//------------------------------// // Welcome home // Story: Silent Ponyville: The Madness of Men // by Silverstreak //------------------------------// Water splashed against her body soaking her right side and dragging her main and tail as the water retreated. As it came back it nudged her enough to open an eye. Fog that's all that Rainbow Dash could see was just fog, swimming, drifting, and changing through the air. Rainbow Dash lifted herself up as the water surged again only to meet her back hooves, she looked into the fog watching as it flowed through the air like water. Rainbow Dash swung a hoof through the fog in an attempt to make it disappear to no avail, it just swirled around her hoof as if it had never seen a hoof before. A quick glance around showed that Rainbow was alone, and the fog was thick enough to were one could only see about ten feet around. Rainbow Dash began to circle the source of water, following the surf until she could identify some land mark of some sort to help her figure out were she was. Rainbow Dash started flapping her wings and jumping to help get some lift, but she landed back down on the sand. Rainbow's wings were in good order, unbroken, the feathers still there, but not matter how hard she flapped them, they refused to lifted her off the ground. A laugh in the distance hung in the air as Rainbow Dash felt eyes on her. "Don't waste your time Dashie, this place doesn't like your type of magic." Yellow glowing eyes flashed into view in front of Rainbow Dash as the laughter continued to fill the air, before everything went silent and dark. Rainbow's main started flapping up as Rainbow fell down in the dark. Water splashed against her body soaking her right side and dragging her main and tail as the water retreated. As it came back it nudged her enough to open an eye. Fog that's all that Rainbow Dash could see was just fog, swimming, drifting, and changing through the air. "What?" Hoof prints in the sand proved that Rainbow Dash was just here, but how? Rainbow turned her head to stare at her extended wing, the one thing is this world that allowed her to be free were useless to her, unless Rainbow wanted to start over again. Rainbow looked at the hoof prints leading to her left, the laughter still in her head she decided to go right and see what she could find. Only moments after stepping off Rainbow Dash found an object sticking out of the sand ahead of her. It looked like a stick, but as she got closer Rainbow could see handles, wheels, the blue painted wood and red wheels. "Scootaloo?" With no hoof prints and a spider web on a wheel, Rainbow Dash was lead to believe that Scootaloo's scooter was left her for quite sometime. Which didn't make sense, Scootaloo loved her scooter just like Rainbow Dash loved flying. It didn't make any sense for Scoots to leave her scooter here. As a breeze blew past Rainbow Dash heard the sound of paper rustling, coming from underneath the scooter. Rainbow tilted the scooter over to find a draw map taped to the bottom of the scooter with the words 'things have changed' written on top. A few buildings from Ponyville were written on the paper, the hospital, Rainbow's House, Fluttershy's, SugerCube Corner, and Twilights Castle. No lines connected the pictures, but there words written next to each one, but Rainbow Dash couldn't read them, there were to far smudged to read. Rainbow Dash put the map underneath her wing, as they had no other use, and started to continue in her original path when grooves in the sand caught her attention. Rainbow Dash set the scooter back in place to see that it made an arrow. With no other direction to go Rainbow decided to follow it's path in hope of finding some other ponies. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rarity was finally out of the Boutique, sure she had to get into the attic, which was new, hope out a window and climb down a tree, but she was out. Rarity pulled Sweetie's picture out of the saddle bag on her back and looked at it once more. "Don't worry Sweetie Belle, I'll find you." Rarity put the picture back in the bag and began her trip though the fog. Normally Rarity didn't mind being sort of isolated, it was nice for inspirational out burst, but now it wasn't such a good idea. Walking through thick as can be fog isn't fun, nor was this watching feeling Rarity was having, but Sweetie Belle was out here somewhere and Rarity just had to find her. After a few minutes a house came into view. As Rarity got closer she could see it was Bon Bon's and Lyra's house, good that means that Rarity was only a few streets away from SugerCube Corner. Rarity looked at the house, planning on knocking, but the boarded windows and door gave a bad feeling to Rarity. So she continued on towards SugerCube Corner in hopes that Sweetie was there, or at least Pinkie could help find her. On the next street Rarity could here the sound of a guitar being played. Rarity looked towards SugerCube Corner saying in her head that she would check there later, if there were other ponies here they could tell Rarity what had happened to Ponyville. A few buildings down the street Rarity could see the pony playing, and as she got closer she could tell it was a stallion with a dark grey coat, deep blue mane and tail. His eyes were closed so he didn't see Rarity walked up, and she didn't want to interrupt his song. After he stung the last note he opened his eyes and looked at Rarity with sapphire eyes that were drowning in sadness. "Hello Miss." His voice was deep and flowing like the fog. "Hello." He set his guitar down and stood to face Rarity. "What are you doing here?" "I'm looking for my little sister," His eyes grew more sad, "I woke up and she was gone, and her room....was...was" He put a hoof on Rarity's shoulder. "I know, it's happened all over this town." "What?" "All the little one's. Their gone." "Gone?'' "Gone. No one knows how, but they're gone." Rarity stood there for a few moments thinking about all the little fillies and foals and families that are missing each other. The stallion looked at something behind Rarity. She twisted her head to see what he was looking at. A figure stood in the fog just out of sight, it didn't move, it just stood there. The stallion lowered his hoof off Rarity's shoulder and took a few steps back. "Listen I have to go." "Wait. What about the others?" "What 'others'?" "The other ponies of course." "Miss you're the first one I've see in a week." Rarity's jaw dropped. A week. A week! It's not possible, she only fell asleep last night. The stallion picked up his guitar and started to leave. "Wait!" He paused. "What." "At least give me your name." He hesitated a little bit. "Silverstreak." "I'm Rarity." Silverstreak turned to look at Rarity in shock. "Oh...my...god..." "What?" A static sound started to grow. "Run." Rarity stared at Silverstreak. "Run!" Like Rainbow Dash he was gone, leaving Rarity alone in the fog. The static sound had gone to, but a new sound took it's place, heavy breathing came from behind Rarity as someone approached. An alicorn with blood red hair, broken horn and wings, and a mouth that split in four different directions wobbled it's why over to Rarity. Following his lead Rarity bolted down the street after Silverstreak as the road rotted away.