengthening shadows. Tense, ready for anything. He began seeing signs of struggle- a flower stand, overturned and abandoned, the flowers scattered haphazardly across the road. A broken-in door, with what looked like claw marks on the frame. He sniffed faintly at the door, attempting to discern something of what had happened here. He could smell the scents of what he assumed to be a pony, not dirty or grimy but a faint smell of lilacs. It was mixed in with a different smell, one of rock- it reminded him of the quarry where the Fused Shadow resided, somewhere. It also smelled wrong. Something about the second smell made his hackles rise again, growling faintly as he did so. The wolf backed out and moved on, blue eyes sharp and alert for any sign of movement or trouble. A faint sound caused him to pause. Ear cocked, the wolf heard it again. He headed for the sound as silently as he could manage, sticking to the alleyways and the shadows. Within a small alleyway, shrouded in shadows cast by the falling sun, the wolf found that he was not alone in the town. The large square was filled with ponies. Ponies who wept openly, clearly distraught about something. Perhaps this had something to do with the all the dogs he had smelled as he had left? Come to think of it, there had been pony scents mixed in as well… A flash of light caught the wolf’s attention. Upon the stairs, with several other ponies, was something that was most definitely NOT a pony. Small, purple, bipedal and scaled, it looked like some kind of reptile. But what caught the wolf’s attention most was the fire. The hungry flames, breathed by the small reptile, devoured a scroll of paper in front of him, the ashes drifting up and away into the sky. Moments later, the dragon-child did it again with another scroll, burning it to ashes that floated away. A plan began to form in the wolf’s mind as the crowd dispersed. --- "'Let's go save the day!' 'Don't worry Spike, we'll save everypony, just like we always do, without you!' 'No Spike, we can't let you come, it's too dangerous for a BABY dragon!'" Spike continued to grumble and complain as he picked books up off the floor. A quick look at their spine gave him a general idea of where it would go, and he would add it to the growing stacks of books at the foot of any given shelf. Twilight had been working on her own personal categorizing system for a while now, but for convenience sake she kept to the standard Dewhoof Decimal system, at least for the public part of the library. With the amount of books that had been knocked from the shelves, the task was slow. For a baby dragon, the pace seemed glacial. "I should be out there," he complained under his breath, picking up yet another book. Spying the proper stack, he lifted the books up and deftly slotted the one he had into its proper place. "I should be helping save Rarity. But noooo, it's too dangerous for the BABY dragon!" He slammed the book he was carrying on top of the pile where it belonged. The loud *whump* of book striking book sounded through the library. "I'm not a baby! I'm an adolescent dragon! Almost a teenager!" *whump* "This is my chance! My chance to save-" *thump thump thump* Spike paused. That had come from the door, but it wasn't the normal sound of hoof striking wood. Sill, it was quite clearly a knock. Which meant Spike had to answer it and explain the 'Closed' sign on the front door. With a deep, long suffering, exasperated sigh, Spike trudged over and opened the door. "I'm sorry, but the Books and Branches Library is.... currently.... closed?" It was not a pony staring at Spike, inches from his nose. No, the black furred, pony-sized, shaggy maned, blue-eyed, timber wolf look-a-like staring down its muzzle at him was one of the last things Spike was ever expecting to see. His reptilian pupils shrunk until they were little more than a black vertical line as the truth of the situation overwhelmed his dour mood and replaced it with something else: primal terror. "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed, running back into the library as fast as his little feet would take him. The wolf was not far behind. --- Five ponies galloped towards the rock quarry, where the dogs had no doubt taken their friend. It may have been wiser to wait for the Royal Guard to get there. After all, they were heading right into the belly of the beast, the lair where the dogs had taken all the ponies captive. Of course, these five ponies were five of the six Elements of Harmony. They had faced danger before, an enemy that had bested the Royal Guards as though they were no more than foals. Their tenacity, their friendship, their courage had stood before the wrath of a god- and had emerged triumphant. There was no doubt in their minds; they WOULD save their friend, and they WOULD save the town. That being said, there was plenty of room for other doubts. Twilight galloped alongside her friends, but her mind was elsewhere. These events… they had to be connected, somehow. There was no other explanation. So how did they fit together? It was a question she had been puzzling over since she had seen the wolf that morning, and it returned to gnaw at her even as she tried to concentrate on rescuing her friend. And it must have showed on her muzzle as well. “What’s up, Twi?” Rainbow Dash asked. The pegasus, star flyer of Ponyville and fastest mare around, had slowed down to let her friends keep up as she flew several feet above the ground. It was enough to startle Twilight out of her thoughts, almost causing her to trip- she caught herself and refocused on galloping. “Just thinking,” she said distractedly. “About what?” As much as Twilight wanted to just brush her friend off, she knew Rainbow wouldn’t be asking if she wasn’t concerned. She also knew that the mare wouldn’t let up until Twilight got what was bothering her out in the open. “The wolf.” “Wish you guys had gotten me this morning,” Rainbow groused. “Wish we’d a gotten you this mornin’ too, Rainbow,” Applejack threw in. “Maybe then we’d know what all this is about.” “Or maybe not,” Twilight said. “We know nothing- NOTHING!- about what’s going on, girls. And yet all this is happening- Ponyville attacked, twice! And we don’t even know who’s doing this, or even HOW they’re doing this, much less why.” Twilight slowed to a walk, as did the rest of the group. They had just emerged into the quarry. “I just can’t shake the feeling that the wolf is the cause,” she confessed. “Don’t be silly, Twilight! He got rid of those meany insects for us, he HAS to be good!” Twilight sighed. “No offense, Pinkie, but you were the only one who ever saw it getting rid of those bugs. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that… well, there’s no guarantee that was a good thing. Or if it was even related to the Shadow being lifted at all. For all we know, the insects were good and the wolf is the evil one here.” --- "AHHHHHHH! AHHHHHH!" Spike ran, his arms waving wildly as he ran at full pelt around the library. The books he had spent so much time stacking were being thrown to the floor once again in the mayhem that was the little dragon running for his life. Behind him, dodging book after book, the wolf was gaining on his slippery little target. --- Pinkie's eyes narrowed. "You can't prove that, Twilight." “I know. But you can’t prove that it’s good, Pinkie,” Twilight rebutted. Pinkie frowned at that truth. Twilight sighed. “Look, my point isn’t that it’s good or bad. My point is that we have to come to a proper conclusion based on the facts. And right now, I believe that we can safely assume that the wolf killed those bugs for us, like Pinkie says, but we don’t know why, or if that even has any bearing on the Shadow, so that little fact is useless. Second, I believe we can assume that the wolf is involved in some way, good or ill, which means that if we can talk to it, we might find out what’s going on.” Twilight took a deep breath before turning to the orange cowpony. “Applejack, what did you notice about the wolf as it ran away this morning?” Applejack fidgeted with her hat. “Well, it’s mighty fast on the ground, big as a pony, an’ strong enough to break out of our barn.” Twilight nodded. “All true, but not what I was looking for. Pinkie?” Pinkie raised her head. Her expression lacked her usually bubbly smile, though her friends weren’t concerned yet as her mane still appeared the poofy, frizzy mess that it normally was. “He’s smart,” she said softly. “He managed to figure out how to drop the loft ladder and go out the loft doors.” “True, but still not what I was looking for,” Twilight replied. Glancing over a rock at the dirt of the quarry, Twilight motioned for them to stop. They had reached their destination. A wrought iron gate stood open in the mouth of a cave, guarded by two of the glowing-eyed dogs with spears. “Girls. The wolf… it had a manacle and chain on its left forepaw. That means somepony thought it was dangerous enough that it had to be chained up,” she told them quietly. “And now… now it’s free.” --- The wolf jumped, forepaws outstretched to pin his target. He slammed into the little dragon, pinning it beneath his paws. He did not hesitate. The wolf clamped its jaws down on the back of the little dragon's neck. --- Twilight sighed and sat down, head low in thought. “Or maybe it was a prisoner and broke free. Maybe it really is good and I'm blowing this all out of proportion. I don’t know, girls, I just don’t know. I need more information before I can draw a proper conclusion.” Silence reigned as the others contemplated their friend’s thoughts. “Well, I dunno ‘bout the wolf. Personally, I think it’s bad news, ‘specially since it seems t’ have taken a liking to mah farm. But right now, we need t’ get Rares an’ the rest o’ the town back. We can worry ‘bout the dang wolf an’ what it all means later,” Applejack said. Twilight, deep in thought, shook her head before looking up. “You’re right, Applejack. It’s just been bothering me since we left town…” “You’ll figure it out, Twilight,” Rainbow said encouragingly. A grin appeared on her face. “But right now… CCHARRRGEE!” Rainbow streaked across the field and slammed into one of the diamond dog guards, sending them tumbling to the ground. Surprised, startled, the guard tried to fight back, but a vibrant headbut sent him to the land of dreams. The other dog, flabbergasted, got its wits back and readied his spear, heading towards the cyan mare. Before he could move more than a step, he heard hooffalls coming. He turned just in time to see an orange pair of hooves slam into his chest, knocking him back against the rock wall. Hard. Twilight, Pinkie, and Fluttershy trotted up just as the two mares exchanged hoofbumps. “Honestly, you two, couldn’t you have at least waited until we were ready?” Twilight asked. “We were ready, weren’t we, AJ?” Rainbow said with a cocky grin. “Besides, AJ’s right. Less thinking, more action! Come on, we’ve got ponies to save!” The two ponies charged through the gate and entered the mine. Fluttershy shared a look with Pinkie, and with a gulp, followed her pink friend into the darkness of the mine. Twilight Sparkle shook her head. Applejack and Rainbow were going to alert every Diamond Dog for miles if they tried what they did on the guards. On the plus side, she was no longer thinking about the strange circumstances or the enigma that was the mysterious wolf. Now she was thinking about how to successfully pull of an area invisibility spell or a five-pony teleport. So maybe Rainbow was right- less thinking, more action! Head high, Twilight trotted after her friends, into the depths of the Diamond Dogs lair.